JOHNSON & JOHNSON VOLUNTARILY DISCLOSES IMPROPER PAYMENTS

Yesterday, Johnson & Johnson issued a statement that it had voluntarily disclosed that subsidiaries made improper payments to two small-market countries in connection with the sale of medical devices. It also announced the retirement of Michael Dormer, its worldwide chairman of Medical Devices & Diagnostics. In his letter to the company Dormer cited the internal review of this issue and his ultimate responsibility because of his position. Johnson & Johnson did not name the two countries in its statement. The full statement, which can be found at http://www.jnj.com/news/jnj_news/20070212_192452.htm, reads (the statement is in boldface):

Johnson & Johnson Statement on Voluntary Disclosure

New Brunswick, N.J. (February 12, 2007) - Johnson & Johnson today voluntarily disclosed to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that subsidiaries outside the United States are believed to have made improper payments in connection with the sale of medical devices in two small-market countries. The actions were contrary to the Company's policies, and the payments may fall within the jurisdiction of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. The Company will provide additional information to DOJ and SEC, and will cooperate with the agencies' reviews of these matters.

Effective today, Michael J. Dormer, Worldwide Chairman, Medical Devices & Diagnostics, has retired from the Corporation. In a letter to Johnson & Johnson, Mr. Dormer cited the internal review of these matters and noted he had "ultimate responsibility by virtue of my position" for those subsidiaries that were the subject of the disclosure.

Effective immediately, all worldwide businesses within the Medical Devices & Diagnostics segment will report to Nicholas J. Valeriani, Worldwide Chairman, Medical Devices & Diagnostics, a Company executive with nearly 30 years experience. Mr. Valeriani will now have responsibility for businesses previously under the management oversight of Mr. Dormer, in addition to those for which he is already responsible.

# # #

In light of this voluntary disclosure and Johnson & Johnson’s storied history of ethical behavior in the marketplace based on its Credo, I thought it appropriate to link to The Right Thing column I wrote that originally ran in July 2001, after Johnson & Johnson faced another crisis with one of its subsidiaries. You can find that column at THE RIGHT THING; A Company Credo, as Applied or Not. (There should be no charge to view it online via this link.)

SOUND OFF: ACTIONS AND DEEDS

In 2006, for the first time, Microsoft topped the annual Harris Interactive Reputation Quotient Survey list that gauges the public's perception of corporate reputation. Microsoft's prestige was undoubtedly elevated in part by the philanthropic efforts of its chairman, Bill Gates, even though those efforts are conducted separately from the company.

But recently the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has come under fire. A series of articles in The Los Angeles Times reported that some of the foundation's endowment is invested in businesses, such as oil companies, that pollute the air and cause some of the health problems that the foundation seeks to cure. The foundation's initial response was that it will not review each investment to look at a company's environmental record or other policies. Instead it will stay focused on the foundation's core issue of helping to "reduce inequities in the United States and around the world."

The Gates Foundation is hardly alone among foundations whose missions conflict with the activities of some of the companies in which they invest. The question is: Should foundations make sure that they don't invest in companies that run counter to their efforts, or are these two separate and unrelated issues? What do you think?

Send your thoughts to rightthing@nytimes.com or post them here by clicking on "comments" or "post a comment" below. Please include your name and your hometown. Readers' comments may appear in an upcoming column.

Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of "The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today's Business" (Smith Kerr, 2006), is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics. He is also the administrator of http://www.jeffreyseglin.com, a Web log focused on ethical issues.

Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@nytimes.com or to "The Right Thing," New York Times Syndicate, 609 Greenwich St., 6th floor, New York, N.Y. 10014-3610.

PARKING PRINCIPLES

During a particularly busy holiday season, I came around a corner and headed into a just-opened space in the crowded parking lot of my local supermarket. I was halfway into the space before I noticed a sedan that had been waiting for the same spot with its blinker on. Before I could either pull the rest of the way in or back out, the driver of the sedan had parked directly behind my car and jumped out.

"Didn't you see me waiting?" he shouted, finishing his question with a colorful epithet.

"Not until I was halfway in," I replied. "Back up and I'll let you in."

He turned to walk back to his car muttering the same colorful word, loudly enough to be heard by me and by his young daughter, who was sitting in the back seat of his car.

