Ethics Heroes

April 2008 Ethics Heroes

Senator John McCain

The TV ad placed by a Republican group in North Carolina, ostensibly attacking Democratic officials who had endorsed Barrack Obama, was pretty mild by past and even current standards of attack ad sleaze. The ethical objections to it would be 1) that it is faintly racist, simply because it dwells on the pulpit gyrations and rantings of Senator Obama's "spiritual advisor" Rev. Jeremiah Wright, 2) that the ad's final message that Obama is "too extreme," in the context of the Wright video, is code for "too black," 3) the ad is disingenuous, pretending to be aimed at two white Democrats when it is clearly aimed at Obama, and 4) it is another manifestation of Rush Limbaugh's "Operation Chaos," in which Republicans try to manipulate the Democrats' hapless nomination process to produce maximum discord and confusion.

» Read this commentary »

March 2008 Ethics Heroes

Arizona Diamondbacks

Believe it or not, all ethics-related professional sports stories aren't about dog-fighting quarterbacks, steroid-using pitchers, point-shaving basketball refs, cheating football coaches and the fans and sportswriters who will torture logic and decency making excuses for them. No, there are good ethics stories out there in the wide world of sports, and one of the best is the good will and generosity of the Arizona Diamondbacks.

» Read this commentary »

February 2008 Ethics Heroes

Dean Ovshak

If you have an abundance of something valuable, and someone else doesn't have enough, are you obligated to give some of what you have to those with less? Generosity and charity are ethical values, but they are seldom as simple as charity advocates would have us believe. You may have more than you need now, but circumstances can change. Maybe the fear is irrational, but it is still fear.

» Read this commentary »

January 2008 Ethics Heroes

Ethics Hero Emeritus: Sir Edmund Hillary 1919-2008

In 2006, the Ethics Scoreboard quoted the reported remarks of Sir Edmund Hillary, the explorer famous for conquering Mt. Everest, regarding the horrific incident that year in which 40 climbers on the way to Everest's peak had allowed a fellow climber to collapse and die without stopping their progress to assist him. Hillary had said that his expedition in 1953 "would never for a moment have left one of the members or a group of members just lie there and die while they plugged on towards the summit." Pressing the article's ("Death on Everest: An Ethics Lesson," 6/7/06) point that seeking non-ethical goals like being the first to reach a mountain top can make even ethical people lose sight of basic values, the Scoreboard commented:

Maybe that is true; certainly Hillary believes it, and he is an extraordinary man. But it is deceptively easy for Hillary to say this now, when his quest is safely completed. Would he really have stopped his attempt to become the first man on Everest's peak to help a man who seemed "as good as dead?" We will never know, and Sir Edmund should count himself as fortunate that he never faced that choice.

Well, that was written in relative ignorance of the life of Sir Edmund Hillary. He died on January 9^th of this year, and the opportunity to read the various accounts of those who knew him and his life's accomplishments made it very clear that, not for the first time, the Scoreboard was dead wrong. For Sir Edmund Hillary was clearly a man who held fast to ethical values long after most people would abandon them. He would have stopped his historic quest if it meant saving the life of another human being, because he was an Ethics Hero to the core.

» Read this commentary »

Washington D.C. Firefighter Gerald Burton

When my decorated W.W.II veteran dad watches "Saving Private Ryan," or more accurately, when he can't avoid watching it because it is one of my son's favorite movies, he invariably will launch into a tirade over how outrageous and unrealistic the movie is.

"Everybody stands too close together!" he exclaims. "The bar on Tom Hanks' helmet might as well be a bulls-eye for snipers!" Then there is his most fervent complaint of all: "You can't divert the mission!" Ordered to track down Private Ryan, Hanks nonetheless gets his men involved in an unrelated skirmish that results in the death of one of his men. It disgusts my father every time he sees it. "It's wrong to get distracted from your orders for other objectives," explains Major Marshall, a recipient of the Silver Star.

This is the principle that has D.C. firefighter Lt. Gerald Burton facing discipline. Fire departments, like the police, have a great deal in common with military units, and one of them is the absolute requirement of following orders. Burton defied orders and diverted his mission. But he is a hero nonetheless.

» Read this commentary »

December 2007 Ethics Heroes

Alek O. Komarnitsky

This is a first: an Ethics Hero who emerged from the shadow of an Unethical Website designation. Back in 2004, Alek O. Komarnitsky received national attention for a whimsical holiday website that allowed people all over the world to turn his Christmas lights on from their home computers. Everyone had fun, which was clearly Alek's design. Still, when it became known that his site was a hoax and that the lights going on were only an illusion, the Scoreboard weighed in with the opinion that perpetrating such a large-scale deception was wrong, no matter how well-intentioned. Alek objected, and has maintained a spirited defense of his stunt in e-mail exchanges with the Scoreboard.

But you can't keep a Christmas spirit down. At a significant cost in time and money, Alek figured out a way to really let people all over the world turn on his lights, at http://www.komar.org/cgi-bin/christmas_webcam — the very same site that the Scoreboard previously deplored.

» Read this commentary »

November 2007 Ethics Heroes

Sandra Day O'Connor

The sad and remarkable story involving former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor points up the distinction between the rigidity of morality and the ongoing process of ethical analysis.

» Read this commentary »

Former Acting Assistant Attorney General Daniel Levin

This story is connected to the current controversy over whether waterboarding qualifies as torture. So that we can all agree on our terms, permit the Ethics Scoreboard to clarify the issue.

Of course waterboarding is torture! Are you kidding?

What else would you call it? Bad manners?

» Read this commentary »