Learning Objectives: � To develop the ability tonnunderstand the essence of good character.nn� To distinguish between morals, values, and ethics.nn� To recognize the concept of moral relativism.nn� To understand the importance of critical thinking to ethics.nn� To increase awareness of the connection between etiquette and ethics.nnRecognizing Ethical Decisions Ethics and Critical ThinkingnnSuppose you are a parent, and you want your sonor daughter to marry a person who has at leastone exceptional quality. You can choose from incredible wealth, exceptional good looks, high intelligence, superior athletic skills, creativity, or extraordinary character. Which would you choose?nnVirtually everyone would choose character first, which illustrates the fundamental importance people place on good character, despite the attention given to other skills and attributes in daily life. As seen on the news regularly, the other attributes are often wasted on people when good character is lacking.nn1nnCharacter is destiny. —Heraclitus (540–480 B.C.)nnM01_ALBA5659_03_SE_C01.QXD 10/29/10 2:36 PM Page 1nn2 Chapter 1 • Recognizing Ethical DecisionsnnGood character can be defined as consisting of three qualities:nn• good principles (to guide actions), • conscience (to internalize those principles), and • moral courage (to act on them).1nnEthics are fundamental to character because they specify the guiding principles on which character is built.nnEthics are all around, yet people often fail to realize it. Recognizing ethical decisions when people make them is a fundamental first step in developing ethical awareness. Perhaps the only thing worse than an unethical decision is the failure to be aware of it!nnWHAT ARE ETHICS, AND WHAT IS ETHICAL?nnIt’s fun to begin by trying to imagine behavior that’s morally neutral. Are there actions you can take that have no moral content and, therefore, lie outside the scope of ethics?nnIt turns out there are very few behaviors of this type. You can wear wrinkled clothes or clothes with holes in them. You can decide whether to get up early tomorrow morning. You can decide whether to say “hello!” to the toll collector on the highway, and you can decide not to brush your teeth today. These actions usually have no moral content (although long-term neglect of teeth, e.g., can affect your health and insurance costs and make you a bad role model for younger siblings, thereby incurring important personal and social consequences).nnIt is clear, however, that there are very few examples of actions that lack moral content. The vast majority of behaviors a person engages in have moral content and are included within the purview of ethics.nnTO WHAT TYPES OF THINGS OR BEINGS SHOULD WE LIMIT THE DISCUSSION OF ETHICS?nnDiscussions of ethics are limited to human beings. Lower animals lack the capacity to reason, functioning by instinct rather than by freely willed choices between alternate courses of conduct (e.g., can a migratory goose choose not to fly south in winter?). In the classic film The African Queen, Humphrey Bogart’s character, Charlie, went out on a binge for an evening of drunken- ness and told Rosie the missionary (Katherine Hepburn) it was “only human nature.” She replied, “We were put on earth to rise above nature.” This exchange illustrates the responsibility of human beings for the rational and ethical exercise of their free wills.nnCertain categories of human beings are exempt from discussions of ethics. People who are mentally ill and young children are traditional exceptions to criminal responsibility because of their inability to understand the consequences of their actions. For the same reason, they cannot be held to ethical standards, which also require the capacity to contemplate and comprehend the impact of one’s actions.nnWHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MORALS AND ETHICS?nnMorals are good conduct; they constitute permissible behavior. Morals are the rules that prescribe proper action. Ethics is the study of morality, that is, the study and analysis of what constitutes good conduct (i.e., morals).nnM01_ALBA5659_03_SE_C01.QXD 10/29/10 2:36 PM Page 2nnChapter 1 • Recognizing Ethical Decisions 3nnLaws provide only the baseline or boundaries of civil behavior. Moral behavior requires more than the law requires (i.e., there are many legal actions that are immoral). Take the example of the cashier who mistakenly returns to you $20 in change after you make a pur- chase, when the actual amount returned should have been only $2. You have no legal obliga- tion to return the money, but there is a clear moral obligation to do so. A person of good character is one who engages consistently in moral conduct, regardless of what the law demands. Sometimes integrity is used to describe someone of good character, but it is more correct to say that a person of good character acts routinely in accord