Q #1: Just where have I been these past few days?

Well, briefly I was in Dallas until Saturday mid-day. Then I flew south to Houston so I could fly north to Calgary. Got there on time, but it took them about an hour to find our luggage (they should have looked in the luggage compartment of the plane first, but what do I know). I stayed overnight at the Airport Delta (where they felt sorry for me for my late arrival and gave me a late night snack — I paid for the beer that came with it!!). Got up very early, and flew to Vancouver and then on to Penticton. Sunday was pretty much a write-off day although I did visit with my good friend Sandy who had finally returned from significant surgery in Victoria (had a super-collider pacemaker installed!!) — a glass of wine certainly helped us all debrief on our various experiences…

Monday was a ski day — minus Sandy (who has been forbidden to ski the rest of this season — luckily he purchased “life pass insurance” but then again he is a deeply Scottish gentleman) and Bill who had been flattened by another skier on Friday (actually a friend he was skiing with) and was recovering at home. Skiing was okay…although the Texas break seemed to have weakened my “quads” as I finally had to leave the top of the mountain and finish off with some runs on the “triple chair” which is slower and therefore gives more rest time!!

Tuesday was mainly working in the office, except I did get to meet a new doctor in town — he turned out to be a really nice guy and seemed to think he would keep me as a patient (I had been fired a year ago by another doctor after one visit!!).

Today was another ski day. There was lots of powder so I used my “pontoon skis” (Dynastar Chams 109). That certainly helped ride through and over the mounds of snow as the morning progressed, but again every run required work and Bruce and I found our “quads” once again pretty well finished about 10 runs/6000 Vm’s… but we also thought we should celebrate that we made it that far and so found ourselves in the Gunbarrel Saloon on the mountain — were joined at lunch by a good friend and her son who’d flown in from England to try out our mountain. The remainder of the day included a very warm “soaker bath” in the almost two metre soaker tub which led to a lengthy nap…

There, isn’t that an interesting read!!

Q #2: What happened at APPE that is worth repeating?

OK, so you aren’t that interested in a travelog that includes ski reports from Apex Ski Resort. Well then, you should have come to the Annual General Meeting and Conference of the Association of Practical and Professional Ethics (APPE). This year’s conference was one of the better and in addition to the many small group and individual conversations that always enhance one’s thinking about how to deal with ethical challenges, there were some very good presentations. People seem to be digging down more into the many aspects of practical and applied ethics. One presentation on the importance of John Dewey to the development of practical ethics in North America was particularly good and I will give a greater summary of this in the days ahead.

There was an interesting conversation on whether businesses value moral reasoning in the hiring process. While it seems that there is real concern over the ethical capacities in new recruits, the research showed that there was not significant evidence that the people hiring had strong backgrounds in being able to assess moral reasoning in such recruits. The other intriguing factor that came out in the question period was whether the levels of ethical concern in the HR personnel were reflected in the CEO’s and senior management. The conversation concluded with a general consensus that unless the organization was led in an ethical manner, it might not make much difference how ethical a new recruit might be. Moreover, if the HR department can not adequately assess moral reasoning, it may mistakenly hire someone that simply answered the ethics questions well rather than answering them with conviction or understanding.

On the question of ethical leadership, which came up in a variety of settings and presentations, a recurring theme was: is a moral person always a moral manager? Moreover it is not always easy to define “ethical leadership” — how do you get people to do the right things? And in the process, do we do it ethically? The conversations also explored the potential for personal partiality — do we feel more comfortable in the groups we favour and therefore tend to see the norms of these contexts as more ethical than perhaps, the actions of other groups or the advent of new thinking? Are ethical leaders more attractive as leaders? One thing that I found most interesting in all these conversations: when pressed, most agreed that moral philosophy is not sufficient in and of itself. and that too often achievement may be the most important “rating” of success re leadership, not ethical reasoning (let alone action).

There was one very intriguing conversation on the theme of “You may be teaching Ethics unethically” — like the Dewey discussion, I will comment more on this in the days ahead.

If I had one overarching comment to make about this year’s APPE it would be the age level — it is trending younger and that makes me very excited about the future of the organization and indeed the future of practical and applied ethics generally. One example: The organization is moving from its current home at the University of Indiana to Depauw University — from a big school to a small one. That in itself would be an interesting concept — but the biggest aspect is that the new team there is very young, very energetic and very creative. If I was thirty years younger, I’d be applying to join the Prindle Institute for Ethics at that university. They are on fire…

By the way, due to travel issues I was unable to participate in the Ethics Bowl this year, so I have no comments on it.

Q #3: What might a political scientist have to say about my comments in Chapter Twenty-Nine?

Well, let me quote from an esteemed member of that discipline (remaining anonymous at this time):
“In political science, we are trained to look at everything from a general systems point of view; this is to say,
what are the inputs?
what (are) the transformations which then happen? and finally,
what are the outputs, that is to say results:?
In looking at any general systems a person, a nation, we then look for points of control and communication, and how the various pieces of the system interact and change as the responses create feedback — that is to say change. So we look at recursion, variety and how values and power are distributed in any given system. Ethics from this point of view is then, as Aristotle said, the sister of politics. Politics is defined as the allocation of values; and ethics would be the reasoning associated with the development and expression of those values.”

As always, I appreciate your thoughts, whether sent directly to me or posted on this site.

g.w.