John B. Dilworth

Progress on this case can be speeded up by starting with a comprehensive overview, to avoid any risk of our accidentally failing to 'see the wood for the trees'. But seriously, it is helpful to step back from the specifics of the trees and the road in this case. Some general points about different kinds of risks, and their relation to environmental and other benefits, should help to clarify what is at stake in the case. My main emphasis will be on the complexities of decision-making in a case such as this.

There is a general concern in the development of social policy to achieve an acceptable balance between risks and benefits for people. Another way of raising the same or equivalent issues is to think of individual rights and freedoms (including the right or freedom to do things which may be risky or dangerous) as requiring to be balanced against the potential harms to oneself or to others produced by the exercise of one's freedom.

In balancing risks against benefits, it is useful to distinguish two different kinds or categories of risk. The first of these could be called 'inherent risks', and concerns actions, situations, devices etc. which are inherently risky or dangerous. An extreme example would be a hand grenade which has had the pin removed and has been thrown. Such a device is inherently dangerous to a very high degree, because it almost certainly will quickly explode and devastate everything in its vicinity, no matter what anyone tries to do to prevent it.

A more moderate example of inherent risk is provided by the activity of rock climbing. It is generally agreed that rock climbing is inherently risky, because no matter how one tries to minimize the risks and maximize climber safety (through training, stronger ropes, and so on), some significant degree of risk still remains. This is shown by the fact that good climbers are killed or injured in significant numbers every year. The inherent nature of climbing risks has the consequence that the only way to avoid the risk of such accidents is not to climb at all.

Now let us look at the other basic category of risks, namely non-inherent or contingent risks. The important point about this category is that the risk for items falling under it depends on other situational or contextual features, so that members of this category have no standard level, nor any minimum level, of risk associated with them.

For example, the level of risk associated with driving an automobile depends upon indefinitely many other factors, such as the age of the car and driver, the speed, the road conditions, traffic density, and so on. Also, arguably there is no definite minimum level of risk associated with driving, that is, no inherent minimum risk associated with driving. (Those obsessed with achieving arbitrarily low risk levels could choose to drive only very slowly on empty or private roads, for instance.)

The significance of the basic distinction (inherent versus contingent risks) for public policy is as follows. With inherently risky activities, the risk is a known quantity, or at least a lower bound can be set on it, so that the activity is at least as risky as that lower bound. (For example, perhaps the lower-bound of risk for rock-climbing is something like 1 accident for each 500 person-days of climbing. Doubtless insurance actuaries would have precise figures on this, or at least on average risks for each activity.)

Given that inherent risks have a strength which is a known, relatively unchanging quantity, it is relatively straightforward to compare and balance them against the potential benefits of allowing them to take place. For example, NASA undoubtedly has good calculations on how likely it is that a space shuttle, or an orbiting satellite, will be involved in a collision with a meteorite sufficiently large to seriously damage the space vehicle and abort its mission. (Such a risk is an inherent one because collisions occur randomly, so it is impossible to remove the risk by any alterations to the vehicle, environment or other factors.) With a reliable estimate of the minimum risk, along with the known potential benefits of a flight, it becomes a very routine matter to make a rational 'go/no go' decision on whether to allow a given flight.

Another public policy example would be a decision as to whether to make an influenza vaccine available. This is inherently risky (at a low level of risk), because an irreducible percentage of people will have adverse reactions to the vaccine. But again, a positive or negative decision as to use can be straightforward because the standard minimum risk can easily be compared with the specific potential benefits of the treatment.

On the other hand, risk/benefit comparisons in the case of non-inherent, contingent risks have a fundamentally different structure. It might be thought that their only difference from 'inherent risk' cases is that the risk is a variable quantity, with the particular amount in a given case depending on the specific situations or factors that exist. (For example, driving an old car very fast is likely to be much more risky than driving a new car slowly.)

But in addition to the risk being variable, the overall decision to be made (about whether to engage in an activity, given the benefits and risks involved) is now required to be a much more comprehensive, overall decision about a whole set of risk/benefit data pairs. Recall that for inherent risks, the only decision needed is a yes/no decision based on a single risk/benefit pair. But with a contingent risk case, there are now many possible risks, depending on various factors (the benefits might vary also). These many risks, along with the corresponding specific benefits, define many risk/benefit pairs which somehow must be evaluated as a group.

It will help to clarify things further if we re-introduce the main example from the current case, namely the risk(s) to motorists that they might crash into trees along a 3-mile stretch of Forest Drive road. The risks are of course associated with motorists driving cars along the road. It has already been argued that driving is a contingent risk activity (the risk depending on speed, etc.) Let us concentrate on the trees themselves as the only relevant benefit.

Our general question could be expressed as follows: is it worthwhile for motorists to risk crashing into the trees, given the benefits also provided by the trees? Or, acknowledging that the trees are just one additional risk among others associated with driving, we might ask: are the additional risks of having trees (rather than no trees) fully compensated for by the additional benefits of having trees (over not having trees)?

If we assume that no changes to traffic regulations, etc., are to be made, the relevant risk/benefit pairs are defined by all socially possible distinct cases of 'a drive' along the road (given present conditions). Each is distinguished on the risk side by driver factors (age, disabilities, driving record, frequency of driving...), car factors (new/old, brand, maintenance quality, speed...), road factors (maintenance, traffic density, time of day...), and environmental factors (weather, immediate environment of road including trees...). On the benefit side, arguably this too is variable, for example because very fast trips or night versus day driving make visual enjoyment of the trees difficult or impossible.

Somehow, using this potentially infinite set of risk/benefit pairs, some decision must be made about the overall benefits and risks of allowing the trees to remain uncut. One might consider calculating some sort of average or mean value for the risk and benefit, but an overall decision might be dominated by just a small group of high-risk cases. (Some unlikely situations may be so dangerous that a decision to cut the trees is unavoidable.)

In the current case being considered, the possibility of a successful lawsuit if there is an accident is yet another complication. This risk is not itself involved in the initial set of risk/benefit pairs. Rather, given a decision (based on that set) to leave the trees standing, the lawsuit is one of the risks associated with that specific decision.

As if things are not complicated enough already, yet another whole dimension of the problem must briefly be considered. Since we are dealing with contingent risks, it is very tempting to try to 'mould' the overall situation and the factors involved so as to make a desired outcome (e.g., leave the trees standing) highly likely.

For example, new traffic regulations lowering the speed limit, with automatic radar detection and photography of those violating the regulations, could presumably eliminate virtually all of the original high-risk cases associated with speeding. Or should we use some other method instead? What would be the risks and benefits of each? Notice that we now are forced to somehow compare (formally speaking) the risks and benefits of different risk/benefit sets, in making such a decision.

It might be objected at this stage that 'molding' factors so as to get a desired result amounts to simply ignoring the original problem, which is that of which result is socially or morally most desirable. I would concede this point, but it points us toward even greater complexity.

It seems that somehow we have to consider all socially possible 'moldings' of factors relevant to the situation (each with its associated set of risk/benefit pairs), whether the overall outcome for each is 'yes, cut' or 'no, don't cut'. Then somehow (again), the overall risks and benefits of each set have to be evaluated relative to each other, so that a single winner (or group of similar winners) can be chosen. Its (their) decision outcome, as to whether to cut down the trees or not, would finally give us what we have been searching for in this case.

In conclusion, it is worth noting that the complexities in decision-making we have uncovered in connection with contingent risks are particularly common in dealing with environmental public policy issues (e.g., building of condominiums versus preservation of wetlands). Any situations involving loosely related factors and complicated tradeoffs will tend to have at least the same degree and kinds of complexity of decision-making as those discussed here.

Should Nelson Nice send a report on a project to Jason Smart, who assisted on the project at one stage? Unless Nelson has some specific reason to doubt Jason's motives, or some general reasons for restricting access to his own work, professional courtesy and the ideal of free, unregulated exchange of information would be served by sending it.

Note that it makes no difference whether the report has been published by Nelson Nice or not, because Nice as the head of the research project holds copyright to the report. Hence any other use or publication of the material without Nice's permission, such as that by Jason in his plagiarized thesis, is illegal (and immoral).

What should Nelson Nice do when he discovers the plagiarism? First, he would have every right to get extremely angry. Jason as a former student of his has betrayed Nelson's trust in him, and has stolen his work and passed it off as his own. Jason has also betrayed and subverted the academic standards of the institution examining him for a Master's degree.

After cooling down somewhat, Nelson might reflect as follows. As well as personally being a victim of Jason's crime, he has a duty to ensure that justice is done, and that adequate steps are taken to ensure that the circumstances which made the crime possible do not occur again. The main problem was not sending Jason the report, but Jason's dishonesty coupled with inadequate supervision by his degree committee at his new institution. Nelson must effectively communicate all of this to the appropriate persons or institutions.

Next it is time for controlled paranoia to take over. Nelson is entering the crazy, upside-down world of 'whistle-blowing', in which honest attempts to reveal wrongdoing can all too easily end in failure or even personal disaster for the initiator. The unpleasant truth is that those corrupt enough to plagiarize, or falsify scientific reports, etc., are also corrupt (and clever) enough to prepare elaborate fall-back positions if their deceitful activities should ever be discovered.

For example, Jason may have kept voluminous records of his own and other student's contributions to the original project. Then, if ever challenged on his thesis, he would claim that after all it was he, and not Nelson, who had done the work on which the report was based. If for any reason Nelson no longer has full records of the project, Jason's ploy could well succeed.

Even if Jason has no such fall-back, he may well find invaluable allies in the officers and institutions of his new university. In the face of claims by outsiders of gross academic malpractice or negligence, those involved are quite likely to 'close ranks' and attempt to cover-up the problem, rather than undergo searching and painful investigation of what went wrong in the case. A Department whose graduate program might be seriously compromised by publicity about poor-quality advising of students is unlikely to be impartial in judging claims of plagiarism by its students.

So overall, Nelson Nice needs to act both cautiously and decisively, to both protect his own interests and to forestall attempts by others to 'cover-up' the problem. As for the future, Nelson would be wise to include warnings about the evils of plagiarism and falsification of evidence in his graduate courses.

