Virtuous Living

Virtuous Living

Benjamin Franklin should be a well-known name to anyone living (or rather raised and educated) in the United States.  He was a statesman, author, tinkerer, diplomat, and quite possibly a very busy ladies man (Ecenbarger, 1990).  And while it may seem odd to take moral guidance from a man who had numerous affairs his advice isn’t always bad. Franklin listed 13 virtues for healthy living and they are silence, order, resolution, frugality, sincerity, justice, moderation, cleanliness, tranquility, chastity, and humility. Franklin certainty didn’t live up to his own chastity standards but his overall message is still a good message.

I have been asked to choose three of these virtues and how I apply them to my own life.

Silence: Let me start by saying that silence is golden.  I have read that we have two ears and one mouth so that we may only speak half of what we hear. Franklin wasn’t saying that we should never speak. He was saying that our interactions should have value. We should seek to add to the conversation or ideas and simply speak to hear our own voices.  I find this virtue to be personally agreeable, as I don’t do well with idle chitchat. That being said, it has its place. Being a good conversationalist can go a long way towards making quality friends and developing good relationships. I tend to think of this virtue as avoiding malicious speech and not gossiping.

Tranquility: It probably comes as no surprise that someone that values silence also values tranquility. But Franklin was referring to not being upset over trifles. This is something I apply daily. Maybe the virtue of my work has exposed me to how truly bad the human condition can be or maybe my own dealing’s with a life-threatening infection two years ago but I see no point in getting worked up over small issues. For that matter, I rarely let myself get too worked up over major issues. Instead I try to approach situations with a sense of rationality.

Frugality: Here is a virtue with which I have struggled in the past. I tend to be generous, both to myself and with others; I have a decent income yet I occasionally still find myself wondering where all the money went at the end of the month. I have been devoting a lot of effort into developing this virtue. I pay attention to a budget. I make almost all of my purchases with cash rather than credit and I’ve learned to not give in to impulse buying.  It hasn’t been an easy lesson to learn and I still find myself thinking, “well it’s only ten dollars” which is a dangerous line of thought!

Virtuous values are something that people develop.  Benjamin Franklin may have had vices, but who among us doesn’t?  We can often aspire to virtuous traits and still fall short. The danger comes in rationalizing away our shortcomings.  I would hate to go through life having never failed or fallen short of a goal. How else would we learn perspective? 

References

Ecenbarger, W. (1990, May 6). Ben Franklin`s Dangerous Liaisons. Retrieved from http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1990-05-06/features/9002070774_1_poor-richard-lucy-mercer-franklin-delano-roosevelt

Marketing and Diet

When the first caveman made the first spear he had to sell the idea to other cavemen and thus marketing was born. While I sincerely doubt that is the how the development of spears occurred the basic idea remains the same. Marketing has been around for as long as one group of people had to convince some other group of people that their ideas or products where the way to go. When we talk about marketing we often think of the traditional advertising and selling. Television advertisements, billboards, Times Square and the multitude of images on buildings, and even online advertisements can all be considered traditional or mainstream. Marketing also comes in many other forms. Job interviews are a type of marketing…you are selling yourself to a potential employer and in some cases they are selling themselves to you. The rise of online dating could even be considered marketing, you create a profile on a website and fill it with (hopefully true) things about yourself in an effort to entice someone to respond to your advances.

But is it evil as the title of this week’s assignment suggests? The low hanging ethical fruit of deceptive marketing is of course considered unethical as deception for profit is hard to justify and we will identify an egregious example below. Outright fraudulent statements about competitors are likewise hard to justify but are also low-hanging fruit when it comes to marketing ethics. The Small Business Administration provides resources to the numerous laws governing marketing on their website www.sba.gov should one wish to peruse them.

This post is not a discussion of marketing legal boundaries but rather ethics and there is one area (and possibly more but this blog would digress into a lengthy research project) where marketing can be considered to have breached ethical boundaries and that is “natural foods.”

What are natural foods? From the FDA, “From a food science perspective, it is difficult to define a food product that is 'natural' because the food has probably been processed and is no longer the product of the earth. That said, FDA has not developed a definition for use of the term natural or its derivatives. However, the agency has not objected to the use of the term if the food does not contain added color, artificial flavors, or synthetic substances (www.fda.gov)” You may notice that doesn’t mean a great deal. Arsenic is naturally occurring but that doesn’t mean that it should be put in your peanut butter. So a manufacturer is free to place any substance they want in your food just so long as it is free from added color, artificial flavors, or synthetic substances. Well it’s a big world with lots of things in it and many of those things, healthy or not, can wind up in what you are eating.

