At the Center

The Role of the Board in Ethics and Compliance

mschulman@scu.edu (Miriam Schulman) — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 01:53:19 PST

Three Silicon Valley businesspeople, who between them have sat on more than seven boards of directors talked with former Deputy General Counsel, U.S. Sentencing Commission Win Swenson about "Board Oversight of Compliance and Business Conduct Programs" at a recent program co-sponsored by the Ethics Center, the Bay Area Ethics and Compliance Association (BECA), and the Ethics and Compliance Officer Association (ECOA). Their discussion, now available on line, offers three very different perspectives on the role of audit committees and tone at the top.

Dealing Ethically With the Press

mschulman@scu.edu (Miriam Schulman) — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 02:18:36 PST

Whatever side one takes in the controversy over embattled Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and his affair with his chief of staff, Kilpatrick’s failure to tell the truth about his actions, especially under oath, has made his problems all the more serious. Kilpatrick was one of the “case studies” that participants in the Center’s third annual Ethics and Leadership Camp for Public Officials discussed, especially in reference to the best way for government to work with the meda. The group surfaced four basic guidelines for officials in dealing ethically with the press.
1)    Create a culture of accountability
2)    Tell the truth and tell it right away
3)    Recognize that a public official’s private life is not always private
4)    Don’t be stupid. Don’t make your city look stupid.

The Future of Compassion

mschulman@scu.edu (Miriam Schulman) — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 02:49:03 PST

Sr. Joan Steadman, center associate director of health care ethics, returned today from the Catholic Health Assembly in San Diego, which focused on "The Future of Compassion." Keynote speakers included:
Ray Kurzweil - inventor and futurist
John Allen, Jr. - senior correspondent for the National Catholic Reporter and a Vatican analyst for CNN and National Public Radio
Cokie Roberts - political commentator for ABC News and senior news analyst for National Public Radio,
Rachel Naomi Remen, MD, pioneer in the mind/body holistic health movement and the first to recognize the role of the spirit in health and recovery from illness

Sessions dealt with a variety of topics from managing uncompensated care to addressing childhood obesity. Sr. Joan was particularly impressed with the vision statement from the Catholic Health Association of the United States, which lays out the core values that should undergird health care reform: human dignity, common good, concern for the poor and vulnerable, stewardship, justice, and pluralism.

A visit from Vienna

mschulman@scu.edu (Miriam Schulman) — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 01:55:10 PST

Today, the Ethics Center welcomed a visit from Fred Bonkovsky of the University of Vienna Medical Faculty in Austria. Bonkosvsky, who did a 6-year stint as the head of the bioethics program at the NIH, talked with members of the Emerging Issues Group about what role centers and programs can play in creating and maintaining the ethical culture of an organization. We discussed whether ethical considerations impede the research process, and if so, whether that’s a bad thing.

Character Education Program for Teachers

mschulman@scu.edu (Miriam Schulman) — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 01:05:49 PST

Teachers in this week's Ethics Camp focused on ways to bring ethics into the classroom. Steve Johnson, Center director of character education and the architect of Ethics Camp, introduced participants to the basics, making presentations on moral development and on the heroic journey, with specific tools for teachers and parents. Center Director of Biotechnology and Health Care Ethics Margaret McLean did a presentation on science ethics, and Tom Kostic, Character-Based Literacy (CBL) Master Teacher, Orange County Department of Education, explained the Center's CBL curriculum.

Sex and the Soul

mschulman@scu.edu (Miriam Schulman) — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 02:04:46 PST

Donna Freitas, a Boston University professor of religion and author of "Sex and the Soul," discussed her research with the California Catholic Daily this week, and the headline gives a good summary of her findings about students at 7 American universities: "No connection between their religious beliefs and their sexual behavior."

SCU student and Hackworth Fellow Jessica Coblentz found a more nuanced situation at Santa Clara when she conducted research this year, with some students reporting no connection, but others hewing to the traditions of their faiths to varying degrees. Coblentz's study was accompanied by a series of panel discussions where students of different religions talked candidly about how faith plays into their sexual decision making.

Teachers Go to Camp

mschulman@scu.edu (Miriam Schulman) — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 12:38:37 PST

This summer marks the 10th year the Ethics Center will offer its summer workshops for educators, the popular Ethics Camps. Beginning June 17, teachers, counselors, and administrators will attend the first session, which focuses on the Character-Based Literacy Curriculum (CBL).

This curriculum is in widespread use—the majority of California county offices of education have adopted it—because it uses the books teachers are already assigning as opportunities to engage students about values. For example, Children of the River, a novel about a young Cambodian refugee, is used to teach high schoolers about courage.

Hundreds of teachers have gone through this introduction to CBL. Registration is still open.

Trouble at Deutsche Telekom

mschulman@scu.edu (Miriam Schulman) — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 01:35:49 PST

When news emerged this week that the largest European telecommunications company, Deutsche Telekom, had been spying on journalists and board members in an effort to plug boardroom leaks, many were reminded of the pretexting scandal at Hewlett Packard last year. Kirk Hanson, the Center's executive director, was interviewed by BBC's newshour and asked if the two scandals suggest a larger problem. He said:

I think that’s the conclusion that many will draw, that this is not just something which is done by a few companies, but it’s more common. Interestingly, both of these cases arose from distrust among board members. In the HP case, it was the belief that a couple of the board members were talking with journalists on the outside and sharing secret information from board meetings. It appears to be the same kind of anxiety within DT. Is that the only thing which provokes these types of investigations, that will be the provocative question. The other commonality which is very important here is that both organizations assigned the dirty work, if you want to call it that, the investigative procedures, to outside organizations. The connection with Stasi is obviously very inflammatory. In the US HP hired an investigator who was known to engage in borderline practices. And clearly in his investigation of the leak in HP he went beyond the bounds in the way he tried to get the information.

The Center's Emerging Issues Group continued to explore the issue this week, broadening the topic to look at various kinds of employee monitoring.

Student Fellows

mschulman@scu.edu (Miriam Schulman) — Fri, 30 May 2008 02:15:25 PST

One of the most pleasant tasks we perform each spring at the Ethics Center is interviewing Santa Clara University students applying for a Hackworth Fellowship. The fellowship program supports the work of seniors who develop programs to engage their fellow students in ethical reflection and action. Our applicants give us a great sense of hope about this new generation and their enthusiasm to solve problems and to live “the good life.”

The 2007-08 fellows are just completing their projects and deserve recognition for the terrific work they’ve done. Jessica Coblentz brought students together to discuss how faith informs (or doesn’t inform) SCU students’ sexual ethics. Her panels on topics such as premarital sex and homosexuality attracted large crowds and fostered honest, respectful discussion. She also interviewed students individually for a qualitative study of the issue.

