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Examining ethics and compliance issues in business since 1987
A programmer figured out how to automate his job and work 2 hours a week—but he’s not sure it’s ethical
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By Julie Bort for Business Insider
Over the past week, programmers have been having a huge discussion on the ethics of secretly automating their jobs, after one of them posted a question about it on Stack Overflow, a self-help site for programmers. Read more |
When the boss wants you to do something unethical
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By Daniel Victor for The New York Times
Maybe you’re asked to mislead a customer. Maybe you’re told to lie to a client, or take a shortcut you know would produce an inferior product.
When your boss puts you in a situation that compromises your ethics, none of the options seem particularly great. Go along with the unethical behavior and you become complicit. Report it to a higher-up or outside organization and you could face retaliation. Read more |
The ethics issue: Should we make everyone ‘normal’?
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By Frank Swain for New Scientist
Imagine a pill or therapy capable of rewiring your neural circuitry so as to make you more empathetic: one that decreases aggression, and causes your capacity for moral reasoning and tendency to forgive to go through the roof. Wouldn’t the world be a better place if we were all encouraged to have it? In fact, if human happiness lay on the other side of a tablet, why not embrace utopia and prescribe it by force?
Such a scenario may not be as far away as you suppose. Technologies to read and manipulate thought patterns are growing. Elon Musk’s Neuralink project is attempting to establish direct communication between our brains and computers, while Kernel, a company in California, has invested $100 million to develop intelligence-boosting brain implants. Electric shocks delivered to the brain have been found to combat depression, and certain chemicals can help us make more moral decisions. Read more |
Dishonest job candidates fall to integrity tests
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By Gloria Gonzalez for Business Insurance
Independent university studies have demonstrated the value of integrity tests that screen for hostility, drug and alcohol abuse, theft and lying in the pre-employment phase. But these tests have yet to reach their full potential because of employer concerns about lawsuits, reducing their talent pools or the difficulty they have in breaking down risk management and human resources silos.
Retired psychology professor Peter Bullard of Portland State University in Oregon developed the integrity testing concept about 30 years ago after being approached by an employer experiencing trouble with employee theft. Read more |
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ethikos is a publication of the Society of Corporate Compliance and Ethics
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