with the moral virtues (which are detailed in Chapter 2).nnEthics is central to criminal justice because morality is what distinguishes right from wrong—in differentiating the government’s moral authority to enforce the law from the immorality of the crime itself. In other words, “Only by being moral can criminal justice be distinguished from the very crime it condemns!”2nnWHAT ARE VALUES?nnValues are judgments of worth of attitudes, statements, and behaviors. Factual judgments (i.e., judgments based on facts) can be verified empirically through observations, whereas value judgments can be verified only through reason. Factual judgments describe something, whereas value judgments characterize it by making evaluative statements about it.nnSometimes it can be said that people claim one set of beliefs, whereas they actually endorse the opposite. For example, some preach love, nonviolence, hard work, family values, and self-discipline. However, others may glorify and act with hate and violence and praise luck and celebrity—things not worthy of glory or praise. The failure to recognize such misguided conduct makes people little more than billiard balls on the pool table of life. Each person controls his or her actions; each person must think about these actions and be responsible for them and their consequences.nnWHY IS CRITICAL THINKING FUNDAMENTAL TO ETHICS?nnMany things that are praised or rewarded in contemporary life are unworthy. Things that are portrayed as important (e.g., money, power, advantage) often promote unethical conduct by encouraging rash, selfish, or unlawful behavior. Critical thinking is the ability to evaluate viewpoints, facts, and behaviors objectively in order to assess the presentation of information or methods of argumentation to establish the true worth or merit of an act or a course of conduct.nnConsider the case of the person who plans to host a Super Bowl football party at his house and decides he wants a large-screen plasma television for the party. Unfortunately, he cannot afford one, so he comes up with the idea of “buying” one using his credit card the week before the Super Bowl and then returning it to the store the week after the Super Bowl, claiming he “doesn’t like it” or it “takes up too much space.” Apparently, people have been doing this, and major electronic retailers are now charging restocking fees on returned products. Similarly, Best Buy stores have said that students bought laptop computers to write term papers and then returned the laptops. A camcorder was returned as defective, but the videotape left inside showed the camera had been dropped into a swimming pool.3 This behavior is not clearly illegal, but it is clearly unethical. An understanding of ethical principles applied critically to different scenarios helps individuals to discern clever ideas from immoral ones.nnM01_ALBA5659_03_SE_C01.QXD 10/29/10 2:36 PM Page 3nn4 Chapter 1 • Recognizing Ethical DecisionsnnEducation in school has largely become the accumulation of facts. How to make decisions is not routinely taught (i.e., how to use facts in a principled way). Critical thinking involves the devel- opment of abilities to sort through facts intelligently, as well as half-truths, lies, and deceptive arguments, to determine the actual value of a statement, position, or behavior. Ethics takes critical thinking one step further by explicitly teaching methods of principled reasoning and responsibility for actions. Continued examination of one’s beliefs and actions is the only way to know all aspects and implications of a belief or action and whether that belief or action is still worth holding or doing. If people don’t challenge their own moral beliefs, others who do not agree with them will challenge them. Therefore, both critical thinking and ethical thought are crucial for proper behavior.nnCAN MORALITY BE TAUGHT?nnMorals and ethics are not acquired naturally; they must be taught. As has been said, “Character may determine our fate, but character is not determined by fate.”5 In fact, it’s hard to see another way to teach children. It is very inefficient and painful to teach only through experience. A lot of unneces- sary pain results from having to learn through bad decisions. Learning proper methods to make ethical decisions is necessary in order to avoid the pain of unethical conduct. It can be argued that moral values were more effectively transmitted 50 to 100 years ago than they are today. Religious beliefs (containing many ethical principles) have been marginalized by many; objections to “values” being taught in schools continue; and there is a decline of intact families and extended families, who often serve as effective role models for acceptable personal and social behavior.nnManners and etiquette are precursors to morals. Etiquette tells how people should interact with others in all social relations, whereas