Anyone who identifies (as should we all) with the feminist cause of furthering equal rights and equal opportunities for women will find plenty to dislike in this case. It is not too much to say that it is saturated with various kinds and levels of sexual prejudice.

Fortunately, however, those same features do make the case a useful one for some brief criticism and analysis of the vast, pervasive world of prejudice about women. Some idea of the magnitude of this mixture of social and ethical problems becomes apparent through looking closely at the conventional ways of thinking and talking about women which occur in this case. Sadly, these are indeed all too conventional and common. Sex prejudice is so widespread and ingrained in our culture that most of the time we hardly even notice it.

First, some ethical basics. Surely we can agree that people with unprejudiced views of men and women would treat them both simply as human beings or persons. This means that any special features distinguishing women from men, and vice-versa, would be ignored in making business or professional judgments about a person of either sex. The ethical imperative that women ought to be treated equally with men implies exactly this point, that we ought to ignore sex differences in assessing people in the workplace.

Put in this general form, perhaps most if not all people will agree with this principle. It is exactly analogous to the widely accepted, anti-racist principle that we ought to ignore differences of race among workers. Yet at the same time almost no one is prepared to actually apply our anti-sexist principle to concrete situations such as those described in this case. For if they did, cases such as this one would become utterly trivial.

To see this, try replacing all terms referring to women in the case with similar terms referring to persons, or to men. If the case presented an unprejudiced view of women, the replacement should make no difference to the business problems being presented, but in fact such replacements change everything. Clearly we are relying on all kinds of specific attitudes or beliefs specifically about women (about female humans rather than about humans in general) in our understanding of and judgements about women in the case. Hence we must conclude that the case, as filtered through our conventional understanding of it, is systematically sexist.

It is useful to bring in a comparison to racism once again, because racist prejudices are somewhat more under control in U.S. society than are sexist attitudes. This is not to say that racism has been eliminated, but just that it is no longer so acceptable for most people to unthinkingly adopt traditional racist attitudes in dealing with business problems.

Try a similar experiment of word-substitution as before, but this time use some racial description (such as 'black') in place of the references to women. The result is a revealing intermediate case. Some problems may seem to remain, yet it is embarrassingly clear that they are problematic only because of our residual or latent racist attitudes. (A common explanation of our perceptions in a case such as this is as follows. We have become 'sensitized' through the civil rights movement, etc., to the issue of racism, so it's difficult not to perceive racism and feel guilty about it in such cases.)

These experiments should be sufficient to show the sexism in the current case, and in our habitual perceptions of such cases. But it might be thought that nevertheless we haven't made any real progress toward solving the problems. Even if it is conceded that the 'problems' only seem problematic to people in a sexist society, aren't there still real issues of how to ameliorate or eliminate such pervasive sexist attitudes in the workplace?

The answer to this question is yes, sexist attitudes are indeed serious problems, which do need to be worked on. But note that this issue is no longer about women in the workplace (the overt focus of the current case), but instead it is about attitudes to women in the workplace. Women are the victims of such attitudes, yet our society is so prejudiced that we unthinkingly see the women themselves in such cases as being 'the problem', rather than the sexist attitudes which they (and to a lesser degree all who are 'sensitized' to the problem) have to endure. In effect we are 'blaming the victim' in such cases.

How should we go about eliminating sexist attitudes? That is a big question, but there is one serious trap which must briefly be mentioned and defused. It is all too easy to think that the central problems in sexist attitudes must come from incorrect beliefs or assumptions about the abilities or personalities of women. The cure then might seem to be educational or publicity exercises in which successful, popular women demonstrate their abilities and hence change the beliefs of their audience.

Certainly successful women can act as 'role models' for other women, and help to eliminate a few extreme beliefs in the general populace such as 'no women could ever do X', where X is something that the successful woman demonstrates she can do. However, such approaches are still deeply enmeshed in sexist attitudes, because even the most successful of such demonstrations is still focussed on the woman's abilities as a woman, rather than simply as a person.

To see why this is problematic, imagine that a business demonstration by a woman is so charismatic and successful that the audience come to believe that women in general would make ideal bosses. It should be clear that all we have done is to replace one sexist attitude (women are bad bosses, because they are women) with another (women are ideal or excellent bosses, because they are women.) This latter attitude would doubtless be easier to live with than the former, but a prejudice in favor of women is still, inescapably, prejudice!

What has gone wrong here, in this misguided attempt to eliminate sexism? Most basically, it has confused the moral imperative, that everyone ought to treat woman equally, with a purely factual claim to the effect that women are at least equal in ability, etc., to men. Whether or not this claim is true (or even meaningful) is totally irrelevant to the moral issue of sex equality.

If we do resolve to live up to our obligation to treat women equally, what is needed instead is a quite different educational program from the above. Our obligation is to ignore differences of sex in the workplace. Hence we would not tolerate sexist attitudes, because they are incompatible with ignoring sex differences. We would seek not to reform or 'improve' such attitudes (through the use of positive role models, etc.), but to totally suppress and destroy them, at least as far as any public expressions of them are concerned.

This may sound excessively protective of women, in that we would be out to silence their sexist critics. But the other side of the coin is that women would get no special treatment whatsoever under this simple but demanding ethical approach. If a woman boss manages poorly, she would be treated exactly like any other poor manager, including being fired if necessary. The desire of head office to get more women into managerial positions would also be resisted as sexist interference. Any person of either sex would be judged purely on their own specific abilities to 'get the job done'. Why would any unprejudiced person want anything else?

My discussion of this case will extend the general approach to conflicts of interest which I initially presented in my commentaries on the golfing and the last resort? cases. From this point of view, problems of 'conflict of interest' in which one person has several roles involving different interests (in the present case, for example, David Parkinson is both a solid waste expert and a member of a County Planning Committee) are generally problematic not because of supposed 'conflicts' of those interests, but rather because of the amount of moral temptation present, or assumed to be present, in such situations.

An important difference for ethics and public policy arising from this distinction is that no easy, automatic solution is available in apparent 'conflict' cases, if one accepts my view. On this view, someone's apparent conflict is no sure evidence that he or she did anything wrong, or even that he should remove himself from the situation (by resigning, etc.). The 'conflict' may merely be evidence that he could have been tempted (since tempting factors existed), even if in fact he did not give in to temptation (in which case his status or judgement were not compromised).

It is tempting for us to try to simplify such cases by saying, in effect, that if there is even the appearance of a conflict of interest in some public position held by X, then X should be forced to resolve the conflict by resigning, dropping one of his interests, etc. In some cases this seems a legitimate point, and in the present case where over 100 of the 500 citizens of Barker Township are apparently concerned about possible conflicts in the cases of Matthews and Parkinson, then the 'appearance' of conflict is politically visible and divisive enough that perhaps there should be a re-election for the positions held by Matthews and Parkinson.

However, we all have to be concerned that the 'appearance' of conflict in some situations may be artificially generated as a political or social ploy. In the present case, clearly residents of Barker Township don't want a landfill sited in their township, so it seems likely that their 'landfill defense' teams will produce as reasons anything they think will 'play' well in the newspapers or the courts. The 'conflict of interest' charges would almost certainly never have been raised in the present case if Barker Township hadn't been targeted for landfill development. There has to be something more to the idea of the 'appearance' of a conflict than simply that some people claim or allege there is a conflict, because such people could have highly biased or even malicious reasons for their claims.

A more familiar kind of case in which accusations of conflicts of interest might inappropriately or maliciously be raised concerns issues such as the rights of gay (homosexual) people to hold jobs. Militant anti-gay groups have tried to have gay people removed from various jobs such as teaching positions, on the ground that there is a conflict between their interest in finding sexual partners and their interest in properly carrying out their professional responsibilities.

This kind of case well illustrates my point that conflicts of interests do not by themselves produce moral or legal problems, because of course no-one would suggest that heterosexual teachers should be banned from teaching because of their own conflicts of interest in similar situations. In other words, some conflicts (or potential conflicts) are so pervasive as to be almost part of 'the human condition', yet they cause moral problems only if people 'give in' to the temptations they provide.

Finally, note that a special factor in the present case is that both Matthews and Parkinson needed to have, by requirements of state law, the kind of interests (one had to be a solid waste industry representative, and the other an expert in solid waste) which led to the apparent conflicts. On my view of conflicts, this is unproblematic, because the advantages in having expert opinions available on a committee generally outweigh the risk that office-holders will succumb to temptation and misuse their positions. Knowledge and experience are important assets in public service, and we are liable to lose both if we pursue too zealously the removal or restriction of candidates who might have (or be alleged to have) personal conflicts of interests.

This is one of the few cases where the specific legal provisions governing the matters at issue are of primary importance in clarifying and resolving the problems. In the case of software, some basic points about copyright law, and some related matters concerning software licensing, are vital to understanding the case, and to distinguishing it from other cases of ownership or rights as they apply to employees. Therefore these legal provisions will be spelled out as an integral part of this commentary.

1

Copyright in software is treated under current U.S. law as being essentially similar to copyright in any literary or creative work. In all these cases, one acquires initial ownership of the copyright simply by being the author of the work in question. (Several persons may jointly author a work and so jointly hold copyright to it.) The government (through the Copyright Office, Library of Congress) does provide a Registration of Copyright mechanism. This does not create ownership, but instead officially acknowledges that it already exists. Typically one submits a manuscript, whether of a novel, movie script or source code for a program, as evidence of one's authorship/copyright.

Authorship as discussed above is subject to the following important qualification. The author of a work might prepare it as a "Work Made for Hire" (defined as a work prepared by an employee within the scope of his/her employment), and explicitly state this on the Copyright Registration form. In this case, the copyright statute provides that the employer rather than the employee is considered as the author (and hence as the copyright holder). However, it is important to note that, in the absence of any such explicit acknowledgement by an author that the work was "Made for Hire", the normal assumption would be that the actual author/s hold copyright to the work, unless other substantive evidence could be produced to prove that it was "Work Made for Hire".