He was right about the space being his. He'd been waiting for it and, if I'd been paying more attention when I sped around the corner, I would have noticed him waiting. I would have driven on and looked for another opening. Had I been waiting when someone else swooped in to take the space, I would have been equally annoyed.

Did his lack of civility change his dibs on the space? Not as far as I was concerned. His use of foul language in front of his daughter may suggest questionable parenting skills, but my choices were either to be uncivil in return or to do the right thing by giving him the space and moving on. I chose the latter.

Scott Latzky, a reader from Queens, N.Y., wrote to me about a similar experience. The differences were that there wasn't any colorful language involved and that he was not the interlope but rather the guy who had been waiting for a space to open up near his home in Jackson Heights.

One Sunday afternoon Latzky had been waiting for several minutes when another car came along and double-parked to wait for a second space to open up. On the crowded streets in his neighborhood, such jockeying is common practice.

After another five minutes, a car began to pull out. The other car, which was parked a little closer to that spot, began to go for it, but Latzky cut him off and reminded him that he had been waiting longer.

"He complained that he thought that I had gone for a spot further back," Latzky writes.

The other driver indicated that, when he had lived on Manhattan's Upper East Side, whoever parked closest to the spot was the one who got it. Latzky reminded him that he wasn't on the Upper East Side and that this is how it works in Queens.

"He wasn't happy," Latzky concludes, "but he gave up the spot."

Latzky was in the parking space, but was he in the right?

He and the other driver both did the right thing. In matters of this nature, in which the law provides no guidance, local custom -- not to mention simple courtesy -- prevails. The fact that both drivers managed to avoid colorful language in sorting things out speaks well of them and of Jackson Heights.

Doing the right thing won't always make us happy. But the marginal convenience of beating someone to a parking space or the ephemeral pleasure of retaliating in kind when someone behaves badly are not the type of factors we should allow to define our own characters.

KEEPING CONFIDENCE WHEN OTHERS DON'T

For four years one of my readers in northern California worked for a privately owned company at which, she says, she loved her job and respected her co-workers. Then, a few months before Christmas, she learned something that none of her co-workers knew: The company would begin layoffs around the holiday.

"My heart told me to stay and sink with the ship," she writes. "My head told me to start looking for another job as a backup, in case the flood waters got too high."

By the time the layoffs hit, right before Christmas, she was already in a new job.

"Just about everyone was oblivious to the situation," she writes. "I tried to be ethical and not tell what I knew."

Now, however, she wonders if she did the right thing. Was it right to keep quiet about confidential information? Or should she have sounded the alarm?

The dilemma in which my reader found herself is a classic one: Do you stay loyal to your company and not disclose information that could cause panic? Or do you stay loyal to your friends and tell them what you know, even if you promised to keep the information confidential?

I pressed my reader about how she found out about her company's fortunes, which obviously makes a considerable difference in what obligations she may or may not have had: Was she part of the executive team making the decision about layoffs? Did she overhear a conversation at a private meeting? Did she come across documents that someone had carelessly left in the open?

As it turns out, the answer is none of the above. There was no way for her or any employee to know what was in store, she says, unless he or she happened to be one of the less than half a dozen people who made up the company's executive team. These executives had been ordered not to disclose the information to anyone else, but one of them broke that confidence by telling my reader and asking her to keep the information confidential.

Apparently that executive did not feel bound by his commitment. My reader did feel bound by hers, however, so she kept quiet -- a decision with which I fully agree.

A more interesting question, and the one she should have asked me, is this: What should I have done when the executive offered to tell me confidential information about the company?

That executive was wrong to single out my reader. Not only did he betray the trust of his colleagues running the company by breaking his word to keep quiet, but also he put my reader in an awkward position. While other employees believed that their jobs were secure, she knew that hers wasn't and could plan accordingly. This gave her an unfair and unasked-for advantage over her co-workers, some of whom were doubtless personal friends.

The right thing for my reader to do would have been to stop the executive as soon as he offered to share confidential information, and either tell him that it was inappropriate or tell him that she was uncomfortable hearing the information. If he told her the information anyway, she should have reported the conversation to the other members of the executive committee.

That may seem harsh, given that the executive was probably trying to do her a favor, but if she truly respects her fellow employees as much as she says she does, she owed it to them to tell the executive committee. Who knows how many other people this executive selectively told and why he told some and skipped over others?