morals express ethical obligations toward others in behavior. Therefore, people who are ill mannered (e.g., rude, inconsiderate, self- centered) are also likely to engage in unethical conduct because of their selfish view of the world and failure to value the views or claims of others. America’s first president, George Washington, compiled a short book titled Rules of Civility and Decent Behavior in Company and Conversation (1744), which included a list of 110 maxims designed to polish manners and emphasize the important virtues. These maxims included “speak not evil of the absent, for it is unjust,” “undertake not what you cannot perform, but be careful to keep your prom- ise,” and “labour to keep alive in your breast that little celestial fire called conscience.”6nnMany of these rules of etiquette refer to a state of mind and motivation, which underlie the principles for expectations of ethical conduct.nnErvin Staub conducted a study of altruism to answer the question, “Why did ordinary people risk their lives to protect Jews hiding from the Nazis during World War II?” He found that “heroes evolve, they aren’t born.” As such, he found people took early steps toward altruistic behavior and then began to see themselves differently. He concluded, “Goodness, like evil, often evolves in small steps.”7 His work suggests that ethical conduct probably proceeds in the same way, from smallernnETHICS CHECKUP Too Much NintendonnA 17-year-old sued Nintendo and Toys R Us, claiming she suffered repetitive motion injury in her wrist from 7 months of playing home videogames. She asked for more than $10,000 in damages, claiming Nintendo didn’tnnwarn of such injuries and that some physicians have referred to Nintendo-related injuries as “Nintendinitis.”4nnOn what principle(s) would you make a decision in this case? How is it related to ethics?nnM01_ALBA5659_03_SE_C01.QXD 10/29/10 2:36 PM Page 4nnChapter 1 • Recognizing Ethical Decisions 5nnacts to more consistent courses of conduct. In an analogous way, a study of students and counterfeit sunglasses discovered that students who knew they were wearing counterfeit glasses were more than twice as likely to cheat on a simple test, leading the researchers to conclude that a seemingly innocuous activity (like wearing fake clothing or sunglasses) has an impact on moral behavior.8nnTherefore, small steps may be the path toward either ethical or unethical conduct. So does studying ethics guarantee ethical conduct? As ethicist Elizabeth Kiss writes,nn“Character education is no panacea. By itself, it will not repair disintegrating schools, neighbor- hoods, or families, dry up the drug trade, or create jobs. But it can be an important part of efforts to invest in our children’s development and well-being.”9 Teaching and learning ethics certainly does not guarantee moral conduct in the future, but people who take classes in English or math may or may not become avid readers and use their mathematical knowledge, but that doesn’t make taking those courses any less worthwhile. Ethics provides the way to see that there is a greater purpose to life than self-interest. Familiarity with the principles of ethical conduct can “leave students with the understanding that they are moral agents, that they have moral responsibilities, that there are methods for evaluating and defending their own positions” on moral questions.10nnWHAT IS MORAL RELATIVISM?nnMoral relativism is the belief that morals can be different, but none are better than another. Moral relativism is synonymous with situational ethics, which holds that there are no universal moral standards. For example, infanticide was accepted in ancient Greece and in parts of today’s China, but it is immoral elsewhere. Are various social rules, traditions, and morality simply different, or can they be wrong?nnYes, they can be wrong; it is important not to confuse local habits and customs with human nature that is common to all humankind. Guiding human potential and action in a moral direction is the subject matter of ethics. The potential of human beings is specific to the species.11nnEvery society agrees that arbitrary killing is wrong and that property theft, assault, and other behaviors hurt the continuing existence of society. In fact, there is more general agreement about basic human values, human rights, and the universality of modern codes of conduct than we are sometimes led to believe. Those who say it is wrong to be judgmental about difficult questions of conduct are saying that all viewpoints have equal moral validity. This is not true, of course, and in many ways it is a cop-out, making no demands on you nor expecting anything from the conduct of others. Ethical relativism attempts to justify the way people behave, rather than focusing on how people ought to behave, which is the real subject matter of ethics.nnSometimes relativism is confused with