In the current case, we are explicitly told that Derek was never asked by the small computer firm to sign an agreement that software designed during his employment there becomes the property of the company. If he signed no such agreement, nor (as we may consequently assume) specified that his work was a "Work Made for Hire" in any copyright registration application, then legally he would have a strong presumptive case that he was (and still is) the copyright owner of the software in question. (The possible complication that he was the primary, but not the only, contributor to the software will be considered later.)

It might be objected that in most cases of employer-employee relations, if one works for someone then they own the products of one's labor. This is broadly true, but creative works falling under the copyright laws work differently. A familiar example in higher education is the fact that professors retain copyright in their books or papers even if they were hired to carry out such creative research.

In the present case, the fact that Derek was indeed working for a computer firm while preparing the program etc. is not sufficient to establish copyright ownership by the firm. For in the case of software copyrights, there are other rights or permissions to use the software which the firm will have acquired as a result of Derek's activities, which are fully adequate for their business purposes and which justify their hiring and compensating of Derek for his work. They get broadly what they want, but it is rights and permissions to use the software which they get, rather than ownership of it. (Recall that they could have had ownership too, but neglected or elected not to take the necessary legal steps to secure it.) Here is a brief discussion of rights and licensing in relation to copyright, to help clarify these matters.

2

Everyone is familiar to some degree with literary and movie rights, for example that a producer may have to pay a novelist a large sum to get the movie rights to a book. These rights give the movie producer the right to produce a film version of the novel, but do not in any way transfer the copyright (or ownership) of the novel to the producer. Similar considerations apply to software too: acquiring the right to make certain uses of software does not transfer its ownership. Derek's firm acquired rights to use his software system for customer services in virtue of his being employed by them to produce the software, but the firm does not thereby acquire property rights in the software.

More distant still from ownership considerations are issues about licensing. Almost all actual software contracts involve some kind of software licensing, in which the copyright owner gives permission to one or more licensees to make certain kinds of use of the software. Though an exclusive license is possible, most licenses are of a non-exclusive kind, so that many different licensees could make similar uses of the software without violation of their contracts. Clearly in such cases there is no question of any transference of ownership in the legal arrangements.

3

In the present case we are given no specific information about what rights or licensing arrangements were in force between Derek and his original small computer firm, but these can be reasonably inferred from the conduct of the parties. Minimally his firm needed from Derek a perpetual, non-exclusive license to use and modify his source code for the software. Then they could use the software indefinitely, and modify it at any time in the future as changes became desirable. However, unless there was a written contract in existence (signed by the firm and Derek) in which Derek granted the firm an exclusive license to use the software, Derek is free at any time to license the same software (whether or not he chooses to make changes in it) to anyone else, and under any terms he wishes.

The implications for the present case are clear. Derek as the copyright holder can use or modify his software for use in his new larger computer firm in any way he pleases, with or without discussing it with his former employer. What is more, his new employer cannot claim ownership of the software, because it was developed prior to Derek's current employment rather than as part of his current design work.

However, Derek would certainly be wise to come to some explicit agreement with his new firm about how he would allow them to use the software. In effect, the new firm wants Derek to produce a customized version of the software for them, and he could agree to do this as part of his regular compensation, while also negotiating a monthly or yearly licensing fee in return for granting them appropriate rights to use the software. Or to simplify things, Derek might be tempted to sell them the package outright for a suitable compensation, in which case there would be an actual transference of ownership of the package.

4

We are told that Derek was a "primary contributor" in the original development of the software. This suggests the possibility that he may jointly hold the copyright to the software with one or more other designers. How would this affect the case? Generally, joint ownership allows each owner to exercise all rights of ownership, except for those whose exercise would materially affect the rights of the remaining owners. (Commonplace examples include such matters as joint ownership of a home or bank account.) In the present case, this means that Derek is free to grant non-exclusive licenses to use the software to anyone (but not to everyone), since other joint owners would not be thereby prevented from exercising similar rights. On the other hand, Derek should refrain from attempting to grant an exclusive license, or from attempting to sell the software outright, because both of these actions would materially affect the interests of any other joint owners.

Does Derek have any moral obligation to contact his former employer, or his co-workers there, before exercising his legal rights as detailed above? First, it is prudent for anyone in business to stay on good terms with both present and former associates. In the interests both of common courtesy and of safeguarding his own career, Derek would be well advised to explain his actions and his view of the case to anyone who might otherwise resent or be annoyed by them, including his former associates and friends.

Second, if there are indeed co-authors from his previous firm whom Derek could contact, he should do so. A basic principle of legal ethics, assumed in contract law, is that parties who enter into a contract or agreement are thereby obligated to make a good-faith effort to carry out the terms of the contract, both explicit and implicit. Co-authorship, as with other forms of joint ownership, could appropriately be viewed as requiring that one should keep co-authors informed of one's actions with respect to the joint property, even if this is not explicitly spelled out in a written agreement between the co-authors.

Though this has the potential to be a significant case, in its specific questions it is a very straightforward. It is presented in the general context of the issue of affirmative action, yet the specific questions asked hardly admit of morally interesting answers. What should Judy Hanson do if she hears of an impending promotion of someone, whether male or female, friend or stranger, in another division of Darnell? The obvious answer is -- nothing. If Judy has no administrative responsibility for the decision, and also lacks full knowledge of all the factors that went into the decision, she has no business interfering with it in any way. Even as a personal friend of candidate Catherine Morris, she should do no more than wish her well in her new position. For it would be insulting and morally demeaning to Catherine for Judy to try to use her case as a means to some affirmative action end at Darnell.

As to Judy or Tom 'overhearing' talk about Catherine's promotion, here too she/they should do nothing. Unless what they overhear is so illegal or immoral that even hearing it imposes obligations to interfere or reveal the matter to others, they should respect the privacy of those whose conversations they overhear. Office gossips and busybodies are likely to cause much more moral damage in the workplace than would the kinds of personal expressions of prejudice against affirmative action likely to be overheard.

If, on the other hand, Judy or Tom are themselves taking part in the conversation (so that they 'hear' rather than 'overhear'), then of course they should feel free to honestly express their own views on the topic, whatever those views are.

Now let us read between the lines of this case and draw out an implied, substantive issue for those who care about the advancement of women in society. In the battle for equality for women, is it morally required that everything be done to maximize the gains and minimize the losses for every aspect of the battle, including minor skirmishes? For example, must an individual such as Catharine be prevented from taking a job, if she might perform poorly and hence make women look bad in a particular case?

First, one should not do anything substantially illegal or immoral to advance women. The worthy goals of justice and equal rights for all does not permit achieving some at the expense of others. So behavior such as faking Catherine's performance records or other political manipulations at Darnell is unacceptable. Also, as already suggested, even an attempt by Judy to persuade Catherine to withdraw is morally suspect on several grounds. Judy would be in great danger of betraying her friend, and doing so in the process of using her as a pawn in a civil rights skirmish.

Second, we must never forget that affirmative action policies are only a means to the end of promoting equal rights for people. The moral goal of equality of opportunity for all is widely accepted, but policies of achieving this for women by preferential hiring or promotion are much more controversial. Even supporters of affirmative action policies would have to agree that preferential treatment of one group over another is morally questionable. (In their view it is a necessary evil in order to achieve changes which will make full equality possible some day.)

The practical effect of this second point is that morally the only firm ground available centers round issues of equality of opportunity. Any other issues are questionable or peripheral, and should be ignored in any conflict with the central issues. In the present case this means that since Catherine is undeniably being given an opportunity to succeed (through her promotion), then the central civil rights issue has been settled. Other issues, such as that she may fail and make women or affirmative action look bad, must be ignored because (if acted upon to prevent her promotion) they would conflict with her right to have that opportunity.

Another way to look at equal opportunity is as a right to succeed or fail. Those who would for whatever reasons deprive Catherine of her right to fail are no friends to civil rights for women.

The first relevant standard business practice is that of appealing to the letter of the agreement or contract in any dispute between corporations. The most stupid, self-destructive thing a corporation could do is to deliberately violate one of the specific terms of a contract (in this case, the specification of the more expensive materials). By so doing they set themselves up for big losses through the triggering of penalty clauses against them, or through claims for damages (including punitive damages) by XYZ. More generally, violation of any part of a contract may render the whole contract and void, hence relieving XYZ of any its obligations under the contract, including the obligation to pay ABC for the parts.

The second relevant standard business practice is the certainty that corporations such as XYZ will have some kinds of ongoing quality control procedures, including routine spot-checking of all materials and products. Any violation of specifications by ABC, especially one which applies to all of the items (they would all be made of a cheaper material) is bound to be detected.

This is so because, given the contemporary legal and regulatory environment, no company could stay in business for long which did not regularly and exhaustively test every aspect of its products. The reasons for this are simple. It is now relatively easy for customers to complain about poor quality and safety defects to government or other regulatory bodies, and those bodies have the power to paralyse or shut down a company altogether, even on minor infringements of regulations.

At the same time, the legal climate encourages customers to engage lawyers on a contingency basis to sue corporations for actual and punitive damages caused by inadequate products, and juries often impose huge fines against businesses in such cases. No company dares risk such consequences, and so they are increasingly forced to go to extreme lengths to ensure fully effective quality control on their products.

As an integral part of this quality control, the products of a company's own suppliers inevitably come under the same intense spotlight. So fraudulent behavior by a supplier will inevitably be detected. Admittedly, in a few instances a substitution or defect may not be detected right away, but no company can risk the chance of future detection of their fraud, given that the evidence is incontrovertible (a battery of scientific analyses of material composition constitute irrefutable evidence of fraud) and as permanent as the product itself (the material of most products will last for thousands of years at least).

A more likely scenario for attempted fraud than that given in the current case would be one in which the exact composition of the material was not specified in a written agreement between ABC and XYZ. Perhaps the specification was given orally only, or perhaps XYZ just assumed (following past practices, perhaps) that the more expensive material would be used. Should ABC even consider using a cheaper material in such cases?

Answer: no, because here another reality of the contemporary business environment comes into play. This is the increasingly intense competition occurring in virtually every business and industry. Whereas at one time companies such as ABC one could rely on customers such as XYZ to give them business out of habit or convenience, now the reality is that XYZ will be looking for the best part at the best price. If any supplier (such as ABC) even gives the appearance that it might be shortchanging XYZ, XYZ will immediately remove ABC from its list of approved suppliers.

