Forbidden

The early film, Forbidden (1932), asks the viewers to sympathize with a married politician and his mistress, who together have a “love child,” even though the politician, as a governor, finally follows his conscience and admits to the decades-long affair. Lulu, the mistress, selflessly remains alone and hidden from public view so Bob can climb the political ladder without scandal. At one point, Bob offers to leave his wife, Helen, and leave with Lulu for a shared life somewhere else, but Lulu refuses for the sake of Bob’s career in politics. She places his interests above her own. The film’s attitude toward the “cheater” and his mistress ethically is complex, as is human nature itself. The film presents the complexity that can go with some, but certainly not all, ethical controversies.

The full essay is at "Forbidden."

The Children Act

I contend that religion and science are two distinct and unique domains, and thus qualitatively different. It follows that they have their own distinctive criteria, which are rightly hegemonic in their respective domain. In other words, the criteria of religion should not be extended onto the domain of natural science, especially if in doing so the native criteria of science are eclipsed or overridden. Likewise, the criteria of science should not be superimposed into the domain of religion, especially if at the expense of the sui generis criteria of religion. The film, The Children Act (2017), demonstrates the problems entailed in imposing religious criteria onto medical science. An interesting question from having seen the film is whether any such hypertrophy of one domain’s criteria onto another domain inevitably incurs a narrowing of perspective and a corresponding warping of judgment.

The full essay is at "The Children Act."

Murder on the Orient Express

If viewers can get past Hercule Poirot’s extraordinarily long (and awful) mustache in the 2017 film, Murder on the Orient Express, listening closely to some of the detective’s choice observations on human nature and ethics can deliver philosophical dividends. Indeed, Poirot admits to being able to see the world only as it should be, which enables him to detect even small physical (and psychological) aberrations, even concerning eggs for breakfast, and so he has become, as he unabashedly states, the world’s best detective. After having solved the case on the stopped train, however, he realizes that even his “gift” at detection is not fully in line with how things should be, and so he compromises with his austere ethical standards because he finds himself in a “gray area,” ethically speaking.

The full essay is at "Murder on the Orient Express."

FIFA’s President: Bad Judgment under the Subterfuge of Miscommunication

In the 1990s, I asked the CEO of ATT whether there is not a conflict of interest in him being chairman of the board tasked with holding the corporation’s management accountable. “The buck stops here,” Armstrong replied as the dean of Yale’s business school looked on, uncomfortably. Fortunately, I was a student in another school at Yale at the time. Fast forward to 2026. The board of FIFA backed up its president, Gianni Infantino in spite of the fact that he had overruled a red-card to favor the U.S. team in that year’s World Cup and then he proposed selling a minority share of FIFA to private investors—a plan that was almost universally viewed by the regional football (soccer) associations as selling out the world’s game to private financial interests so they might profit from the non-profit international organization. FIFA had Infantino’s back, which prompted regional associations, namely UEFA, CONCACAF, and AFC to publicly raise a red flag concerning the very credibility of Infantino for having tried to sell out a minority financial interest in FIFA. Albeit sheer speculation, given U.S. President Trump’s interest in financial transactions in relation to his political office, and Infantino’s having acquiesced to Trump’s request that the one-game suspension from a red card against a player on the U.S. team be revoked, I wonder whether the two men hatched the idea of selling off a minority stake in FIFA to private investors, which might have included Trump himself, his family members, and even the Trump Organization. Such is the nature of collusion in what James Burns refers to in his text, Leadership, as transactional, as distinct from transformational, leadership.

The full essay is at "FIFA's President."

Israel in Lebanon: On the Hubris of Hatred

Hatred warps reasoning as well as ethical judgment along the lines of a warped time-space fabric around a large mass. In other words, the sheer gravitational pull of self-centeredness can bend both thought and judgment. As essentially egoist, this phenomenon can itself be considered to be unethical, for what are actually equivalent ethical harms are perceived as unequal at the expense of other people or peoples. Even though Israel’s military attacks in, and invasion of, Lebanon in 2026 could be said to be in violation of international law, Israel’s national security minister said on June 19^th that all of Lebanon must burn because four Israeli soldiers had just been killed in combat when their tank was hit near Kfar Tebnit. The official’s statement is significant in that it lays bare the false equivalence of the lives of four Israelis and the entire population of Lebanon. The warped judgment and related ratiocination behind such a baseless equivalence can be grasped from the standpoint of utilitarianism.

The full essay is at "Israel in Lebanon." 

Mark Zuckerberg: Facebook’s Unjust Strategic Leader in a Crisis

Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Facebook (and Instagram) “remained silent” during the two days after the data-breach scandal broke in March, 2018 as E.U. and U.S. lawmakers “pummeled Facebook and its stock price” dropped 9 percent.[1] The company lost $50 billion in market value in just those two days![2] Beyond the self-interested investors and the demoralized employees, the company’s 2 billion users—the suppliers of the raw content (to be mined as well as shared)—and the world (i.e., societal level) looked for ethical (i.e., atoning as well as protective) leadership from the company’s CEO. To be just, I submit, the leadership could not have been a mere reflection of Zuckerberg’s or Facebook’s immediate self-interests.

The full essay is at "Leadership Lacking at Facebook."

Employees look for leadership in the midst of a demoralizing crisis. (USA Today)

See the essay, "Facebook: A Distrustful Company."

See also the booklet, Taking the Face off Facebook

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1. Jessica Guynn, “As Facebook Reels from ‘Catastrophic Moment’ in Cambridge Analytica Crisis,” Mark Zuckerberg Is Silent,” USA Today, March 21, 2018.

2. Kevin Roose and Sheera Frenkel, “Missing From Facebook’s Crisis: Mark Zuckerberg,” The New York Times, March 21, 2018.

Balancing Company Rights and Worker Security through Public Policy

It would be a cruel joke were an airline to keep the extendable corridor back as the plane’s front door is opened and passengers are pushed out. Not even having a safety net below would neither be sufficient nor fair. When a government gives companies the flexibility to fire workers without yet having in place vocational safety nets, said government acts negligently and perhaps even with partiality to one side of the labor-management duality. At the very least, the flexibility to fire should be held off until the matter of economic security is finalized. 

The full essay is at "Balancing Company Rights and Worker Security."