The other executives should know that, if they want to treat all employees fairly, they need to deal with this untrustworthy executive first.

SOUND OFF: SNOOPING ON KIDS' E-MAIL

My readers differed on whether it's OK for a parent to read his or her teenager's e-mail without permission:

"At the age of 13 children are vulnerable," writes Bert Hoogendam of Sarnia, Ontario. "Hence parental vigilance is not only advisable, it is necessary."

Mary Dodge of Lynchburg, Va., agrees, adding that a parent is not a child's friend or buddy, and needs to know what's going on in his or her child's life.

On the other hand, both M.W. Bruening of Salt Lake City and Janice Eisen of Brookfield, Wisc., believe that parents should never read children's e-mail without their knowing.

"Reading your kid's e-mail without his knowledge is a violation of trust that, if discovered, is likely to drive your child away from you," Eisen writes.

Renee Chapman of Yorba Linda, Calif., writes that, when her children -- now 25 and 22 -- were growing up, she knew their friends, ate meals with them, kept the computer in a common area, supported their educational activities, talked with them and worshiped with them.

"And, yes," she writes, "when our parental radar sounded, we snooped."

The answer, perhaps, lies in balance: "It is a 50/50 call," writes Patrick Burris of Charlotte, N.C. "Supervision is one thing and intrusion another."

Check out other opinions at http://jeffreyseglin.blogspot.com/2006/12/sound-off-parents-who-spy-on-kids.html or post your own by clicking on "comments" or "post a comment" below.

Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of "The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today's Business" (Smith Kerr, 2006), is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics. He is also the administrator of http://www.jeffreyseglin.com, a Web log focused on ethical issues.

Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@nytimes.com or to "The Right Thing," New York Times Syndicate, 609 Greenwich St., 6th floor, New York, N.Y. 10014-3610.

SOUND OFF: APPLE OPTIONS

Federal authorities are investigating 7.5 million stock options that were granted to Steve Jobs, chief executive of the computer company Apple. It appears that, while the granting of these options was finalized in December 2001, they were dated October 2001, when the per-share stock price was $3 lower.

Stock options give you the opportunity to buy a stock at its price on the day the options are issued, regardless of what the price is on the day you purchase the stock, so the backdating increased the value of Jobs' options by about $22.5 million. Once the backdating was revealed, however, a committee of Apple board members exonerated Jobs from any wrongdoing.

"If Mr. Jobs participated in backdating, he should be punished," Alan Murray wrote in The Wall Street Journal. Even so, he continued, "any punishment that hampers his ability to continue running the company would be a mistake. That is punishing the victim, and only compounds the crime."

Who is the victim? Apple shareholders, Murray argues, who have benefited from Apple's stock-price increase under Jobs' leadership, and who were the victims of any backdating. Jobs' departure from the helm would hurt the value of their Apple stock, Murray believes, and thus his job should not be put in jeopardy. What do you think? If Jobs is found to have participated in backdating stock options, should he be allowed to continue to run Apple because he has served the shareholders so well?

Send your thoughts to rightthing@nytimes.com or post them here by clicking on "comments" or "post a comment" below. Please include your name, your hometown and the name of the newspaper in which you read this column. Readers' comments may appear in an upcoming column.

A NPR radio interview about Apple's back-dating appears at http://www.here-now.org/shows/2007/01/20070112_9.asp

Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of "The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today's Business" (Smith Kerr, 2006), is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics. He is also the administrator of http://www.jeffreyseglin.com, a Web log focused on ethical issues.

Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@nytimes.com or to "The Right Thing," New York Times Syndicate, 609 Greenwich St., 6th floor, New York, N.Y. 10014-3610.

PULLING THE RUG OUT FROM UNDER THE STORE

One challenge of buying things online is that you don't get to handle the goods. You rely on an image on your screen, along with a description, to judge what the seller is offering for sale. You're at a disadvantage if you want to know the look or feel of an object before you buy it.

That's one reason that a reader from North Carolina and his wife drove 30 miles from their home to shop for an area rug at a store.

"We found one we liked the other day," he writes, "but my wife wasn't sure that it was just right for the designated spot."

No problem, the salesman told them: They could buy it, take it home and, if it turned out not to suit them, return it for a full refund.

