On Ethics

General, Local 2 Minutes

From Answers.com:

eth·ic (ĕth‘ĭk) pronunciation
n.

    1. A set of principles of right conduct.
    2. A theory or a system of moral values: “An ethic of service is at war with a craving for gain” (Gregg Easterbrook).
  2. ethics (used with a sing. verb) The study of the general nature of morals and of the specific moral choices to be made by a person; moral philosophy.
  3. ethics (used with a sing. or pl. verb) The rules or standards governing the conduct of a person or the members of a profession: medical ethics.

One of the many things that I do is to serve on the Advisory Council of the ODU Accounting Department. Part of the role of that group is to help the department shape its policy and curriculum. Our topic Monday was ethics and how best to integrate the teaching of it. While our focus is on ethical behavior for would-be accountants, particularly in light of the scandals of Enron and WorldCom, this notion of “teaching ethics” is one that I find troublesome.

Why is it necessary to teach people – grown people – the difference between right and wrong? Isn’t that something that you learn at an early age? The basics, I mean. Don’t steal, don’t tell lies – have our families broken down to the point that colleges are having to replace parents in the teaching of this?

Or is it that people simply don’t recognize the ethical dilemmas when they occur? Has the “everyone does it, so I will, too” attitude taken away any incentive to behave ethically?

How many times have I been told that politics is a dirty business? More times than I am willing to count. But why is that? Why can’t candidates, parties and everyone involved in the game treat each other as they would wish to be treated?

Why do people think it is OK to cheat on their taxes? What would happen if we all cheated? Seems to me that if everyone paid their fair share, all of use would be paying less than what we are paying now. Doesn’t doing the right thing make more sense?

Why do CEOs, COOs and CFOs cook the books? What’s the difference between them and the car repairman who claims to have replaced a defective part but didn’t?

At the end of the day, I guess a whole lot of people – including some of our elected officials – never learned what ethics is really about. It seems to me that the root of ethical problems in our society is greed: for money, for power. So unless we address the cause of unethical behavior, I’m not sure that we can truly convince people – young or old – to behave ethically. Until there is no reward, I fear that unethical behavior will continue.

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9 thoughts on “On Ethics”

  2. Or, it just might be that they recognize that many of their other offerings help create an environment where ethics are an afterthought, at best, and they actually feel some obligation to help right the damage that that has done to business in America.

  3. Vivian — I think you hit upon the root of the problem in your last sentence: “Until there is no reward, I fear that unethical behavior will continue.”

    Much human activity is based on the risk-reward balance. I certainly would not show up for work if I won the mega-millions lottery, because the risk-reward ratio would be entirely different.

    People engage in unethical behavior when the perceived reward outweighs the perceived risk, which is the possibility of being caught. When one only fears the civil authorities (police, FBI, etc.) one’s odds of getting caught are low. When one fears an omniscient God, one’s odds of getting caught are unity.

  4. As usual, Insider, you miss the point.

    MB – I don’t blame the B-schools for society’s ills. What has happened is that too many people no longer have a conscience.

    My own recommendation to the group was that there should be an introductory required course on just what ethical behavior is. Get the definitions out there – all of them. And then, ethics should simply be taught within the other courses, as reinforcement.

  5. I’m not blaming them for society’s ills, but I certainly do place a fair amount of blame on them for reinforcing a general disconnect between the concept of what is right, and what is good for business.

    I do agree that, rather than ethics as separate class, it would be much more effective to integrate it into the various subject classes. I’ve experienced both bad and good implementations of that, though – it’s not an easy thing to do.

  6. Vivian, I’m not missing the point. I’m showing you that the reason educators think they can “teach” everything is that they get paid to teach.

    If you haven’t learned “ethics” until you’re college-age, I think the train’s left the station.

  7. For people who grew up in a loving family, one in which right and wrong had mostly to do with how the adults and other members of the family treated one another, a sense of morality and responsibility was in the air. Although such an upbringing doesn’t guarantee children will be good citizens, it has always been a good head start.

    For people who grew up in unloving families, or on the street, a sense of morality — feeling connected to the family of mankind — was an exotic notion, difficult to grasp.

    Wishing all children would have the upbringing described in the first paragraph will never make it so. Heaping scorn on the parents of the kids in the second paragraph is easy, but we’re stuck with their offspring, nonetheless. If we don’t teach the importance of moral values/ethics to those unlucky children in our public schools, where are they supposed to get that message?

    Are the kids who drew a bad hand, parent-wise, supposed to learn right from wrong from our popular culture?

  8. MB – I’m not so sure if the schools reinforce the disconnect.

    Insider – it’s not the teachers who are pushing this. In fact, to some extent, the teachers, while recognizing that the need is there, wonder how they are going to squeeze yet another item into an already crowded curriculum.

    Terry – I hear what you’re saying. The public schools have always tried to make up for theshortcomings of parenting, so I have no problem with ethics being taught to youngters.

    My problem is the larger issue of lack of ethics in our society. Trying to teach ethics to college-aged kids is kinda like closing the barn door after the horse is already out. (Besides, trying to teach ANYTHING to college-aged kids is hard enough.) With all of the images around them – from MP3 sharing on up – showing them the exact opposite, even the most ethically-minded kid has a hard time trying to find an example of somebody who behaves as they should. Look at who the role models are: celebrities and athletes, few of which we can hold up as behaving ethically.

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