Brian De Palma’s film, Obsession(1976), harkens
back to Hitchcock’s film, Vertigo(1958) primarily in that resemblances between a character-contrived myth,
or story, and the closely related (though different in key respects) social
reality in the film (i.e., what’s really going on in the film’s story-world)
trigger perplexed reactions for the character being duped by other characters
in the film. I thought she died, but there she is . . . or maybe that’s
another woman who looks like her—so much so that I believe I can will the woman
to be her. The human mind may be such that it convinces itself of even a
supernatural explanation rather than admits to have been fooled by someone
else’s cleverness. At the very least, doubt as to what is really
going on can be stultifying. The human mind is all too willing obviate its uncertainty by either resorting to a supernatural explanation or making something
so by force of will, as if believing something to be the case is sufficient to make it so.
Compassion is so salient in so
many religions that it is natural to assume that religious conduct is moral,
which is to say that it issues in ethical conduct. Yet, as Kierkegaard
emphasizes in Fear and Trembling, the divine decree that Abraham
receives in the Book of Genesis translates into murder on the (universally
accessible) level of ethics. In being almost going through with sacrificing his
only son, Isaac, Abraham is guilty of attempted murder, which is unethical.
Abraham’s faith in the validity of the divine decree can thus be
distinguished from morality. Unlike ethics, religion is sourced beyond the
limits of human cognition, perception, and emotions, and is the domain is thus
transcendent even as it is also immanent in the world. Even though ethical
principles and faith can dovetail, as in five of the Ten Commandments, it is
important that the two domains—morality and religion—are regarded as distinct,
and thus with their own distinctive bases and criteria owing to the respective
natures of each domain. In his book, A Brief History of Everything, Ken
Wilber attempts a mega-synthesis of many fields of knowledge. Such a broad
project carries with it the pitfall of making conjectures that draw on or
involve domains of knowledge outside of one’s own. I think the risk of such
over-stepping is significant coming from both vantage-points in morality and
religion (i.e., ethics and theology) when the two domains are mingled or
intertwined without due recognition of how they are sui generis, of
their own genus (type). Wilber even conflates a third domain, that of
psychology, with those of ethics and religion. I begin by looking at morals and
religion in general, holding off psychology until I address Wilber’s theory
specifically.
As a field of business, business and society (which includes
the topic of corporate social responsibility (CSR)) can be viewed as falling
within the rubric of the environment of business. Business and government can
as well. Indeed, the environment goes beyond stakeholders. Although sometimes
deemed as falling within this rubric, business ethics actually does not, as it
is internal to a business even as unethical policies and decisions can impact
stakeholders. In fact, business ethics and business and society are two
distinct fields, even though they share a common border and are often fused as
if they were one seamless country.
Scholars and practitioners alike in the field of business & society tend view it as being synonymous with corporate social responsibility. It is easy to do. Another error concerns the conflation of CSR and business ethics. In fact, the very name of the topic, corporate social responsibility, is problematic. Straightening all this out could result in more topics in business & society even as the field ceases to overstep into business ethics and the nature of CSR becomes more transparent in business as well as society.
In his commentary in The Wall Street Journal in 2010, Michael Boskin went over the disadvantages in levying an income tax on corporations. Within his argument, he observes, “Of course, the corporation is a legal entity; only people pay taxes.”[1] In so doing, he transcended, if only for a moment, his own approach that was oriented simply to giving the pros and cons of corporate taxation. His observation is significant, and it gives us a launching pad of sorts by which we can approach the corporate income tax as a itself as a concept, rather than simply assessing its utility. In short, corporate taxation is an oxymoron if only humans pay tax. In fact, we can conclude from Boskin's remark that the doctrine that corporations are legal persons has been incorrectly construed.
Why did Mark Zuckerberg unload $2.3 billion of his Facebook
stock? The complete answer likely involves more than meets the eye, at least
relative to what business reporters and editors had to say publicly in 2013. What was not said is itself a story worth publishing.
Beyond Zuckerberg’s stratagem, what the media didn't say might be more significant than what made it through
the filters. Part of the answer concerning Zuckerberg’s sell-off involves
his need for cash to pay taxes that would be due from his exercising an option
to purchase 60 million Class B shares in 2013. This move likely implies a belief that
Facebook stock would not go much higher. Had Zuckerberg strongly believed at the time
that Facebook was yet to cash in on advertising revenue beyond that which the
market had already factored into the company’s stock price, the CEO would not
have exercised the options in expectation of a wider spread. Even with the
taxes coming due, the billionaire could probably have found an alternative way
to come up with the cash.
