The Duke of Sheh informed Confucius, saying, “Among us here there are those who may be styled upright in their conduct. If their father have stolen a sheep, they will bear witness to the fact.”

Confucius said, “Among us, in our part of the country, those who are upright are different from this. The father conceals the misconduct of the son, and the son conceals the misconduct of the father. Uprightness is to be found in this.”

To be fair, I think this comes from a very different place for Confucious than the simple human tendency to empathize with the person in front of them over the wellbeing of society at large: for Confucious I think that filial loyalty trumps legal concerns, but that places even more moral burden on the father, who would now be morally obligated not just for his crime, but for the crime he forced upon his son.

Good on your pops!

Personally, I know more people who have been hurt or killed by elderly drivers than by young hotshots or drunks.

I am proud of my grandpa and dad, both of whom voluntarily decided that they were no longer safe to drive, despite the fact that the state was perfectly happy to renew their licenses.  (My dad still has a functional license, even.  He just uses it for ID purposes now.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wendy_Beckett

Ms. Beckett startled Moyers (and me) by announcing that she didn’t believe in guilt.

 She explained that she certainly believes in regret, because sometimes we do wrong unintentionally, after which remorse is natural.  But she noted that then, after we discover that we have done wrong, the next step is to stop doing it.  Period.

Then she went on to say that guilt is what we feel when we know we are doing wrong and keep doing it anyway,  and so she doesn’t consider it an honest emotional position.

It also doesn’t help that people think that laws and ethics are the same thing. Breaking the law = unethical makes sense if you’e talking about murder, but most people shouldn’t have too much difficulty coming up with laws that are, from an ethical standpoint, made to be broken, in at least some occasions, or things that are overtly unethical but are legal.

The emissions tester shouldn’t have to choose between taking away the single mother’s Honda Civic or doing right by the environment, he should be deciding whether or not the guy driving the Ferrari needs to be taxed a little more to subsidize the Honda.

The spookiest forms of fraud I’ve seen would remind you of that scene in “Omen” where the nurse yells, “I did it for you, Damien!  I did it all for you!” Kerthunk – splat!

Support staff did anything to promote their trader’s interest over customers or institutions.  When I’d call them on it, the response was  ”It’s what ______ would want”.

It made me wonder if there was an unspoken agreement or if there is a point where the boss becomes insulated from crimes committed in his name.

(Funnier if you keep in mind that it’s 3:18 in the morning in Germany)

Society doesn’t work that way.