Seven Revolutions: March 24 Presentation to Explore Trends Reshaping Global Society

Make plans to join us on March 24 for a dramatic view of global society in the year 2025. Our speaker will be Erik Peterson, director of the "Seven Revolutions" project at the Global Strategy Institute of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C.. The project identifies and analyzes some of the key challenges that policy makers, business executives, and other leaders will face in the future. It is used by governmental agencies and leading corporations to promote strategic thinking on long-term trends that few leaders take the time to consider.

"Seven Revolutions: How Will Your World Change by 2025?" will be presented March 24 at 10 a.m. in Brock Recital Hall at Samford University. (Convo credit is available to Samford students.) This is a program in the Mann Center's A. Gerow Hodges Lecture Series, conducted in partnership with the Brock School of Business. Guests from off campus may register online for this program at no charge.

This lively, multimedia presentation will look at global trends in population, resource management, technology, information, conflict, governance and economic integration. "When taken together, the change that we can envisage in these seven areas suggests the need for far-sighted leadership animated by vision and innovative approaches," Peterson says. "This, I believe, is where higher education is especially important. Our overarching challenge is to provide the knowledge for leaders to develop vision, to inculcate them with the understanding to execute on their vision, and to help them develop a conceptual and ethical foundation on which difficult -- sometimes excruciating -- tradeoffs will have to be made."

Teaching and Research at Samford

2009 HEAL Conference: The Intersection of Faith and Ethics in Health Care

The annual conference of Samford's Health Ethics and Law (HEAL) Institute will be held Friday, April 17, with principal speakers including Daniel P. Sulmasy, O.F.M., M.D., Ph.D., and Karen Lebacqz, Ph.D. Dr. Sulmasy is a general internist and philosopher who holds the Sisters of Charity Chair in Ethics at St. Vincent’s Hospital, Manhattan, and serves as professor of medicine and director of the Bioethics Institute of New York Medical College. Dr. Lebacqz, professor emerita of theological ethics at the Pacific School of Religion, has written extensively on professional ethics, bioethics and ethical theory. This year’s program examines the relationship between spirituality and health care from many perspectives.

Dennis Sansom, Ph.D., "Can Christian Ethics Be a Legitimate Ethic? An Analysis of the Relation Between the Moral Ideal and Ethical Reasoning" (a working paper).

Speaking at a recent colloquium of Samford's Department of Religion, Dennis Sansom contended that "we do not primarily settle on which ethical system is the best based upon what is reasonable to a reasonable person. Rather, we settle on an ethic based upon a more profound commitment, and that is our sense of what kind of person we should be, of what is the ideal type of person." He presented a working paper that, in part, responds to claims by the late James Rachels that faith adds nothing to morality or ethics. (Rachels was a philosopher at University of Alabama at Birmingham for more than 25 years.) Sansom describes ethics as "the rational reflection upon a moral conviction about human purpose," arguing that the "rational merit" of any system of ethics, including Christian ethics, must be judged by whether it faithfully reasons about its moral ideal."

Dennis Sansom chairs the Department of Philosophy and is a Mann Center associated scholar.

News and Views

A conference on Ethics, Politics and Public Corruption will be held April 3 in Birmingham, co-sponsored by the American Bar Association (ABA) Criminal Justice Section and the Alabama State Bar. A national line-up of speakers includes ABA President Thomas Wells. Conference sessions will consider the roles of prosecutors, defense attorneys, judges and the news media in criminal cases involving public officials.

The American Anthropological Association has changed its code of ethics to strengthen protection of human research subjects, and to encourage free dissemination of scholarship. One addition to the revised code reads, "Anthropologists have a responsibility to be both honest and transparent with all stakeholders about the nature and intent of their research. They must not misrepresent their research goals, funding sources, activities, or findings. Anthropologists should never deceive the people they are studying regarding the sponsorship, goals, methods, products, or expected impacts of their work. Deliberately misrepresenting one’s research goals and impact to research subjects is a clear violation of research ethics, as is conducting clandestine research."

A new report from the non-profit Committee for Economic Development calls on directors of public companies to take greater responsibility for societal issues. Rebuilding Corporate Leadership is the product of an initiative led by William H. Donaldson, former chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. He contends that "although public corporations increasingly are the core of a system unsurpassed in creating jobs, income, and wealth, corporate leaders -- directors and managers -- must do better, by integrating societal concerns into corporate strategy to strengthen long-term competitiveness and in so doing, the sustainability of both the corporation and the society in which it operates. In short, corporate leaders cannot ignore their place in the social fabric."

A study of government corruption in 57 countries was released last week by Global Integrity, an international non-profit organization that tracks global trends. The 2008 Global Integrity Report uses more than 300 indicators to assess accountability
mechanisms and transparency measures that may prevent corruption. Where weaknesses in such safeguards exist, corruption is more likely to occur. On the "watch list" of countries where high-level government corruption is most likely: Angola, Belarus, Cambodia, China, Georgia, Iraq, Montenegro, Morocco, Nicaragua, Serbia, Somalia, the West Bank, and Yemen. Additional Resource: Transparency International ratings of countries on bribery issues.

An informative web resource in business ethics and corporate responsibility has been launched by the European Academy of Business in Society (EABIS) and the European Foundation for Management Development (EFMD). The Business in Society Gateway aims to become the "world’s most comprehensive online resource centre" of its kind, providing access to research, as well as information on educational activities in Europe and elsewhere. Meanwhile, the international Caux Round Table has a new web site, offering useful resources and perspectives on a range of issues. Founded in 1986, Caux Round Table is a longtime advocate of a set of ethical principles for business.

Survey of American Teens: 38 Percent Say Cheating is Necessary for Success at School

With findings similar to those of a study reported last month in this newsletter, a recent survey of American teens reveals a widespread belief that cheating is necessary to get ahead, even though 80 percent of respondents expressed confidence in their preparedness to make ethical decisions at work.

Here are several more highlights of the survey, conducted by Junior Achievement and the accounting firm Deloitte:

> Twenty-seven percent think behaving violently is sometimes, often or always acceptable. One in five said they had personally behaved violently toward another person in the past year.
> Roughly half 49 percent) of those who say they are ethically prepared believe that lying to parents and guardians is acceptable.
> Teens feel more accountable to themselves (86 percent) than they do to their parents or guardians (52 percent), their friends (41 percent) or society (33 percent).
> Only 54 percent cite their parents as role models. Most of those who did not cite their parents named friends or said they didn’t have a role model. Just 3 percent cited members of clergy as role models.
> Just 25 percent said they would be “very likely” to reveal knowledge of unethical behavior in the workplace.

Taken together, these findings suggest that families, schools and other institutions are falling short in the moral formation of U.S. teens. That so many young people feel little accountability to others has disturbing implications for their future lives as students, employees and citizens.