Honestly, no one’s integrity is worth $.25, or even $1MM; unfortunately, too many don’t see the big picture, we get lost in the here and now rather than the future. Personally, I would rather be a friend to and do business with someone who regards integrity as a priceless trait and lives his or her life that way.

My Two Cents: Integrity needs to be brought back into our society, and it needs to start in the family and be practiced and reinforced in the highest circles of society.

Read David B. Haight’s talk on Honesty and Ethics here–it’s another classic talk on ethics in society; I’ll post the talk I heard today when it becomes available later this week.

The sad fact is that most of us are oblivious to this reality. Day in and day out we read of corporate executives who bend or blur or flat out erase the lines between what is right and wrong and we say, “That is wrong!” and then we go back to our goal of succeeding at all costs. Federal regulations aren’t going to fix the problem, neither are shareholders (although they have a stronger influence on executives). Fixing the people isn’t going to do anything, first we need to fix society.

A recent article on ESPN.com brings to light a serious problem we have in our society: win at all costs. I admit that in this discussion it is very difficult to draw ethical lines, but I think it’s safe to say that we can do better than we’re doing.

Maybe we shouldn’t blame the executives, maybe we should blame the shareholders, or the analysts, or the stock market, or if we take anything from the ESPN story, we should blame the little league coaches. Since when was winning everything? This notion is taught to us in our youth, and we aren’t savvy enough to see that greed and selfishness are driving this problem. We have become a society blinded by success and this vicious cycle isn’t showing signs of slowing anytime soon. I think success is a good thing, we should try to succeed, but when that success is driven by greed and selfishness, and it causes a decline in human decency, then it becomes a problem.

I believe that part of being the wealthiest and most powerful nation on earth is the responsibility to give back — you might call it charity. And although our government spends a lot of money in humanitarian aid, where have all the great philanthropists gone? I agree with Warren Buffett, we need more people to do what he is doing. As much as Bill Gates is despised for his apparent world domination through Microsoft, here is a man who not only runs one of the largest corporations in the world, but also THE largest philanthropic organization in the world.

What’s the value of giving back? I think deep down it reminds us that there are others in the world and that we aren’t alone on an island. Giving back can be more than just monetary. Giving back can be as simple as giving someone a chance they might not have otherwise had.

I also think that there is something to be said for that warm, fuzzy feeling we get when we do help others. I think that helping others, even just a little, would go a long way in helping our society overcome the greed and selfishness that are currently driving us.

My Two Cents: We will do well in doing good. Winning isn’t everything, it’s something, something we should strive for, but not at all costs!

I guess there are a lot of things I could say here, but suffice it to say the main problem with ethics, as demonstrated well in this instance, is that as a society we have lost sight of the fact that there are certain unchanging truths. That is to say, some laws are universal and just don’t change, sadly, too many discussions on what is right and wrong have blurred the reality of right and wrong, and we get what is today known as situational ethics, or a la carte morals.

My Two Cents: yes the person paid for the album through a pre-order system, but to download the album through a site like Bittorrent isn’t right because the person posting the music files on Bittorrent isn’t the owner of the rights to the music. In a very general legal sense it is being an accomplice to a crime; but it serves as a nice rationalizating strategy for those involved in file sharing.