13/12/2010 Business Ethics and the “New York Time…

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Business Ethics and the “New York Times” Rule

Posted December 8, 2010
Filed under: accountability, decision-making, ethics, stakeholders, transparency |

On Monday, the front page of

the New York Times featured
at story about financial firms
adjusting the timing of
bonuses in response to
anticipated changes in tax
laws. I mention this story not
because of the particular
ethical issues involved, but
because it was featured on Chris MacDonald, Ph.D., is an
educator, speaker, and
the front page of The Times.
consultant in the realm of
How would you like your decision-making subject to that kind of scrutiny?
business ethics. He is also
From some perspectives, ethics is simple: “do the right thing.” For others currently a Visiting Scholar at the
(especially for philosophers like myself) it is incredibly complex, involving an University of Toronto's Clarkson
Centre for Business Ethics and
ongoing centuries-old debate between arcane theories like deontology,
Board Effectiveness, at the
utilitarianism, social contract theory, virtue theory, and others. In-between, we
Rotman School of Management.
see lots of bits of ethical wisdom bundled into rules of thumb for ethical decision-
making. Some of them are useful, some are misleading. He teaches Philosophy, including
business ethics, at Saint Mary's
The one I’d like to discuss briefly today is the so-called “Front Page of the University in Halifax, Canada,
Newspaper” test, or sometimes “The New York Times Rule.” In one of its and is a Nonresident Senior
standard versions, it gets stated this way: “never do anything you wouldn’t want Fellow at Duke University's Kenan
to see reported on the front page of the New York Times.” Some versions have Institute for Ethics.
additional qualifiers. Some, for example, say that you shouldn’t do anything you
He has twice been named one of
wouldn’t want to see fairly reported on the front page. That qualifier rules out
the "100 Most Influential People
slanted or malicious reporting — there are presumably plenty of fully-justifiable
in Business Ethics".
behaviours that we wouldn’t want to see reported in a malicious way, on the front
page of the NYT or anywhere else. He has been writing The Business
Ethics Blog since November of
The first thing to say about the Newspaper Test is that it probably is a useful 2005.
heuristic. Asking the question it poses at very least serves as an opportunity to
Business ethics professors say
pause and ask yourself whether the action you’re about to take is one that could
the business ethics blog is...
withstand publicity and scrutiny. "...the best thing that ever
happened to Business Ethics
But there are two clear problems with the Newspaper Test.
courses...clear and intelligent
presentation of the real ethical
One problem is that it can seem to serve as an argument against actions that are
stakes behind the current
actually perfectly ethical. John Hooker, in his book Business Ethics as Rational
headlines..."
Choice, gives this example: Imagine you’re CEO of a large corporation, and due
[Prof. Wayne Norman, Duke
to tough economic times you’re forced to lay off several thousand employees.
University]
Imagine that some of those employees slide into clinical depression. Others
become alcoholics and end up beating their children. Lives are ruined. You "...one of the best destinations
probably wouldn’t want all of that reported on the front page of the NY Times, but on the web to send students for
that doesn’t mean your choice was unethical. In fact, Hooker points out, it might fascinating and timely analyses of
have been the least-bad option available. The point here is that sometimes even cutting-edge issues ..."
[Prof. Laura Hartman, DePaul
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13/12/2010 Business Ethics and the “New York Time…
ethically good decisions are ones that we wouldn’t want publicized, either because University]
their negative consequences are more visible than their positive ones, or because
the reasons behind those decisions are reasons that, despite being good reasons,
Search
would be difficult or even impossible to explain.
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The other problem is that it can seem to condone behaviour that is actually
unethical. Most obviously, it can let you go ahead with an unethical plan if you Should Companies Judge the
happen either to be either generally insensitive to bad publicity or blind to subtle Ethics of Those With Whom they
Do Business?
ethical dimensions of the question at hand. The former possibility is pretty self-
Wikileaks, Credit-Card
explanatory: some people (and some companies) just don’t seem to care what the
Companies, and Complicity
public thinks of them, or believe themselves to be above all need for
Business Ethics and the “New
accountability. As an example of the latter possibility (ethical blindness), picture
York Times” Rule
a company sending its CEO to Washington on a private jet, with the aim of
Deadly Crashes, “Agency Theory”
asking for money, and being utterly oblivious to the idea that the public might
& the Challenges of Management
find this unseemly. If you don’t recognize, or care, that someone might object to Four Myths About Business Ethics
your decision, then conducting the Newspaper Test isn’t going to stop you from
doing something you shouldn’t. Archives
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The thing to remember about the Newspaper Test is that, like so many other
catchy rules of thumb, it is at best a heuristic, and not an algorithm. It doesn’t
Links:
automatically crank out an answer that is both determinate and correct. What it About Chris MacDonald,Ph.D.
really is is an ‘intuition pump.’ It is a way to force yourself to ask, as part of a Email Chris
well-rounded ethical decision-making process, whether your decision is one that, BusinessEthics.ca
in principle, you could defend in public. The hidden strength of the Newspaper My Biotech Ethics Blog
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3 comments so far This Sporting Life

Mark on December 8, 2010 The Authenticity Hoax
Marginal Revolution

Good topic Chris,

See also:
There’s another side to this “front page” heuristic that for me is the perhaps The EthicsWeb Bookstore
the most important. The heuristic is really about community values and how we Chris MacDonald, Ethics
judge ethical standards. However, different newspapers have different Consultant
audiences and they each reflect and feed into the different values of those
audiences. So the heuristic will result in different decisions depending on the
newspaper and the values of its readers. What the front page of many business
newspapers tells me is that the values of the corporate world are often very
much out of step with those of other, perhaps more broadly based,
communities. The “front page test” as applied to Wall Street Journal or the
Australian Financial Review might result in very different ethical choices when
compared with, say, the Washington Post or The Age. This gets back to your
second point of “ethical blindness”, buts it’s a blindness of the audience as
much as anything else. Perhaps we need to develop our moral imaginations
through the use of a new 21st century front page heuristic – “never do anything
you wouldn’t want your children to read about you on Facebook”.

Mark

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13/12/2010 Business Ethics and the “New York Time…
Reply

Chris MacDonald on December 9, 2010

Mark:

Great point. Exactly right. I think really the only good way to use this kind of
heuristic is to make it one of several such rules. Others can include “never do
anything you wouldn’t want to report to your…mentor…mother…clergy…etc.”

Chris.

Reply

wesleywilliam on December 9, 2010

I am recently new to your blog, but I am really relating to what you have to say. I
think a simple “newspaper test” is a good thing for top officials and leaders of
companies to think about. I understand that they can not solely rest on that
test, but it is a good notion for making appropriate ethical decisions.

I am also highlighting the importance of business ethics in my own blog. Please

check it out.

http://somethingaboutbusiness.wordpress.com

Reply

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