This is not because XYZ has any increased moral sensitivity to fraud attempts, but simply because, given the contemporary cutthroat business climate, they dare not damage their own credibility or competitiveness through further use of questionable suppliers such as ABC.

Somewhat ironically, then, ethical values such as business honesty, or giving full value for money, are most directly enforced in cases such as these by the brutal, survival-based market realities of our world economy.

This is a useful case because it focuses on a deep, recurring nexus of moral problems. These concern the clash between personal ideals or life-plans and the realities of the social and business world. In its most general form the problem appears as a near-omnipresent threat of moral prostitution. Any work which is done at least partly for money is morally suspect, because in those respects it does not advance one's moral ideals, and in some cases it could significantly compromise one's ideals.

It is important to emphasise the general problem of the clash of personal ideals versus social realities, because it is easy to think that it is only the overt moral conflict cases which are morally problematic, such as that presented in the current case. However, there could be any number of jobs which were consistent with Gerald Wahr's general moral convictions, and which yet are also morally problematic. For example, any benign but unchallenging long-term job of no social importance could lead Gerald's friends to accuse him with some justice of having led a morally wasted, pointless life. The sins of complacency may rival those of 'selling out'.

How then can we overcome this central moral problem of the working world? A useful clue is to be found in the slogan 'If you're not working on the solution, then you're part of the problem'. Intuitively, morality requires us to be actively engaged in bringing about solutions to the moral problems of our jobs, whatever the jobs and problems may be. Even in difficult, overtly problematic cases, it may be possible to preserve one's moral integrity by appropriate remedial planning and action. What follows are some reasons and strategies which could preserve the integrity of someone like Gerald in the pesticide business, if he were to enter it.

First, prior to his first interview, Gerald needs to get a good overview of the many aspects of organic versus non-organic farming. He needs to clearly define for himself the actual and ideal contributions of each to the world of agriculture, both present and as projected into the indefinite future. Questions such as exactly what factors make organic farming good, and chemically-assisted farming morally unacceptable, have to be asked, and any exceptions or unclarities in the questions or responses need to be carefully noted by him. He should then use the results to outline a plan for how he himself, working (at least initially) inside the pesticide industry, could do as much to accentuate the benefits and to minimize the potential harms of pesticide use as possible. If the plan intuitively offers enough of these kinds of 'moral profit' overall, he can go to the interview and accept the job with a clear conscience. Otherwise, he should turn it down.

It is useful to compare this strategy with those suggested by two of Gerald's friends. Both Allen ("the work's going to be done anyway..") and Bob (better Gerald than a pesticide 'nut') offer utilitarian solutions. These ignore the pressing personal dimensions of moral commitment which are addressed here. They also totally ignore everything specific about the issue of pesticides versus 'natural' farming. Gerald needs to know that his efforts are morally worthwhile in this specific case, and that he is on the right side -- as part of the solution rather than the problem in this area of agriculture. Here are some specifics he could use in his plan.

First, exactly what are pesticides? The stereotype of a pesticide is of a chemical which kills pests. But more generally in agriculture they are chemical or biochemical factors which promote resistance or immunity -- to diseases, parasites, or to other factors which would prevent optimal growth of a desired crop or species. Understood in this wider context, the agricultural pesticide business is one in which profitable solutions to problems of harmful growth are developed.

Given this wider understanding of what a pesticide business is or should be doing, Gerald can look for morally worthy things to do with some confidence. For example, he doubtless knows that recombinant DNA ('gene splicing') techniques have shown great promise in producing strains of wheat (and other crops) which are naturally pest-resistant. In these cases, the immunity-promoting factors are actually part of the genetic constitution of the crop. Gerald could work within his pesticide company to ensure that it makes strategic alliances with appropriate bio-technology firms, so that it can share in the patents and profits to be made from selling disease-resistant crops (whose use will widely benefit farmers and the public they serve).

Even if Gerald's pesticide company is narrow-minded and reluctant to change, he could prove to them that it was definitely in their own interest to make such alliances and adopt such broader views. The bad image of pesticide companies as merely selling harmful chemicals, whatever the damage to the land, is after all a powerful reason not to buy pesticides from companies having such attitudes.

If a company wants to maintain or enlarge their list of customers, they must be willing to provide whatever will satisfy the real long-term needs of those customers. Most likely this will involve a broad range of customized solutions in each case, involving more disease-resistant animals and crops, more long-term environmental management of land (for example, selling customers more fertilizer and other 'support' items rather than just disease-prevention items), with 'straight' chemical pesticides being supplied only when nothing else will work. Gerald can become part of the solution to pesticide problems by actively working within his company for such longer-term self-interested thinking on the part of his employers.

To finish, note again that the 'threat of moral prostitution' mentioned at the beginning has no general solution; we must carefully analyse each specific case, including the apparently easy ones as well as more questionable cases, to see whether or not a commitment to a role in the business world is morally acceptable. Personal integrity demands no less.

Is there in general anything ethically unfair about an internal unit of a company receiving information from other units of the same company, which information is not made available to outsiders? Put in this general form, surely our answer has to be no. A business, and particularly a private business with no legal public disclosure requirements, is free to organize itself internally and move information around in any (legal) way it sees fit. Equally, it can relate externally to people or other businesses in any legally sanctioned way.

Secrecy in business is valuable, in that it is a prime factor in achieving a competitive edge in a company's dealings with others, and hence in improving the overall competitive health of an economy. But most kinds of 'external' secrecy would be a severe handicap to companies if they had to be practiced internally, and so would work against the interests of a capitalist society. Thus any ethical theory which generally supports capitalism is unlikely to defend internal secrecy requirements, whether in the name of fairness or for other reasons. If there were exceptions, they would have to be individually argued for.

So in the present case, the burden of proof is on those who would claim that there is something ethically unfair about an internal unit receiving information (about competitive bids) not available to outsiders.

Here's a more specific reason for thinking that internal sharing of information is morally legitimate in the present case. Suppose the situation were somewhat different at T&D Manufacturing, as follows. T&D has been internally producing the tools in question, with no outside help, but now would like to check whether it would be cheaper to 'outsource' the production, i.e., get external companies to produce the tools. So they request competitive bids from outsiders. In this case, the internal T&D tool and die department is central to current production and centrally involved in the new inquiries about relative costs for outsourcing, so it would be ridiculous to suggest that they should not be fully informed about the external bids received.

This example suggests that the initial case seemed unfair because the internal department was not initially involved. Thus it might have appeared to belong in a group with the external companies which are also not directly involved in business decisions of T&D. However, as the example shows, the involvement or non-involvement of any internal unit can easily be changed by circumstance or company policy. Since these matters are so variable, they cannot justify situation-independent judgements about the unfairness of the relevant kind of information-sharing.

If we accept that ethics does not require internal business secrecy, there might nevertheless be sound business reasons for restricting internal information-sharing in some cases. For example, it might be that as a matter of fact the most accurate method of estimating actual costs of production involves restriction of information about the costs of competitors. If so, business self-interest rather than ethics would dictate a 'sealed bid' approach.

Another example is provided in the case itself. If outside vendors are unhappy with a bidding situation in which an internal unit has an advantage, and if this affects their willingness to bid, then again prudent T&D officials might consider internal restriction of information so as to keep their suppliers happy. But here again it is the interests of their own company, rather than ethics, which is at work in their thinking.

This is a case about obstructionism, in a situation where undiscovered safety hazards are most probably present. Dan Hayward is the victim of deliberate attempts by his supervisor Cal Brundage to prevent him discovering any potentially compromising safety information about ABC's manufacturing processes.

Ethically the situation is clear. Managers and professionals such as Dan and Cal have a duty to preserve the health of their workers, and to minimize any likely threats to health caused by manufacturing processes. Hence any inaction or complacency by them with respect to these issues is morally wrong, and obstructionism (such as that by Cal) is doubly wrong because it prevents others (such as Dan) from carrying out their duties, in addition to being itself a form of inaction.

What should Dan do? In this case or in general, he should do whatever it takes to get the necessary information, and to get it acted upon if the information reveals that there are legitimate health concerns about the manufacturing processes. If administrative 'stonewalling' continues, Dan may even have to go outside ABC Manufacturing (to regulators such as the OSHA, or to the press, for instance) to get appropriate action taken.

By doing so Dan might easily put his own job in jeopardy, but the obligation to ensure the safety of those one supervises is so fundamental that Dan must be prepared to risk getting fired. (An analogy: if one joins a police force, one must be prepared to risk getting shot at sometimes. It is part of the obligations which go with the job.)

In a broader context however, does this account of safety responsibilities in the workplace place too much of a burden on the few individuals who are prepared to carry out their moral duty, whatever the personal cost? Or to put the problem another way, can it really be one's duty, or be morally required, that one should have to do things which could severely harm one's own interests? Should this rather be regarded as moral heroism (as being above and beyond the call of duty), rather than as being morally required of anyone holding such supervisory jobs?

It seems to me that this concern over burdensomeness is legitimate, but that moral skepticism would be a very inappropriate response. The problem could instead be handled as follows. We should recognize that as members of a society we have some second-order moral duties, whose description includes a reference to one or more regular, first-order moral duties. In the present case, we have the second-order duty to reduce as far as possible the burdensomeness upon individuals of first-order moral duties such as that of protecting the health of those whom one supervises.

This may sound complicated, but a ready-made analogy is at hand in standard legal systems and the sanctions they employ to achieve compliance. Broadly speaking, the purpose of a legal system is to ensure that everyone adheres to basic moral rules or standards in their social relations (no harming of others, and so on). The threat of sanctions or punishments for those who might break the laws serves to minimize the burdensomeness of obeying the laws for law-abiding citizens. Generally speaking, the sanctions ensure that it is in one's interest to obey the law rather than to break it, so that conforming to the law (and hence to the underlying moral rules) is generally a benefit rather than a burden to citizens.

