Perkins Theology School’s Dean Bill Lawrence had an absolutely outstanding commentary on KERA-FM this week. You can hear it here (MP3). Dean Lawrence’s timely message concerned those who “ensmall” their spheres of responsibility and accountability vs. those who enlarge them. By defining down those things for which we feel any responsibility, anything outside that circle […]
Category: Ethics in the news
Steve Sverdlik has given us a cogent commentary on today’s Op Ed column by David Brooks. I particularly like Steve’s reference to researchers/theorists who are squaring the evolutionary argument for altruism and empathy with the (broader? more traditional?) evolutionary processes of competition and natural selection. (It’s still a jungle out there!) I hope readers of […]
Based upon this article from today’s Washington Post, I was going to write a snarky little piece about the limited job opportunities for ethicists in the White House. There’s one ethics advisor there (though I will bet there are others in the White House Counsel’s office who have a piece of those issues, as well), […]
Are the recent public apologies heard from celebrities, athletes, government officials and others accused of wrongdoing sincere or manufactured by publicists trying to minimize the damage? Ethicists examine the authenticity of public apologies in an article posted at the following site: http://www.umc.org/site/apps/nlnet/content3.aspx?c=lwL4KnN1LtH&b=2072519&ct=6820489.
Federal law currently says no, or appears to say no, and it provides for criminal penalties for a violation of the law. So well-meaning states like Pennsylvania that want to pay burial expenses for organ donors have a hard time convincing state employees and funeral homes to pay or receive the benefit. Sen. Arlen Specter […]
According to an article posted to the the N.Y. Times‘ website today, drug maker Wyeth has turned over to the Senate Finance Committee a mountain of material on its practice of paying ghostwriters to prepare favorable articles for publication in medical journals. Physicians were then recruited to put their names on the articles. In some […]
KTLA.com is reporting on a new survey of high school students’ ethics by the Josephson Institute for Ethics (press release (PDF)). Here are some highlights from the Institute’s summary: STEALING. In bad news for business, more than one in three boys (35 percent) and one-fourth of the girls (26 percent) ??? a total of 30 […]
As reported by the Dallas Morning News, the DISD board is voting this afternoon on its new ethics policy. The key issue that divides the trustees is how to deal with the situation of a vendor with family or business ties to a board member: Require disclosure and recusal? Or disqualify the vendor from having […]
That’s the question raised by the controversy swirling around the largest kosher meatpacking plant in the U.S., run by Agriprocessors, Inc., in Postville, Iowa. According to an article in Friday’s New York Times (“Rabbis Debate Kosher Ethics at Meat Plant”), the plant “lost about half its work force when 389 illegal immigrants were detained there […]
Today The Washington Post has an article — Infant Transplant Procedure Ignites Debate — that builds on yesterday’s AP article about three cases in which infant hearts were harvested under a “donation after cardiac death” (“DCD”) protocol, which all transplant centers are required by UNOS and HHS. The details of each center’s protocol may vary. […]