In the September/October (Vol. 39 N. 5) issue of National Contest Journal, Hal Kennedy N4GG writes on page 3,
“A lot of things are legal but not ethical. For example, in all but a few circumstances, it is unethical for me to lie to you, but it is not illegal. It’s far easier to operate within legal boundaries than it is to operate within ethical boundaries. An important consequence, is that when you act ethically you can be assured that you are acting legally (emphasis mine). It is important to understand this distinction. Not breaking the law does not make what you are doing okay. That’s not good enough. It’s also the wrong focus. Act ethically, and legality will take care of itself.“
In fact, you are not assured that you are acting legally when you are acting ethically. For instance, it may well be within your ethical framework to help a terminally ill family member find an appropriate assisted suicide solution at the end of his or her life, though this practice is quite often illegal. And you don’t even have to go to such a controversial extreme to find an exception to Kennedy’s position- “the golden rule” may be an ethical principle which all should follow, but it certainly isn’t codified as law in any legal jurisdiction, nor is it likely to be any time soon.
When Kennedy says, “Not breaking the law does not make what you are doing okay,” he fails to provide any real justification for this point; and in fact, he seems to be making a bigger claim: that pushing the boundaries of the law, while not illegal in and of itself, is nevertheless not acceptable ethical behavior. Ignoring his larger claim, my concern is that if you aren’t breaking the law, what difference does it make what you are or are not doing? Put another way, his position is that it is acceptable to do certain acts with regards to the law, while it is not acceptable to do certain others (pushing boundaries, for instance), both of which are legal. But if both acts are legal, how can one be privileged over the other?
Following what he says logically, if you are doing something ethically, you aren’t doing anything illegal. And if we can be assured that we are acting legally so long as we are acting ethically, as he says, then it is reasonable to assume that it is the case that performing a non law breaking act is acceptable behavior. But since that can’t be by his reckoning, the contradiction that results shows how poorly he has argued. I’m sure he wouldn’t like the consequence of what he wrote to be used in this way, but it is undeniable that his position is inconsistent and does not follow logically, as I have shown. This isn’t an unusual result of someone who is “ethically trained” in a business setting. Where they go wrong is trying to take this training and apply it to something other than a business setting- they have no experience with anything other than where and in what they were trained- its what they would have us believe, after all, about their ability to do their own job. It’s a very common mistake to make, one which I am sure I’ve made myself.
So, while his argument fails as a logical matter, how does the spirit fare? I don’t see why anyone would in principle disagree with his main thesis- let’s get rid of cheaters- but really, who would disagree? The only way to solve cheating in radio contests is to make it a real time scored event, such that the possibility for cheating will no longer exist because all participants are judged at the same time and for the same individual events that comprise the whole of the contest. Since the nature of radio contests is such that this is practically impossible (but in principle, it is not impossible as using internet real time scoring could be developed), the only way in which to otherwise check for cheaters is the one that is already on record- the check log. I do also concur that cheaters should be kicked out. The usual reason given for not doing so is because of libel issues- but really, what’s the problem? If someone threatens to sue you over a trophy and recognition (no money is awarded for placing in any radio event), this person is a bully. A bully is a coward and a coward never follows through on threats. Of course, that’s easy for me to say. So long as the accusation of cheating isn’t made public, libel is avoided- a better solution is probably to “lose” logs from time to time. I imagine that solution has its own set of problems; and in any case, determining who is cheating isn’t difficult from an accounting stance using check logs. But the other manners of cheating that surely go on, such as too much power, cannot and will not be caught. If this is the case, then why worry about it?