Architects Talking Ethics #3: I’m confused: Where can I get answers to the ethical questions that come up in my practice?; The Architect's Newspaper, June 3, 2024

Victoria Beach, Peggy Deamer, Tom Fisher  , The Architect's Newspaper; Architects Talking Ethics #3:

I’m confused: Where can I get answers to the ethical questions that come up in my practice?

"This is the third entry in Architects Talking Ethics, an advice column that intends to host a discussion of the values that architects embody or should embody. It aims to answer real-world ethical questions posed by architects, designers, students, and professors.

We, as the three initial authors of this column, think the profession is way behind in how it addresses ethics. We think architects should explore our own ethics with the breadth and depth that other fields have done for a long time...

Architectural practitioners sometimes confuse ordinary ethics or business ethics with professional ethics. Ordinary ethics considers how we all should treat one another, while business ethics deals with the conflicts that can arise when balancing your company’s interests and those of your employees against those of clients. Both of these are incredibly important. However, in the world of professional ethics, where “professional” indicates those licensed to perform defined activities by the state, the first consideration is one’s duty to the public. Architects, in other words, have fiduciary responsibilities to clients and employees, professional obligations to colleagues and the discipline, and, like all professions, an overriding responsibility to the public.

Our profession’s codes of ethics as outlined by the American Institute of Architects (AIA, which again regulates only those architects volunteering to be members of its organization), however, are less than clear about the order of those obligations."

BYU professors create ethics field guide to help US special forces; KSL.com, February 23, 2021

 Dan Rascon, KSL.com; BYU professors create ethics field guide to help US special forces

"The U.S. special forces are getting help from two Brigham Young University professors to deal with critical ethical dilemmas.

The professors teach business ethics, and they never dreamed they would be called upon to help with top military operations...

Several years ago the two professors wrote a book called "The Business Ethics Field Guide" — a guide that breaks down common ethical dilemmas into 13 categories. Never did they think a top military official would come across this book and want to adapt it for U.S. special forces."

Brands, T-shirt makers line up to trademark coronavirus pandemic; USA Today, April 7, 2020

Nick Penzenstadler, USA Today; Brands, T-shirt makers line up to trademark coronavirus pandemic

"[Josh] Gerben [a Washington intellectual property attorney who’s been tracking daily filings] pointed out that trademark office examiners are perhaps the best equipped federal employees to keep working through the pandemic since most already telework. Trademarking is a lengthy process, he said, typically taking four months for an initial examination of an application and about eight months before a trademark is finalized.

Gerben pointed out that trademark office examiners are perhaps the best equipped federal employees to keep working through the pandemic since most already telework. Trademarking is a lengthy process, he said, typically taking four months for an initial examination of an application and about eight months before a trademark is finalized.

Examiners use simple tools such as Google to determine whether a phrase is unique. To receive the protections of exclusive national rights, a mark must be both distinct and already in commercial use by the filer. That means the dozen individuals applying for “I survived COVID-19” could be denied exclusive rights, especially if startups on Etsy or other do-it-yourself websites are selling items. 

Trademark holders will have to consider the business ethics of profiting from a pandemic that’s killed thousands."

[Podcast] "Roseanne" and ethics in business; Marketplace, May 29, 2018

[Podcast] Kai Ryssdal and Molly Wood, Marketplace, "Roseanne" and ethics in business

"When we called up business ethicist Greg Fairchild from the University of Virginia this morning, we expected to have a wide-ranging conversation to get at Kai's question of a few weeks back: Are there market-based solutions to ensure better ethics? We didn't expect we'd have such a timely case study in Disney-owned ABC and "Roseanne." The network canceled its show hours after a racist tweet from star Roseanne Barr. We got the Darden School of Business professor's reaction as the news played out in the way it always seems to these days: fast, furious and on Twitter."

‘Marketplace’ host David Brancaccio to give lecture on ethics and technology; Portland Press Herald, March 15, 2017

Portland Press Herald; 

‘Marketplace’ host David Brancaccio to give lecture on ethics and technology

"David Brancaccio, host of American Public Media’s “Marketplace Morning Report” and a former resident of Waterville, will be the featured speaker at the University of New England’s Paul D. Merrill Business Ethics Lecture...