What we need to do (i.e., our second-order duty) in the present case is to ensure that there are enough legal and regulatory mechanisms in place so that people such as Don can do their first-order duty with a minimum of risk to themselves and their own careers. The regulations should also be designed so that the kinds of obstructionism employed by people such as Cal should pose great risks to their own careers (risks such as firing or imprisonment), so that even if they have no concern for morality, self-interest would motivate them to do the right thing.

Once we ensure that those who respect morality will generally have an excellent chance of succeeding in moral conflict situations, we will no longer be tempted to be skeptical about the extent of moral duties over such basic matters as health and safety issues. Much can and should be expected of each of us in the workplace, but we are entitled to full social and legal support in carrying out our difficult responsibilities.

This case raises a number of interesting and controversial issues about potential conflicts of interest on the one hand, and the relationship between different social roles (e.g., friend versus business associate) on the other. I shall briefly suggest a general theoretical framework for dealing with these kinds of problems, and show how it applies to the present case.

To begin with, is there any initial problem in an employee of one company (Paul Ledbetter of Bluestone, Ltd., in the case) accepting hospitality or other benefits from an employee of another company (Duncan Mackey), when the companies involved have a business relationship (Duncan's company sells items to Bluestone)?

Answer: if each is a private business, and not subject to direct government regulations because neither accepts any government contracts, then whether there is a problem entirely depends on the specific regulations that each company chooses to implement for itself. Broadly speaking, companies may choose any legal cozy or distant relations with their suppliers and customers as they please, with corporate self-interest being their main guide.

Certainly there may be great social and political interest in how businesses actually carry out such private, internal regulations of their interactions. And this may lead to general governmental regulations applying to all businesses, or tax laws governing business lunches, gifts, etc. But my main point is that there is no general moral problem of 'conflicts of interest' in business (of course, this is not to deny that there may be other moral problems concerning such activities). Instead, any real problems that arise are the result of specific conflicts between specific regulations (whether private or governmental) applying to businesses or employees.

From this point of view, the potential problem in Paul Ledbetter accepting hospitality (guest country-club membership, etc.) from Duncan Mackey is first of all, whether either company has a regulation forbidding such situations. If not, the potential problems shift directly to the self-interests of each company. For example, Bluestone Ltd. might be concerned that employee Paul could become biassed in favor of Duncan's company, and hence fail to be objective when Bluestone needs his best judgement in pruning the vendor list. On the other hand, Duncan's company may be more concerned with whether his entertaining expenses really will help to cement their relationship with Bluestone.

Next we need to discuss the 'two hat' problem (as it might be called), that one individual may have more than one role or 'wear two hats' in a situation (e.g., friend and business associate). This issue is closely related to the 'potential conflicts of interest' issues discussed above. There are those (unlike me) who think there exist moral problems of conflict of interest even when there are no applicable regulations. Presumably they would appeal to some kind of moral conflict of attitudes or personal roles in business and other situations (which roles or attitudes can exist independently of written regulations), in defending their view. My position on the other hand would be that there are no moral problems which result specifically from one person adopting or possessing more than one point of view or attitude toward a situation.

Actually, I shall defend a view which is even stronger, namely that there are no fundamental conflicts of any kind (moral or non-moral) between attitudes or social roles, whether or not the roles apply to a single person. (I ignore cases of completely incompatible roles, because they could not generate problems of conflict since they never occur together.) This may seem an extreme and therefore hard-to-defend thesis, but it actually rests on the following partly normative thesis about social roles. It is that our concepts of individual social roles tend to be, and ought to be, defined (with suitable adjustments as necessary) so that they are as compatible with each other as possible, i.e., so that they cause as little 'friction' as possible between people who adopt the roles (including, as a special case, the 'two-hat' case of a single person adopting two roles).

The reasons as to why roles generally are, and should be, designed for maximum compatibility with each other are broadly consequentialness, such as that life would be much harder and more unpleasant if conflicts or frictions between roles were to occur. For example, if the roles of being a husband or a wife were incompatible with the role of being a paid employee, clearly either marriage or the industrial revolution would have to go. Even any significant friction between these roles would have widespread bad consequences.

Such potential bad consequences are one reason why feminists have been so concerned to separate and distinguish the roles of wife and wage-earner, so that a woman's commitment to one role has no implications about any commitment to the other role. Making roles more compatible serves the cause of increasing human freedom.

An example more relevant to the present case is that it is in the best interest of all of us that the roles of friend and business associate should be kept as compatible with each other as possible. Only thus (to give just one reason for this) can one maximize one's freedom both to choose one's friends, and to choose one's business associates. Such maximization of freedom also includes the case when a single person is both a friend and a business associate of another person (e.g., Duncan Mackey is both a friend and business associate of Paul Ledbetter).

The above examples and discussion suggest the following criteria for roles or attitudes to be compatible. First, roles should in general be logically independent of each other (ignoring trivial 'inclusion' cases such as being a parent versus being a father). In other words, there shouldn't be any logical implications concerning other roles which follow simply from a person having a given role.

Second, the characteristics of roles should in some sense be 'logically segregated', so that significant or characteristic activities involved in describing or defining one role are not also involved in describing or defining any other role. ('Logical segregation' is related to but different from logical independence.) This criterion is concerned with what makes a role substantially distinct from others, and with its internal coherence.

A practical illustration of why we (as a culture) do, and ought to, 'logically segregate' roles is based on the very basic need to be able to easily recognize roles and distinguish them from one another. For example, if someone calls on the phone, one needs to be able to easily tell if it is a business or a personal call (even if one does not know the caller, in the case when a personal call is from some friend of someone else in your family). If the roles of businessperson and friend had too many overlapping characteristics, or if they lacked any internal coherence, the making of such judgements about role would be much harder and much more time-consuming.

A third criterion for roles to be compatible (or 'mutually frictionless') is that each should be complete and self-sufficient. Completeness here means that the role covers every thing, and only those things, which ideally that role should cover, and self-sufficiency means that there is enough structure in the role to handle any aspect of the total coverage of the role.

For example, in primitive societies with barter economies the role of businessperson is incomplete (in that whole areas of monetary policy are not addressed by the role), and also the role will not be self-sufficient because there are questions about barter which can be raised (such as about equivalent monetary values) which cannot be answered within (that primitive form of) the role.

The justification for the third criterion is indirect, but compelling nevertheless. If a role is incomplete and not self-sufficient, then we may assume that there are social needs which should be addressed by that role but (currently) are not. Hence those needs, if addressed at all, must be addressed through some other role (or roles). But then that other role is likely to have internal conflicts because it lacks internal coherence. Also, the original and second roles will not be adequately 'logically segregated' because there will be unwanted dependencies between them. Hence the two roles in question will not be fully compatible. Overall then, this shows that the third criterion is a necessary condition for role compatibility.

The third criterion is also important in understanding the structure and integrity of moral reasoning involving different roles. Intuitively, roles can be kept psychologically compatible with each other, and one's thinking will not be morally compromised, as long as thought and reasoning about each role can be kept separate from thought about other roles. In other words, rational practical thinking requires that deliberations be conducted in 'watertight compartments', with each role being considered separately without any intermixing of arguments relevant to one in deliberation about another. This will only be possible if each role can indeed be 'complete in itself', i.e., complete and self-sufficient in the current sense.

To summarize this section: we have strong consequentialist reasons for enforcing (as far as possible) a conceptual structure on roles, attitudes or interests such that they are interpreted as being (or made to be) compatible with each other in the above senses, and which structure is evaluative in the sense that reference is made to roles, etc., as they should be, not simply to facts about roles as they are.

To round out the defense of my position, it is important that I be able to explain (or explain away) cases of real or apparent conflicts of social roles and interests. This will now be done in a few instances, using a variety of examples, including one based on the current case.

First, an extreme example of conflict involving complete incompatibilities of role: the traditional role of a monarch (a queen or a king). This was conceived by all as fundamentally ruling out or completely conflicting with some other roles such as that of being a friend. In this extreme case, perhaps being a king completely excluded the possibility of one's also being a friend to someone. But then there could not be a moral problem of whether a king's friendship with someone was compromised by his being a king, because there could not be any such friendship at all. I do not deny that there are such complete incompatibilities between roles, but clearly they are of no moral interest.

A more moderate case of conflict of interest is between being a parent and being a friend to one's children. Many will attest that sometimes as a matter of fact, the specific way in which they act as a parent does conflict with their being good friends with their children. That is, playing the parental role for them in fact does seem sometimes to diminish or even undermine such friendship.

However, what should we conclude from this? It is inappropriate and premature to draw the general conclusion that therefore the role of parent is incompatible with that of friend to one's children, and that anyone adopting both roles must be morally compromised by the situation. Instead, parents in such situations are much more likely to say that they have failed as parents (or failed as friends), and that it is their failures, rather than the roles of parenting and friendship themselves, which explain why things went wrong.

Even if such failures are widespread in society, the search for an understanding of 'good parenting/friendship', which could avoid such conflicts, will continue. If necessary we will even adjust the definitions of the roles (for example, by diminishing emphasis on parental authority as essential to good parenting) in order to achieve role compatibility. This supports my claim that our role-concepts are partly evaluative, and that the achievement or preservation of role compatibility is a significant factor in this evaluative element.

The third example is from the general situation in the current case. Duncan Mackey and Paul Ledbetter have become good friends through their years of playing golf together. Question: Isn't Paul's business judgement of Duncan's company bound to be influenced by his personal friendship with Duncan, hence causing a genuine conflict of interest?

Answer: Paul's judgement may be influenced perhaps, but that doesn't mean that his judgement is determined or irrevocably altered by his friendship. As long as Paul can take steps to control or minimize the influence when necessary, there is no actual conflict of interests or roles. If Paul does take the right steps, there's no problem. If Paul doesn't take steps to control the influence, he is morally guilty of bad judgement, or giving in to temptation, etc. In other words, any moral problem is a problem about Paul's choices rather than about any conflict of roles. Hence there isn't any significant way in which Paul is morally compromised by the situation itself (i.e., by his playing several roles).