Since it was a rainy day and the rug would have stuck out from their trunk, my reader and his wife wrote down the rug's dimensions and the name of its manufacturer, and told the salesman that they'd think about it.

After they got home, however, his wife discovered that the manufacturer offered the same rug online for $100 less than the store's price.

Their son and his wife were also in the market for an area rug, so my reader called his son and told him about the rug and about the price discrepancy.

"The thought occurred to us that we could get it from the store, try it out and, if we liked it, return it to the store, get our money back and then order it online," he reports. "I didn't think it was worth the effort, plus I thought that it would be taking inappropriate advantage of the store and the salesman."

His son, however, felt that "a hundred bucks is a hundred bucks" and was worth any inconvenience to himself or disappointment to the salesman.

My reader asks: "Is it wrong to look out for No. 1, as long as the consumer is not breaking any laws?"

The salesman's offer to refund the full purchase price of the rug is generous, but does this generosity mean that my reader is obligated to pay more for a rug that can be purchased for significantly less online?

No, it doesn't. Walking through the door of a store implies no commitment not to buy elsewhere, regardless of how accommodating the sales staff may be. Comparison-shopping between a store and an online outlet is no more unethical than comparison-shopping between two stores next door to one another.

That doesn't mean, though, that my reader should go to the store and buy a rug that he has no intention of keeping, simply to see how it looks on his floor. If he knows in advance that he will either return the rug to buy its duplicate online or, if not satisfied, return it and buy another rug elsewhere, he's essentially lying to the salesman.

What the salesman has offered my reader is the implied deal that, if my reader is satisfied with the rug as it looks in his home, he will keep it and buy it from the salesman. If there is absolutely no scenario in which my reader will buy the rug from the store, then he should not accept the deal, and should not subject the store's rug to wear and tear for which he has no intention of paying.

If he wants to proceed with the clearest conscience, the right thing for my reader to do involves a somewhat riskier course: When he returns to the store, he should tell the salesman that he'd like to take him up on his trial offer, but that in the interim he's found the same rug online for $100 less. Can the salesman match the online price?

Sure, there's some risk in this course: The salesman may say no and withdraw the try-it-out-on-your-floor-and-return-it offer. If that happens, my reader and his wife will have to decide whether or not to buy the rug online without benefit of the free trial.

But in that scenario the salesman will lose the sale altogether. Ideally he and my reader can agree on a price that will get the rug out of the store and onto my reader's floor to the satisfaction of everyone involved.

GIVE TO CHARITY ... OR ELSE

Ever since his manager announced that every employee "will donate to the company's charitable foundation, period," my reader from the Southeast has worried that he'll be fired for not contributing.

"I absolutely hate being told that I must give," he writes.

He resents the expectation that he should give any of his hourly wage to a cause deemed appropriate by his bosses. What's more, some of the past recipients of funds from the foundation are groups whose causes my reader opposes.

The problem my reader faces is one regularly faced by many employees: How do you respond to a companywide edict to give to a specific charity, if you choose not to participate, without appearing to be uncharitable and/or risking your job?

Ever since the announcement, my reader has been Googling to see if he can find instances of people being fired for not contributing to a charitable drive. He hasn't. Nor have I heard of any. I've heard from readers who have been assigned to head annual charity drives and had the results reflected in their annual performance reviews, but to date I've never heard from anyone who claims to have been fired for not giving to a company-supported charity.

Don't get me wrong. I believe that company support for charitable efforts is admirable. An annual company effort to raise money or food is a smart way of gathering resources from people willing to give where they congregate most -- in the workplace. Teams of workers who band together to work with groups such as Habitat for Humanity to help construct much-needed low-cost housing in a community should be applauded.

But companywide efforts should not have the glint of coercion. For a boss to stand in front of his employees and demand 100-percent participation in giving to a charitable fund is wrong, regardless of whether that fund goes against their personal beliefs. That wrong-headedness may well drive away even those employees who would have been willing to contribute had the effort been presented as voluntary.

Too often a manager is driven to such behavior because he or she has been put in charge of running that year's charitable drive with some participation incentive attached. Such an arrangement may be well-intended, but may unintentionally result in the type of behavior my reader witnessed.