Next week, Christopher Foster formally launches his project, a Web site called Cydent, which deals with the way students interact with the online world. His thoughtful commentaries on learning, entertainment, being, consumption, and relationships are coupled with video and news stories that raise the crucial ethical issues.

Finally, Roujin Mozaffarimehr lent her perspectives as a teaching assistant in the course, “The Ethics Of Globalization.” In addtion, she helped to organize two panel discussions on “Headscarves and Human Rights.”

Compliance Is Not Enough

mschulman@scu.edu (Miriam Schulman) — Wed, 28 May 2008 01:57:56 PST

It's no longer enough for a company to have an ethics and compliance program to satisfy U.S. Sentencing Commission guidelines, according to Michael E. Horowitz, currently a commissioner and a partner at Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft. The company has to have an effective program. It can’t be generic, but must be tailored to the particular ethical risk factors the company faces.

The value of such a program can be significant when a company gets in trouble, according to Horowitz. With mitigating factors such as a strong ethics program and plans to remedy problems, a company can receive a reduction in fines of up to 95 percent.

Horowitz introduced today’s program on “Cutting-Edge Issues in Compliance and Business Conduct,” co-sponsored by the Center, the Bay Area Ethics and Compliance Association, and the Ethics and Compliance officer Association

Cyber-Students and the Virtual Good Life

mschulman@scu.edu (Miriam Schulman) — Fri, 23 May 2008 01:36:13 PST

In an article called “Technology’s Power to Narrow Our View,” Time magazine reporter Samantha Power argues that new media such as the Web and social networking sites have “actually lowered the odds of bumping into inconvenient knowledge” by funneling visitors only to information in which they already have an interest or with which they already agree. She wonders what effect this will have on the new generation of students graduating this month from the nation’s universities.

SCU senior Chris Foster, a Hackworth Fellow at the Ethics Center this year, has also been interested in the way students interact with the online world. The fruit of his work, a Web site called Cydent: Cyber-Students and the Virtual Good Life, explores the impact of new technologies on learning, entertainment, consumption, relationships, and being.

Why Good People Do Bad Things

mschulman@scu.edu (Miriam Schulman) — Wed, 21 May 2008 01:55:13 PST

Center Executive-in-Residence Jim Balassone sat on a panel last week for the National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD), held at Wilson Sonsini in Palo Alto. The event focused on why good people sometimes do bad things at work. Jim talked about some of the systemic factors that can cause otherwise ethical people to engage in unethical behavior. For example, he cited pressure to “make your quota or be fired” as one factor that might cloud an employee’s ethical judgment. Instead, he recommended a values-based approach, which rewards employees for behaving ethically in addition to other performance measures. You can hear a summary of the discussion at the Web site of the Silicon Valley NACD.

Commencement Speakers

mschulman@scu.edu (Miriam Schulman) — Mon, 19 May 2008 02:18:12 PST

It being graduation season, this week has produced the usual complement of protests about commencement speakers. At University of Georgia, which was the site of several sexual harassment complaints, some students have objected to the University’s invitation to Justice Clarence Thomas. At George Washington University, some student protesters plan to turn their chairs away from the podium when Julian Bond delivers the commencement address. And the invitation to Jerry Springer from Northwestern Law School has drawn its share of ridicule.

The Center’s Emerging Issues Group discusses who should be invited to speak at commencement and whether this is a free speech issue in today’s podcast.

Wikipedia

mschulman@scu.edu (Miriam Schulman) — Fri, 16 May 2008 03:12:36 PST

The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that Wikipedia is considering offering a feature that would allow certain of its entries to be “frozen” in a form that has been vetted by experts. The Chronicle sites Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales saying,

“It could have a flag that says ‘This version is one that a committee has actually vetted,’” he said. “We’d still allow further editing, but if you really wanted a version that as of three months ago we had three Ph.D.‘s look at it, and they checked it off as being good, we may move in that direction.”

Such an alternative may respond to some of the concerns raised about the current Wikipedia editing model at last night’s panel discussion, “The World That Wikipedia Made,” cosponsored by the Ethics Center; the Center for Science, Technology, and Society (STS); and the High Tech Law Institute.

Presenter Pedro Hernandez-Ramos, associate director STS, talked about “information literacy” and expressed concern about whether students had sufficient sophistication to evaluate the quality of information on sites like Wikipedia. Carl Hewitt, emeritus in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT, described “collisions” between the current Wikipedia editing model and the traditional processes of the scientific community when they try to establish what is known about a field that requires expertise.

Napolitano on Immigration

mschulman@scu.edu (Miriam Schulman) — Mon, 12 May 2008 01:25:00 PST

Janet Napolitano is governor of a state that "has remained at the center of the nation's battle over illegal immigration this year, and especially during the past few weeks," according to an article in today's "Arizona Republic."

Napolitano talked about some of the ethical issues she faces in developing immigration policy for her state in a talk for the Ethics Center, "Where Do We Go From Here?" delivered as part of "Immigration Day" last month.

Nutrition and Hydration for Patients in a Permanent Vegetative State

mschulman@scu.edu (Miriam Schulman) — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 01:18:47 PST

Gerald Coleman, SS., vice president for corporate ethics at the Daughers of Charity Health System, and Margaret R. McLean, the Center's director of biotechnology and health care ethics gave a presentation this week on a 2004 allocution by Pope John Paul II about the rights of patients in a permanent vegetative state, and how that talk is affecting practice by individual Catholics and Catholic hospitals. In that talk, the Pope argued that nutrition and hydration "should be considered in principle ordinary and proportionate, and as such morally obligatory."

Responding to the question, "Has the Vatican changed the rules?" they focused on the difference between an understanding of nutrition and hydration as medical care or, as the Pope expressed it, "a natural means of preserving life, not a medical act."

Autonomy in the Physician-Patient Relationship

mschulman@scu.edu (Miriam Schulman) — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 01:20:11 PST

Neil Noesen, a Wisconsin pharmacist who was disciplined for refusing to dispense birth control pills, is taking his case to the Wisconsin Supreme Court “on the ground that the discipline violates his constitutionally protected right to express his religious beliefs,” according to an article in today’s Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Noesen, and other health care providers who object to performing procedures simply on the grounds that they are legal, were the subject of a recent talk for the Ethics Center by Chair of the President’s Council on Bioethics Edmund Pellegrino. Pellegrino discussed conflicts between patients’ autonomy and doctors’ autonomy and the general trend he sees in medicine away “from covenant to contract.”

