Robert Prentice, Author at Ethics Unwrapped

I Need a Hero: Why Others’ Good Deeds Make Us Better People

Often this blog’s posts highlight bad moral behavior and attempt to explain it by referring you, dear readers, to one or more of our behavioral ethics videos. Repeatedly reading examples of bad behavior can be depressing, especially because there are so many in the news every day that we don’t even have time or bandwidth […]

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Confessions from a Wall Street Insider: The Real Lessons to be Learned

Michael Kimelman was an alcoholic who got himself indicted, tried and convicted of insider trading. After his jail term ended and his family had been reduced to near penury, he just couldn’t believe that his wife wanted a divorce. In his own mind, he was definitely the wronged party in the marriage. Kimelman’s inability to […]

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The Perfect (Mis)Match: Algorithms and Intentions

This post is prompted by a forthcoming article in the American Criminal Law Review by Melissa Hamilton, entitled “The Biased Algorithm: Evidence of DisparateImpact on Hispanics.” Hamilton makes the point that because judges tend to be human beings and therefore subject to all the decision making foibles uncovered by behavioral psychology and related fields in […]

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Temple University: The New Enron?

As a university professor, I like to think that higher education can serve as a beacon of good behavior in a troubled world, but that’s optimistic. I’ve recently blogged about a university staff employee who went on trips while pretending to be working (“Doing the Crime, Not the Time”), about unethical research practices (“Systematically Analyzing […]

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Appiah on Identity: The In-group, Out-group, and the In Between

Kwame Anthony Appiah, a prominent philosophy professor at NYU and the New York Times Ethicist columnist, recently appeared on our campus. His talk went well, though he did not delve deeply into the substance of his new book, The Lies That Bind: Rethinking Identity. Despite his omission, you should consider checking out this interesting and […]

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The MLB Scandal from Left Field

The World Series is just around the corner, so it seems an apt time to revisit, as Sports Illustrated just did, one of baseball’s most intriguing recent scandals. Here are the facts. Chris Correa was a computer whiz who loved sports and worked in the scouting department of the St. Louis Cardinals. Two of his […]

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State Farm’s Judge

State Farm just spent a quarter of a billion dollars to settle allegations that seem like a plot straight out of a John Grisham novel. You may remember that in The Pelican Brief, a wealthy and very shady character with a case heading to the Supreme Court paid for the murder of two Supreme Court […]

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The Linebacker and the Congressman

It is not often that football players and Congressmen are indicted for the same wrongdoing, but last month NFL linebacker Mychal Kendricks and Representative Chris Collins from New York were both indicted for insider trading. Kendricks has pled guilty; Collins denies the charges. Both also face civil charges. The federal government alleges that Representative Collins […]

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Systematically Analyzing Three Identical Strangers

STOP READING! STOP RIGHT NOW! DO NOT READ ANY FURTHER! Unless you have already seen Tim Wardle’s new documentary “Three Identical Strangers.” In that event, you have my permission to read on. Otherwise, stop and go see the movie. This post contains spoilers and this movie should not be spoiled. Assuming that you have already […]

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God, Trump, My In-Group and Your Out-Group

I seldom have an original idea, but from time to time I read things that prompt me to write a blog post nonetheless. Recently I read an article in The Washington Post that explored how the members of a Southern Baptist church in Luverne, Alabama reconciled their religious beliefs with the words and deeds of […]

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Blog

I Need a Hero: Why Others’ Good Deeds Make Us Better People

Confessions from a Wall Street Insider: The Real Lessons to be Learned

The Perfect (Mis)Match: Algorithms and Intentions

Temple University: The New Enron?

Appiah on Identity: The In-group, Out-group, and the In Between

The MLB Scandal from Left Field

State Farm’s Judge

The Linebacker and the Congressman

Systematically Analyzing Three Identical Strangers

God, Trump, My In-Group and Your Out-Group

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