Should College Graduates Swear an Oath to Social Responsibility?

Peter Singer writes favorably about a new trend at Harvard Business School. New MBAs are taking an oath to use their skills and credentials to promote corporate social responsibility rather than just the bottom line. For years, mainstream capitalist theorists, such as Milton Friedman, have argued that the only responsibility corporate managers have is to make as much profit as they can for their stockholders (as long as they obey the law). Now, with the meltdown of the housing and credit markets, some MBAs are thinking they need to have a wider ethical perspective.

Singer admits that over 80% of Harvard MBAs have not signed on board to be more ethically minded, but he has hope.

This made me wonder whether college graduates shouldn't be encouraged to think about their social responsibility. As Singer points out, the idea of professionals swearing to "do no harm" is not a new idea. We should remember that the idea of a bachelor's degree comes from the medieval notion of having succeeded at being a baccalaureus--literally a squire to a knight. That is, one has mastered a set of special skills supposedly to be used for the benefit of society (saving widows and orphans and such).

There is a Graduation Pledge Alliance that champions the idea of college graduates taking such an oath. The oath goes something like this: “I pledge to explore and take into account the social and environmental consequences of any job I consider and will try to improve these aspects of any organizations for which I work.” The idea has not really taken off beyond a few liberal arts and religious schools.

Is the idea of college graduate social responsibility an idea whose time has come or naive wishful thinking?

Blood Diamonds at the Oscars?

The Oscar awards are this weekend. Some groups are calling on performers not to wear diamonds that are displacing native peoples in Africa. You can check out the story and get involved here.

Is Your City Male or Female?

One of my favorite theorists of modern life is Jane Jacobs, author of "The Death and Life of Great American Cities". Jacobs is famous for her critique of urban renewal projects that essentially eviscerated inner city areas in the United States post WWII. Her view is that mixed use neighborhoods, those that combine rather than separate residential, commercial, and industrial uses, are more vibrant, safe, and amenable to democratic social life than suburban or exurban neighborhoods.

A new study by Cambridge University adds another interesting dimension to this critique. The study found that urban renewal projects tend to cater to the urban needs and interests of men more so than to women.

For instance, public transportation (which is used by more women than men) is usually arranged alone straight routes from point to point. Women usually are making various trips for different purposes when they go out; men usually go from work to home. Public transport tend to favor masculine habits.

Another: urban renewal tends to focus on creating as many open green spaces as possible, usually with big playing fields. Again, the study found this caters more to men who want to play sports than it does to women, who want smaller areas, closer to home, with mixed use potential.

Finally, the lack of public toilets is something that separates men and women's needs, according to the study. The folks at Cambridge suggest that urban projects should follow a more mixed use model if they want to include the needs and interests of women.

When I think of the civic architecture of Corvallis, I have to conclude, using the variables of this study, that it is a city that caters to masculine needs. In what other ways might our public spaces--neighborhoods, workplaces, etc.--be gendered?

Are we at the End of World Travel?

I remember a few years ago trying to organize a summer class that would travel to Mexico for two weeks to study the effects of globalization on immigration. Several students were very interested. At the last minute, every single one of them had to back out because of the high cost of travel. Oil prices had shot up and what was usually a $300 plane ticket had ballooned into a $600-700 one.

Bradford Plumer warns here that as the era of peak oil approaches, cheap air travel will likely disappear. It will be less likely that people will be able to afford going cross country for vacation, or that academics will be able to go to conferences all around the nation. (Last academic year alone, I flew to Texas, Michigan, and Colorado two times to give talks)

It will also mean that economic globalization will slow down and it will be less likely for goods and services to criss cross around the world. No more Australian oranges in summer or cheap Wal-Mart gadgets from China.

But it also means that its less likely that ordinary people will be able to travel outside of the country and see the world, experience new cultures, or different ways of life. We may be able to hear about events all over the globe, but it will be less likely that we will ever have the chance to see the people attached to those events.

Should we be concerned that world travel will be out of reach for many?

Indigenous People's Day: Reclaiming the Values of Abya Yala

As some people may know, October 12, 1492 is traditionally thought to be the day on which Columbus's ship La Pinta first noticed land. His ships quickly made landfall and encountered native peoples. For anyone who has doubt that conquest and conversion were foremost on the minds of the Europeans, this excerpt from Columbus's journal, in which he describes the first people he came across on the islands, should suffice to dispel it:

"All of them alike are of good-sized stature and carry themselves well. I saw some who had marks of wounds on their bodies and I made signs to them asking what they were; and they showed me how people from other islands nearby came there and tried to take them, and how they defended themselves; and I believed and believe that -- they come here from tierrafirme to take them captive. They should be good and intelligent servants, for I see that they say very quickly everything that is said to them; and I believe that they would become Christians very easily, for it seemed to me that they had no religion. Our Lord pleasing, at the time of my departure I will take six of them from here to Your Highnesses in order that they may learn to speak..."