tolerance. Tolerance accepts that there are moral principles, but people should not have the views of others imposed on them. Relativism sees nothing wrong with imposing views on others because there are no general principles (so nothing can be wrong). Clearly, true relativism is rare because nearly everyone believes that some things are morally wrong. Ethics provides principles for distinguishing acts that are morally right from those that are morally wrong.nnIn a similar way, ethics rejects the notion of “moral intuition,” where a person merely seeks out a “commonsense” position on ethical issues without referring to ethical theory or perspective. Without guiding principles, moral intuition can be misleading or provide no guidance at all (e.g., it is difficult to find a commonsense position on in vitro fertilization). Developing and following moral principles give human decision making both meaning and a dispassionate rationale. Objective moral rules help a person to recognize ethical decisions and to act on them with consistency and purpose.nnM01_ALBA5659_03_SE_C01.QXD 10/29/10 2:36 PM Page 5nn6 Chapter 1 • Recognizing Ethical DecisionsnnHOW CAN WE CHOOSE WHAT TO BELIEVE AND HOW TO ACT ETHICALLY?nnA framework for making ethical decisions is needed. Such a framework begins with a search for universal principles. Many of these principles are based in religious traditions (e.g., Jewish, Christian, and Islam), where it is shown that persons of high moral character not only do what is right but they also do it for the right reasons. People value and respect those who do more than what is morally required (e.g., Mother Theresa, who created homes for the poor, dying, and unwanted around the world for more than 45 years).nnMoral rules can also be derived independently of religious beliefs because desirable human conduct can be prescribed and achieved through application of rational principles. Certain actions can be seen as objectively right or wrong (a natural law), and people can choose between them as human beings. For example, societies agree that murder, theft, lying, and similar actions are immoral. Basic values are also necessary for society to work effectively (e.g., honoring con- tracts, respecting others). Therefore, moral rules are often associated with religious beliefs, but they can be derived through the application of independent rational principles as well.nnSometimes the following questions are asked: “Why be moral?” and “Why not simply pursue self-interest and grab whatever advantage you can?”nnActually, ethical behavior is often in our self-interest. There is happiness to be found in acts that benefit others, respect is accorded those who have high moral standards, freedom is found from succumbing to our basest desires, and living openly and cooperatively with others rather than secretively and fraudulently are among the many benefits of acting ethically. The benefits achieved by those who act unethically (e.g., taking unfair advantage, committing theft) are usually short-term gains that are either quickly exhausted, must remain secret, or are not easily shared, and they result in pain or penalty when the conduct becomes known.nnThe remainder of this book provides the basics of ethical thinking to guide individual decision making. Critical thinking exercises are provided throughout the book, so students can practice applying ethical principles to actual situations.nnETHICS IN BOOKSnnEthics is everywhere, even in the books we read, which sometimes are written without ethics specifically in mind. Here is a summary of such a book, followed by questions that ask you to reflect on the ethical connections.nnThe World According to Mister RogersnnFred Rogers (Hyperion, 2003)nnFred Rogers was host of the public television program Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood for more than 30 years. It was a children’s program that appealed to adults as well, because Mr. Rogers spoke directly to the viewer in a calm, conversational tone about significant personal and social issues of concern to children and young people.nnThe book is comprised of short quotes from Mr. Rogers on the subjects of courage, love, discipline, and relationships with others (“we are all neighbors”). In one excerpt, he recounts a story from his childhood:nnM01_ALBA5659_03_SE_C01.QXD 10/29/10 2:36 PM Page 6nnChapter 1 • Recognizing Ethical Decisions 7nn“When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’ To this day, especially in times of ‘disaster,’ I remember my mother’s words, and I amnnalways comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers—so many caring people in this world.”nnIn another quote, at the very end of the book, he observes, “So in all that you do in all of your life, I wish you the strength and the grace to make those choices which will allow you and your neighbor to become the best of whoever you