Worst Instincts: You CAN Learn Ethics from Books

Here’s another blog I posted when I was working in Spirit Lake Consulting:

Can you really learn ethics from a book? Mark Twain argued that there were only two ways to learn — from smart people and from books written by smart people.

The latest book I read, Worst Instincts, is about boards, particularly, the ACLU board.

The author, Wendy Kaminer, opens with a story from her childhood. A group of kids decided to steal another boy’s notebook and destroy it, knowing he would get into a lot of trouble. Even though she knew it was very wrong, she went along with it, and when the boy came asking door to door if anyone had seen it, she was too ashamed to confess. What was she so afraid of that she would not Fast forward many years and she is on the board of the American Civil Liberties Union. She asks this question,

“If you were on a golf team playing in a tournament where the winning team got a large donation to the charity of its choice and you noticed that one of your team members was cheating, would you do anything about it?”

Ms. Kaminer argues that most people would not turn in their teammate, justifying it by the fact that the charity would get money if the team won, the player would be embarrassed if disqualified, etc. She points out, though, that most people exaggerate the benefits and underestimate the costs of their failure of the courage to be honest. If your team was disqualified, some OTHER charity would get the money, it…