An ethics CPE course would have served Rupert Murdoch’s captains and lieutenants very well. Fallout from the News of the World scandal has put the multi-billionaire some truly intense pressure, being compelled to give testimony before Parliament.
Then there was the ten-billion dollar deal falling through. All because of a certain ruthlessness that an ethics CPE course might have dissuaded. But the real scandal should be how it is possible for an immensely profitable company to not pay any taxes on income.
Yes, it’s true: despite being making many multiples of billion of dollars each and every year, Murdoch’s British holding company, to cite but one example, hasn’t paid a single pence in taxes on the Sceptered Isle for a straight eleven years.
But what’s that got to do with ethics CPE courses? It’s not illegal after all, right? It isn’t illegal to dodge taxes if there are loopholes in the law for them. Everybody’s doing it….
That’s just the point. Ethics isn’t simply about what’s against the law. It isn’t just about acting in some manner widely regarded as being professional, either. It’s about morality. Ethics is about doing the right thing even though other options may not be entirely wrong in themselves.
That’s the spirit of such continuing education courses. Sure there’s creative accounting – but is it ethical to take advantage of the law in such a way as to go against the spirit if not the letter of the law?
Ethics is about the spirit of the law, about the morality, the sense of right and wrong, behind the law. If accountants and their bosses regarded ethics as sacrosanct, they would never be in a position so precariously close to actual wrong-doing in the legal sense.
That’s why a continuing education course in ethics is so important.
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