Essay

Benchmark Ethics: Privacy and Association Are Not Optional Values

Two benchmark ethical values that deserve our careful attention today are privacy and association. These two are conceptually related: privacy is about being left alone — association is about being allowed together. These are critically important benchmark values — not eccentric options or luxuries — because they have to do with the very core of …

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Benchmark Ethics: Responsibility

Irresponsibility is an epidemic in our era. Too many individuals and organizations deny, ignore, or evade responsibility for their actions. In all sectors, irresponsibility is rising — blaming others, excusing oneself, and telling everyone else to buzz off. The high profile cases are troubling, of course (Presidents Nixon and Clinton, the Challenger space disaster, the …

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Benchmark Ethics: Aligning Character, Rules, and Corporate Mission

By David W. Gill Many of our contemporaries think that ethics is only about rules, especially ones telling us what not to do. The pejorative terms “legalistic” and “moralistic” capture the worst of this impression. What good are rules? Their main virtues are clarity and specificity. An ethics statement might be precise: “Do not refer …

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Benchmark Ethics: The Ethics of Mission Control

By David W. Gill A “benchmark ethics” for today’s world of business and technology targets the highest (not the lowest) common denominator set of moral values. In Benchmark Ethics, Issue 1 (“Finding a Common Standard,” IBTE Bulletin, October 1998), I argued that we will recognize such a benchmark ethics when we see it, much the …

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