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The Ethics Corner by Keith Goree 5 (More) Proven Paths to Making Regrettable Ethical Decisions This edition of The Ethics Corner represents Part II of a seminar I presented last spring at the national convention of the National Business Education Association. You can find the first half (Part I) in The Balance Sheet’s archives section. As way of introduction, the topic of teachers getting into ethical and legal trouble has been on my mind. The Applied Ethics Program at St. Petersburg College, where I work, has developed a new online course for Florida K-12 teachers, Ethics for Educators. Created in coordination with the Florida Department of Education, the course is designed both to meet the needs of teachers seeking college courses for recertification and as a resource for the DOE to offer teachers who get into trouble and have their licenses sanctioned. However, I much prefer prevention before the fact to intervention afterward, and I present this information in that light. So here are five more things NOT to do if you want to maximize your chances for a long, rewarding career in education. At the same time, these “wrong paths” are universal across careers. I hope you think they’re worth sharing with your students to help them avoid the same mistakes in their future business and professional journeys. 6. Arrogance This is the deluded belief that you are better and smarter than everyone else. You are above the rules and policies that everyone else is supposed to follow. Best of all, you don’t have to worry about consequences since others aren’t clever enough to catch you anyway. Do you remember how presidential candidate Gary Hart responded to reporters’ questions about rumors of his marital infidelity? He said, “Follow me around. I don’t care. If anybody wants to put a tail on me, go ahead. They’d be very bored.” He dared the reporters to follow him, promising that they would find nothing. It didn’t take long for reporters to find enough to end his campaign. Or how about the folks that write books and present seminars on how to avoid paying income taxes? You’ve seen the ads, practically bragging that they haven’t paid their taxes in years. Talk about putting yourself on the IRS’ radar screen! And sure enough, every now and then you see a news story about another tax avoidance expert having to pay back taxes, interest, and penalties – if not facing prison time. The truth is that arrogant people almost inevitably crash and burn. And maybe it’s not the best part of our natures, but a lot of us seem to enjoy watching it happen. 7. The Character Trap This is the false belief that being a basically good person entitles you to occasional misdeeds. Here’s the thinking process that leads to this way of thinking.
This career-ender is much more common than you might think. I read a news story of a veteran police officer with more than 15 years of exemplary service; a decorated officer with a spotless record. One day he arrested a suspect who was carrying a thousand dollars or so in cash, and the officer decided to keep the money. Can’t you hear the wheels turning? “I’m a good person. I almost always do the right thing. Just keeping the money this once isn’t going to change that.” But it did. The suspect reported the theft, the officer was caught, and he traded a $60K per year career and pension for $1000. The truth is that people in the public eye are not allowed that one mistake. In the words of ethicist Michael Josephson, “We judge ourselves by our best intentions and our most noble acts, but we are judged by others by our last worst act.” 8. Just Cause This is the wrong belief that a worthy end or goal justifies unworthy, unethical means. People often try to defend wrongdoing by pointing out noble goals or intentions. I worked for a time (many years ago) as a child abuse investigator for the State of Florida. I saw so many disheartening situations in which adults hurt children in all manner of ways – beatings, burnings, whippings with belts, branches and other objects. And there was a common theme among the adults when trying to justify their actions. The kids had done something wrong or bad and needed to be taught a lesson. I heard the phrase “it was for his own good”, too many times to count. And this belief is at the core of much more controversial social and business issues.
There aren’t always easy answers in ethics. But basic right and wrong are more constant than not, even when we think that our intentions are lofty. As Mark Twain wrote, “More bad things have been done in the name of good causes than bad ones.” 9. Short-Term Thinking I once heard a Japanese corporate leader contrasting American and Japanese business planning. He said that Americans businesses think that “long-term” means 2-3 years. But Japanese business leaders think that “long-term” means 20-30 years. And he saw that as the basic difference between us. I don’t know about the Japanese, but it does seem that we Americans aren’t especially good at long-term thinking. How much debt is the average U.S. family carrying these days? Enough that the typical family now is considered to have negative savings. Enough that many families are one lay-off or illness away from losing practically everything. But it’s bigger than that. You can look at almost every bad or dumb high-profile business ethics decision in terms of short-term thinking – the Ford Pintos that burst into flames, Martha Stewart’s insider trading conviction, the prosecutorial misconduct in the Duke Lacrosse rape case, the Watergate scandal, and many more. If I could give only one career tip to students that will soon be entering the work force, it would be to carefully consider the long-term consequences of their actions and decisions. Don’t sacrifice your long-term well-being for an apparent short-term gain. While there’s a lot more to being ethical than enlightened self-interest, it’s still a big improvement over the unenlightened kind.
I sometimes get to conduct ethics training with law enforcement officers. I did an informal survey once asking how they felt about giving speeding tickets. (And yes, the fact that I had recently received such a citation might have played a role in the discussion.) Their answers were very interesting. A couple of officers stated that they never gave tickets for speeding because they frequently drove faster than they should. (Where have you been all my life?) Another group said that they only gave tickets to people who drove faster than they did – generally something like 15 miles per hour over the limit. The common theme was that they didn’t want to feel like hypocrites. Think of the public reaction when a member of the clergy is caught in sexual misconduct, or when a court judge or prosecutor is found to be violating laws that they enforce on others. These stories are instant front-page news, even though similar behavior by others is routinely ignored by the news media. Humans don’t have much tolerance for hypocrisy, do we? That’s a good thing to remember in the classroom. Our students are watching us every day to see if we will “walk the talk” and live consistently with how we tell them to act. Immanuel Kant, considered one of the top few ethics philosophers in history, summed it up in a single principle – we should always act consistently with the moral rules that we would want everyone else to follow. If we can live up to that, and it isn’t easy, then there isn’t much left to get in trouble for.
To get more information about Ethics in the Workplace 2E, click on the cover below:
Keith Goree is the Director of the Applied Ethics Institute at St. Petersburg College. A 20-year veteran of teaching Applied Ethics, he has led over 100 conferences and workshops for teachers, school administrators, law enforcement officers, and other professional groups. Professor Goree helped to write the U. S. Department of Justice’s national law enforcement ethics curriculum, and to train those who would teach it across the country. In 1999 he was awarded the Carol Burnett Award for Ethics in Journalism. Mr. Goree was also named the 2005 National Community College Faculty Member of the Year by the Association of Community College Trustees. |
