Ethics and Civility Go Hand in Hand I was recently interviewed by both Authority and Thrive magazines about my views on ethics and social media. There is no doubt that social networking opens the door to improper behavior for a variety of reasons not the least of which is the... Read more →

An Historical Perspective on Professional Ethics MAX BLOCK DISTINGUISHED ARTICLE AWARD: The CPA Journal--March 2018 Issue In Brief The commitment to serve the public interest in accounting has eroded, as personal and business relationships with clients and client management increasingly create conflicts of interest. Many such relationships have created barriers... Read more →

Professor Claims Capitalism to Blame For Why Students Are Graded A New School professor is calling for the abolition of grades claiming it is unfair to students. Gee, I thought grades introduced fairness because students are evaluated on their work and given higher grades for better work. I guess this... Read more →

The Do’s and the Don’ts The ethics of being a responsible writer are the same as for any activity. In this post I deal with works of nonfiction. Basic Ethical Standards First, treat the readers the way you would wish to be treated. Most people want what they read to... Read more →

Regaining Civility in Society I have previously blogged about the decline of civility in society and rampant unethical behavior that has created conflicts everywhere we look. It seems we no longer know how to disagree with each other without being disagreeable. In short, we have lost our moral compass. One... Read more →

Going Beyond Happiness and Meaning in Life Two recent surveys suggest that Americans are becoming more unhappy with each passing year. The 2019 World Happiness Report says that the U.S. is ranked 19th in happiness, a decline from previous surveys. A General Social Survey ranks public opinion by country from... Read more →

Role as a Moral Agent One reason businesses still struggle with ethical behavior is they are unaware of their role as a moral agent. A moral agent is a person who has the ability to distinguish between right and wrong and to be held accountable for their actions. Moral agents... Read more →

How Can You Know Whether You’re Doing the Right Thing? Periodically, we all go to our doctor to check our health. We make sure all systems are operating as intended. The same should be done with our ethical self. Have we done whatever we can to do the right thing,... Read more →

The Public Interest Should Be Front and Center Given the concerns about the security of our online data and personal information used by the likes of Facebook and others, the time is right to expand those concerns to software engineers and ask the important question: Should ethical standards be set... Read more →

What is Your Ethics IQ? – ANSWERS Last week I posted ethics questions and in today’s post I will explain the answers. Ethics is not an exact science so you may disagree. Still, the explanations below are based on ethical standards of behavior that link to a philosophy or other... Read more →