In my last column I discussed the benchmark value of privacy — the critical importance of being left alone, uninvaded, unobserved by others. This is a benchmark value, not a luxury “add-on,” because it has to do with our basic humanity and health. All human beings must have some kind of privacy or their personalities …
Benchmark Ethics: Facilitate Human Relationships Read More »
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 …
Benchmark Ethics: Privacy and Association Are Not Optional Values Read More »
In the October 19, 1999, issue of InfoWorld, editor Sandy Reed discussed our Institute for Business, Technology, and Ethics. She did a nice job and we appreciate both the encouragement and the publicity. However, she began her column by saying that Al Erisman comes from the side that says that “technology is good” and that …
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 …
Openness is the companion virtue to loyalty (the subject of Benchmark Ethics 5). Openness (in individual character or organizational culture) is not the same thing as emptiness; it doesn’t mean abandoning everything. But a radical openness, anchored by loyalty to one’s core mission and values, is a critical component in a benchmark ethics. Open people …
Loyalty is not the only moral virtue in benchmark ethics. It can’t stand all by itself. Nevertheless, the case can be made that loyalty stands first among the virtues — both for personal character and for corporate culture. What is loyalty? Its etymology links it to “law.” Originally, “loyal” meant “lawful,” faithful to the law. …
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 …
Benchmark Ethics: Aligning Character, Rules, and Corporate Mission Read More »
By David W. Gill Ethics is about right and wrong, good and bad. But so is etiquette: there is a right and wrong way to set the table or greet a stranger, according to the rules of etiquette. So how is ethics to be distinguished from etiquette (or for that matter, from cooking, where there …
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 …