Better to avoid giving incentives to individuals running such programs, and better yet to assign some central department -- human resources, for example -- to organize the companywide effort. This will avoid giving employees any sense that their job security rests on whether they contribute and/or whether they get others to contribute.

The right thing for companies to do is to choose a charity or a group of charities that they want to help, but to give employees the opportunity to decide whether they would like to participate. If none of the charities the company chooses matches up with those that a given employee prefers to help, then that employee should feel absolutely no guilt or fear about saying no. They can contribute to their own causes on their own time.

SOUND OFF: RSVP-ING TO CHARITY PARTIES

My readers were of mixed opinion about the best way to respond to the growing trend among holiday-party givers of requesting attendees to make a donation to a specific charity, rather than bringing wine, food or gifts to the party.

"I lose no sleep over this issue," writes Thomas A. Bausch of Milwaukee. "I receive about 100 invitations to charity luncheons and dinners each year, and a charity party is the same thing. If the cause is not one I support, I toss the invitation."

"Consider that most party givers will choose Christian charities," writes Annette Forrest of Lake Forest, Calif. "There is a certain arrogance in assuming that most others are also Christian, or are nonaffiliated but will support your religion."

"I would not attend a party if the stated charity was one that I would ordinarily not support," writes Phil Clutts of Harrisburg, N.C. "I would ask if I could contribute to another neutral charity instead, giving a choice of several. If so, I would be happy to attend."

"Demanding that guests at a holiday party donate to a charity of the host's choice amounts to a cover charge," writes Lori Flores of Riverside, Calif.

Check out other opinions at http://jeffreyseglin.blogspot.com/2006/12/sound-off-charity-parties.html or post your own by clicking on "comments" or "post a comment" below.

Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of "The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today's Business" (Smith Kerr, 2006), is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics. He is also the administrator of http://www.jeffreyseglin.com, a Web log focused on ethical issues.

Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@nytimes.com or to "The Right Thing," New York Times Syndicate, 609 Greenwich St., 6th floor, New York, N.Y. 10014-3610.

TAINTED NAMES REDUX

On Friday, January 19, Congressman Bob Ney of Ohio, was sentenced to 30 months in prison for accepting bribes. (You can read details of the story at http://dispatch.com/news-story.php?story=241072.) Late last year, Ohio University officials decided to remove Congressman Ney's name from the school's gynasium that had been named after him.

The university's decision flies in stark contrast to the inn on the campus of Ohio State University that continues to carry the name of its convicted former marketing professor, Roger D. Blackwell.

This morning, Sunday, January 21, I appeared on a CBS Sunday Morning segment, "What's In a Name?" to talk about the issue of naming buildings after people whose reputations later become tarnished. You can find a transcript of that segment at http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/01/21/sunday/main2381300.shtml

You might remember that back in July 2006, readers responded to a question I asked about the Roger D. Blackwell Inn at Ohio State University in Columbus that is named after a former marketing professor who pledged $7 million to fund the building. As I wrote in my post at http://jeffreyseglin.blogspot.com/2006/07/sound-off-tainted-name.html, Blackwell was subsequently convicted of insider trading and other financial crimes.

But according to The Columbus Dispatch university officials "appear uninterested" in renaming the inn. The paper noted that so far Blackwell had given only about $1.4 million and that, given the cost of his appeal, little more likely would be forthcoming.

I asked readers if given that Blackwell had been convicted of actions that the university would hardly encourage among its students, whether his name should be taken off the building.

You can read their responses at http://jeffreyseglin.blogspot.com/2006/07/sound-off-tainted-name.html.

You can add your own thoughts on the Congressman Ney and Professor Blackwell affairs, whether given the circumstances their names should be removed from the buildings on campus, or your general thoughts about naming buildings after people who later turn out to do something that gets them into trouble.

SOUND OFF: FULL-SPEED AHEAD

Here's a question that Professor Laura Hartman, who teaches business ethics at DePaul University in Chicago, often asks her students, according to a recent article in The Chicago Tribune: A train is speeding along the tracks. If it continues on its current route it will hit and kill five people. If the engineer hits a button, however, the train will switch tracks and hit only one person -- who will die as a direct result of the engineer's action.

If you were the engineer, would you continue on your course or hit the button?

Send your thoughts to rightthing@nytimes.com or post them by clicking on "comments" below. Please include your name, your hometown as well as where you read this column. Readers' comments may appear in an upcoming column.

Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of "The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today's Business" (Smith Kerr, 2006), is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics. He is also the administrator of http://www.jeffreyseglin.com, a Web log focused on ethical issues.

Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@nytimes.com or to "The Right Thing," New York Times Syndicate, 609 Greenwich St., 6th floor, New York, N.Y. 10014-3610.

BEING HIS OWN NEIGHBOR

Five years ago a reader of mine bought a house in California. Before the purchase he did a title search to make sure that the seller had full, unrestricted title. The search came up clear and the purchase went through without complication.

Two years later, with interest rates dropping, my reader decided to refinance his mortgage. For that purpose he more carefully examined his title papers and found, much to his surprise, that he and his wife owned not only the lot on which their house stands, but also one-half of the lot next door ... on which their neighbor's house stands.

"I was stunned to learn this," my reader writes.

The house next door is a rental, owned by a woman who lives about 250 miles away. On the rare occasion when she stops by to check on her property, she complains to my reader about the difficulty of maintaining a rental from such a long distance. When he asks why she doesn't sell her place, however, she responds, "Oh, it's too complicated to explain."

Now that my reader realizes that he owns half the land on which her house sits, that complication suddenly seems clearer. What's not so clear is how a previous owner ended up with title to half the property next door, or what my reader should do about it now that he knows how things stand.

"It seems to me that we should offer our neighbor her property back," he writes, "perhaps for the cost of the paperwork, since we didn't know we bought it in the first place."

His lawyer advises him, however, that he'd be a fool not to extract some money from the owner of the neighboring property. The neighbor gave it up for some consideration she received, the lawyer reasons, and my reader simply got lucky when he purchased the property.

"If he found $250,000 buried in his back yard," his lawyer asks, "would he give it back to someone who claimed they had buried it there?"

My reader's lawyer makes a good point. If he's legally entitled to charge the neighbor for the half-lot he owns, upon which her house happens to sit, why not get what he can for it?

The simple answer is that simply being legally entitled to do something doesn't make it the right thing to do. The buried-treasure parallel is hardly persuasive, since he has known for certain who his neighbor is since he purchased his house. Even if he follows his lawyer's advice, his neighbor may refuse or be unable to buy the property back at any price, creating an awkward situation in which his neighbor can never sell a property she doesn't entirely own.

Even so, the neighbor has been collecting rent on a property not entirely hers. There would be nothing wrong with my reader offering to sell the property back to her at a reasonable price plus legal costs, the money to be paid as a portion of the rent she collects over time or, should she decide to sell, as a portion of the sales price.

But if my reader and his wife truly believe that they got their home for a fair price, regardless of whatever consideration the neighbor may have received from a previous owner, and if they want to offer the property back to their neighbor in exchange for nothing more than whatever legal costs may be involved, it's a gesture that any neighbor should appreciate as generous.

Given how they feel, the right thing for them to do is to sit down with their neighbor, explain the situation, extend the offer and then go about getting it done.

MALDEN MILLS, HEWLETT PACKARD UPDATES

As I mentioned in yesterday's post, Bryan Wagner, the private investigator hired by Hewlett-Packard as part of its efforts to stem the information leaks about the company, pleaded guilty yesterday. He has agreed to cooperate with the government and its investigation. Chairwoman Patricia Dunn and four others (including Wagner) were charged in the case. (Go to http://www.here-now.org/shows/2007/01/20070112_9.asp for an interview about this on yesterday's Here and Now program. A Bloomberg.com story appears at http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=email_en&refer=news&sid=a.Tlk_S0xU3w with full details on the case.)

Also in yesterday's news, a federal judge ordered Malden Mills, the makers of Polater Fleece based in Lawrence, Massachusetts, to move its bankruptcy proceedings to Masschusetts, according to a story by Ross Kerber in today's Boston Globe. (http://www.boston.com/business/globe/articles/2007/01/13/creditors_get_malden_mills_win/).

This is viewed as a victory for the company's creditors who hold a minority stake in the company.

One of those owed is former CEO Aaron Feuerstein who tried unsuccessfully to retain control of the company when it emerged from bankruptcy in 2003. According to the Globe, Feuerstein owns 5 percent of the company.

