Ethics Challenges and Responses

In this edition of Ethics Challenges and Responses, the articles fall under the theme of “Vulnerability and Responsibility,” which is the theme of this year’s Presidential Colloquium. Per Institute Director, Dr. Wueste: it was chosen with an eye to alignment with the summer reading program for incoming freshmen. (This year incoming freshmen read The Iguana Tree, a novel written by Clemson alumna Michel Stone, which, she told the assembled freshman class, is about “hope and humanity.”) Colloquium events will explore the relationship between vulnerability, noting that we are all vulnerable in some measure, and responsibility, not in the sense that presupposes culpability, but in the sense of what one can be reasonably expected to do—what one's responsibilities are. The colloquium will also explore whether and to what extent the vulnerabilities of citizens entail societal responsibilities.

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ALL Integrity

Looking for a unique gift for that special customer, client, employee,family member or friend? What better way to acknowledge them than with a membership in the Rutland Ethics Alliance!

 

 

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Vol. 5, Issue 2

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From the Director

Dr. Daniel E. Wueste

Rana Plaza, an eight story building in Savar, a suburb of Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, collapsed on the 24^th of April.  The building was home to five garment factories and some 3,000 workers.  With a death toll of 1,127, the collapse of Rana Plaza is the deadliest accident in the history of the garment industry.  Sad to say, deadly accidents are nothing new to the garment industry, not only in Bangladesh (in November 2012, for instance, more than 100 garment workers perished in a fire at Tazreen Fashions also near Dhaka) but wherever the industry has flourished.

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Lessons for Leaders



Dr. John Knapp



In the past several months two members of our advisory board gave talks as part of the Presidential Colloquium series. The overall colloquium theme this year is “Adding Value: Exploring the Means and the End.” This month John Knapp, Director of the Frances Marlin Mann Center for Ethics and Leadership at Samford University spoke on “Why Democracies Fail: Leadership and The Struggle for The Common Good.”

Joe Erwin

Prior to that, Joe Erwin, president of Erwin Penland in Greenville, spoke in February on “Will Work for Food.” (scroll down to the third summary below John Knapp’s to read about Joe Erwin’s) We are grateful for their expertise and the generous giving of their time to the colloquium series.

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“Athletics’ Initiative to Promote Character”

I am sure you have heard athletes referred to as role models or you may confess to having a favorite athlete or team and avidly follow their exploits.  As a former teacher and coach on the high school level, then as a collegiate volleyball coach, and associate athletics director who supervised athletics teams, I wondered if we were adequately educating our teams on what responsibilities came with that title, “role model”.  This idea was a retrospective one that occurred after a long career in athletics, but also after the death of our precious daughter.  In trying to regain some normalcy in life, I realized that the lessons I had learned and taught in athletics gave me inner strength.  I realized that as a public figure, others would watch to see how I handled this tragedy in my life. Athletics had made me a public persona whether I chose that role or not.  Because I was looking for a second career after retirement and a way to heal a broken heart, an idea was then born that shaped a passion.

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What Does This Have to Do with My Career?

What does this have to do with my career? This is a question many professors face during the semester. It is hard for students who have never worked in a corporate environment to see the application of their classes to their life beyond Clemson. Ashley Cowden, Coordinator of Clemson’s Client-Based Program and Mike Dorsch, Professor of Marketing, are striving to answer this question in their interdisciplinary collaborative project with the Rutland Institute for Ethics (RIE).

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Ethics Challenges and Responses

The Paradox of Individualism

Dr. Stephen Satris

Mark S. Weiner has written a fascinating article in the Chronicle of Higher Education titled “The Paradox of Individualism” (Chronicle, April 1, 2013).  He begins with a quote from Ronald Reagan:  “As government expands, liberty contracts”; Reagan called this “as neat and predictable as a law of physics.”  Weiner points out the “the belief that the scope of individual freedom in any society stands in inverse relation to the power of its government is a central creed of modern conservative thought” – but Weiner goes on to include modern liberal thought, and then proceeds to show that this common assumption is incorrect.