are.”nnFred Rogers received honorary degrees from more than forty colleges and universities and was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame in 1999. He was also the recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2002, the nation’s highest civilian award for exceptional public service. Fred Rogers died in 2003.nnQUESTIONSnn1. Can you offer an explanation based on ethics of why there always seems to be so many “helpers,” offering to assist and ease those suffering from disasters, whether they are man-made or natural disasters?nn2. In the book’s final quote, why do you believe he says it takes “strength and grace” to make choices in life, rather than simply making ethical decisions?nnETHICS IN THE MOVIESnnMovies seek to entertain and inform the audience about a story, incident, or person. Many good movies also hit upon important ethical themes in making significant decisions that affect the lives of others. Read the movie summary here (and watch the movie if you haven’t already), and answer the questions to make the ethical connections.nnThe Emperor’s ClubnnMichael Hoffman, Director (2002)nnThe Emperor’s Club tells the story of a classics teacher William Hundert (Kevin Kline) at a private school for boys, who fixes the result of an academic competition, allowing a well-connected student to get away with cheating, and how subsequent events change him, but not the student.nnThe teacher is clearly very talented and works to build character in his students: “a man’s character is his fate,” “how will history remember you?” The problem student,nnSedgewick Bell (Emile Hirsch), is a disrespectful rule violator, but the other boys think he is very cool. He is the son of a powerful U.S. senator, who seems to care little about his son but threatens him to do well in school.nnThe problem student does indeed improve greatly in school, and the teacher allows him to participate in the annual best final three competition conducted in a quiz show format—even though he actually finished fourth. During the competition, the teacher sees the student cheating, but the headmaster tells him to ignore it, and the teacher finds a way to make him lose the competition anyway.nnM01_ALBA5659_03_SE_C01.QXD 10/29/10 2:36 PM Page 7nn8 Chapter 1 • Recognizing Ethical DecisionsnnThe movie then jumps forward 25 years, and the problem student is now a rich man running for senator, who wishes to give a large endowment to the private school on the con- dition there is a re-run of the competition in which he cheated and lost years earlier. The class is reassembled, the competition is replayed, and his former teacher finds he has cheated again—and does not let him win.nnThe film ends in unpredictable fashion, but the teacher learns that he will not succeed in reaching every student and is gratified by the response he received from his other former stu- dents. The film succeeds in portraying an excellent teacher who makes a mistake, and how that mistake plays out years later, as the former problem student appears to make the same mistake with his own son as his father did with him.nnQUESTIONSnn1. Was it ethical for the teacher to allow the student into the competition to reward his improvement even though he did not actually finish in the top three?nn2. Was it morally permissible for the headmaster to ignore the cheating student (probably because his father was a powerful senator)?nnDiscussion QuestionnnIf the study of ethics does not guarantee ethical conduct, why do it?nnCritical Thinking ExercisesnnAll ethical decisions affect others (by definition), and ethi- cal decision making is achieved consistently only through practice. Even though the discussion of the principles of ethical decision making begins in Chapter 2, please respond to the following scenarios based solely on your ability to think critically. It will be interesting to see if your reasoning or answers change if you examine these first five critical thinking exercises after finishing this book!nnImportant note on method: Critical thinking requires the ability to evaluate viewpoints, facts, and behaviors objec- tively to assess information or methods of argumentation to establish the true worth or merit of an act or course of conduct. Please evaluate these scenarios, starting with analyzing pros and cons of alternate views, before you come to a conclusion. Do not draw a conclusion first, and then try to find facts to support it—this frequently leads to narrow (and incorrect) thinking.nnTo properly evaluate the moral permissibility of a course of action using critical thinking skillsnn1. Begin with an open mind (no preconceptions!), 2. Isolate and evaluate the relevant facts on both sides,nn3. Identify the precise moral question to be answered, and 4. Apply ethical principles to the moral question based onnnan objective evaluation of the facts, only then drawing a conclusion.nn1.1 