Sugar and its derivatives such as high fructose syrups are considered natural foods by the above definition. The Union of Concerned Scientists states the food industry labels foods as natural while increasing their sugar content. High sugar diets may lead to health concerns such as obesity and high blood pressure. But…it’s natural right? Additionally sugar, and junk food in general, are placed in foods in order to create an addiction among consumers (Moss, 2013). Junk foods reward the dopamine centers of the brain and create addictions in much the same way that certain drugs create addiction. The low nutrient value of these foods ensures that people are hungry again in a few hours and will consume more of these foods.

According to the Urban Child Institute a poor diet, as an infant is linked to a large number of health concerns and they are much more likely to develop significant health problems as they age. Additionally, junk foods are less likely to have minerals such as iron and zinc. Iron and zinc are best sourced from animal proteins and a lack of these minerals can lead to deficiencies in the immune system (Walker et al, 2005).

The food industry is well aware of these concerns and Moss highlights the pressure the food industry puts on scientists and regulators to ensure that the greatest profits are made. Junk food is cheap to produce, addicts its consumers, and provides such low nutritional value that the sole consumption of junk food can lead to medical concerns. By labeling things as “natural” even if they are pumped full of sugar the food industry can market has healthy even when they are anything but healthy. This level of deception is entirely unethical and according to some metrics, sacrificing the health of a population for increased profit could be considered evil.



Truth in Advertising is the key to a Successful Business ... (n.d.). Retrieved November 20, 2016, from https://prezi.com/z9oeer78twok/truth-in-advertising-is-the-key-to-a-successful-business/



Sugar Coating Science: How the Food Industry Misleads Consumers on Sugar. (2014, June). Retrieved November 20, 2016, from http://www.ucsusa.org/center-for-science-and-democracy/sugar-coating-science.html#.WDIGlzKZPR0



What is the meaning of 'natural' on the label of food? (n.d.). Retrieved November 20, 2016, from http://www.fda.gov/AboutFDA/Transparency/Basics/ucm214868.htm



Moss, M. (2013, February 20). The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food. Retrieved November 20, 2016, from http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/24/magazine/the-extraordinary-science-of-junk-food.html



Nutrition and Early Brain Development. (2011, March 25). Retrieved November 20, 2016, from http://www.urbanchildinstitute.org/articles/updates/nutrition-and-early-brain-development





Walker, C. F., Kordas, K., & Stoltzfus, A. R. (2005). Interactive effects of iron and zinc on biochemical and functional outcomes in supplementation trials. Retrieved November 20, 2016, from http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/82/1/5.full

Affirmative Action

Is Affirmative Action Ethical?

This week’s blog focuses on affirmative action and seeks to answer if affirmative action is ethical. To me the answer is easy…yes.

The United States has a history of genocide, slavery, legalized discrimination, and significant racial tension. As LaFollette states in the Practice of Ethics, the US didn’t outlaw racial discrimination until the 1960s. (LaFollette, 2007) This legalized discrimination effectively economically hobbled an entire class of people. This video explains the effects this “hobbling” has had far better than I ever could, and while it may not be academic it certainly offers perspective. Even if we assume that racism has ended (it hasn’t) past racial discrimination has led to underemployment, housing segregation, poor schools, high interest rate loans, and poor healthcare. LaFollette also states that black families were unable to pass along as much accumulated wealth to their children thereby adding to the ever-increasing distance a black child will have to go in order to even be even with a white child.

Affirmative action seeks to remove some of those barriers by allowing minorities to move into roles that they otherwise would not be able to obtain, no matter how qualified they may be. It isn’t enough to say “well if they are qualified they will be selected” as it is often the case a minority doesn’t get the chance to have their qualifications heard.

This past year much has been said about “white privilege” and the backlash to such a concept serves as both a counter-point and a validation for affirmative action. How do you explain to a poor white child from a very rural area that they have privilege? In 1989 a woman by the name of Peggy Macintosh wrote an article for Peace and Freedom Magazine called “Unpacking the Invisible Backback.” This article is published on the National SEED Project’s website and can be accessed here. It is an amazing read but the short version is the “backpack” is a metaphor for the various privileges that are conferred upon whites, and mostly referring to white men. When explaining privilege to the poor, white child we must first move past the idea that privilege is something that is conferred or bestowed. As Macintosh infers, white privilege simply…is.