Brancaccio’s lecture, titled “From Self-Driving Cars to Self-Driving Business Ethics,” will explore the implications for human decisions when ethical rules are woven into artificial intelligence and other new technology, according to a release from the university. He is expected to discuss the current ethics environment and how building ethical decision-making into advanced machines could spark new approaches to ethics in business and beyond.

“Given current debates about conflicts of interest in Washington, you might think we are not living in a golden age for ethics,” Brancaccio said in the release. “Yet right now there is a flourishing of ethics as it applies to machines, from self-driving cars to medical equipment and robots that must be taught to make ethical decisions. I believe that thinking about ethical behavior in machines can also raise standards for human ethics, in business and beyond.”"

What You Can Do to Improve Ethics at Your Company; Harvard Business Review (HBR), 12/29/16

Christopher McLaverty

Annie McKee, Harvard Business Review (HBR); 

What You Can Do to Improve Ethics at Your Company:

"Enron. Wells Fargo. Volkswagen. It’s hard for good, ethical people to imagine how these meltdowns could possibly happen. We assume it’s only the Ken Lays and Bernie Madoffs of the world who will cheat people. But what about the ordinary engineers, managers, and employees who designed cars to cheat automotive pollution controls or set up bank accounts without customers’ permission? We tell ourselves that we would never do those things. And, in truth, most of us won’t cook the books, steal from customers, or take that bribe.

But, according to a study by one of us (Christopher) of C-suite executives from India, Colombia, Saudi Arabia, the U.S., and the U.K., many of us face an endless stream of ethical dilemmas at work. In-depth interviews with these leaders provide some insight and solutions that can help us when we do face these quandaries."

Why Ethical People Make Unethical Choices; Harvard Business Review, 12/16/16

Ron Carucci, Harvard Business Review; Why Ethical People Make Unethical Choices:

"Despite good intentions, organizations set themselves up for ethical catastrophes by creating environments in which people feel forced to make choices they could never have imagined. Former Federal Prosecutor Serina Vash says, “When I first began prosecuting corruption, I expected to walk into rooms and find the vilest people. I was shocked to find ordinarily good people I could well have had coffee with that morning. And they were still good people who’d made terrible choices.”

Here are five ways organizations needlessly provoke good people to make unethical choices."

Beyond business: Disgraced Theranos bloodied family, friends, neighbors; Ars Technica, 11/23/16

Beth Mole, Ars Technica; Beyond business: Disgraced Theranos bloodied family, friends, neighbors:

"If you think your Thanksgiving dinner conversation will be awkward and stressful this year, just be glad you and your family weren’t involved with Theranos.

As the once highly regarded blood-testing company crumbles under technological scandals and regulatory sanctions, the death toll of relationships among neighbors, friends, families, and long-standing partners is mounting. With lawsuits, investigative reports, and new accounts from a whistleblower, the company’s culture and inner-workings—which Theranos worked hard to obfuscate—are finally becoming clear. And what’s emerged are patterns of dishonesty, callousness, and litigiousness—if not outright belligerence.

Test of blood

Perhaps most startling of the recent revelations is the identity and family drama of one Theranos whistleblower: Tyler Shultz, grandson of George Shultz, the former secretary of state, who also happens to be a Theranos advisor. An exposé by The Wall Street Journal lays out how in the course of eight months, Tyler Shultz went from a bright-eyed Theranos employee to disgruntled whistleblower, personally disparaged by Theranos’ then-president and desperately trying to convince his grandfather to wash his hands of the doomed company."

Theranos Whistleblower Shook the Company—and His Family; Wall Street Journal, 11/18/16

John Carreyrou, Wall Street Journal; Theranos Whistleblower Shook the Company—and His Family:

"After working at Theranos Inc. for eight months, Tyler Shultz decided he had seen enough. On April 11, 2014, he emailed company founder Elizabeth Holmes to complain that Theranos had doctored research and ignored failed quality-control checks."

