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A friend had shared a picture on Facebook that I saw today. It was copies from two articles about two different crimes. One was of a wealthy white man and one was of a homeless black man. The pictures note the sentences and crimes committed and imply that there was disparity in the sentencing. Here is a post I found on the two cases. What are your thoughts on the different cases?

I did some extra research on these two cases as well (including Snopes). I posted the linke that I did (and only that) for a couple of reasons. 1) Because of the potential inequality of the two cases and 2) because I don't think that most people look past the information give to them. I was glad to see that someone (granted you are the professor, but still) looked into the stories a bit more. I think that also says something about ethics. I recently sent a friend of mine (who was making claims about products other than those she was selling). The claims were that there was bat guano in many brands of mascara. She told me she had heard this from an optometrist but she had never done any research on her own. When I did (because I did not want to make claims that I did not know to be true), I forwarded some of the sources I found to her. In our society, we tend to take things at face value.

Aha, very clever test :) Glad you're doing some of the critical thinking that, as you indicate, we need to be doing much more of. Keep up the good research!

I thought considering last week's reading, this blog post was good to look at. It coincides with Maitland's argument for sweatshops. The part I found most interesting was this: "The most important aspect relating to the morality of sweatshop labor is that it is voluntary. That is, sweatshop laborers get up in the morning and choose to work in a sweatshop instead of doing anyother possible thing on any given day. Why would they do that? It's simple, by working at a sweatshop a laborer is able to earn more for himself and his family than he would otherwise be able to were he not employed at that sweatshop. The laborer has the choice to either perform some other task for money, produce his own goods and services, or go work for the sweatshop. He has made the decision that what he gains by working at the sweatshop is more valuable than what he would gain doing anything else." It begs the question of who gets to decide what these workers do in their lives to support their families and how they should feel about those choices.

Another good reflection on this issue, jdybing. One of the issues with this type of argument is that it's rather theoretical. It simply isn't true of all people that "The laborer has the choice to either perform some other task for money, produce his own goods and services, or go work for the sweatshop." Even if this is true, the next question is whether we should just accept a type of work and working conditions that demoralize people and trivialize the value of their lives. What Maitland says of sweatshops is just as true of the practice of child labor early in the industrial era of the US, where children were not only doing dehumanizing work but doing so under extremely dangerous conditions. It's hard to see how anyone would actually "choose" this type of life given viable options for doing something else.

I get news updates on my phone, and I saw an article about the possibility of Bieber being the father of a fan's child. I'm glad he is taking the DNA test, but the main point of me posting this article is that Bieber is an idol for younger kids today. If it turns out he did father a child at 16, he will be letting down many fans. And a butterfly effect could happen where all of a sudden the tweens and teens that are his biggest fans may start thinking that engaging in sexual activity when they are young is ok. If Bieber can do it, why can't they? By the way, I'm using the "tag" for this article loosely!

Excellent article on what money means to you. If you are wealthy, it doesn't neccesarily mean that you are very knowledgeable. This article provides the morals between money.

Article talking about people with more money spend more money. But, I can see this true that even though people with more money than they ever will need still go broke.

"Money may be the root of all evil, but only if you're not honest about what it means to you. "

This article is about a new act that would essentially make it so the EPA would no longer have the authority for the Clean Water Act. The authority would go to the individual state.

"...those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world's population" (the Nobel committee)

I was trying to find a link about learning about good and evil. Then, I remembered seeing this poster many times in the past. I'm sure you've seen it too (or heard about it). This link is to the book on Amazon. I highly suggest clicking on the "Look Inside" on the picture and reading the "First Pages." Amazon allows you to read a select amount of pages. I suggest reading the Credo at the beginning and the Reflections in the back. I, for one, plan to purchase and read the entire thing. Sometimes I think we overthink. Life doesn't always have to be complicated.

Glad we could finally see an end to the NBA lockout. It seems a little ridiculous that they were fighting over millions of dollars that they don't need, whereas the rest of the low-key jobs that depend on the season, just needed money to survive.

Very insightful reflections on the challenges and benefits of having a code of ethics for a profession, in this case Anthropologists: "After three years spent seeking opinion and working on new guidelines, the American Anthropological Association is moving toward changes that some in the discipline fear will water down anthropologists' obligations to the people they study."

The NBA is currently in a lockout, but a player, techinically an employee, has accepted taking a season off in order for the NBA, or business, to work out their issues.

I think the opening paragraph says it all: "Discussions about ethical issues, not to mention attempts to encourage ethical behavior, are constantly derailed by the invocation of common misstatements of ethical principles. Some of these are honest misconceptions, some are intentional distortions, some are self-serving rationalizations, and some, upon examination, simply make no sense at all."

I do have to disagree with the author's example of consequentialism. Normally, saving a woman from being killed would be ethical, however, going back in time and disrupting the time line (in my opinion) was not. Had he not gone back in time, he wouldn't have had an opportunity to save the woman and in the end, the Nazi's would not have won WWII. Also, in relation to the fallacy of "It's ethical if it's not illegal" - I don't believe that everything that is illegal is immoral or unethical. That is why laws are able to be changed - sometimes the law is wrong or unethical.

The defining moment of the Obama Presidency occurred on August 14th, 2010. On August 13th, the President made a ringing endorsement of the right of any religion to build a temple to their faith anywhere in the United States. I was very impressed.

Should small businesses keep tabs on their employees more so than a large business would?

I can see the interwined relationship between honesty, integrity and respect in the small business world and the Fortune 500 comapanies. But the reason that their might be less respect, honesty, and integrity in the small business world is because the people that can't make it into the big business world is because they are lacking the essential needs to be included in the big jobs, big time bucks.

An example of big business turning a blind eye to not only an ethical dilemma, but also a legal one. The countries that buy tobacco have laws in place banning child labor as does the supplying country. The word "help" is used instead of work to cover up the use of small children in dangerous situations.

I suppose I'm a little biased when it comes to the Invisible Children, but I truly believe Obama made the right decision in trying to help free the child soldiers from Joseph Kony by sending in troops to help form a plan to capture Kony. I know there are many people who are outraged and flabbergasted as to why our country is doing this, but I think a large part of that is because they don't fully understand everything that's going on. If you really want to know more, invisiblechildren.com they explain everything.

the former chief executive of the , sued the and the on Monday, contending that their takeover of the insurer in the fall of 2008 was improper and that the Fed breached its duty to A.I.G. shareholders when it unwound the company's disastrous bets on mortgage securities.

A San Diego City Council committee killed two proposals to strengthen the city's Ethics Commission yesterday - demonstrating that the council has ultimate authority over its own watchdog. The commission sought the ability to subpoena witnesses during its investigations and wanted to make it illegal to knowingly lie or provide false documents to it.

Crowd members boo a gay soldier video at GOP debate

I don't know how the speakers should have handled it. What do you think would be appropriate?

I agree with the two people in the video. It would have been easy for the speaker to quickly say that "even if we don't agree with this gentleman, there's no need to be disrespectful." This would be a minimum in my mind. I also think that even if they were booing the repeal of DADT as the male speaker mentioned, it was still incredibly inappropriate and childish for the people in the audience to boo.

Is 2011 the year when New Yorkers finally get the right to marry someone of the same sex? The Empire State Pride Agenda's Ross Levi thinks so -- even if the state Senate is under GOP control -- as you can see from the document below.

This news article is about the U.S. Postal Service. The rest of the country is having to cut back and change their way of running things but for the post office to make those same needed changes, Congress has to vote on it.