DIALOGUE ON THE ETHICS OF MUTUAL LEARNING IN GOVERNMENT AND CORPORATIONS 2002
(view/download E-book/pdf version)

This conversation began in a dialogue between David Boulton and Phil Ryan, a constitutional lawyer representing a software company interested in providing post 9-11 airport security systems in California. The conversation evolved from security to privacy (messages 1 thru 7) and thereafter to the ethics of business and society. ** Indicates the messages that best convey our orientation and thought about 'ethics'.

"We of the great modern democracies must strive unceasingly to make our several countries lands in which a poor man who works hard can live comfortably and honestly, and in which a rich man cannot live dishonestly nor in slothful avoidance of duty."
- Theodore Roosevelt

#1 - Phil Ryan's 'What if' paper  to California Senator John Vasconcellos re Airport Security:  the rationale for a new and more sophisticated airport security system - one that would have stopped 9-11 from happening.

#2 David Boulton to John Vasconcellos re Phil Ryan's 'What If' on Airport Security the issue isn't technology (we've had the technological ability) its privacy - the technology could migrate from airport security to other non intended areas.

#3 Phil Ryan to John Vasconcellos re David Boulton's comments on 'What If' asserts that the technology hasn't previously existed, acknowledges privacy issue and defends the proposed system.

#4 David Boulton to John Vasconcellos and Phil Ryan re Privacy The reason we don't have such a system isn't that we haven't had the technological means.  We haven't had it before 9-11 because our perceived need for such a system didn't rise above the social and economic objections to implementing one.

#5 Phil Ryan to David Boulton and John Vasconcellos re Privacy David is correct that for 30 years we have lacked the political will to recognize that information is the sine qua non of public safety. It is tragically clear that un-communicated information is conveyed ignorance.

#6 David Boulton to Phil Ryan and John Vasconcellos et al re Privacy & Ethics will our society's learning keep pace with and help drive the ethical debate regarding the limits we impose on such systems?  I think we must proceed here and I think before doing so the advocates should be engaged in a rigorous, non commercially prejudiced, dialogue into these issues with people who advocate the freedoms of privacy.

#7 Phil Ryan to David Boulton and John Vasconcellos et al re Privacy & Ethics I absolutely agree your notions of the privacy issues.  It would be a national tragedy if we broke down J. Edgar Hoover's culture of secrecy from local law enforcement and created 500 hundred local Hoovers.

Business Ethics, Learning Conversation begins...

#8 David Boulton to Phil Ryan and John Vasconcellos et al re Ethics ** Its not the Hoovers that scare me its how much more dangerous corporations can become. One of our most fundamental international business ethics assumes that businesses have the right to pursue their economic interests even to the extent of directing the thoughts and emotions of people with the clear intent of covertly manipulating their economic behavior. What happens when corporations have these tools?

#9 John Vasconcellos to David Boulton and Phil Ryan et al re Ethics I FEAR WE'RE BEING SO DELUGED BY FRIGHT MESSAGES, PARANOIA, WE'RE ON THE VERGE OF BLITHELY SURRENDERING ALL OUR HUMAN CIVIL RIGHTS!

#10 John Vasconcellos to David Boulton and Phil Ryan et al re Ethics  AMEN, DAVID, AMEN!!

#11 John Vasconcellos to Heather Barbour  re David Boulton's Ethics SO WHO & HOW & WHEN & WHERE MIGHT WE INITIATE SUCH AN EXPLORATION?

#12 John Vasconcellos to all re DAN YANKELOVICH 'TRUST'/INTERNATONAL LEADERSHIP FORUM;4/28/02  THEREFORE WE HAVE TODAY AN ENORMOUS AND GROWING PRESSING NEED FOR A NEW INSTITUTIONAL MORALITY

# 13 David Boulton to John Vasconcellos re Leadership Forum - Institutional Morality = Ethics * My view is that the deep fulcrum for liberating healthy change here is to address the 'ethic' underlying and organizing the 'morality'. I think that the corporate behaviors we are concerned/outraged by are merely the logical consequences of an underlying ethic we take for granted.

# 14 John Vasconcellos to David Boulton re  Institutional Morality = Ethics  OUCH - THAT'S FRIGHTENING! IT IS NOW TIME THAT EACH AND ALL OF US COME TOGETHER INTO A MOVEMENT THAT CHALLENGES THIS ETHIC, RECLAIMS OUR LIVES!

#15 Heather Barbour & David Boulton Thread re: Ethics and The Intrusion Explosion - Ethics 15  in global historic turns -- we're leading the way into the post-human rights period. homo economus.

#16 Josh Holcomb to John Vasconcellos and David Boulton - The Ethics of Trust?  The emails have given rise to a very basic question: Is trust an ethic?

#17 David Boulton to Josh Holcomb and John Vasconcellos et al - The Ethics of Trust ** Trust is 'inside' - ethics are 'outside'.  In the middle of 19th century we, as a nation, had a conversation about our ‘ethics’ – we decided that people couldn't ‘own’ people. We decided that human beings are entitled to a freedom befitting their human beingness – that human beings can’t be property –can’t be slaves.150 years later we must again take up this conversation. Today we face the question are human beings ‘assets’?

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2014 update: John Vasconcellos passed away on May 24 2014 -click here for an e-book of all my available dialogue with him

The dialogues presented here are abstractions from much ‘larger’ dialogues.  These ‘guided tours’ are intended to convey applications of the ‘mutually learning to happen’ orientation. Many who participated in the larger dialogue are absent here. Much of what some may have said may not have been chosen.  I acknowledge and appreciate every one who participated in any way in any of these conversations (or in any other, more subtle, ways).  

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