He points out that a weak government is easily overrun by what he calls clans.  The paradigm clan is a blood-related group, like a family group, a racial group, or a social caste.  A strong modern government must defend the individual and individual rights against attack by clans.  Weiner sees clans as ever-present in human society, and ever-ready to seize any power they can from a weak government.

But his usage of the term “clan” is wider than a simple family group:  clans can be corporations, gangs, international coalitions and other social groups.  These social groups tend to fight for their own agenda, and not necessarily for the public good.  They can be threats to individual freedom.  The paradox of individualism is that we need a strong government to guard against clans, and the threat they present to individuals.

Moreover, we have now progressed to modern forms of government.  The threat to us now is not so much from particular elite families (although they still exist and exert their power even today)  but from the possible demise of our modern government in a postmodern world in which the clans assuming power are international militant groups, criminal syndicates, and transnational corporations.  Again, these groups have their own agendas, and they may not be in line with the public interest or the observance of individual rights.

One particular dynamic – which Weiner doesn’t mention but which I think is important – is the following.  Whereas some groups, such as the international terrorists or international criminal organizations, are known enemies to which the state is actively opposed, transnational corporations, on the other hand, are armed with a phalanx of lawyers, and influence the law itself, as well as government regulations, by means of lobbyists.  So they have a special hold on the law that governs us, whereas the terrorists and criminals are outside the law.  We know that we have to stand strong against clans like al-Qaeda and the Mafia.  But the clan of Wall Street seems to be able to escape scrutiny; our government does not seem able to keep this clan in check; this clan seems to have compromised the government.

Other actions stemming from related clans are not as well-known or as widely recognized as the real estate and financial collapse.  Corporations have quietly taken over much of higher education, for example, which sometimes seems to be little more than a giant placement center from which the workforce of corporations can be drawn.

The government has to be at least as strong as the clans from which it safeguards individuals.  As

Weiner says:

The most probable outcome of a radically diminished state is … neither a collection of empowered individuals liberated from the constraints of government nor a grand community of equality and solidarity.  Rather, it is a riven, fractured, unequal world in which both individuals and the larger public are sacrificed to the needs of clans of all sorts.

[READ THE ORIGINAL ARTICLE HERE]

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New at the top: He lost the job but kept his integrity

By Vanessa Small,  May 19, 2013 - The Washington Post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/new-at-the-top-he-lost-the-job-but-kept-his-integrity/2013/05/19/cf284124-be5f-11e2-9b09-1638acc3942e_story.html?wpisrc=emailtoafriend

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Redefining companies as real estate investment trusts can nearly — even completely — eliminate federal taxes

By NATHANIEL POPPER, April 21, 2013 - The Washington Post

http://nyti.ms/17GoGyx

“Though lucrative, changing from an ordinary corporation to an REIT to avoid taxes is ethically indefensible.” Dr. Daniel Wueste



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2013 Ethisphere Most Ethical Companies List

The 2013 Ethisphere Most Ethical Companies List is out. With a record 145 companies from over three dozen companies and 43 of the companies headquartered outside the United States, it is an impressive list indeed.

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Rutland Ethics Alliance

On a July1 through June 30 fiscal year? We are too! What perfect timing to begin or renew membership in the Rutland Ethics Alliance. We have levels from $5000 to $50 – something for every person or organization. And it is entirely tax deductible through the Clemson Fund. Become a valued member now!

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Vol. 5, Issue 1

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From the Director

Dr. Daniel E. Wueste

January 28, 2013, was the 50th anniversary of Harvey Gantt’s matriculation at Clemson University (then Clemson College) and thus of its desegregation.  As most people associated with Clemson know, The Saturday Evening Post called it “Integration with Dignity” .

Integration at Clemson was very different from the integration of other Southern universities, for example, the University of Alabama, the University of Georgia, or the University of Mississippi.  This was not because South Carolina was more favorably disposed to the idea of desegregation.   Far from it.  South Carolina law not only required segregation, the “State Budget and Control Board was authorized to close public colleges to prevent court-ordered desegregation.”  

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