Three New Ethics Videos Unwrapped

This blog has previously featured the Ethics Unwrapped website from the University of Texas. The site is now linked in the menu on the left side of the blog.  Professor Robert Prentice advises readers that the site has added three new videos:

We have just released three new videos on Moral Myopia, Moral Muteness, and Moral Imagination, with content provided by Dr. Minette Drumwright, who teaches ethics at the University of Texas's McCombs School of Business and Moody School of Communication.  As always, the videos are free for all to use.

Moral Myopia:

Nebraska

Serial murderer and his baton twirling girlfriend face society's retribution.

Live:


Studio:

The Investigation

Racial profiling may not be an appropriate topic for humor.  However, human fallibility, innate prejudices and the extraordinary workings of the brain to block out what it doesn't think it needs may be.

Click here or on the image below to see a clip from Everybody Hates Chris:

A-Rod Drops ADR Challenge

NY Yankee third baseman Alex Rodriguez has apparently withdrawn his lawsuits filed as an "appeal" of an arbitrator's ruling that suspends him from playing for the entire 2014 season as a penalty for using performance enhancing drugs. Legal commentators are not surprised.  The lawsuit had zero chance of success.  It is one of the hallmarks of arbitration that appeals of arbitrator's rulings cannot merely allege that the arbitrator was wrong. The arbitrator could have made his decision based on the testimony of a witness who said that heard from a guy who was abducted by space aliens that the aliens supplied A-Rod with the PEDs, and the decision would not likely be overturned. Unless there was fraud or extortion or some other similarly untoward conduct by the arbitrator or the arbitrator exceeded the parameters of the dispute submitted to him or her for resolution, the courts will not disturb the arbitrator's ruling.  That is why the issue of mandatory arbitration clauses in employment contracts is so important.

Your Kid Has a Snow Day? You're Fired!

The article here recounts this story. The thrust of the article is that the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) needs to be amended to protect workers in this situation.  The article doesn't even mention the employment-at-will doctrine which justifies employee dismissals for any reason or no reason.  The FMLA only applies to employers with 50 or more employees. EAW applies to everyone. The point of advocacy here should be to advocate for emergency child care as an important public obligation within the exceptions to the EAW doctrine.

FMLA basics:



US one of the worst in the developed world when it comes to supporting pregnant women:

Flash! Flash! Speed Trap Ahead!

A federal judge has ruled that a driver's act of flashing lights at oncoming drivers is protected free speech and may not be punished by government. The case comes from the US District Court in Missouri.

Jonathan Turley, a criminal attorney and a professor at George Washington University Law School, said courts across the country are dealing with the same issue. In virtually every case except those still being decided, the person cited has prevailed, Turley said.

While flashing lights might be legal, is it ethical? Who is being helped? What public purpose does it serve? Shouldn't speeders be caught and punished?  If ethics is the communal sense of right and wrong, does it matter if you are a member of the community of drivers or the greater community of citizens of the area - including children, elderly, disabled and non-drivers who are at risk from speeders?  How many times has an innocent driver been injured or even killed because a speeding driver lost control and crossed the center line? You might think that you are helping out a fellow driver, but are you really part of the problem?

Just thinking...

Insurance Sales Songs

Brutal honesty! Watch out for salty language like, "F**k Me!"  You have to cut the guy some slack, he's trying to make a living selling insurance on commission:



Love insurance salesman assisted by barbershop quartet wielding therapeutic canes and field hockey sticks: