Ethical Question

[MarkC]

I wasn't talking so much about workplace ethics.
But we'll leave it there, to avoid the P word. And possibly a tangent into the R subject.

This does make a bit of sense to me:

"The one who benefits most when such information is suppressed is your boss, not you or your colleagues. It can help an employee to know that the person at the next desk makes twice as much money for performing the same task. If salaries are reasonable, employees will understand and accept them. If they are not, secrecy helps only to sustain that injustice.

Transparency is necessary for good governance — why not for good management? It is a wise policy that requires publicly owned companies to disclose certain financial information, including compensation packages offered to many senior executives. In money matters as in many others, knowledge is preferable to ignorance. Thieves are the ones who operate under cover of darkness.

Broadcasting salaries may be sensible and benign, but don’t expect your boss, or your colleagues, or the company’s lawyers, to see it that way. Money is the last bastion of prudery. People who post videos online of themselves having sex blush demurely as they draw the veil over their 1040’s. Some are embarrassed because they make more than you might think, others ashamed because they make less. But while this fiscal priggishness is understandable, you have no moral duty to play along (legal constraints notwithstanding).

And don’t be so sure that you are underpaid and due for a raise. If you tear away that veil, you may not like what you see."

However, company policy is company policy and as an employee, you have agreed to abide by it.

 

[Slick 55]

I can't imagine New York Times and ethics in the same sentence......

 

[MarkC]

I will most assurdly have to tie my hands behind my back right now to avoid getting this thread locked....
Before I do, I will merely say that many live in glass houses.

 

[JerryS]

My general worldview regarding ethics is based around a reconciliation of preference utilitarianism and hedonistic utilitarianism. I AM NOT with the BLTC group, those people are a little too far out for me. These are the best definitions I could find in a simple search. Unfortunately, neither definition includes any detail on cause and effect, judgment, or intention. (Not that I’ve got that totally worked out anyway.) Here’s a little more background information from one of the people I sympathize with just in case you’re interested.

While a certain behavior may be (what you consider to be) effective in obtaining what you “want” in a given situation (e.g. committing perjury to influence a trial), that behavior may or may not be socially acceptable, which can obviously create barriers to other outcomes you desire (prison isn’t all that fun I hear). Equally, your “solution” may or may not be compatible with any number of entities involved in the arrangement (natural resources, your self-esteem, time, etc.) at any given moment, so it would be wise to plan accordingly. The goal (IMO) is to have as many mutually complimentary or synergistic relationships as possible, and the more adept organisms are able to find or construct them more readily. Aside from that, it’s every man for himself (so to speak) in my book; I don’t believe altruism exists.

A similar situation:

My “little” sister is a hostess at a high-end restaurant, and has been working there for just over a year. She got a small raise ($1.50 an hour) after 90 days, but not one since (hasn’t asked for one either), and is their best host/hostesses. Clear preference for her over all other hosts/hostesses from all management (she’s not bad looking either, runs in the family). Last week, she was talking to a manager at a restaurant in a similar price range in a similar location, similar popularity, etc. and finds out that the hosts at their restaurant are making over $2.00 an hour more than she is (she asked, he told her). She’s been moderately unhappy with her job lately anyway, but now she’s really thinking about going somewhere else. She asked my advice, so we went out to lunch last week; here’s basically what I said:

1) Don’t go running your mouth about how much the other hosts make. It will just make the people at work that much more unpleasant to work with, because then you’ll have to listen to them whine even more. If you decide to go for the job at XXXXXXXX, then you also stand less of a chance of the people you work with running out the door ahead of you for it.

2) You’ve worked for over a year without a raise, you are responsible, one of their most valuable workers, and you regularly handle duties that are not your responsibility to make up for the lack of competency in others. You have a very valid argument in that a nearly identical restaurant pays their workers substantially more for a nearly identical job. Your boss is being cheap. You have some leverage. Use it.

3) The fact that you asked how much they make is perfectly fine. If it is for some reason against written policy at their workplace (or illegal otherwise) for him to tell you without their permission, then that’s his problem for telling you unless he obtained verbal/written permission from those people to do so. You didn’t ask WHO made what (slightly more questionable), just a general figure. [snip] I just need to re-write this part... [snip] Client confidentiality rules in the mental health world are much stricter than those in the medical world, presumably because if someone finds out you had bronchitis, that’s less embarrassing/less likely to result in discrimination/a violent reaction, etc. than if someone found out you have an obsessive thought pattern focused on sexual exploitation of small children. [But display some sort of guilt or displeasure from it and/or are found to have no intent of acting out your fantasies. Otherwise they’ll cut your balls off.

] Some types of information (e.g. certain financial statements from corporations) benefit those involved (e.g. stockholders) when you get glastnost-y, and some don’t. Sometimes [read: most of the time] you end up with a situation where getting it out in the open benefits/harms those involved 70/30, 50/50, or worse, 40/60, and then you’re really up “poop” creek. Some people should not have access to certain types of information because they literally lack the skill set to manage that information once they have it. Assuming A) (for some reason) that it were massively illegal for my sister to ask that question of the manager and got the same response and B) was substantially dimmer than she actually is, she would be no more at fault for “misusing” the information than a baby who was taught how to fire a handgun. That’s why information is selectively parceled to begin with (who gets what often being strongly correlated with a certain status that assumes a certain level of ability in managing that type of information). It would be a good idea to try and weigh the potential outcomes for sharing each type and unit of information before opening your mouth, but I don’t always do that. I’m slightly irresponsible, and if I thought about things that much, my head would asplode!


(So maybe I didn’t explain #3 quite like that...)

 

[ekpolk]

Another way to look at this that's not yet been addressed, at least not overtly: respect for ownership of the data. Our legal system (let's leave all those other flaws aside for the moment) clearly recognizes ownership of intangible things, just as much as it does the tangible. I doubt anyone here would dispute that. I own my car (nevermind the little side deal I have with the bank...), and I own the money in my wallet. Just as clearly, one can own intangibles. Think stocks, options, easements, and the list goes on. I also own some of these, and don't feel my ownership is of a lesser grade just because I can't "touch" them.

The "ethicist" here, though he had some interesting points, totally overlooks that the employer (good, bad, or ugly) owns the subject data, and the employee does not. The pay info on that list is an intangible thing of value, which the employer no doubt feels that it owns (it should take better care of its valuables, of course...). To put it bluntly and simply, the employee here is stealing a portion of something of value to which he has no right and no ownership.

In my opinion, the situation is no different than if one of us left our wallet on our desk overnight. I seriously doubt that any of us would approve of a colleague or employee, or anyone for that matter, removing our cash from our wallets and preemptively redistributing to others against our will. Moreover, if someone found our wallet nearby on the floor, we'd all admire greatly the good citizen who recovered and returned it, contents intact -- anyone disagree with that? If some young star citizen has taken my car overnight, that act goes by the name, "Grand Theft Auto."

I'd have to call the act in question: "Grand Theft Data."

Gee, someone remind me why I prefer working for myself. . .

 

[acewiza]

Could it be Mr. Polk, that it is far easier to craft the concept of ownership in any particular context when you define the terms?

 

[ekpolk]

Quote:

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Could it be Mr. Polk, that it is far easier to craft the concept of ownership in any particular context when you define the terms?

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In some cases, maybe, but not this one. There really isn’t anything that’s legally novel or unique about this situation. The law has no problem with the idea of ownership of intangible information, like the data in question, nor with the concept of enforcing and protecting such ownership. That said, what terms do you see as requiring a refinement of their definition?

Even if this were the most loathsome employer that has been known to mankind, the employee here simply has no right to the information in question. That fact that it is left improperly secured does nothing to change the analysis (unless, of course, its being left out was a manifestation of an actual intent to publicly share the info, which it pretty plainly was not, at least on the facts we have).

If I were a guest in your house tonight, and on the sly I helped myself to some information you value, and intend to keep for yourself; and tomorrow I share it with the world, would that be OK?

 

[ekpolk]

In re-examining the thread, I do see one angle upon which I should be clearer. The original question was of course concerning ethics. I still think it’s important to note the potentially problematic legal aspects of the problem, as I did previously. Sometimes, there are situations in which what most people would see as the ethical solution to a problem ends up being at odds with the law. Sometimes the opposite is true. And many times, the legal and ethical aspects of an issue overlap and feed off one another. This is one of those situations, in my opinion. This situation involves the employee taking something of value that does not belong to him (pay information), and worse yet, potentially benefitting from it himself, to the detriment of the employer. I just don’t see any legitimate way to characterize this conduct, which I believe to be a form of theft (to say nothing of the trust aspect) as “ethical.”

 

[1sttruck]

"This situation involves the employee taking something of value that does not belong to him (pay information), and worse yet, potentially benefitting from it himself, to the detriment of the employer. I just don’t see any legitimate way to characterize this conduct, which I believe to be a form of theft (to say nothing of the trust aspect) as “ethical.” "

I like the idea of putting someone's 'rules/laws/ethics' in a situation where the 'right thing' is to break the law, this can always be done, and then using their justification on why they did it to evaluate their justification; it's not blindly following rules that makes us 'ethical', it's why we do it ,or sometimes don't, that does. We all know the cliche of "I vas merely following orders'.

 

[G-MAN]

Quote:

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... it's not blindly following rules that makes us 'ethical', it's why we do it ,or sometimes don't, that does. We all know the cliche of "I vas merely following orders'.

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I think you're confusing ethics with morality. Sometimes the moral thing to do is violate an ethical standard, but it can never be the ethical thing to do.

Example: I can think of situations where it would be the moral thing to do for me to violate my ethical obligation of attorney/client confidentiality. But I cannot go before the bar and argue that it was really the ethical thing to do. I operate within an ethical framework imposed by the bar and I can't get around that by claiming some other ethical standard is paramount. It doesn't work that way. I can always fall back on morality, but when it comes to ethics, the standard is objective and one has to face the consequences of violating that standard.

 

[ekpolk]

Quote:

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(...snip...)I think you're confusing ethics with morality. Sometimes the moral thing to do is violate an ethical standard, but it can never be the ethical thing to do.

Example: I can think of situations where it would be the moral thing to do for me to violate my ethical obligation of attorney/client confidentiality. But I cannot go before the bar and argue that it was really the ethical thing to do. I operate within an ethical framework imposed by the bar and I can't get around that by claiming some other ethical standard is paramount. It doesn't work that way. I can always fall back on morality, but when it comes to ethics, the standard is objective and one has to face the consequences of violating that standard.

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Pray you never find yourself in such a dilemma (knock on wood, I haven't yet. . .). You CAN of course argue that a straight up violation of the ethical rules was the moral thing to do. Of course, at that point, you're almost surely confined to a pure mitigation scenario, and all you can hope for is that the Supreme Court (the FLSC is the ultimate approval authority for lawyer ethical sanctions in FL, though the Bar administers the process) sees your point, agrees, and goes easy on the punishment for the objective violation. That, of course, would be a very uncomfortable position in which to find one's self.

As to the scenario which Michael quoted, I would find the behavior to be both unethical an immoral. Of course, as you correctly suggest, the question of whether an act is "ethical" pre-supposes the existence of a set of ethical rules, in some form, by which to measure said act. I have a tough time envisioning any set of ethical rules worth the name, whether specific to one group (such as physicians or lawyers) or in general form (see below) which would permit the conduct in question.

Also, don't forget to look beyond the more specific meanings of the term "ethics". When we as lawyers use the term, it tends to be with reference to the specific set of rules the Bar looks to when one of us steps over the line. On the other hand, there is a more general meaning, typically seen in dictionaries and more reflective of the term's "street" use. The new AH dictionary I'm looking at right now defines "ethcis" as "The study of the general nature of morals and of specific moral choices; moral philosophy". Clear as mud, eh? It turns right around and pulls "moral" into the definition of "ethics". Too bad it's a busy day at work -- I'd love to sink my teeth deeper into this one -- maybe this evening.

 

[1sttruck]

I would consider ethics as kind of 'applied morality', and for most situations they could be interchanged. Perhaps similar to law being an attempt to apply justice, but I suspect some real lawyers will chew me up on that point :^)

 

[Dan4510]

There is also the question of does one uphold the power of the employer over one's self or chose the way of cutting into that power and making one's self equal in power to the employer. Now that ought to put a different face on it...Not saying i would do so, but there are more ways than one to answer the question.

Dan

 

[Dan4510]

Or maybe ask, should one always be subservient to a master? Or are there times to loose the bonds? Legally the answer is almost always yes, but ethical behavior seems to be abherrant in our culture today.

Dan

 

[MarkC]

Legality and morality are quite often not not even close to the same thing.

 

[G-MAN]

Quote:

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There is also the question of does one uphold the power of the employer over one's self or chose the way of cutting into that power and making one's self equal in power to the employer. Now that ought to put a different face on it...Not saying i would do so, but there are more ways than one to answer the question.

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This is such baloney. If you don't agree with your employer's policies, if you don't like the employer's "power" over you, you are free to go work somewhere else. You are not free to violate the employer's policies without having to face the consequences.

 

[Dan4510]

Not baloney, its a choice every moral person will ultimately come to as the push to corporate fascim accelerates.

Will anyone continue to uphold the very thing that takes food off their table and hands it to some third world country?

Its already happening, no one is paying attention.

Dan

 

[ekpolk]

I'm with the G-Man on this one. Taking what isn't yours to take doesn't make you less subservient. It puts you in jeopardy of both civil and criminal sanctions -- not exactly a great position of power, or a way to enhance one's personal security and stability. Do two wrongs make a right? I hate to offer cliches, but it pretty much boils down to that (assuming that the "corporate facist" has done something wrong in the first place -- OTOH, what if they haven't???). Or perhaps run it through the "golden rule" filter -- how would you like to have such things done to you?

 

[Dan4510]

I love it when i stir people up asking questions. Neither of you seemed to have read my disclaimer. I consider it my job to ask the question no one else asks, otherwise I would not be a good teacher. Standing accepted propositions on their heads unearths unexamined assumptions and leads to better critical thinking.

Dan

 

[Dan4510]

And I find it quite enlightening that here, much like other purviews, very few can tolerate the goring of their favorite pig.

Dan