This example can be generalized. Cases where it is claimed that persons are involved in conflicts of interest (when these are not based on contractual considerations) are really just cases of moral temptation, when one is tempted to do something that one knows one should not do. 'Two-hat' cases naturally give rise to temptations, since often factors belonging to one could (physically rather than morally) be used to apply additional leverage to another. However, if one does give in to such temptations, it simply is a case of immoral action in convenient circumstances. It doesn't show that there was a real conflict of interests, or that there was anything inherently morally compromising about the combination of roles.

In order to be fair to the other side, let us consider a more extreme example in which Paul's business judgement is so influenced by his friendship with Duncan that psychologically he cannot be objective, no matter how hard he tries. (Note again that it is not the interests or roles which conflict, but rather that Paul is unable to think about the situation without mixing them up or confusing them.) First, if Duncan realizes he cannot be objective, he can take suitable action such as to inform his fellow committee members at Bluestone of this, and let them make the decision about Duncan's company.

Second, even if Paul does not specifically realize he cannot be objective in this case, it is part of his general duty as a engineer or manager to learn about the kinds of situations in which his decisions might be judged by others to be biassed, and so to withdraw himself from making a decision in such cases. In other words, there are always things which Duncan could do to prevent any moral harm occurring because of his confusion and general inability to 'handle' such situations. Hence he is not morally compromised by his roles in such cases. If Paul does allow himself to be swayed by undue influence from a friend, the blame is his alone.

It remains to relate my general view that 'roles don't really conflict' to my initial view that social rules or regulations prohibiting some specific conflicts can be legitimate. For example, it would be reasonable to prohibit a businessperson from submitting a bid on behalf of company B to a company C, while at the same time he himself is the individual at C who judges all bids submitted (this is a factually possible situation if he holds both jobs).

The reason for having a regulation against such a 'conflict' is because of the very strong temptations to bias in such a case, through a mixing or conflation of the person's role as advocate for B with his role as impartial judge for C. That is, as before it is the strong temptations to moral backsliding or failure which are our legitimate concerns here, not any conflicts between the roles themselves.

Such cases are closely analogous to other potential moral temptations or failings which regulations address, such as those preventing a manager from depositing corporate funds in his personal bank account with the intention of repaying it shortly. In such a case it is very clear that the rule seeks to remove the temptations, and no-one would say that the rule is really seeking to prevent a 'conflict of interest' between his roles as private depositor and as corporate depositor in his own bank account. In other words, talk about 'conflicts of interest' is at best a metaphor, and often a very unhelpful metaphor, for talking about moral temptations.

This case gives the initial impression of involving several distinct (though related) issues about drug use, with each requiring a separate discussion based on a variety of considerations. Nevertheless, a central common theme is provided by the issue of the privacy rights of workers. Our discussion will concentrate on this all-important aspect of the situations described in the case.

In terms of privacy rights, the critical issues of the present case concern whether Branch, Inc. has a right to know specific items of information concerning the property or behavior of their workers. One useful clear case is provided by the following example. Suppose workers may rent private lockers from Branch Inc., in which they could keep any personal items they might want to use at work (lunchboxes, coats, radios, etc.) Suppose that John Crane happens to see that Andy Pullman regularly has a bottle of whiskey in his locker, with a fluctuating level suggesting a pattern of frequent consumption.

Should John talk to Andy about this (as a concerned employee of Branch, Inc. rather than as a friend), or even tell the company about what he has seen? No he shouldn't, because what Andy has in his locker and the use he makes of it is nobody's business but his own. If Branch Inc. is concerned about this possibility, they should stop renting private lockers, or issue a specific regulation forbidding use of them to store alcohol, or forbidding consumption of alcohol so stored. Workers could then conform to or challenge these regulations in court. If Branch does neither of these things, (stopping renting, or issuing regulations) then they have no right to know the information. Hence John as an employee has no business to be nosing around discovering such items of information on behalf of Branch Inc.

We can extract the following general principle from this 'locker' example. A worker has privacy rights in all information about their property and actions on the job, except for those items which are specifically provided for or specified as non-private in the contract under which they work (which contract includes any ongoing changes in regulations etc.).

The initial situation actually described in the present case is quite similar to the 'locker' case. It differs only in how John acquires information about Andy's alcohol use: he detects alcohol on Andy's breath at various times in the day. Our question is, does Branch Inc. have a right to know this information? Branch has a right to it only if Andy does not have a right to privacy with respect to the information.

In terms of our general principle stated above, the question becomes whether Andy's contract with Branch Inc. specifically provides that Branch is entitled to acquire or make use of information about what Andy's breath smells like. Almost certainly there is no such specification or implication in the contract, and therefore Branch has no right to the information. Thus as before, John shouldn't try to acquire for Branch information which they have no right to know. So he shouldn't pass on or reveal such information (or implications from it which he might draw) to other employees of Branch, whether or not they are in higher management positions. If Branch wants to detect alcohol use through breath tests, they should do so by proposing specific regulations, and re-negotiating the employment contracts of all affected workers.

This leads us to the issue of mandatory random drug testing, proposed by Branch and mentioned at the end of the present case. Is this, as in the union's view, an "unwarranted invasion of the privacy of workers"?

Well, at least Branch Inc. is going about this the right way, by proposing a regulation rather than by \relying on an ad hoc network of spies or informants to achieve their goals. Also, if one accepts the account given here of individual privacy in the workplace, the question of which issues are privacy rights and which are not is generally open to negotiation between management and workers. Those objecting to the ethics of mandatory drug testing would have to give compelling reasons why this issue should not be settled by negotiation.

In the U.S. constitution, the only available "compelling reasons" for non-negotiation are provided by the provisions regarding 'unalienable rights'. These are rights which legally cannot be voluntarily given up by a person, and which hence are not subject to negotiation. Examples are the right not to be enslaved, or the right not to be medically experimented upon with hazardous substances. However, there are no explicit provisions regarding privacy rights in the constitution, so each proposed case has to be legally established through a long and arduous process. In the present case, there is no current provision saying that one cannot give up a right not to be tested for drug use. So the burden of proof is on those who find mandatory testing morally objectionable. They need to make their case strongly enough to produce a corresponding change in constitutional law on the topic. (Analogous points would apply in other, non-U.S. legal systems).

Finally, is Branch, Inc.'s proposed testing discriminatory and unjust, in that professionals are exempted from it? Clearly there are various moral objections which one might make to this. But are any so compelling that it should be illegal to institute or freely negotiate such a policy? No, because if we agree that workers and management have the right to negotiate working conditions as they see fit, then society shouldn't interfere in the process (other than on constitutional grounds, as discussed above). We may agree that Branch's proposal is stupid and short-sighted, in that it would create resentment and damage the morale of the workforce. But the proper remedies are such things as worker demands that the whole policy should be withdrawn, or that professionals and managers should be included in any testing.

Cases such as this resist a simple answer because those involved (in the present case, Alison) must deal with several fundamentally different kinds of considerations in making their judgement. It is useful to explicitly distinguish these, because the resolution of each requires different kinds of reasoning. However, once distinguished, each is much easier to discuss and resolve than was the original problem. Here are the kinds of considerations:

1. (Facts) What are the relevant facts of the situation? Even here there is room for judgment and argument, as to which facts are or are not relevant or problematic with respect to safety.
2. (Regulations) Given 1., what government regulations apply to the situation? This also may require judgment, since for example 'borderline' data may require an expert decision on whether or not a regulation is significantly infringed by the facts.
3. (Duties) The PNSRC safety committee: what is its structure and organization, and what regulations must it itself conform to? Consequently, what are the duties of individual committee members such as Alison?
4. (Pressures) What political pressures are operative on the committee members? Do they both individually and collectively have the courage, authority and power to ignore these pressures and do the right thing anyway?

Let's start with the easiest part, the Duties. Who would disagree that the committee and its members have a duty to raise and satisfactorily resolve any and all safety issues that come up? What is more, all members of the committee, no matter how junior, have a duty to raise any safety issues they personally are aware of, and a duty to ensure that the committee resolves those issues. Failing this, they have a duty to record a dissenting opinion or vote if the matter has not (in their view) been properly resolved by the committee.

Surely none of this is controversial at all, since this is precisely what safety committees and the experts who sit on them are supposed to do. Hence if we have any doubt about whether Alison should express her reservations or cast a negative vote, it must be for other reasons. (One might quibble about whether Alison should raise further specific objections at the meeting before committing herself to a negative vote, but that is a mere tactical consideration having no implications for her duties.)

Now to the Pressures. Alison might well feel 'pressured' to keep quiet and not officially record her dissent, given the blatantly political and self-serving comments of others on the committee. She could also fear being a lone dissenter, or fear that her career may be compromised if she is perceived as a 'troublemaker' or an obstructionist. But here again, who would deny that she ought to resist such pressures? This, and any other kind of political pressure, clearly ought to be fought in every way possible by the committee and its members.

Since neither Duties nor Pressures provide any reasons for Alison to hold back her concerns, we are left with broadly scientific and factual issues (the Facts and Regulations mentioned under 1. and 2. above) as the arena for any remaining concerns about what she should do. From the facts presented, and regulations outlined or which can be assumed, an unexpected picture emerges.

Though Alison's concerns seem legitimate, from the initial information we are given it seems there are much more pressing reasons for safety concerns. A heat exchanger shows degraded coolant flow and high differential pressure even after two months of repairs, and tests show the other exchanger in the same generating unit has the same problems. Not only that, but the other generating unit also has problems with its heat exchangers. It seems quite likely that we have the makings of a disaster here, whether or not a generating unit could normally function with the loss of one heat exchanger (the specific point of Alison's concern). All of these facts should be reported to the NRC.

We are also told that the cooling water flow is slightly below the minimum requirement for the whole plant. Quite simply, this means that the NRC must be informed that the plant is in violation of this basic requirement, and NRC's duty is to immediately shut down the plant. A minimum standard is just that, i.e., a minimum level below which performance is absolutely unacceptable. (Even performance above but near to the minimum would be reason for serious safety investigations.) Why did no one on the committee raise this issue?

This case indirectly provides a good illustration of why the U.S nuclear power industry is held in such low esteem by its public. Sadly, engineers and scientists have failed to expeditiously seek out and correct many fundamental safety problems connected with nuclear power, and NRC regulation has been lax or non-existent. With engineers being more concerned with 'not rocking the boat' than with being activists for safer plants, regulatory committees have become largely 'rubber-stamps' for company policy. The comments of committee members as reported in this case, along with Alison's doubts as to whether she should do what it is plainly her duty to do, well illustrate these problems.