I am a 37 year old white male. I am heterosexual. I am college educated. I am from an upper-middle class background. I am neither obese nor am I too skinny. Every demographic feature I possess places me in a position to not be followed in a store, to not be immediately disregarded by lenders, and to not be targeted by police. I live in an apartment that is in a low-crime area. I am free from a minutiae of barriers and harassment that occur every day in the life of minority. I will never know what it like to be a black man in the United States (or any other minority) and neither will our hypothetical poor, white child.

It is true that poverty is a barrier and that barrier can be tough to overcome if you live in a disadvantaged area no matter your ethnicity. However, if we place the poor white child and the poor black child on the same starting line, the black child will, speaking from statistics, have many more barriers on their way to prosperity.

Ms. Macintosh makes my argument more eloquently than I ever could. Equal rights are a passion of mine. I firmly believe that we all deserve to live the lives we are capable of; free from persecution. It may be a bit of a pipe dream but regulations such as affirmative action are the tools with which we can begin to level the playing field. So is affirmative action ethical? Yes but more so…it is vital.

Falls From Grace

This week’s blog focuses on the character and personality changes that occur as a leader gains power; specifically the focus is on societal, professional, and personal dilemmas. The article can be found here and it is an excellent read.

Kramer does not discuss the inherent psychopathy inherent in many leaders. Forbes has an excellent article that summarizes various readings and published works regarding this phenomenon and it is also worth a read. Perhaps it is my work in mental health that leads me to pursue a different approach than “power changes” and instead look at it from the perspective of “to achieve the highest level of power there had to be underlying personality traits to be begin with” While Kramer holds a PhD in psychology it is in the realm of possibility that he has focused on one question and hasn’t asked the other. While that is pure speculation it does seem to be that way from the tone of his article.

As Kramer suggested there is a heady rush that comes with power. This heady rush and lack of constraints could bring to the surface underlying negative personality traits that are normally held in check by societal norms. Psychopathy, in the clinical sense, does not mean one is constantly “crazy” or is acting out in a strange fashion. Indeed many high-functioning people with mental health disorders are able to keep their impulses or negative thoughts in check by understanding that negative consequences can occur should they not do so. Remove those constraints and the negative traits can begin to surface.

As Kramer also listed several CEOs that remained grounded it is obvious that my perspective is not true across all cases however even Kramer’s suggested guidelines would not be applied to all successful leaders.

I think the larger problem is that we, as a society, admire people who are able to break the rules and succeed. We are not so forgiving of people who break the rules and do not succeed. Various news outlets will demonize a welfare recipient for finding a loophole and gaining an extra few bucks a month and then turn around and praise a billionaire for finding a loophole that allows for the avoidance of millions of dollars in taxes. This admiration bleeds over into Kramer’s argument that power gives people the feeling of being above the rules.

Personally and professionally I attempt to conduct myself according to a value system based around compassion, a sense of duty, and respect for others. I continually attempt to see things from the other party’s point of view. I feel this makes me a better person but it also makes me a shrewd negotiator and I’ve used that skill to negotiate favorable deals while selling a home or while selling a business proposal. I think that in order to keep this in check, and this is consistent with Kramer’s argument, a sense of self awareness is crucial to staying grounded. To this I would add that a strong emotional intelligence is also required. The two are similar but emotional intelligence requires us to be more in tune with how we feel in addition to just knowing our strengths and flaws. Morally, negotiating a favorable business arrangement isn’t incorrect. However, knowing a business move will cause deliberate harm can be considered immoral. Competitiveness can make that a blurry distinction and sharpening that distinction is not the focus of this post. Kramer makes a fine point about leadership and falls from grace but I wonder if they who fell from grace were victims of their own disorders?

Kramer, R. (2003, October). The Harder They Fall. Harvard Business Review,81(10), 58-66. Retrieved November 5, 2016, from http://web.b.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.libproxy.db.erau.edu/ehost/detail/detail?sid=4b2073fb-01ee-4b15-a680-5fbbc535885b@sessionmgr107&vid=0&hid=107&bda=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ==#AN=10986098&db=bth



Lipman, V. (2013, April 25). The Disturbing Link Between Psychopathy and Leadership. Retrieved November 5, 2016, from http://www.forbes.com/sites/victorlipman/2013/04/25/the-disturbing-link-between-psychopathy-and-leadership/#6c9842b32740