Immigration and Amnesty

mschulman@scu.edu (Miriam Schulman) — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 12:52:02 PST

Immigration was in the news again today as members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus criticized the leadership for failing to take on comprehensive reform. The Ethics Center got a chance to look at the issue from a variety of perspectives during a full day of immigration events, April 24.

The featured speaker was Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano, who gave background on the employer sanctions legislation in her state and some of the other circumstances that have made her state the epicenter for the immigration debate.

One focus the day was the issue of amnesty, which many believe has been the sticking point in instituting a reasonable, comprehensive policy. An Ethics at Noon panel focused on that issue from a Catholic perspective provided by Kevin Appleby, director of the Office of Migration and Refugee Policy of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops and Erica Dahl-Bredine, Catholic Relief Services-Mexico country representative.

Appleby and Dahl-Bredine then joined a group of distinguished scholars and policy makers for a discussion of amnesty. Included in the group were representatives from Zoe Lofgren’s and Mike Honda’s offices, community organizations, and scholars from SCU, University of San Francisco, the Jesuit School of Theology. The group is crafting a statement on the amnesty issue.

Evil Traps for Good People

mschulman@scu.edu (Miriam Schulman) — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 02:57:12 PST

Philip Zimbardo, author of “The Lucifer Effect” met with the Center’s Business and Organizational Ethics Partnership today to talk about how some of his seminal work on evil, and the conditions that favor it, can be applied in a business context. A Stanford University professor of psychology, Zimbardo first attracted notice in 1971 with the “Prison Experiment,” in which average students descended into abuse when they were randomly assigned to be “guards” over other student “prisoners.” This work, as well as other studies of systems like Abu Ghraib prison, has led Zimbardo to identify systemic factors that make good people do bad things. Among these, he lists “starting the path toward the ultimate evil act with a small, insignificant first step” and “offering an ideology so big that a big lie provides justification for any means to be used to achieve the seemingly desirable, essential goal.”

The Pope's Talk at the UN

mschulman@scu.edu (Miriam Schulman) — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 12:47:31 PST

Eric Hanson, creator of the Religion, Ethics, and Politics in World Affairs section of the Center’s Web site, commented for Religion and Ethics Newsweekly on the Pope’s speech at the United Nations last week. Hanson focused on the Pope’s views on human rights and globalization, and discussed the role believers might play on the international scene:

“While secularism might have been the better political course for the West following the Thirty Years War, today's incredibly complicated global society can only escape its increasing economic stratification, multiplying civil conflicts, and environmental degradation with increased motivation and participation of all believers.”

Sexual Ethics

mschulman@scu.edu (Miriam Schulman) — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 04:12:51 PST

The Ethics Center has been privileged this year to work with Santa Clara University senior Jessica Coblentz mentoring her in a project on the way religion influences the sexual ethics of SCU students. Jessica, winner of one of the Center’s Hackworth Fellowships, has been interviewing students individually, as well as holding panel discussions on such issues as abortion, interfaith dating, and premarital sex—always coming at these hot button topics from the point of view of ethics and religion. She has drawn crowds of 80 students at a time and managed to involve them in serious discussion. Recently, she wrote about the project for “The Santa Clara,” the University’s student newspaper in an article exploring the diversity of views within the population of Catholic students. She also wrote an op-ed that concluded:

In response to the genuine ethical concerns I have heard in interviews and the student panel discussions I have facilitated with the Faith, Sex and Ethics Project this year, I would like to suggest that students start talking about sex seriously.

This is not to say that sex talk shouldn't be fun, but it should not compromise the hopes and expectations we have for one another. Our conversations contribute to the environment in which we must attempt to make ethical sexual choices.

Raising an Ethical Child

mschulman@scu.edu (Miriam Schulman) — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 02:34:31 PST

The Ethics Center Advisory Board got a taste of the Center’s parent education programs when Character Education Director Steve Johnson gave them a mini-presentation of his popular “Raising an Ethical Child” series at their quarterly meeting Tuesday. Pairing up for exercises in how to communicate with a teenager, Board members saw first hand how some parental tactics like eyeballing a child or giving too much advice may not be a good strategy for helping instill ethics. Johnson also gave practical tools young people can use when friends try to involve them in doing something wrong. Slides from this and other presentations in the series are available online.

Papal Visit

mschulman@scu.edu (Miriam Schulman) — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 02:32:17 PST

The pope’s visit to the United States was the focus of today’s Emerging Issues Group. Former group member Thomas Reese, S.J., spoke to Voice of America about the papal trip, commenting,

"His message is going to be that international relations should not just be governed by power and money - military power and money - but should be guided by ethical principles, by moral values. He is going to talk about the importance of working for justice and peace. I think he will repeat what [Pope] John Paul [the Second] said that there is no peace without justice and no justice without reconciliation. This is what he world needs on the international level - peace, justice and reconciliation - and that is going to be a strong message from him."

The Emerging Issues Group talked about what other ethical issues the pope might address, what role charisma should play in religious leadership, and Benedict's longterm interest in the pluralistic culture of the United States.

Health Care Ethics Internship

mschulman@scu.edu (Miriam Schulman) — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 12:43:33 PST

The Ethics Center is recruiting a new crop of undergraduate health care ethics interns for its eighth year of providing this unique program introducing students to the everyday ethical dilemmas facing medical professionals. Students shadow doctors, nurses, social workers, and chaplains at O’Connor Hospital in San Jose, as they confront issues from withdrawal of treatment to cross-cultural medicine and palliative care. The internships often help students clarify whether they want to pursue a career in the medical field.

The Private Lives of Public Officials

mschulman@scu.edu (Miriam Schulman) — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 11:19:50 PST

“It’s none of your business … that is something that is personal to my family. I’m sure there are things that are personal to your family that you don’t think are anyone else’s business either.”

That was Chelsea Clinton’s response to a question about her father’s relationship with Monica Lewinsky. Clinton’s comment, the second recent refusal to address this topic with questioners, is only one example of the age-old question: How much of the private lives of government officials should the public have the right to know about? The sexual exploits of former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer and Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick have been other recent instances. The Ethics Center’s Emerging Issues Group addressed those issues in a discussion led by the Center’s Senior Fellow in Government Ethics Judy Nadler.

Build. Plant. Grow.

mschulman@scu.edu (Miriam Schulman) — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 10:58:03 PST

The Sundays of Easter will find users of the Center’s “Build.Plant.Grow.” faith formation program pairing the lectionary readings for each week with the children’s books No Bad News, Josiah, Hold the Book, Zen Shorts, and Grandma Lena’s Big Ol’ Turnip. “Build. Plant. Grow.,” part of the Center’s Character Education Program, follows threads that pass through the Sunday readings, suggesting how we might live our daily lives as Christians at our best.