Teenagers and Drug-Sniffing DogsnnDrug use by teenagers is a fundamental fear of most parents. Coupled with images on the news, reports of government sta- tistics about rampant drug use, and periodic tragedies at schools around the country, most parents have been shown a clear link between drug use and tragedies of all kinds.nnYou are the parent of a teenager, who is showing all the signs of being a teenager. Your child is not very talk- ative to you, but is very talkative with friends; doesn’t want to be seen with you or the family at stores or on vacation; does not seem interested in being an “A” stu- dent anymore; has lousy taste in music; wears unattrac- tive clothing and hairstyles; and wants to get even more body parts pierced. These behaviors have not gone unno- ticed by you, and you fear that drug use might be at the root of it.nnM01_ALBA5659_03_SE_C01.QXD 10/29/10 2:36 PM Page 8nnChapter 1 • Recognizing Ethical Decisions 9nnYou contact Detector Dogs against Drugs, one of a grow- ing number of private security firms in the United States that trains dogs and is licensed by the Drug Enforcement Administration to contract with schools, corporations, or parents to conduct dog-led searches of teenager’s rooms and lockers for drugs.12 The fee is $250 to $750 for the search, but you don’t know what some of today’s drugs look like or the places where your teenager might hide drugs in the house.nnYou wait for your teenager to leave for school one day to have the search conducted without his or her knowledge or presence. You don’t believe that confronting your teenager with your suspicions will be fruitful, and if the search turns up nothing, then you will know your fears are unfounded.nn• Evaluate the moral permissibility of your Detector Dogs against Drugs search of your child’s room.nn(Hint: You will find that in ethical scenarios, there are usually the interests of two competing parties to consider. You should evaluate them separately [i.e., the strengths and weaknesses of each side’s arguments] before drawing a conclusion.)nn1.2 Sentenced to the NewspapernnJudges in several states are now permitted to sentence men who solicit prostitutes to buy ads in local newspapers to run their photos and the charges against them as a form of humiliation and shame. In some places, the names of the men can be placed on Web sites or even on a billboard.13nn• Is such a sentence for soliciting prostitutes morally permissible?nn(Hint: Here again it is necessary to comparatively assess the competing interests of the community [i.e., judge in sentencing] versus the interests of the offender.)nn1.3 Brewing Up a StormnnAn undercover police officer was on duty inside a bar con- ducting surveillance activities on crime suspects. The offi- cer bought a beer to maintain her cover.nnUnbeknownst to the officer, buying the beer automati- cally qualified her for a contest sponsored by a beer com- pany. The grand prize winner would win a new car worth $20,000. It was later announced that the undercover offi- cer was the grand prize winner.nnHer employer, the New York City Police Department (NYPD), believes the car should be turned over to the department because she bought the beer with department money and was on duty at the time.nnThe officer argues that the car should be hers because her employer did not require her to buy beer at the bar. Shennmerely had some good luck, and the department wishes to capitalize unfairly on her good fortune. The case was sent to the city’s Board of Ethics to settle the dispute.nn• As a member of the Board of Ethics, how would you evaluate the competing claims of the officer and the NYPD?nn• Would your answer be different if the undercover offi- cer walked into the bar and was awarded the new car for being the 10,000th customer inside the bar?nn1.4 Internet Predator StingnnA number of local law enforcement agencies are working with Perverted-Justice.com, a private organization that re- ceived nationwide attention after assisting a television news program, Dateline, to run sting operations to catch men using Internet chat rooms to meet children for sex. Founded in 2003, the private organization claims to have done work with police resulting in more than 200 convictions of online predators thus far.nnPerverted Justice’s volunteers pose as children online in Internet chat rooms. Very quickly, they receive private mes- sages from men of a sexual nature. If a man solicits sex, the volunteer works to obtain his phone number and address. In a phone call, a volunteer with a young-sounding voice sets up a meeting for a rendezvous. Law enforcement officials are brought in to make an arrest at the meeting location.nnNBC television’s Dateline series is titled “To Catch a Predator,” which videotapes the men lured to locations around the country where they believe they are meeting a minor for sex. Perverted Justice sometimes