The organizational lifecycle. When Zuckerberg decided to sell a block of shares and exercise options, he already had a picture of Facebook already on the downward slope without much chance of revitalization. Image Source: www.sourcingideas.blogspot.com
Newt Gingrich said on May 15, 2011 that people should be required to buy health-insurance. He added that he would like to see the mandate implemented at the state rather than the federal level. These comments unleashed a torrent of criticism from Republicans, so the former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives spent the following week “walking” his comments back by denying that he had said that he was for a mandate.The media was in a feeding frenzy, astounded that the former Speaker could simply deny that he might get away with the contradiction. However, in such cases, is it the person or logical contradiction itself that gets us so steamed?
From 1993 to
2010, the incomes of the richest 1 percent of Americans grew 58 percent while
the rest had a 6.4 percent increase. In
2010, the first year of an economic recovery, the top 1 percent of Americans
captured 93% of the income gains. Beyond the danger to the American republics
in there being an economic elite so far removed from the vast majority of the
population is the question of whether the trend is baleful, economically
speaking. It is not clear that even such an income gain being snagged by so few
registered in the minds of the general populous as a problem. The key to any
concern would seem to be whether opportunity for the many is compromised as a
result of extreme economic inequality.
The SEC charged
Ephren Taylor with a fraudulent $11 million Ponzi scheme in April 2012. According
to Reuters, “Taylor fraudulently sold $7 million of notes said to bear
12 percent to 20 percent annual interest rates, to fund small businesses such
as laundries, juice bars and gas stations.” He “had conducted a multi-city ‘Building
Wealth Tour’ in which he spoke to congregations” on the importance of “giving
back.” He called himself a “social capitalist.” In actuality, he used the money
on himself and his wife’s attempt to become a singer.
Fuqua/COLE surveyed 205 executives of public- and private-sector companies. Based on the results, I provide a critique that renders transparent some of the questionable assumptions that leadership-advisors and even business leaders themselves may have without realizing it. The full essay is at "Bureaucratizing Leadership."
In the weeks leading us to watch the
Olympics, I suspect I was not alone in thinking, “I just don't like what I see
here." Why wasI resisting paying even scant attention to the pre-Olympics "coverage" (a.k.a. advertising) as NBC, the American broadcast network covering the games, was getting rather publicly revved up on the upcoming media event. In this essay, I briefly survey the external stimuli, leaving the self-analysis to the analyst’s couch.[1]
First, as the American press reported
before NBC began promoting the games in earnest (hmm), there is the “whole gay
thing” and Putin. I really think that's a non-issue with regard to the Olympics,
given the uniqueness of the Olympic Village. I would not be surprised were the
Russian police of the mind that “What goes on in Vegas stays in Vegas,” at
least as far as vacations are concerned.
Now, the "not fit for primetime
viewing" conditions of some of the hotels putting up the foreign press
strikes me as more substantive because of the implicit and likely even explicit
rudeness does not go down well, even at a distance. Relatedly, I suspect, the
sheer amount of money "padded" into the construction projects, including
hotel construction, for kick-backs undoubtedly directed to Putin's major
political supporters eviscerates any possible excuse in the tardiness.
In fact, associating Putin at all with the
Olympics comes off to me like associating liver with dinner; I instinctively
spit out immediately any hint of liver-taste. I must admit I am glad the U.S.
State Department put out a travel warning for Americans going to the games. I
was also amused to read of the low numbers of non-Russians arriving from abroad
in Sochi as of the first day of games.[2]
Of course, the modern Olympics hinges on the broadcasts around the world, rather
than attendance numbers.
Even though NBC's studio in the Olympic Village is transparent, the network's tactics may be anything but. (Image Source: David Johnson)
Interestingly, as part of its rather
obvious devices to remind/manipulate its general viewership to watch the
approaching games (including inserting reporters live from Sochi into CNBC's
coverage of the financial markets), NBC strategists may actually have been
fomenting the security story in order to draw viewers' attention to the fact
that the games would soon begin. Stirring up fear and the hope of visual
voyeurism of others’ tragedies is a sure bet for news reporting as advertising. However, overdoing it can be counterproductive
if too much of the ploy is visible on the surface as a duplicitous, otherwise stealth
agenda. Yearning to turn the subtropical town on the Black Sea into an
international resort, Putin could not have been very happy about the coverage,
though may have realized the importance of a huge broadcast viewership even for
himself, not to mention covering some of the kick-backs.
Finally, starting particular events
including skating the day before the
OPENING ceremony may stand out among the various points of smoke above in being
indicative of fire skipping fire lines below. Even though Chris Chase of USA Today concludes “it’s a small price
to pay for the overall improvement of the Winter Games,” he admits “it still
feels strange to start the Olympics before the Olympics technically start.”[3]
In the film, Inglourious Basterds,
Lt. Aldo Raine wryly clarifies the matter of something seeming odd (or strange).