The program takes its name from a passage in Jeremiah:

Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat what they produce...multiply there and do not decrease. But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into
exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare, you will find your welfare.

The April overview is currently on-line, and weekly lesson plans will follow.

Charracter Education in Alternative Schools

mschulman@scu.edu (Miriam Schulman) — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 02:05:27 PST

According to a recent report from the California Drop-out Prevention Center, “Fewer than three quarters of California's students are graduating from high school, and in some areas, such as Los Angeles, the graduation rate is below 50 percent.” (reported in the Modest Bee) The highest percentage of drop-outs across the state is in the alternative schools.

The Ethics Center offers two different sessions of its popular summer program, Ethics Camp, for teachers, counselors, and administrators in alternative school settings. The 4-day workshop teaches educators how to integrate character education and literacy instruction.

Therapeutic Cloning

mschulman@scu.edu (Miriam Schulman) — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 01:14:33 PST

Reports today that therapeutic cloning successfully treated Parkinson's disease in mice make dialogue about the ethics of this practice ever more timely. The Center has participated with the Santa Clara University College of Arts and Sciences and the Center for Performing Arts in sponsoring a series of programs on stem cells and cloning. Coming up next in the series, April 3, is a production of Caryl Churchill’s play about cloning, “A Number.” That will be followed by a talk, April 7, “The Catholic Conscience, Bioethics, and the Public Square,” by the chair of the President’s Council on Bioethics, Dr. Edmund Pellegrino.

Creating a Culture of Ethics in Public Institutions

mschulman@scu.edu (Miriam Schulman) — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 09:04:13 PST

Judy Nadler, Center senior fellow in government ethics, has been traveling around the country encouraging public institutions in their efforts to create a culture of ethics and values. She addresses the Dallas, Texas, City Council April 2 on “Building Public Confidence.” Nadler was invited by the council and mayor to introduce “critical issues and national trends in government ethics” and to set the stage for the city to develop a sustainable, ongoing ethics program.

She visited Minneapolis in January to offer workshops for the League of Minnesota Cities and will speak about ethics with the Inspector General’s Office of the U.S. Department of the Interior in May.

University President an Advocate for Ethics

mschulman@scu.edu (Miriam Schulman) — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 12:56:33 PST

The announcement that Paul Locatelli, S.J., will step down next year as president of Santa Clara University to take on extended responsibility for Jesuit higher education worldwide was met with both pride and sadness at the Ethics Center.

Center Executive Director Kirk Hanson acknowledged the enormous role Locatelli has played in the Center’s development:

"In his 20 years as president and his many earlier years of service as a professor and VP Academic Affairs, Paul has been an unceasing advocate for applied and practical ethics. When he became president in 1988, he took the fledgling Center for Applied Ethics and built his vision of "Centers of Excellence" around it, raising the Center's importance on campus and in the community. He shepherded the Center as one of "his" projects, contributing significant seed funding from the university and his personal time and support.

"Under Paul's leadership, Santa Clara has become the very best place to do applied ethics. We are grateful for his leadership and for crafting the opportunity we all have to work with and through the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics. He has already suggested a number of ways we can reach out and serve a global need for applied ethics in cooperation with his new role. We trust our relationship with Paul will not end, but simply enter a new creative phase as he takes on his expanded global role."

Pharmaceutical Marketing

mschulman@scu.edu (Miriam Schulman) — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 02:20:41 PST

Pharmaceutical marketing has been in the news recently, as the Massachusetts legislature considers a bill to ban gifts from pharmaceutical companies to physicians. The influence of marketing, more than patient needs, on what doctors prescribe has been the subject of numerous recent studies--there is one reported today in Australia about antidepressants. Ethics Center Executive Director Kirk Hanson, who recently spoke with CEOs of hospitals, vendors, and service organizations at the Midwest Health Care Executive Summit, led a discussion on conflicts of interest in pharmaceutical and medical device prescription practices, at today's meeting of the Center's Emerging Issues Group. (Podcast)

Conflicts of Interest in the Medical Care Supply Chain

mschulman@scu.edu (Miriam Schulman) — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 02:26:23 PST

Center Executive Director Kirk Hanson just returned from Chicago where he addressed 20 CEOs of health care corporations gathered at the Midwest Health Care Executive Summit, sponsored by the Center for Corporate Innovation. Hanson talked with the CEOs, representing vendors, hospitals, service organizations, and insurers, about conflicts of interest in the medical care supply chain.

Hanson raised three main areas of ethical concern:

1) Companies designing devices or developing pharmaceuticals may take advantage of physician expertise and must compensate physicians for their services, but they must do so in a way that does not compromise physicians' ability to make clinical choices in the best interest of their patients.

2) Companies must distinguish between educating physicians about new products and marketing, which would inducements (from free pens to free trips) for physicians to use their products.

3) Throughout the sales process, companies must insure extensive transparency about all dollar flows so that providers (hospitals and clinics) can provide Medicare and other insurers with a clear accounting of all their costs.

Pandemic Influenza Ethics Tool

mschulman@scu.edu (Miriam Schulman) — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 03:00:54 PST

The primary ethical responsibility for communities confronting the possibility of a pandemic is to plan. Santa Clara County's Public Health Department is fulfilling that responsibility by creating Public Health Emergency Preparedness Toolkits, among which is an ethics tool created by Margaret R. McLean, the Ethics Center's bioethics director. The tool looks at issues like the fair distribution of scarce resources, restraints on freedom of movement, and transparency in planning.

Stem Cells

mschulman@scu.edu (Miriam Schulman) — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 12:46:47 PST

Is the ethical controversy over the development of medical therapies from stem cells justified by promising science? That was the question tackled by Jan Nolta, director of the UC Davis Stem Cell Program, at an Ethics at Noon presentation (podcast) yesterday for the Center. Nolta noted that the ethical issues cluster in three areas:

Basic questions about the morality of using embryonic stem cells

Over-hyping, with researchers and others sometimes raising unrealistic expectations about what stem cell medicine can accomplish and how soon it will be available

Outright quackery, including offshore, non-FDA approved treatments that exploit the desperation of patients and their families.

Nolta’s presentation, a clear description of the potential of stem cell therapies, is part of a series, Science and Health Horizons, which, this year, is looking at stem cells and human cloning from a variety of different perspectives.