Centuries later indigenous people in the Americas (or as some are calling it, using the indigenous term from the peoples of Panama, Abya Yala), are struggling to reclaim their culture and their place in history. This speech by Peruvian indigenous leader Hugo Blanco, given this past September 2007, lays out this indigenous perspective. The hope is to be able to resuscitate the native relationship to nature and reimplement the ideas of labor which are meant to reflect a culture of communal solidarity and respect for the ecology. The goal is not to overturn European ideals or ways of life, but to find a way to live in justice with them. Its a very good statement of the philosophy of interculturalism that is developing in Latin American and worth a careful read.

Animal Cruelty on the Scale of Things: Are we all Michael Vick?

Last week, football play Michael Vick pleaded guilty to charges of engaging in dog fighting rings and will most likely end up in jail for it. The case has raised the issue of animal cruelty in our society. This piece points out that in most of the world, dogs are not treated particularly well or given the moral status that we do in the United States. It raises the question whether our revulsion against what Michael Vick did is an ethical issue or a culturally relativistic point: Is animal cruelty wrong, from a moral point of view, or is it a practice we think is wrong but is like driving on the right hand side of the road (we think its the right way to do it, but there's no good reason for believing that it should be the only way to drive)?

Philosopher Peter Singer, in this brief interview, clarifies that the issue of dogfighting is indeed a moral issue. But if we are to take it seriously, then we must start to raise questions about the treatment of many other animals, such as pigs and chickens, who suffer tremendous cruelty at the hands of human beings in factory farming. Singer argues there are distinct moral differences between dogfighting, hunting, and factory farming. Dog fighting is wrong because it inflicts needless suffering simply for the pleasure of human beings. Hunting is usually not cruel if it is done for food, since most careful hunters try not to prolong an animal's pain. The worst of these, from the moral point of view, would be factory farming, in which millions of animals are kept under indecent conditions involving filth, cramped quarters and disfigurement. From Singer's point of view, we ought to consider the scale of suffering that this industrial practice inflicts and to which most of us are complicit every time we go to the grocery store.

Is your carbon footprint stepping on the global poor?

A couple of the reasons given by the U.S. for not ratifying the Kyoto treaty to reduce green house emissions is that it would do very little to stop big global polluters, such as China, and would have a big negative impact on the American economy. This interesting graphic represents the carbon footprint of each state as equivalent to some nation in the world. Seems clear that the U.S. has a significant ability to affect the global environment.



This map also suggests that state regulation on environmental issues can possibly be quite effective. The battleground is never too small to make a difference. You can check out the figures used for calculating the map here.

As to the negative impact on the economy: here's a graphic that represents each state as comparable to the GDP of some nation in the world. Figures are explained here. Given the low levels of foreign aid that the U.S. gives to the world, then, perhaps, a little give is called for in the name of global justice?

Did your Dasani kill a baby?

Two weeks ago, I participated in OSU's commencement ceremony in which several thousand students graduated. We sat under the hot sun for a few hours with great anticipation. But to soothe us in our wait, the OSU Alumni Association had provided large bottles of water under each seat. At the end of the ceremony, there were dozens of unopened bottles, and half drunk ones, all around Reser Field.

At the same time, research at OSU is pointing out how environmentally unsound bottled water is. Professor Todd Jarvis indicates that we spend about $20,000 a minute in the U.S. on bottled water. However, it is not better for us than normal tap water and there are serious environmental impacts as a result of having to produce the plastic bottles and ship them everywhere. About 1.5 million barrels of oil are used to produce the plastic for the bottles each year. and some 90% of them are not recycled, according to the Earth Policy Institute.

There may also be some important global justice implications involved in drinking bottled water. Peter Singer argues that in a world with so much wealth and income inequality (in which almost half the population must make do on less than $2 of purchasing power for all their housing, food, and health needs), drinking bottled water might be a luxury that we really should do without. Especially when we consider how the United Nations estimates that several million people die each year as a result of exposure to dirty water, then we might want to think about pouring billions of dollars into an industry that is essentially providing most of us with fur coats in summer.

Much of that money goes to soda corporations and almost none of it is reinvested into improving water systems. As the BBC reports, the world is facing a crisis in terms of access to potable water and future international relations (and wars) could be at risk. For the sake of a peaceful and just world, it seems we need to think about whether we can reduce our personal and institutional use of such products.