telephones the men’s wives, girlfriends, employers, and neighbors, label- ing them as pedophiles. Only after the men apologize and enter counseling does Perverted Justice consider removing their information from their Web site.14nnSupporters say the volunteer organization is a grassroots movement that is protecting children from online predators in a preventive way. Critics call it a vigilante effort that harasses suspects prior to their conviction and invades their privacy rights and also of those who know them or are related to them.nn• Do you believe that police agencies should work with Perverted Justice?nn• Can you identify the potential ethical issues in dealing with Internet predators in this way?nn1.5 An Honest GolfernnOn his twelfth hole of the first round of Qualifying School at Deerwood Country Club (a tryout required if one wishes to play on the PGA tour), professional golfer J.P. Hayes’nnM01_ALBA5659_03_SE_C01.QXD 10/29/10 2:36 PM Page 9nn10 Chapter 1 • Recognizing Ethical Decisionsnncaddie reached into his golf bag, pulled out a ball, and flipped it to Hayes, who missed the green with his tee shot. He then chipped on and marked his ball. It was then that Hayes realized the ball was not the same model Titleist with which he had started his round. That was in violation of the one-ball rule, which stipulates that a player must play the same model ball throughout a round.nnThe result is a two-stroke penalty on your final score. Hayes recovered well enough to put himself in position to finish in the top twenty and advance to the third and final round of Qualifying School. The top twenty-five finishers in that round earn exempt status for the entire 2009 PGA season and can play in all the tournaments.nnHayes then realized something else—not only did he play the wrong ball, he might have played a ball that wasn’t even approved for play at all. “It was a Titleist prototype, and somehow it had gotten into my bag,” he said. “It hadnnbeen four weeks since Titleist gave me some prototype balls and I tested them. I have no idea how or why it was still in there . . . I called an official in Houston that night and said, ‘I think I may have a problem.’ He said they’d call Titleist the next day. I pretty much knew at that point I was going to be disqualified.”15nnIt would have been easy to either do nothing or blame the caddy, but Hayes rose above both those temptations, putting all the blame on himself and asserting that every other professional golfer would have done exactly the same thing. Hayes already has more than $7 million in career earnings, but his action takes him off the PGA tour for a year until he can try to requalify next year, costing him some career stability and significant potential earnings.nn• Evaluate the moral permissibility of Hayes’ decision to report on his own actions.nnKey ConceptsnnGood character 2 Morals 2 Ethics 2nnValues 3 Critical thinking 3nnEtiquette 4 Moral relativism 5nnNotesnn1. Michael S. Josephson and Wes Hanson, Eds., The Power of Character (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1998), p. 4.nn2. Jeffrey Reiman, “Criminal Justice Ethics,” in P. Leighton and J. Reiman, Eds., Criminal Justice Ethics (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2001), p. 2.nn3. Chris Woodward, “Circuit City Tacks 15 Percent Fee on Some Returns,” USA Today (December 26, 1997), p. B3.nn4. “Nintendo No-No,” USA Today (August 21, 1991), p. 3. 5. Michael S. Josephson, The Power of Character (SannnFrancisco: Jossey-Bass, 1998), p. 2. 6. George Washington, Rules of Civility and DecentnnBehavior in Company and Conversation (1744) (Bedford, MA: Applewood Books, 1994), p. 20.nn7. Ervin Staub, The Psychology of Good and Evil: Why Children, Adults, and Groups Help and Harm Others (London: Cambridge University Press, 2003), p. 55.nn8. Francesca Gino, Michael I. Norton, and Dan Ariely, “The Counterfeit Self: The Deceptive Costs ofnnFaking It,” Psychological Science, vol. 21 (2010), pp. 712–720.nn9. Elizabeth Kiss, “In Praise of Eccentricity,” in M. Josephson and W. Hanson, Eds., The Power of Character (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1998), p. 335.nn10. Vartan Gregorian, “Our Moral DNA,” in M. Josephson and W. Hanson, Eds., The Power of Character (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1998), p. 115.nn11. Mortimer Adler, Ten Philosophical Mistakes (New York: Scribners, 1985), p. 161.nn12. Brendan I. Koerner, “Mom, A Dog Is Here Sniffing, Um, Oregano,” U.S. News & World Report (October 5, 1998), p. 62.nn13. “Shame Works, So Use It,” USA Today (September 1, 2004), p. 8.nn14. Jason Trahan and Chris Colgin, “Campaign against Child Sex Predators Draws Critics,” The Dallas Morning News (September 10, 2006).nn15. Jay Busbee, “J.P. Hayes Is As Honest As We Like to Think We Are,” Devil Ball Golf (November 19, 2008).nnM01_ALBA5659_03_SE_C01.QXD 10/29/10 2:36 PM Page 10