Can Politicians and Lobbyists Be Friends?

mschulman@scu.edu (Miriam Schulman) — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 02:34:44 PST

Weighing in on the recent public debate over the role of lobbyists in political campaigns, the Center’s Emerging Issues Group talked today about conflicts of interest and the appearance of such conflicts when politicians have close personal ties with those who appear before them to advocate for particular interest groups. Center Senior Fellow in Government Ethics Judy Nadler began by framing why lobbying raises ethical issues, and the group, representing disciplines from business to law to political science to philosophy, looked at fairness, transparency, and how the common good might best be served. Listen to the podcast of that discussion.

A Failure to Communicate

mschulman@scu.edu (Miriam Schulman) — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 09:44:34 PST

Two weeks ago, USA Today published an article, “Medicine Meets a Culture Gap,” that described some of the miscommunication that can arise when physicians do not understand the culture and traditions of their patients. Sixty-nine comments later, it’s clear that this issue sits near the frontline of America’s continuing conflicts over race, culture, immigration, and assimilation.

The article opens with an anecdote about a 90-year-old African American woman who objected to her physician’s calling her by her first name. While some commentators saw the incident as trivial, and others believed it had nothing to do with race, the article went on to describe how the accretion of such misunderstandings can result in poor care.

The Ethics Center has been involved in a major project on culturally competent health care. A new case—Cancer: A Failure to Communicate—shows how an Iranian man’s care is compromised by his health care providers’ failure to understand his religious traditions.

Who is Responsible for Doping?

mschulman@scu.edu (Miriam Schulman) — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 11:23:40 PST

With Roger Clemens potentially facing a criminal investigation for lying to Congress about his alleged steroid use, the issue of doping in sports continues to grab headlines. The Center’s Emerging Issues Group discussed whether the ethical focus should be on wrongdoing by individuals like Clemens—whose status as role models may influence young players to use drugs—or on institutions that are not sufficiently proactive in fighting abuse because they have a vested interest in the teams’ success. The Mitchell report, which advocated more testing and more independence for the program administrator, is currently under discussion between the players’ union and the owners, though an Associated Press report has union general counsel Michael Weiner saying, “The current program is working fine.”

In his talk last weekend for the Ethics Center, three-time Tour de France winner Greg LeMond spoke out about the role of the teams themselves in promoting doping among cyclists, who, he said, are sometimes told they must use substances like EPO if they wish to compete.

The Role of Lobbyists

mschulman@scu.edu (Miriam Schulman) — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 01:28:25 PST

Reports this week that John McCain may have had too close a friendship with lobbyist Vicki Iseman have raised the larger question of the part lobbyists should play in the campaign and in the political process as a whole. An article in today’s Washington Post points out:

A common career path for political operatives is a lucrative job at a Washington lobbying firm that allows them to continue campaign work, and McCain is hardly the first candidate to draw on that talent pool. The campaign of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) has been aided by lobbyists Harold Ickes and Mark Penn, who heads Burson Marsteller Worldwide. Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) has been advised by former senator Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.), who is not a registered lobbyist but advises clients about Washington.

In McCain's case, the fact that lobbyists are essentially running his presidential campaign -- most of them as volunteers -- seems to some people to be at odds with his anti-lobbying rhetoric.

For a basic discussion of lobbying and why it poses ethical problems, look at the Center’s Introduction to Government Ethics. You’ll find definitions, cases, and useful links.

The Cheating Culture

mschulman@scu.edu (Miriam Schulman) — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 02:59:31 PST

Author David Callahan, author of The Cheating Culture, gave SCU students, faculty, and staff, and members of the larger community some new ways of looking at academic integrity through a day-long series of talks and meetings yesterday, including a public lecture on the many forms cheating can take. Callahan is the co-founder of the think tank, Demos, a public policy center based in New York City. He is a frequent commentator on American history, business, and public policy for media outlets from CNN to the New York Times.

Doping in Cycling

mschulman@scu.edu (Miriam Schulman) — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 11:36:08 PST

Greg LeMond, who will speak on ethics and cycling at Santa Clara this Sunday at 6 p.m., gave an interview to San Jose Mercury News sports columnist Ann Killion, which appeared in this morning’s paper. LeMond commented on recent doping scandals—including the announcement this week that Astana (the new team of last year's winner Alberto Contador and reigning Tour de California champion Levi Leipheimmer) will be banned from the 2008 Tour de France because of doping. He argued that ultimately the scandals will be good for the sport because they will force drastic changes. To hear more from LeMond in person, come to the Sunday event, which is free and open to the public.

Tangled Web: The Ethics of Newspapers Online

mschulman@scu.edu (Miriam Schulman) — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 03:36:54 PST

The Center played host today to members of the American Society for Newspaper Editors Ethics and Values Committee conferring on the ethical challenges posed by the online portions of their businesses. A working session facilitated by the Kelly McBride, Ethics Group leader at the Poynter Institute for Media Studies.

Drawing on input from the editors, online media staff, and journalism professors in attendance, McBride identified several key areas around which the group was tasked with developing principles, questions, and protocols. In the area of “User Generated Content,” for example, she asked the group to reflect on a column by San Francisco Chronicle writer CW Nevius.

After arguing that the city needed to do something about homeless people’s “inappropriate street behavior,” Nevius appended this request for user-generated content: Chronicle readers often write us about scenes on the street or vagrants camping out in front of their homes. If you see something you think would make a good photo, shoot it and send it to cwnevius@sfchronicle.com with your name and a line describing the location attached. We'll post many of your photos on sfgate.com."

While the Chronicle ended up not running any of the pictures it received in response, the story prompted discussion at the ASNE conference about the ethics of such a request: Does it encourage public dialog on the problem? Does it violate the privacy of the homeless? How would the newspaper determine the “truthfulness” of submitted photos?

The meeting, organized by the Center’s Media Ethics Fellow Jerry Ceppos, now dean of the journalism school at University of Nevada, Reno, was co-sponsored by Poynter, the Annenberg School for Communications at the University of Southern California, and the Knight Foundation. A report on the conference is planned for the ASNE journal, “The American Editor,” to provide some guidance for editors facing these issues.

Culturally Competent Health Care

mschulman@scu.edu (Miriam Schulman) — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 03:25:10 PST

Discovering that your unborn child has a fetal abnormality is hard enough. But it’s doubly hard when you don’t speak the same language or come from the same culture as your physician. That’s exactly the predicament described in a new case about a Muslim family in an American hospital developed by Center Health Care Ethics Program Specialist Karen Peterson-Iyer. The case, and comments by Muslim scholars, are part of a broader project on culturally competent health care that the Center is developing.

