COMM 209: Law, ethics and an New York Times op-ed column

In today's New York Times column by Thomas Friedman, a useful explanation of the difference between law and ethics. Friedman, who thinks we need more ethics on Wall Street, Capitol Hill and the White House alike, quotes a business ethicist:

“There is nothing more powerful than inspirational leadership that unleashes principled behavior for a great cause,” said Dov Seidman, the C.E.O. of LRN, which helps companies build ethical cultures, and the author of the book “How.” What makes a company or a government “sustainable,” he added, is not when it adds more coercive rules and regulations to control behaviors. “It is when its employees or citizens are propelled by values and principles to do the right things, no matter how difficult the situation,” said Seidman. “Laws tell you what you can do. Values inspire in you what you should do. It’s a leader’s job to inspire in us those values.”

And ethics is about values.

Tom Friedman, by the way, is one of the heavy hitters on the Times' *op-ed page. He's a three-time Pulitzer Prize winner, and if you're not reading him regularly, you should start.
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* Jargon alert. In print newspapers, opinion columns ran opposite the editorial page. Hence the name op-ed page. You'd think professional communicators wouldn't use jargon. But we do.