To begin, here are some specific questions concerning the case which a corporate lawyer probably would want to raise. They concern possibly minor details in the contract, which nevertheless could have a significant impact on the questions about what Tim Vinson (Head of Quality Control) should do. Given that this case centers around a specific agreement which Ruskin Manufacturing has with Parker Products, which sets out the contractual obligations and conditions of each party, it seems only reasonable that we should initially get clear on exactly what those obligations and conditions are.

First, we are told informally that the machines include a new component which is a replacement for an old component. We are also told that if the old component were used in the new machine, Parker would not be getting exactly what it ordered. It follows from the latter that some part other than the old part must be used in the new machines.

However, the critical question of exactly what counts as a 'new component' is not yet settled. The 'standard' new component is in short supply; could Tim Vinson still satisfy the letter (or perhaps even the spirit) of the contract if he selects case option #1, of breaking up and regrinding old components and using them to manufacture substitute new components? Answer: it almost entirely depends on the specific language of the contract. (State and federal laws governing contracts may make some difference too.) If the contract defines 'new component' so that only the standard new component would satisfy it, or if a quality clause is included so that the re-ground parts would not qualify, then Tim is out of luck, and the moral quandaries laid out in the case apply with full force.

However, if Ruskin has been given some discretion in the design and manufacture of the new part, use of the substitute new part may be contractually permissible according to the letter of the contract, even though Parker might complain that its understanding of the agreement had been violated if they ever find out about the substituted parts. But arguably Ruskin Manufacturing and Tim Vinson should pick up little blame for this, because Ruskin could just as well blame themselves for hiring mediocre lawyers who had left loopholes in the contract. So if things go this way, Tim is for practical purposes 'home free'. This well illustrates that even the tiniest 'nit-picking' of a contract can pay off handsomely in terms of defusing or avoiding moral problems. Certainly this approach can never give the last word on any moral issue in business even when it can be used, but it would be foolish not to explore all of one's contractually permitted actions in a problematic situation. There is nothing immoral in successfully preventing a business problem from escalating into a moral problem.

Did co-op student Jack Jacobs falsify the test data? Let us assume that he did, to keep the case ethically interesting. Then we can quickly agree that he should not have done it, and that he should be approached to find out why he did it. Also, clearly there is a need for much more stringent monitoring of co-op students, given that one of those in whom the supervisors had the highest confidence nevertheless betrayed it. The most pressing question above concerns why he did it. Not, I hasten to add, as a question about Jack's individual psychology, but rather as a question about his social and scientific attitudes insofar as these were molded by his education. We need to discover what was missing in his training, or what was present yet in some very inadequate form, which resulted in him being able to do such a thing. Or, to put the matter in another way, what factors should we emphasize more in education, in order to effectively prevent students such as Jack from falsifying data in future?

The case queries us as to whether material on professional ethics should be included in student education. This should certainly be of some help in cutting down on the amount of data falsification, plagiarism, and other unethical practices. However, ethics by its very nature has two separable aspects or sides, a theoretical and a practical side. The theoretical side concerns ethical knowledge and truth. The practical side concerns personal motivation and commitment to act upon one's ethical beliefs. Unfortunately, an intelligent student could fully understand (or seem to fully understand) and even agree with ethical claims such as that is unethical to falsify data, but still have little or no commitment or motivation to actually live up to such ethical beliefs. Another way to put this point is that unless the person him/herself is significantly changed by the ethics course (or in no need of change), the practical goal of preventing data falsification is unlikely to be achieved.

Ideally we would ensure that students achieved (or already possessed) a good moral character at school, because merely changing their knowledge and beliefs will not guarantee good behavior or any real commitment to morality. Is there anything else we can do, in case students fail to acquire or have enough moral character? Fortunately there are still some other fairly powerful motivators, which involve the self-interest of students. Methods based on self-interest are admittedly second-best methods, because students influenced by them do the right things for self-interested rather than specifically moral reasons.

Nevertheless, we should not despise any legitimate methods which can help to prevent moral evils such as data falsification. 'Self-interest' methods can be divided, as in the traditional fable about a donkey, into 'carrot' and 'stick' approaches. A donkey can be encouraged to move forward by hope for the reward of a carrot, while a stick is available to punish any refusal to move forward. Similarly, in the present case we can convince students that there will be rewards for them if they behave as good scientists should, while on the other hand there will be punishments if they do not behave correctly.

On the positive, 'reward' side, one of the more interesting approaches would be to convince students that it is actually in their interest to acquire a good moral character. For example, a good case can be made that if students work on becoming more conscientious, concerned about the truth, etc., they are much more likely to find scientific work satisfying and enjoyable, and much less likely to perceive science as often tedious and pointless. Other self-interested rewards of science for good individual behavior are more closely linked to potential punishments for bad behavior. For example, the reward of a long, secure career in science is available only to those who avoid certain punishments, such as being dismissed from a post after falsification of data is discovered.

An education which stresses both how attractive a successful scientific career can be, and also how disastrous to one's career even a trivial immoral act might be, has the best chance of ensuring self-interested good behavior from students during their careers. At the same time, we may continue to hope that such 'self-interested' educational methods will become increasingly unnecessary.

Roughly, my general view is that it is very beneficial to us as a society, and hence ethically desirable or even obligatory, that we should ensure that social interests or roles (such as being a businessperson, friend, landowner, or a state representative) are maintained or made to be as compatible as possible with each other, so that 'friction' or 'conflict' between roles or interest-groups is minimized.

From this point of view, problems of 'conflict of interest' in which one person has several social roles involving different interests (e.g., as a friend versus as a business associate) turn out to be morally problematic not because of supposed 'conflicts' of those interests, but rather because of the high degree of moral temptation present in such situations. The proper social solution to such problems is appropriate regulations designed to legally enforce standard morality. On this view, there are no special moral circumstances associated with supposed 'conflicts of interest' which could excuse or exonerate those who act in a biassed manner.

In the case of supposed conflicts of interest of social or political entities such as states or townships, I argue that such conflicts cannot occur at all. Hence of course there are no moral problems resulting from such 'conflicts'.

The present case suggests another, perhaps harder kind of challenge to my general view. It raises the question of apparent 'conflicts of interest' in which the supposed 'conflicts' could be between a person's 'self-interest' and some social interests.

For example, in the current case Brian Simpson expresses a concern that if members of the State Board accept hospitality from NWSPE (lodging, meals etc.) having some substantial value, their behavior would be "inappropriate". At least one of his specific concerns here seems to be that since individual members would get personal benefits from the hospitality, there would be at least the appearance that their actions as Board members might be compromised by this. Is there some conflict of personal versus social interests which could cause or explain why members could be morally compromised (or appear to be) in such a situation?

On my account of social interests, they are about the commitment, stake or value which some entity (a person, a political unit, etc.) attaches to or associates with some object or activity. This account would (so far) be generally accepted, and is broad enough to cover both legal and more general interests (in friendship, business associations, etc.).

However, note that nothing in this account rules out the possibility that the objects or activities of an interest are centered round one particular person. Then a 'self-interest' would simply be the special case when a person has the interest, and the same person is involved in the objects or activities associated with the interest. I propose that we accept this natural consequence of our initial definition, and hence regard it as a defining interests generally rather than specifically social (as opposed to individual) interests.

Admittedly, the term 'self-interest' is often used in ways which seem to make it a very different kind of thing from more impersonal or social interests. However, that can be explained. Such talk about a person's 'self-interest' is not about any particular self-directed interest the person may have, but rather about some kind of overall evaluation of the full range of a person's self-directed interests.

In this sense, a person's 'self-interest' is not one of their interests (since it is rather a sum or resultant of specific interests), and hence it cannot conflict with other interests or social responsibilities. So in our search for conflicts of interests between individual and social interests, we must be sure to use specific interests in each case.

Another common mistake about social versus self-directed interests is to assume that it is possible to exhaustively divide all interests into one category or the other. This encourages a view of 'conflicts of interest' in which the basic problem is seen as a conflict of selfish, personal interests on the one hand with social or moral interests on the other. However, it is easy to show that many interests involve both self-directed and other-directed elements, so that this account must be over-simplified.

For example, if person A has an interest in being friendly with someone B, this has an other-directed element (the other person B), but A's interest itself is richer than that. In order to adequately play the role of being a friend, person A must (of course) himself act in a friendly manner toward B, and so A's interest must be self-directed as well as other-directed.

The above example is a case where a social interest can be shown to have a self-directed element. Some personal interests can just as easily be shown to have an other-directed or social element. For example, suppose person A signs up for a course on public speaking because she has a selfish, personal interest in being able to speak well in public (she may believe that such a skill would improve her promotion prospects, for instance). Whether A likes it or not, she will succeed with her selfish interest only to the extent that she is able to actually speak well in public, i.e., perform that social role at least adequately (to the satisfaction of her audiences). Hence her interest is inherently other-directed (or social) as well as self-directed.

What these points suggest overall is that there is nothing special about apparent conflicts of selfish versus social interests; each kind of interest is structurally similar, and we cannot even assume that the selfish/social contrast is theoretically fundamental because there are 'mixed' cases with elements of both.

However, it might be thought that some fundamental selfish/social distinction could still be made. For example, the idea of the intended beneficiary of an interest might be introduced: A intends to benefit herself in the example above, and any benefits to her audiences are unintended by her. Since it is her interest, she gets to decide whether it is 'really' selfish or social by her intentions. (Note that, even with this addition, it is still possible to have 'mixed' cases, in which the owners of interests intend to benefit both themselves and other people involved in their interests.)

Certainly one's intentions, and one's own reasons for doing things, are important in the discussion of interests. However, they are more closely tied up with interests than the above account suggests. It is not as if, for any interest, one could have that interest plus any intentions whatever which one might choose to have. Instead, the having of an interest is itself a kind of commitment or way of thinking about or relating to things, which already reflects or contains the main outlines of one's intentions toward the objects of the interest.

