Student Depression and Even Suicide May Hang in the Balance I have previously blogged about various kinds of bullying including in-person, on social media, and in the workplace. Bullying can have significant negative effects on those bullied such as causing depression and even suicide. This is an important topic in... Read more →

Rules of the Road I first posted this piece on my "Workplace Ethics Advice" blog and received so many comments and inquiries that I decided to post on my "Ethics Sage" blog as well. The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution protects us from the government interfering with our speech... Read more →

Objectivity and Impartiality Replaces the Strict Application of Independence Rules In June 2021, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) made amendments effective for certain rules regarding auditor independence requirements (known as Rule 2-01 of Regulation S-X). The intention behind these amendments is to modernize the SEC’s rules governing auditor independence... Read more →

There Are Limits When Incorporating Ethics into AI Decision-Making Perhaps you read the article “On An ‘ethical’ AI trained on human morals has turned racist.” It claims that while machine learning software Ask Delphi allows you to ponder any moral quandary, it may not give you an appropriate response. The... Read more →

Are U.S. Students Choosing the Easy Path to Success? Much has been written about the low achievement scores of U.S. high-schoolers when compared to those of other countries. The chart below shows how badly U.S. students lag behind their peers in foreign countries. When comparing achievement scores in reading, math,... Read more →

Financial Information Should Be Mandated by the SEC I have previously blogged about the importance of disclosing issues related to corporate social responsibility (CSR) in the financial statements or some other form of reporting. The SEC has examined the potential economic effects of mandated disclosure and reporting standards for CSR,... Read more →

Should You Buy With Your Heart, Not With Your Wallet? Perhaps you have heard about “Ethical Consumerism”. It has various elements to it but, generally, is the practice of spending money in a way that aligns with your values. That’s the angle I like to address because it makes making... Read more →

Learning to Deal with Missteps in Life From time to time, I come across an article that addresses issues of concern to me as an ethics expert. The Problem With ‘No Regrets’ is one such piece. In 2020, the author Daniel Pink launched the World Regret Survey, which asked more... Read more →

Professional Obligations of Accountants to Clients You may have heard that Donald Trump and the Trump Organization’s accountant, Mazars USA, split up after Mazars sent a letter dated February 9, 2022 to the Trump Organization. The letter was included in a court filing and said that “the Statements of Financial... Read more →

Can a Conflict of Interest Be Avoided? Should members of Congress be prohibited from owning and trading in stocks? This question is receiving a lot of attention on Capitol Hill and in the press. The answer to the question seems to be a no brainer – Yes! The simple reason... Read more →