“Yeah, we got a word for that in
English. It’s called suspicious.”
In spite of his conclusion (i.e., small price to pay), Chase provides a credible case for suspicion. “Television rules all." he states up front as if it were a natural law. "Adding another day
of Olympic competition means adding another day of Olympic telecasts. Thursday
is traditionally one of the biggest television nights (along with Sunday). With
all the money being paid to cover the games by networks across the world,
turning 17 days of Olympic coverage into 18 days is a nice bonus.”[4]
Regarding the addition of a program of skating, Chase points to a five day
interim within the two weeks without any skating scheduled.
In closing, I must let the philosopher in
me have a few words (no philosopher ever has just a few words, so please take a bathroom break if you need to). From sheer logic, to begin something before it has begun
is a blatant contradiction. As per his categorical imperative, Kant would call
the practice unethical. Were everyone to adopt the maxim, “I will start
activities before the start time,” it would not make sense to have a start time
for anything. The maxim is thus self-contradictory if it (like reason itself)
is universalized.
Hume would point out that Kant relies too
much on logic and reason more generally in assessing whether a given practice
is ethical. A person reading U.N.’s condemnation of the Vatican in February
2014 for having been more concerned
about the reputation of the Church as a whole than children’s welfare—a priority
that Rev. Joe Ratzinger, or Benedict XVI, put in a letter while archbishop of
Munich—may think through the theological implications of priests covering for
each other. However, the sentiment of disapprobation (think of my expression as
I spit out odious liver) is likely, excepting sociopaths, to be the principal
reaction. Emotive rather than of Reason.
When I read of the sports beginning a day before the opening ceremony, I felt a
sentiment of disapprobation well up inside me. Because I had been feeling that
something just isn’t right about the upcoming games, especially from an vague
intuitive sense of NBC’s manipulative tactics as over-reaching at best, I suspected that the rather odd placement
of some events before the ceremony also came from the mentality that wants
incessantly to squeeze out a few more drops of lemon juice from lemon that has
already shed enough. The sight of this childish demeanor in action is
enough for any non-manipulative person to resist going where the manipulations
point.
[1] I
have in mind here Nietzsche’s thesis that reasoning is really a person’s instinctual
urges tussling for dominance—that which overcomes the others (here as
obstacles) reaches the surface of consciousness as an idea. I do think about
this point regarding philosophy (and particular philosophical systems) in
general and how my own psychological background fuels or is otherwise expressed
in the ideas and related theories I “intuit” and “create.”
In 2012, I was stunned to hear an official of Deloitte place
all his faith in the internal firewalls that he had constructed in the CPA firm
to inhibit the exploitation of the conflict of interest that exists between the
auditing and consulting divisions. A year later, Matt Winkler of Bloomberg
apologized because reporters in the news division had used clients’ proprietary
information from the Bloomberg terminals to report financial news stories before
other news organizations. The firewall between selling terminals and reporting
news had not been sufficient to prevent exploitation of the conflict of interest.
There is a lesson here for any multi-divisional company or bank that is relying
on firewalls.
With Facebook’s stock trading at $17.73 a share
just after Labor Day 2012, down more than half from the IPO issue-price of $38,
further downward pressure was anticipated due to the upcoming expirations of
the lock-up. Employees would be able to cash in approximately 220 million
shares at the end of October, 780 million shares in mid-November, and still
more in December and then in the following May 2013. Experts were not putting
much stock in Mark Zuckerberg’s decision to hold onto his options for at least
a year. Rather than trying to assess the impact of the downward pressure on
where the price might go, a business ethicist would be apt to notice a subtle
point of fairness by class pertaining to when the options can be sold.
With advertising accounting for more than 85
percent of its revenue, Facebook has faced great pressure in the wake of its
lackluster IPO to translate its unique asset, the
pile of personal data it collects from 900 million users, into advertising
revenue. I contend that Facebook’s handing over that data without first
grouping it is unethical on a gut level.
In a conflict of interest, either two duties conflict or a duty conflicts with self-interest—whether the “self” be an individual or an association of individuals (e.g., a department or an organization). Where two duties conflict, that which corresponds with the wider “constituency” is presumed to be ethically superior to that which is relatively narrow. For instance, a duty to society is typically thought (admittedly by the public) to ethically supersede a fiduciary duty to stockholders. This assumption is problematic because property rights are not charged with putting society first. Therefore the question of which duty is superior ethically-speaking may come down to one’s vantage-point. To be sure, the duty that is further from one’s self-interest can be said to be superior in most ethical theories with the notable exception of egoism. That theory defeats the typical ethical take on conflicts of interest even where a duty is pitted against self-interest itself.
