Four Ethics Links: April 12, 2010
Four ethics links is a review of recent stories in applied ethics. This week: The Ethics of Ethisphere, The Banks, War Journalism, Yelp, and Planetary Exploration and Colonization.
In wake of crisis, public eyes corporate ethics - Reuters
Some of the best-known U.S. companies, including General Electric, Gap and Google, made The Ethisphere Institute’s 2010 ranking of the 100 most ethical companies (read our worries about these rankings here) , released on Monday. But, after a government bailout of the U.S. financial system, no Wall Street banks were represented for a second straight year.
We quote Reuters, who sounds like they’re quoting us:
Top ethics officials at several major U.S. companies said honest business practices are critical after a brutal downturn that pushed the U.S. jobless rate as high as 10 percent, savaged retirement savings and home values and left many Americans less trustful of big business.
Reporters discuss dangers, ethics of war coverage - Associated Press
Media coverage of the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq relies too much on government information rather than firsthand accounts, prominent journalists warned at a conference on war coverage Friday.
“…the fact is that war coverage by a free and independent media with reasonable access to the battlefield forces policy makers to deal with the reality of what is happening on the ground instead of what they want the public - or even Washington - to think,” he said. “Nowhere is truth more at risk - or more elusive - than in today’s wars.”
Yelp CEO Responds to Class-Action Lawsuits Alleging Extortion - Fast Company
Yelp has been the subject of fairly continued grumblings, some louder than others, that its ethics are less than stellar–and last week, the user-generated reviews site got hit with an official class-action lawsuit making those grumblings legal accusations. Even worse, yet another (very similar) lawsuit just emerged, accusing Yelp of the same underhanded tactics. [Recently], Yelp’s CEO, Jeremy Stoppelman, responded on the official Yelp blog. …
Essentially, the rumors of ethical misconduct all come back to an alleged “pay to play” tactic. Yelp is accused of offering to remove or downgrade negative reviews if the business in question purchases advertisements on the site. If that’s true, a judge could agree that it sounds exactly like extortion or, at the very least, a huge disservice to the users who rely on Yelp. In the past, users have quietly come forward to voice their concerns and frustrations with the tactic, but accusations are now specific enough to name the exact dollar amounts supposedly demanded by Yelp. And this is the first lawsuit that’s actually been filed, so Yelp is taking it very seriously–there have been four [recent] blog posts…defending the site.
The Ethics of Planetary Exploration and Colonization - Discovery News
Finally, sort of a strange one from Discovery News, but lots of good solid ethical questions.
Humans are no strangers to ravaging the land, but the stars have proven a good deal more elusive. So far, our ethical concerns have remained limited to the contamination of extraterrestrial environments, but what will the future bring? …
…[P]onder whether…an asteroid harvest would drastically disrupt the economies of resource-exporting nations. What would happen to most of Africa? What would it do to the cost of iron ore? And what about refining and manufacturing? If we spend the money to harvest iron in space, why not outsource the other related processes as well? Imagine a future in which solar-powered robots toil in lunar or orbital factories. …
…[W]hat are the ethics of [terraforming]? What if Mars already contains hidden life? Might the origins of life on Earth trail back to the red planet as well? Thoroughly contaminate everything and we might erase all trace of what was. And the past isn’t the only thing potentially at stake.
Here’s a deeper question….What if there is no life on Mars or Titan or some other place we’re going to go to, but all the ingredients are there, such that at some future time life could exist. The potentiality of life is there and, by terraforming it, we’re aborting that possibility. Under what circumstances is that an ethical thing to do?
| Tagged with: | Banks, Business, Ethics, Ethisphere, Four Ethics Links, Google, Journalism, Outsourcing, Space, Terraforming, Yelp |
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