Apologies and Regrets

mschulman@scu.edu (Miriam Schulman) — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 01:43:33 PST

“It’s time to acknowledge the past” was the headline of an op-ed in this morning’s Sydney Herald by Peter Garrett, Australian federal minister for the environment, heritage and the arts. He was referring to the the motion Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is expected to deliver in Australia’s parliament tomorrow, apologizing to the nation’s Aborigines for past policies of removing Aboriginal children from their families.

The Ethics Center’s Emerging Issues Group discussed the issue today with Frank Brennan, S.J., professor of law in the Institute of Legal Studies at the Australian Catholic University and professor of human rights and social justice at the University of Notre Dame. Brennan is an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) for services to Aboriginal Australians, particularly as an advocate in the areas of law, social justice, and reconciliation.

Brennan, who served as rapporteur at the 1997 Reconciliation Convention, has worked extensively on this issue. In a recent article for The Age, he advocated a parliamentary resolution that

1. Acknowledges that past mistreatment of indigenous Australians is the most blemished chapter in our national history.

2. Says sorry to indigenous Australians for past injustices, especially the forcible and unwarranted removal of children from their families, homes and country, and for the hurt and trauma still suffered as a consequence of those injustices.

3. Reaffirms reconciliation as a national priority, an essential step in restoring the dignity of all Australians.

4. Notes the apologies made to indigenous Australians by state and territory parliaments.

5. Asks all governments to negotiate with indigenous Australians to right the wrongs of the past so that Australians can move forward, owning our past and shaping a reconciled future.

Brennan asked the Emerging Issues Group their views on the difference between an apology and an expression of regret, which has been a sticking point in Australia. The discussion explored what it means to be accountable for past injuries as a nation as opposed to taking individual responsibility.

Academic Freedom

mschulman@scu.edu (Miriam Schulman) — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 02:11:57 PST

The controversy at St. Louis University over pro-choice comments by basketball coach Rick Majerus was a jumping off point for a recent talk by Robert M. O'Neil, professor of law emeritus at University of Virginia School of Law and director of the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression. O’Neil explored both academic freedom at religiously affiliated universities and religious freedom at public universities. A former chair of the American Association of University Professors’ Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure, O’Neil described issues that have arisen at institutions from Brigham Young to UC-Bekeley.

Stock Options Backdating

mschulman@scu.edu (Miriam Schulman) — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 10:56:58 PST

Prison sentences and fines totaling millions of dollars were handed down in January to executives found guilty of backdating stock options. Some have found it difficult to understand what all the fuss is about, arguing that backdating is a victimless crime. An editorial today in Investment News explains why that is not the case. Tomorrow, the Center is sponsoring a discussion of the ethical and accounting challenges posed by backdating. Center Executive Director Kirk Hanson and Ernst & Young partner Rick Fezell will speak.

Race and Gender in the Presidential Campaign

mschulman@scu.edu (Miriam Schulman) — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 02:25:17 PST

Today’s LA Times features an op-ed by Democratic pollster Mark Mellman, "Can a woman or a black man win?" The Center’s Emerging Issues Group looked at this issue from a different angle in our weekly meeting: Should race and gender play any role in a voter’s decision? What about considerations of “electability”? Is it ethical to decline voting for the person you feel would be the best president if you also feel that gender or race might make others disinclined to vote for that candidate? And, while these questions confront only Democratic voters in the primaries, how will race and gender play in the general election, especially considering the history of some Republican campaigns, which, by the admission of Republican National Committee Chair Ken Mehlman in 2005, have sometimes exploited racial strife to court white voters? The Emerging Issues Group's discussion included a variety of viewpoints from faculty, staff, and visiting scholars.

Kouzes on Leadership

mschulman@scu.edu (Miriam Schulman) — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 01:17:34 PST

Leadership and values were on the agenda of the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority Board of Directors Summit today, as Jim Kouzes, author of the bestselling book The Leadership Challenge, kicked off a joint project with the Ethics Center to provide workshops for top leadership at the VTA. Kouzes, who is also an executive fellow at the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at SCU’s Leavey School of Business, will work with the board to create a leadership vision. The Ethics Center’s senior fellow in government ethics, Judy Nadler, will provide further training throughout the spring.

Business and Organizational Ethics Partnership

mschulman@scu.edu (Miriam Schulman) — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 12:28:24 PST

Executives from companies as diverse as Hewlett Packard, Affymetrix, and Catholic Healthcare West came together with faculty scholars this week for the quarterly meeting of the Business and Organizational Ethics Partnership. They were briefed by Stephan Rothlin, S.J., general secretary of the Center for International Business Ethics in Beijing, on new laws protecting Chinese workers’ rights and other developments affecting companies that want to do ethical business in China. Continuing the focus on issues in global business ethics was Gerald Cavanagh, S.J., Fisher Chair of Business Ethics, University of Detroit Mercy, who is a visiting fellow at the Ethics Center this quarter. The partners also heard from Morrison Foerster partner Darryl Rains and Center Executive Director Kirk Hanson on the role and responsibility of corporate gatekeepers, an issue the two had addressed at a seminar this fall at Morrison Foester in Palo Alto.

Affirmative Action vs. Equality of Opportunity

mschulman@scu.edu (Miriam Schulman) — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 07:24:26 PST

Noted philosopher Robert Audi shared some reflections with SCU faculty on the challenge for liberal democracy posed by the sometimes conflicting approaches of affirmative action and equality of opportunity. Audi created a framework for examining the issues in a business context, identifying the main types of affirmative action, the rationales offered for affirmative action programs, and some of the difficulties hiring preferences may create. He also offered alternatives.

Audi is the David E. Gallo Professor of Business Ethics in the Department of Philosophy at Notre Dame University. His talk drew from work he did for his forthcoming book Business Ethics and Ethical Business, (Oxford University Press). Currently Audi is a visiting scholar at the Ethics Center.

Information Overload

mschulman@scu.edu (Miriam Schulman) — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 02:31:59 PST

In a discussion of the Indian Gaming Initiatives on the California ballot, the Center’s Emerging Issues Group wound up talking about the much broader question of which issues ought to be decided by representative government and which by direct democracy. An LA Times editorial endorses the initiatives based largely on the fact that they represent compacts already negotiated with the tribes and approved by the legislature and governor, In other words, they see this as an issue best left in the hands of the people we have elected to make public policy for us. Other papers, like the Woodland, Calif., Daily Democrat urge Californians to reject the initiatives, arguing that the legislature and the governor got it wrong. We went on to discuss how difficult it is to exercise prudence when the issues are complex, and, in this “information age,” whether any individual citizen can truly understand any but a few narrow areas sufficiently to engage in responsible policy making about them.