For example, consider the case of person A above. If she really is taking public speaking courses just to enhance her promotion chances, perhaps we should say that strictly, she does not have an interest in public speaking, but instead only an interest in getting promoted? This would make clear that public speaking is pursued by her only as a means to the end of getting promoted, and not for its own sake. This more insightful or explicit account of her interests (which takes account of her reasoning and intentions in explaining why she wants to learn public speaking) also leaves no room for additional intentions to distinguish selfish versus social 'versions' of her interest.

However, we should not over-emphasize the similarities and connections between intentions and interests. Interests are grounded in real connections in the world, while intentions are merely mental attitudes, which can be much more variable and quirky. For example, a speaker with an interest in public speaking may have intentions to speak in public as an integral part of that interest. But she may or may not intend to inform her audience of anything in the course of doing so. (That part purely depends on how she thinks of her interest.)

On the other hand, if she does indeed have an interest in public speaking, then she does have an interest in an activity which will inform her audience of something, as a result of her speaking. In other words, having or acquiring an interest involves taking on tasks or responsibilities which are integrally associated with the normal causal connections of real events and activities. In fact, it is this 'reality-oriented' aspect of interests which gives point to our whole discussion of conflicts of interest. We really would have moral problems if interests did conflict in a serious way.

Let us now follow our own advice above, and use as a possible example of conflict of individual versus social interests a case where each interest is clear and specific. My strategy will be to describe a scenario in which the interests definitely do seem to conflict, but then to show that a person could have the same interests without them conflicting with each other.

It will follow that such interests do not necessarily have to conflict, and so it must be other factors (such as the moral attitudes of the person having the interests) which determine whether there is a conflict or not. But then we are explaining why there is a conflict in terms of problems in a person's moral attitudes, which is just the opposite of the conventional view (according to which it is the inherent conflict of the interests themselves which explains why the person's behavior is morally problematic.)

For example, suppose that a State Board member X in the case really would enjoy hospitality at the resort (food, sightseeing...) to such an extent that he would do almost anything to get other invitations in future years from the NWSPE. Perhaps then if a case for review involving a NWSPE member Y came up, X would allow himself to be influenced by his desire for future hospitality, and rule in Y's favor whether Y deserves it or not. Is this not a case where X's individual interest in 'good living' is in conflict with his interest or role as an impartial State Board member?

My claim is that there are two possible answers to the question, depending on our interpretation of the interests in question. First, if we think of X's individual interest in its most specific form, as X's current interest in X himself receiving hospitality etc, then it may well be true that it conflicts with X's current role as a Board Member.

However, if we concentrate on the interests themselves, as possessed by anyone rather than on them as possessed by X (so that the individual interest is describable as of the type 'a person's individual interest in he himself receiving hospitality, etc.'), it seems clear that someone could easily possess both attitudes without any conflict. It is a normal fact of everyday life that some people are very fond of free hospitality, and that some are virtually morally incorruptible. There is no inherent connection whatsoever between great enjoyment of free food on the one hand and impartial decision-making on the other, and only morally corrupt or 'sleazy' people would allow themselves to adopt their interests in such a form that they could result in conflicts in this way.

Thus in such a case of conflict, it is the moral corruption or failure of a particular person at some stage in their life which explains why there is a conflict in interests. It is not some inherent conflict in the interests themselves which explains why there is something morally problematic about the situation of any persons who have the interests in question.

This analysis fits in closely with my general account of apparent conflicts of interest as morally problematic only because of the moral temptation involved. The case selected above is one in which the person has already given in to temptation. So even in this extreme case, when there is some actual conflict, it turns out that it is a mere symptom of an underlying moral problem about the person.

An analogy might be useful: just as interests don't have to clash, but may do so if adopted by bad people, so also spatio-temporal locations of cars don't have to clash, but may do so if driven by bad drivers (in an accident, the cars occupy the same spatio-temporal region for a while). We explain why the locations of two cars clash by appealing to facts about the drivers (bad driver, drunk...); the crash itself is a mere symptom of the underlying driving problems of (at least one of) the drivers. The pattern of explanation is the same in each case.

In order to further demonstrate the validity of the above analysis of a conflict of interest, let us look at an even more extreme case. Suppose that it is not just hospitality, but some powerful, addictive drug which is being used to influence the decisions of State Board members. Suppose that it is so powerful that, once taken, anyone will develop an overpowering need for more of the same substance.

In such a case, the personal interest of each member in obtaining the drug might in every case conflict with their interest in rendering impartial judgements for the State Board. In other words, the interests would always conflict, and the need for the drug would override impartiality, whatever the individual moral scruples of the Board members happen to be. What should we say about such cases?

Note that here, if anywhere, the conventional view ought to work, according to which there are unavoidable conflicts of interest, which explain why people are morally compromised in such situations. However, the problem is that the only means of guaranteeing that the interests will always conflict in this way is to bring in an extreme form of causal determination. Far from being morally compromised in such a situation, Board members have instead become innocent victims of a dangerous drug which completely removes their power of choice. They are not responsible for failing to act impartially, and hence cannot be morally blamed for their actions in the situation at all.

There is another, deeper problem with this extreme example. I would argue that in order to acquire an interest as one's own, one must intentionally or deliberately choose or accept whatever is involved in the interest (only thus could it become or remain 'your' interest). But in the case of an addictive drug, there is no such preliminary (or ongoing) deliberative process. Hence strictly we should deny that anyone could have an interest in obtaining such a drug (they merely have an overwhelming need for it). If this is accepted, the extreme example falls apart, because we no longer have a conflict of interests at all.

In conclusion, let me return to a main part of my original claim (in my GOLFING commentary) that interests are normative in the sense that we ought to structure them in such a way as to avoid or minimize inherent conflicts between them. We have just seen an extreme example of such a conflict: if we allow (for the sake of argument) that drug addiction could generate an 'interest' in ingesting a drug, then clearly it is ethically imperative that we find effective ways of preventing this 'interest' from conflicting with all kinds of social interests and roles to which addicts may also be committed.

In such an extreme case, the only effective methods available may involve an outright suppression of the harmful interest (i.e., outlawing of the manufacture, sale or possession of the drug involved). Notice that here again, it is not the conflict of interests itself which generates the problems or explains anything; instead it is the specific problems within a specific interest (here, that the acceptance of the interest rapidly becomes involuntary and overwhelming) which explains why there would be a conflict, and why it may be necessary to use forceful means to suppress or prevent such conflicts.

This is an interesting case because it brings out the almost hypnotic (and, I shall argue, in this case myopically misdirected) power of some moral concerns about lying. Conventional wisdom assumes that there is something morally problematic about Michael's decision to lie when confronted by Al House.

But such a view fails to look at the full moral context of cases such as the present one. This is a case where illegal activity by a person (Al House) has been discovered. Knowing that he has been discovered, the criminal perpetrator is clearly in a malicious, destructive frame of mind, and is determined to 'get' whoever 'ratted' on him. This is the moral framework in terms of which Michael's decision to lie must be judged. Hence the real moral issues here are those concerning malicious questioning, rather than any concerning false answering.

Any other view of the matter amounts to a form of the familiar 'blame the victim' syndrome. (For example, in many cases of wife-beating and rape the woman ends up getting blamed as much, or even more so, than the male criminal.) Criminals rip apart the fabric of civilized life, directly or indirectly harming and twisting the actions of everyone involved.

It is all too easy to artificially abstract elements from such a situation and draw up a kind of 'laundry list' of morally problematic actions, which makes it look as if the victims of the situation (including those who give evidence to the proper authorities, or have to handle confrontations with the criminal) bear some kind of moral guilt comparable to that of the perpetrator(s). We must resist this temptation to indulge in abstract theorizing, disconnected from the realities of actual situations.

This is not to say that victimized people are free to do anything whatsoever to cope with their traumatic situations. But it is to say that their actions must be judged in the specific context of the real and potential actions of the criminal(s) involved.

In the present case, there are two aspects of Al's malicious questioning which are relevant to deciding that it is perfectly legitimate in this case for Michael to lie to Al. First, Al has no right to know who reported him. As a general matter of business policy, those reporting problems or abuses are entitled to confidentiality, and they should especially be protected from those who caused the abuses. Hence Michael is under no obligation whatsoever to tell Al that it was he, Michael, who reported Al.

It might be thought then that Michael should simply refuse to tell Al whether he, Michael, had reported Al or not. But in this special case, a refusal to supply information would itself amount to a giving of the same information. This is for the obvious reason that Al would instantly guess why Michael was refusing to directly admit or deny that he was the informant, namely because he really was the informant!

Thus in this special case, lying is justified as the only effective method for withholding information, which information one has every right to withhold.

So far we have made no use of the fact that Al's questioning is done with malice in mind. This provides us with a second, independent line of defense of lying as a defensive strategy against malicious questioning. Even those who generally criticize lying as wrong in principle are likely to admit some cases when it is justified, such as for instance to protect innocent life. In the case of a murderer demanding that you tell him the whereabouts of his next victim, lying may even be morally obligatory. But if we concede this, then should we not also concede a group of related cases, in which other kinds of malicious questioning are involved, including the present case? If someone clearly intends to cause some harm to someone, if told the truth, is it not at least morally permissible (even if not obligatory) to lie to prevent the harm from occurring?

Here again it is tempting to treat the lying in abstraction from the actual situation, such as in a claim that Michael's lying is morally problematic because he has self-interested reasons for doing it. But in the context of malicious questioning, all that matters is whether someone is likely to get hurt in some way unless one lies. Surely we have a moral duty to prevent harm to innocent people, even if it is we ourselves who are those innocent people. So in a case such as this it is simply irrelevant whether the lying also serves self-interest.

Finally, a few words on the amount and severity of the harm that someone might be subjected to, who did not lie in the given situation. It is easy to assume that only embarrassment and 'bad feeling' would result from telling the truth. But the harsh truth is that in the real world, anyone caught doing something illegal or seriously compromising is liable to behave in vicious, unpredictable ways towards their accusers. Long-term revenge plots are a fact of life in our culture also. Hence victims are fully justified in misleading such criminals as necessary.