<p>After reading about Mathew Martoma, who is in the news again because his Stanford MBA was revoked, I found this in one of the articles “Martoma, who graduated with a degree in biomedicine, ethics and public policy from Duke University in 1995” We are definitely doing something wrong when a person with a degree in Ethics get convicted of insider trading, doctors his own transcript, gets kicked out of Harvard, and has degrees revoked. What are they teaching in Ethics classes?</p>
<p>" Ethics for the New Century Wunderkind"?</p>
<p>It’s worth noting that his degree revocation had nothing to do with his crimes, but rather the fraud committed on his application.</p>
<p>I found his story to be pretty interesting. Harvard only discovered his fraud after he applied for clerkships in Washington. Some sharp-eyed clerk who was already there must have seen his application and decided that the grades didn’t fit what they thought they knew of the guy.</p>
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<p>They can teach ethics, but they have no power to force someone to assimilate it. Why blame the university rather than acknowledge that there are just bad people in the world and taking a bunch of ethics classes isn’t going to change anyone’s basic character?</p>
<p>I have a minor in bioethics. Several of my classmates in those classes were just following that path because it “looks good” (or so they thought) for med school apps. There was a minority, though rather large minority, who didn’t give two hoots about ethics. They just wanted the word on their transcripts. </p>
<p>There’s no connection between getting an ethics degree and acting “ethical.” </p>
<p>^^So true… one can have a PhD in chemistry and still be dumb enough to pour ammonia and bleach down the sink simultaneously! :)</p>
<p>Could 2NaONH3 + Cl2 be a powerful plumbing cleaning agent? Or only a nasal one. :)</p>
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<p>Note that just because someone studies something that involves values/ethics/morals/etc. does not mean that the person internalizes and believes in any of the values/ethics/morals/etc. systems studied. Consider someone who studies a philosophy, religion, or political belief from an academic point of view but does not personally believe or follow such philosophy, religion, or political belief.</p>
<p>Insider trading may be illegal, but does that mean it is unethical? </p>
<p>He also was kicked out of Harvard Law school for forging his transcript or something like that. </p>
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<p>Exactly! So we are to believe “something is wrong” with the people/entity teaching the class if one of its students goes on to behave in a manner contrary to the tenets of the course? Give me a break.</p>
<p>I think one reason this caught my eye is that I have heard too many times that the problems with Wall Street could be solved if we taught ethics in business schools - guess not!</p>