Pro Ethics

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.

It is only ethical that the wealthy start paying their fair share of the tax burden. We are currently in an economic mess which starts with our unrelenting debt. Here is Obama's plan to increase taxes as a way to solve these problems.

Brett, Good reflections here on some early challenges for Obama and his efforts to have a "moral impact" ... things seem to be getting worse just recently with the Solyndra issue: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0911/63795.html

Being a pre-law student, I found this article especially interesting. It really does help to show why attorney's are seen so negatively sometimes. The article mentions how no one wants to pay for bad news, but sometimes that's what lawyers have to give to be ethical; the truth isn't always what we want, but it's often what we need. If attorney's told clients what they wanted to hear, even if it was not true, it could ultimately cost the client even more money and even get them into trouble.

Very good article on the moral dimension of the work lawyers do--as opposed to the usual focus on the moral character of lawyers themselves; interesting points on compensation as well.

This is a good review of all the business ethics issues brought up in one issue of Canadian Business. Very helpful if you're still getting the hang of how we're using Diigo to identify and share examples of moral issues. 

Article stating that US factories are having a hard time selling the public on goods during unstable times.

Making the connection between respect and ethics.

This is what happpens when a business does it wrong from the begining.

A good article on teh tratment of wistleblowers.

This is an article that shows what can happen when companies aren't being environmentally friendly.

This article talks about adding a tax on those who make millions of dollars. Many questions arise from this idea. But the biggest one of all...how ethical would doing something like this be?

Thought this was interesting....

Five ways to think Ethically

Ten techniques to your business surviving through hard times.

Patients suing US government

Older article; Declaration of Michael Jackson's death as homicide.

Patient information was posted to Hospital website.