What’s Ethical – Great Letter in Wall Street Journal

See May 17, 2008 Wall Street Journal at http://online.wsj.com/public/page/letters.html

A "commitment to diversity" is actually immoral because considering attributes such as race, gender and age when hiring is an outrageous injustice to employers and employees. Far from preventing prejudices, this actually institutionalizes them. "Progressive environmental practices" doesn't mean a respect for private property, which is in fact a pillar of ethics. Instead, it means a capitulation to the policy makers who tout the pseudo-science of "global warming."

And "forced labor" is slavery, which is so obviously immoral that I suspect the term is used here ambiguously to mean something else. For instance, if injunctions against "child labor" mean that children ought to be prohibited from work that they would otherwise choose over starvation, then I would regard the prohibition as immoral as well.

The tragedy is that the question, "Does being ethical pay?" is vitally important, and as Ayn Rand identified, the rational answer is a resounding, "Yes!" I am disappointed that you have reduced ethics to a few left-leaning bromides that don't constitute moral behavior.

Stephen Bourque
Littleton, Mass.