An Expert in American Business Values

mschulman@scu.edu (Miriam Schulman) — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 11:21:59 PST

Gerald Cavanaugh, S.J., the Charles T. Fisher III Chair of Business Ethics at University of Detroit, Mercy, is visiting scholar this quarter at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics. In addition to teaching an ethics class in the SCU Leavey School of Business Executive MBA program, Cavanaugh will be working on the sixth edition of his American Business Values: A Global Perspective. The book examines how those values are influencing people throughout the world, and how American values are, in turn, being influenced by other peoples.

Greenhouse Gas Emissions

mschulman@scu.edu (Miriam Schulman) — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 01:18:42 PST

California took the federal Environmental Protection Agency to court this month to prevent the agency from blocking the state’s greenhouse gas emissions regulations. According to an article in the New York Times, “The environmental agency broke with decades of precedent last month and denied California a waiver to move forward with its proposed limits on vehicular emissions of heat-trapping gases like carbon dioxide. In a statement announcing the lawsuit, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said, ‘It is unconscionable that the federal government is keeping California’ from adopting new standards.”

This coming week, the Ethics Center will sponsor a discussion on this topic: Rights, Responsibility, and Regulatory Choices: How Should California Achieve Its Greenhouse Gas Reduction Goals?

Panelists will be Lee S. Friedman, Professor of Public Policy, The Richard and Rhoda Goldman School of Public Policy, University of California at Berkeley, and William Sundstrom, professor of economics at SCU and a scholar of the Ethics Center. Sundstrom has addressed the issue of global warming at a previous Ethics at Noon on climate change and intergenerational justice.

Ethics and Leadership in Local Government

mschulman@scu.edu (Miriam Schulman) — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 02:57:14 PST

Center Senior Fellow in Government Ethics Judy Nadler and SCU Education Professor and Somatic Leadership Coach Elizabeth Day just returned from a directing a session “Building Public Confidence: Everyday Ethics for Minnesota Elected Officials” a program of the League of Minnesota Cities. The two-day workshop, which addressed topics from creating dialogue to using the Center’s Framework for Ethical Decision Making, drew on Nadler’s Introduction to Government Ethics. Elected officials and city administrators interested in this kind of program can sign up for the summer’s Ethics and Leadership Camp for Public Officials in June.

Digital Games

mschulman@scu.edu (Miriam Schulman) — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 03:03:13 PST

Many of us with children worry about the amount of time they spend playing video and computer games and what those games are teaching them. Two of the Ethics Center’s scholars from Santa Clara University’s Communication Department, Chris Bachen and Chad Raphael, are offering an Ethics at Noon presentation Feb. 23 on how games might be structured to encourage ethical, as well as strategic, thinking. Bachen’s research focuses on the use of media by young people and families. Raphael is particularly interested in gender and technology design. The event is free and open to the public.

Respecting Copyright

mschulman@scu.edu (Miriam Schulman) — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 12:38:20 PST

Today we received an e-mail from a staff writer on a high school newspaper with this request:

I'm currently working on a story about Benazir Bhutto and was wondering if I could use the portrait of her that is on your site. Thank you so much.

Michael Collopy, the wonderful photographer who created all of the images in the Architects of Peace section of our site, is extremely generous in granting permission for this kind of nonprofit use of his images. But an amazing number of photo editors, bloggers, and other publishers don’t even bother to make a request. We see Collopy’s images of Bhutto, Gorbachev, Yunus, Menchu, and others posted on other sites that have never contacted us. Perhaps people think differently about images than they do about text, not realizing that a picture is as much a person's individual intellectual property as a piece of writing.

Gifts and Bribes

mschulman@scu.edu (Miriam Schulman) — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 02:58:48 PST

The Center’s Advisory Board often begins its meetings by reviewing real-world ethical cases. This week, Jim Balassone, the Center’s executive-in-residence, led a discussion of several business ethics scenarios including this one:

A supplier sends a basket of expensive foodstuffs to your home at Christmas with a card: “We hope you and your family enjoy the goodies.” What action(s) might you want to take?

The board, many of whom come from the business sector, discussed the policies at their respective companies on gift acceptance, which usually only allow small gifts of minor value. They also talked about some of the cross-cultural issues when the company does business in a country where refusing a gift can be construed as insulting.

Judy Nadler, the Center’s senior fellow in government ethics, has also looked at this issue recently in the public context, with an op-ed in the San Jose Mercury News, which she updated for the Ethics Center Web site.

Informed Consent

mschulman@scu.edu (Miriam Schulman) — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 01:18:57 PST

A conversation about privacy on the popular social networking site Facebook led the Center’s Emerging Issues Group to a larger discussion about the notion of informed consent. How many Facebook users, most of whom are in the 17-25 age group, understand that when they accept the site’s default privacy settings, they are making their profiles available to large networks—in the case of the UCLA network, for example, to 50,400 people?

The issue of informed consent extended to another topic in the news—sub-prime mortgages. Again, how many borrowers truly understood the risks they were assuming? And even more broadly, how many of us read the user agreements we routinely accept that allow us to use Web sites, get medical care, or take out a credit card?

An article in the Nation on the Facebook issue recommends that Congress simply “require social networking sites to display their broadcasting reach prominently when new users post information. Just as the government requires standardized nutrition labels on packaged food, a privacy label would reveal the ‘ingredients’ of social networking. For example, the label might tell users: ‘The photos you are about to post will become Facebook’s property and be visible to 150,000 people—click here to control your privacy settings.”

That kind of simple, clear language might help in a variety of complex settings where we routinely give consent to conditions we may not fully understand.

Mandatory HPV Vaccination

mschulman@scu.edu (Miriam Schulman) — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 04:55:41 PST

Should the HPV Vaccine Be Legally Required for All Female Teenagers? Santa Clara University Senior Lecturer in Philosophy Larry Nelson will take on that question at an upcoming Ethics at Noon Presentation January 17. The key issues are well-outlined on the American Public Health Association Web site in an abstract of a Nov. 2007 panel they sponsored: Ethical issues regarding HPV vaccine legislation. The vaccine protects against a sexually transmitted disease that is known to contribute to cervical cancer. Individual parents have reservations about the safety of the vaccine and whether it is appropriate to give it to young girls (11 or 12-year-olds), most of whom are not yet even thinking about sexual activity. Yet, public health benefits of widespread inoculation may outweigh these individual concerns. Join us for an exploration of what is at stake.

