Psychologist Jonathan Haidt studies the five moral values that form the basis of our political choices, whether we’re left, right or center. In this eye-opening talk, he pinpoints the moral values that liberals and conservatives tend to honor most.
Archive for June, 2010
Five moral values that form the basis of our political choices.
June 21st, 2010 by admin | No Comments | Filed in Moral PhilosophyThe Role of Scientific Investigation in Promoting Secular Ethics
June 21st, 2010 by admin | No Comments | Filed in Human RightsThe Dalai Lama, who has written extensively about ethics, talks about promoting secular ethics, with special emphasis on the role of scientific investigation, during his talk to a gathering of 200 Buddhist monks and nuns
OECD Working Group on Foreign Bribery has issued a Good Practice Guidance relating to anti-bribery.
June 12th, 2010 by admin | No Comments | Filed in Codes, Corruption, Organizational Ethics, Public Sector/GovernmentMy friend Donna Boehme is looking for feedback. She wrote to me as follows:
“You have probably seen the news that the OECD Working Group on Foreign Bribery has issued a Good Practice Guidance relating to anti-bribery compliance programs. Joe Murphy and I have been participating in this process, and Joe represented SCCE in the Working Group’s programs as a Consultative Partner; we both attended the Dec 9 launch of the GPG by OECD in Paris. We believe this standard actually offers a very useful template for all types of compliance and ethics programs. It has the enormous advantage of being the first truly international standard, since it has been signed off on by the 30 OECD countries plus 8 other signatories to the anti-bribery convention. In a sense it is the “global sentencing guidelines” in terms of its potential impact globally. I have attached our comment draft, which we are circulating broadly for review and comment, including to the OECD and US Sentencing Commission. I’d be interested in any thoughts/input on the draft. Please also feel free to share it with anyone you think might share the interest. We think this OECD Guidance has tremendous potential to expand what was started by the US Sentencing Commission further onto the global stage.
Cheers, Donna
Document is here:
Applied Shakespeare
June 7th, 2010 by admin | No Comments | Filed in Case StudiesI am currently working on the design and delivery of values and ethics learning events and have been exploring the field for innovative and nontraditional examples.
I came across the Findhorn Foundation the other day, who describe themselves as a spiritual community, ecovillage and an international centre for holistic education. What really caught my attention was that the course they are offering this summer on ethics required no prior knowledge of Shakespeare, the play Macbeth, or the theatre!
According to the course description participants will be invited on 5-day mythodrama journey. The workshop is focused on the leadership question of Ethical Ambition and Courageous Leadership, and draws lessons from the Scottish play, Shakespeare’s Macbeth
I would encourage you to share your own examples of innovative teachers or teachings.
Michael Sandel: The Lost Art of Democratic Debate
June 7th, 2010 by admin | No Comments | Filed in Democracy, Moral PhilosophyMichael Sandel teaches political philosophy at Harvard.
This video speaks for itself
Ethics Cannot be Taught
June 7th, 2010 by admin | No Comments | Filed in Codes, Public Sector/GovernmentIn today’s Toronto Sun, Peter Worthington concludes that ethics cannot be taught.Commenting on Justice Oliphant’s recommendations that public servants (and MPs) get better ethics training,Worthington notes that” a case can be made that “ethics” are something that you either have, or you don’t have… All the training, teaching, studying, reading, or lectures in “ethics” will not make a person more ethical if he or she does not have these core values to begin with.”
This used to be one of those black and white issues for me. Of course you can teach people to be ethical.Now I am am not sure Is it true that without an established set of core values as a foundation,any ethical constructions that are built will not be long lasting?
Feeling pity for Bernie Madoff these days-don’t!!
June 7th, 2010 by admin | No Comments | Filed in Business Ethics, CorruptionIn this lengthy profile of Bernie Madoff in the New York Magazine ,we learn that he is unrepentant and in fact believes that some of his investors deserve what they got.
PS
Dear Readers
I am still new to this blog and see it as a work in progress.I am looking for feedback and help.In this particular case I am stymied to find a category that best describes the contents of this posting.So…I am starting a contest.A prize will be offered to the one who comes up with the best suggestion !
Making Decisions on Values, Not Biases
June 6th, 2010 by admin | No Comments | Filed in Business Ethics, Decision Making, Leadership“The optimist sees the rose and not its thorns; the pessimist stares at the thorns, oblivious to the rose” Khalil Gibran
“The sustainability of a corporation depends upon the decision-making capacity of its workers, both individually and collectively, but research shows that human judgment is generally flawed and continuously pervaded by psychological biases. Managers can address these biases and create more effective processes and teams by relying on personal and organizational values in decision-making. “
Jonathan Doochin
Tags: Decision Making, Leadership
Baby Morality
June 6th, 2010 by admin | No Comments | Filed in Ethical DevelopmentFrom Sigmund Freud to Jean Piaget to Lawrence Kohlberg, psychologists have long argued that we begin life as amoral animals.
Not So.
A growing body of evidence suggests that humans do have a rudimentary moral sense from the very start of life. As researchers at the Infant Cognition Center at Yale University demonstrate, you can see glimmers of moral thought, moral judgment and moral feeling even in the first year of life.
Tags: Ethical Development
The Upside of Irrationality
June 5th, 2010 by admin | No Comments | Filed in Decision Making, LeadershipEthical decision making models that have been developed invariably assume a conscious and rationale human actor. In my June 3rd post I challenged us to think about ethical approaches to non conscious leadership.In a recent interview on NPR, Dan Ariely , the author of “The Upside of Irrationality ” ,examines how our biases predispose us to make unwise decisions and explores how irrationality may help human beings achieve great things .
Tags: Decision Making, Leadership
Legal but Not Ethical
June 5th, 2010 by admin | No Comments | Filed in Business EthicsAs the recent Goldman Sachs episode vividly reminds us, just because something is not illegal does not mean it is right.
Tags: Business Ethics
The Application of Ethics to Nonconscious Leadership
June 3rd, 2010 by admin | No Comments | Filed in Decision Making, LeadershipConversations about ethical leadership, whether in academia or in applied business ethics,assume leadership to be conscious and purpose driven. Harry Spence*, of Harvard’s Kennedy School wonders how our discourse on leadership has only been marginally influenced by “the deepening realization of the impact of our nonconscious processes on our behaviour and decision making…In the absence of knowledge of our nonconscious internal dynamics, leaders regularly betray the very organizations they presume to lead.”
I believe it is time to review our current ethical approaches to assisting individuals and organizations. We should be considering what an ethical framework for Nonconscious leadership might look like.
*Read his full article at The Harvard Business Review
Tags: Decision Making, Leadership