‘Fraud is not a trade secret’: How a 27-year-old blew the whistle on Theranos; MarketWatch, 11/17/16

Barbara Kollmeyer, MarketWatch; ‘Fraud is not a trade secret’: How a 27-year-old blew the whistle on Theranos’ :

[Kip Currier: Ethics instructors of all stripes were served up a whopping good case study with the story of Tyler Schultz (grandson of former Secretary of State George Schultz) exposing the dazzlingly fraudulent actions of health tech powerhouse, Theranos, Inc. and its now-disgraced CEO Elizabeth Holmes. This is one that should and will be studied in MBA programs and ethics courses for years.]

"‘Fraud is not a trade secret. I refuse to allow bullying, intimidation and threat of legal action to take away my First Amendment right to speak out against wrongdoing.’"

Retired NBA commissioner David Stern went off about cheating and ethics; Quartz, 11/19/16

Oliver Staley, Quartz; Retired NBA commissioner David Stern went off about cheating and ethics:

"Cheating and ethical lapses are pervasive, from soccer stars evading taxes and state-sanctioned doping in the Olympics, to companies giving lip-service to social responsibility while gouging customers, Stern said Nov. 18 at a forum about business ethics and leadership hosted by Columbia Business School...

“It’s too easy,” he said. “Every company has a head of corporate responsibility, you form a foundation, you give all your employees Friday off to do charity, blah, blah, blah. Then you fix prices at a business association meeting.”

He took aim at Facebook, which said it has misreported how many people view its ads, and allowed the spread of fake news on its platform. The directors of venture-capital backed companies need to speak up, he said. “Where are the boards?” he said."

Mitsubishi Motors Says False Mileage Tests Done Since 1991; Associated Press via New York Times, 4/26/16

Associated Press via New York Times; Mitsubishi Motors Says False Mileage Tests Done Since 1991:

"Mitsubishi Motors Corp., the Japanese automaker that acknowledged last week that it had intentionally lied about fuel economy data for some models, said an internal investigation found such tampering dated to 1991...

Japan is periodically shaken by scandals at top-name companies, including electronics company Toshiba Corp., which had doctored accounting books for years, and medical equipment company Olympus Corp., which acknowledged it had covered up massive losses.

Mitsubishi Motors struggled for years to win back consumer trust after an auto defects scandal in the early 2000s over cover-ups of problems such as failing brakes, faulty clutches and fuel tanks prone to falling off dating back to the 1970s. That resulted in more than a million vehicles being recalled retroactively."

VW Presentation in ’06 Showed How to Foil Emissions Tests; New York Times, 4/26/16

Jack Ewing, New York Times; VW Presentation in ’06 Showed How to Foil Emissions Tests:

"A PowerPoint presentation was prepared by a top technology executive at Volkswagen in 2006, laying out in detail how the automaker could cheat on emissions tests in the United States.

The presentation has been discovered as part of the continuing investigations into Volkswagen, according to two people who have seen the document and who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the legal action against the company. It provides the most direct link yet to the genesis of the deception at Volkswagen, which admitted late last year that 11 million vehicles worldwide were equipped with software to cheat on tests that measured pollution in emissions.

It is not known how widely the presentation was distributed at Volkswagen. But its existence, and the proposal it made to install the software, highlight a series of flawed decisions at the embattled carmaker surrounding the emissions problem."

Parmesan cheese you sprinkle on your penne could be wood; Bloomberg News via Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 2/16/16

Lydia Mulvany, Bloomberg News via Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; Parmesan cheese you sprinkle on your penne could be wood:

"Acting on a tip, agents of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration paid a surprise visit to a cheese factory in rural Pennsylvania on a cold November day in 2012.

They found what they were looking for: evidence that Castle Cheese Inc. in Slippery Rock was doctoring its 100 percent real Parmesan with cut-rate substitutes and such fillers as wood pulp and distributing it to some of the country’s biggest grocery chains...

Some grated Parmesan suppliers have been mislabeling products by filling them with too much cellulose, a common anti-clumping agent made from wood pulp, or using cheaper cheddar, instead of real Romano.

Castle president Michelle Myrter is scheduled to plead guilty this month to criminal charges. She faces up to a year in prison and a $100,000 fine.

German brewers protect their reputations with Reinheitsgebot, a series of purity laws drawn up 500 years ago. Champagne makers prohibit most vineyards outside their turf from using the name. Now the full force of the U.S. government has been brought to bear defending the authenticity of grated hard Italian cheeses."