Moral Injury: When McKinsey Comes to Town Moral injury has been defined by Drs. Brett Litz and Bill Nash as “[t]he lasting psychological, biological, spiritual, and social impact of perpetrating, failing to prevent, or bearing witness to acts that can transgress deeply held moral beliefs and expectations.” It is a phenomenon strongly identified with military experience, but goes beyond that. Moral injury […] View
Happy Global Ethics Day! This entry is being posted on October 19, 2022, the ninth annual Global Ethics Day which has the theme “Ethics Empowered.” Naturally, we at Ethics Unwrapped strongly support Global Ethics Day. And we have only to look at the news headlines to be reminded of the importance of ethical conduct and how far we have […] View
Sex, the Weatherman, and Revenge Porn We just finished reading Susan Liautaud’s new book: The Little Book of Big Ethical Questions (2022), in which she briefly explains her views as to the ethics of various ethical questions that might arise relative to family and friends (e.g. “Should you read your child’s or teenager’s diary?”), politics, community and culture (e.g., “Do we […] View
Football, Racist Emails, and the Overconfidence Bias Football fans know Jon Gruden. He coached the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to a Superbowl championship. He is handsome, articulate, folksy, and bright. He is also a walking embodiment of the overconfidence bias—the tendency people have to overestimate their own morality. Most of us believe that we are more moral than most other people. In one […] View
Widening the Circle of Human Obligation: Morality, Hypocrisy, and Gay Marriage Last week, Pennsylvania Congressman Glenn Thompson made headlines by opposing a bill to protect same-sex marriage and then attending his gay son’s wedding just three days later. He joined a long line of politicians who have embraced rights for their children after opposing them for others. In 2013, Ohio Senator Rob Portman opposed same-sex marriage […] View
“Why We Did It” Tells Us Why People Do It What might you do if someday you find yourself working for a boss that you slowly discover is not just a jerk but is truly morally abhorrent? Or maybe you find yourself selling a consumer product that you come to find out is harmful to its users. Or maybe your company tasks you with pushing […] View
R. Kelly, Sex Abuse, and Networks of Complicity Kelly’s recent conviction for racketeering and sex trafficking crimes was long overdue. How in the world could he gave gotten away with this abuse for decades? An excellent analysis of the “whys” of this sad situation was recently published in The Conversation by our friend and colleague, Minette Drumwright of the University of Texas Moody […] View
Leading with Values As with our last blog post, we write to recommend that those readers who teach ethics check out a new textbook. Neil Malhotra and Ken Shotts of the Stanford Graduate School of Business have written the relatively brief (149 pages of text) Leading with Values: Strategies for Making Ethical Decisions in Business and Life (Cambridge […] View
The Conscience Code If you are interested in behavioral ethics, and we hope you are, we have a book recommendation for you—G. Richard Shell’s The Conscience Code: Lead with Your Values, Advance Your Career (2021). Dr. Shell is the Chair of the Wharton School’s Legal Studies and Business Ethics Department at Penn and the author of several popular […] View
Moral Exhaustion is a Thing, Just Not a New Thing We just finished reading How to Be Perfect: The Correct Answer to Every Moral Question by Michael Schur. This extremely entertaining book is a layman’s guide to morality. Schur is not an academic, but he is smart, thoughtful, well-read, and curious. Most important, he is also humble (he sought the guidance of several philosophy professors), […] View