The Health Care Debate

mschulman@scu.edu (Miriam Schulman) — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 02:01:34 PST

During the weekend’s presidential debates, the story of Nataline Sarkisyan, a 17-year-old California girl who died recently while waiting for a liver transplant, became a point of contention between Senators Edwards and Clinton. The Center’s Emerging Issues Group looked more closely today at Sarkisyan’s case, which raises many of the toughest ethical issues facing anyone trying to reform the nation’s health care system. Sarkisyan’s insurer, Cigna, originally refused to cover the transplant because they said it was experimental. In response, according to an editorial in the Houston Chronicle, “the surgical director of UCLA's Pediatric Liver Transplant Program and other leading transplant physicians called on CIGNA to reverse its decision, noting that the planned procedure was not experimental and that a majority of patients in her situation would have a 65 percent chance of surviving at least six months.” Both sides of the health care debate seem unwilling to confront the really difficult questions: What makes a treatment experimental? If we create a system of universal coverage, can we afford to provide every American with therapies that offer a 65 percent chance of surviving six months? Who will make these decisions, and on what basis?

Religion and the Race for the Presidency

mschulman@scu.edu (Miriam Schulman) — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 02:37:11 PST

As the presidential race heats up, so does the conversation about the place of religion in political campaigns. That was the subject of this week’s Emerging Issues Group podcast, a discussion kicked off by Campus Ethics Director David DeCosse, who has been teaching a class on Christianity and politics. Jumping off from Mitt Romney’s recent remarks, DeCosse asked the question, “Is religious freedom also the freedom not to believe?” Center Executive Director Kirk Hanson urged a focus not so much on religion but on values. “The challenge,” he said, “is to have our own religious beliefs inform our moral judgments and policy decisions without seeing our own religion as he only legitimate source of belief.”

Teaching Values

mschulman@scu.edu (Miriam Schulman) — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 02:00:40 PST

The Center’s Character-Based Literacy Program has been embraced by the majority of California’s county offices of education in part because it does not approach character education as an isolated subject to be tacked onto the regular curriculum. Instead, it integrates teaching values with teaching language arts, science, and social studies, using the recommended reading lists teachers must draw from. In a lesson plan on the high school English book Children of the River, students are asked to reflect on and write about how the main character exhibited courage in escaping from Cambodia and starting a new life in the United States. “ What obstacles or emotions did she have to overcome? What risks did she have to take? What was difficult that she continued to do anyway?” Teachers and districts can sign up for access to lesson plans for next year. More sample plans and information are available online.

How You Can Help

mschulman@scu.edu (Miriam Schulman) — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 03:20:35 PST

This blog gives you a flavor of daily life at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics. If the activities we do—from research on how to encourage whistle blowing to training on pandemic ethics; from Ethics and Leadership Camp for Public Officials to the creation of character-based curricula in language arts, science, and social studies—intrigue you, consider making a gift to the Ethics Center. “How You Can Help” gives information on how we put gifts to work and provides access to Santa Clara University’s online giving site.

Privacy and Facebook

mschulman@scu.edu (Miriam Schulman) — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 02:30:10 PST

The controversy generated by Facebook and its online advertising system Beacon was the focus of this week’s Emerging Issues in Ethics meeting. When Facebook rolled out the Beacon system, it did two things by default: 1) It tracked when users visited companion retail sites and reported that information to the sites, and 2) it sent information about retail purchases to the Facebook members Facebook friends. Although the company did let users know they would need to opt out of this system if they didn’t want their purchasing habits publicized, many users (like many of us who receive privacy notices from doctors, banks, and other institutions) didn’t pay much attention until their spouse found out about the surprise Christmas gift they had purchased. Then there was a storm of protest. Although Facebook has since apologized for this policy and reversed it, as Pam Dixon, executive director of World Privacy Forum, told Computerworld: “This Facebook debacle is in one way very good because it shows people just what is happening. There are other sites and other places where very similar data arrangement exist, but it is all happening under the radar.” The Emerging Issues group discussed how privacy becomes an ethical issue, including people’s right to control who has access to their personal information. While each person has a different degree of comfort about what information is shared and with whom (some are more sensitive to incursions from marketers; some worry more about government access to private information), there was general agreement that companies must take more care to make sure users understand privacy policies. Ultimately, diminishing the users’ faith in the trustworthiness of the social network is not only bad ethics but also bad business.

Ethical Issues in Biotechnology

mschulman@scu.edu (Miriam Schulman) — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 10:06:57 PST

Should race be considered in the development of pharmaceuticals? Should all fetuses be tested for potentially life-threatening genetic disorders? What should informed consent look like in Phase 1 clinical trials, which may have no benefit for patients? These and other questions in bioethics were the focus when students in the SCU "Bioetechnology and Ethics" presented posters for guests here in the atrium outside the Ethics Center. The interdisciplinary course was created by Center Director of Biotechnology and Health Care Ethics Margaret McLean and Associate Professor of Biology Leilani Miller. McLean gave a presentation on their pedagogical approach at last year’s annual meeting of the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities.

What is Ethics?

mschulman@scu.edu (Miriam Schulman) — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 10:55:28 PST

In 1987, the Center published an article, "What is Ethics?" by then-Center Director Manuel Velasquez and others. That article is now the Number 1 site on both Google and Yahoo for the search terms "what is ethics." The article is also one of our most popular in terms of reprint requests. It remains a concise, clear introduction to both what ethics is and what it is not.

Research Ethics

mschulman@scu.edu (Miriam Schulman) — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 03:10:20 PST

Center Scholar Dale Larson, professor of counseling psychology at SCU, has alerted us to the perverse way in which an error in analysis of studies on grief counseling has proliferated in the popular press and discouraged people who need help from seeking it. An article in Newsweek, Get Shrunk at Your Own Risk, cites the statistic that 4 in 10 people would have been better off without grief counseling, although the author spoke with Larson, who told her that the data was from an unpublished dissertation whose methodology was examined and dismissed by a post-hoc review of the statistical procedure by the American Psychological Association. Despite this, the erroneous claim found its way into the plot of an episode of "Boston Legal," further disseminating the misinformation. Larson raises the question of the ethical responsibility of media in perpetuating discredited ideas.

The Limits of Direct Democracy

mschulman@scu.edu (Miriam Schulman) — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 12:57:00 PST

In a discussion of the recall threat facing San Jose Councilmember Madison Nguyen, the Center's Emerging Issues Group talking about whether there should be limits to the kind of citizen democracy enabled by California's initiative, referendum, and recall processes. Some of Nguyen's constituents are unhappy with her decision in a debate over the designation of their neighborhood as either "Little Saigon" or "Saigon Business District" and are threatening to mount a recall campaign. Whatever the merits of their case, is this the kind of issue that rises to the level of requiring a recall? This prompted a larger discussion about representative democracy and what alternatives we have when policy decisions go against us.