04/04/03: Finding that elusive line

This op-ed appeared in The Virginian-Pilot on the date shown.

“FRIENDS OF THE bank” say they received loans with favorable terms and rates in exchange for doing favors for the lenders. A friend — and donor — of the governor’s pays for the catering at his daughter’s wedding. A New York state senator tries to buy his way onto the ballot.

And who can forget the Louisiana congressman who was caught with $90,000 in bribe money in his freezer?

What ties these situations together is not that some of them broke the law. No, what ties them together is the appalling lack of ethics.

Scholars have defined ethics as “well-founded standards of right and wrong that prescribe what humans ought to do.” Most professions have ethical standards, adherence to which is part of the obligation of membership.

One does not have to be a member of one of the professions to adhere to a personal code. For many of us, the difference between right and wrong was taught to us by our parents and developed in our youth. We learned that it is wrong to kill or steal. It is right to help others.

Over time, our personal code of ethics evolves, as we learn more and experience more. Scholars agree this is the norm, and that, in fact, we should continue to study and develop our standards, always mindful of the need for them to be reasonable and well-founded.

It seems for some, that evolution results in the distinction between right and wrong becoming blurred — even obliterated.

Just because something is legal — as in the case of the governor not having to report as a contribution the payment for his daughter’s catering — doesn’t make it right.

I doubt the folks who participated in the Bank of the Commonwealth scheme started out intending to break the law. They probably sidled up to the line many times before prosecutors say they went over it.

That’s the slippery slope. Over time, the line between right and wrong gets moved.

Breaking the law just a little — often justified by the “everybody does it” excuse — leads to breaking the law by a lot. The taxpayer who cheats a little on his taxes finds himself, a few years later, cheating a lot. Driving a little over the speed limit or after one drink oftimes leads to reckless driving, speeding tickets and car wrecks.

I doubt if the first loans given to those testifying in the bank case were troublesome; they probably contained terms that were offered to other good customers of the bank. And then those offered to the best customers of the bank. Only later, I suspect, did they get terms not offered to anyone else.

Laws provide just the minimum framework for right and wrong. Laws, in fact, often lag behind. While it may have always been illegal to steal or kill, it didn’t used to be illegal to stalk someone. The laws didn’t envision cybercrimes, or meth or Spice.

Absent laws, we still have to have a personal code of ethics. And that seems to be lacking in far too many.