Long-time readers of The Right Thing column may recall that Feuerstein has appeared in the column in the past, including one that appeared on January 20, 2002. In that column I asked the question of whether workers owed Feuerstein anything as he was struggling to emerge from bankruptcy since he had decided to keep them on payroll after the company nearly burned to the ground on December 11, 1995, even though he didn't have to.

Feuerstein told me that he didn't "expect anything of people" in response to what he did in 1995. "You're supposed to do what's right because it's right, not because there's a payoff," he said. So neither employees nor members of the community nor customers nor vendors owed him anything. I asked readers if regardless of the fact that they didn't, whether they thought they should.

Ultimately, I concluded it was an individual choice where without obligation his various constituencies should decide the right thing to do. Unfortunately, it was not enough to enable Feuerstein to hold on to his company or for the company to keep from going into bankruptcy again.

The New York Times charges to view past articles, but if you're interested in seeing the entire column from January 2002, it's available for a fee at: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/20/business/yourmoney/20ETHI.html. It is also included as chapter 17 in the collection The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today's Business (Smith Kerr, 2006) which is available at http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?z=y&EAN=9780978689902&itm=1 and http://www.amazon.com/Right-Thing-Conscience-Personal-Responsibility/dp/0978689909/themaxletterA.

HEWLETT-PACKARD REDUX AND APPLE BACKDATING

As one of the investigators in the Hewlett-Packard pre-texting scandal pleaded guilty and is awaiting sentencing, WBUR's Here and Now ran an update today. The interview with me is on Here and Now’s website at http://www.here-now.org/shows/2007/01/20070112_9.asp.

In addition to talk with me about Hewlett-Packard's investigation into leaks by board members, journalists and employees, host Deborah Becker of Here and Now also spoke with me about the back dating of stock options and the trouble that Apple CEO Steve Jobs may now be in.

The original Here and Now piece about Hewlett Packard ran in September and is on its site at http://www.here-now.org/shows/2006/09/20060921.asp.

My original blog post is at http://jeffreyseglin.blogspot.com/2006/09/hewlett-packards-leaks.html)

TRUTH AMONG FRIENDS

In the heat of a moment, the urge to establish rapport can prompt any of us to say something we don't really mean. Often such comments seem benign: Claiming to share a taste in musicians, authors, designers or sports teams, for example, rarely results in a flat-out battle if it's later discovered that in fact your tastes lie elsewhere.

Too many people simply don't know when to stop stretching the truth, though. It's one thing to say that you're crazy about Justin Timberlake when in reality you'd rather be home listening to the latest CD by acoustical guitarists Rodrigo y Gabriela (with Bonus DVD), but quite another to claim that you've worked some place you haven't or graduated from some school you didn't in order to win favor with someone.

All too often, even when we're not sure that others are stretching the truth to engage us, we find ourselves suspecting that they are.

"I have a friend who says that she is a graduate of the same community college I graduated from," one of my readers writes. "I was going to ask her if she would be interested in opening a small business with me until someone told me that she lied."

According to a mutual acquaintance, my reader's friend never graduated from the community college, having dropped out after completing only two classes.

At present it's one person's word against another's, but my reader is torn, unsure whether her friend lied but unwilling to go forward without knowing. She wants to know if it would be unethical for her to ask the school if her friend really did complete a degree there, and whether she could do this anonymously.

There is no ethical reason why she shouldn't look into the question, as long as her methods of inquiry are legitimate. Many colleges publish lists of their alumni, often online, for reference by their graduates. My reader could start by checking to see if such a list is available on line and, if it is, find out from it what she wants to know.

If such a list isn't available, it's equally acceptable for my reader to call the college for a reference check on her friend. Most institutions will readily confirm the dates that a given graduate attended and the degree he or she received.

She should, however, identify herself if she makes such inquiries. There are occasions when withholding your name is ethically acceptable -- when reporting a crime, for example -- but this isn't one of them.

It wouldn't be necessary to go into detail about why she wants to know, but to place the call anonymously would not only call into question her motives -- which, since she is considering going into business with her friend, are entirely reasonable -- but also might prevent her from getting access to the information she wants, since without identifying herself she couldn't prove that she herself is a graduate.

What complicates matters, however, is that my reader's idea for a new business doesn't require a college degree or anything of that nature.

"I don't care about my friend's degree," she writes. "It is the lying that bothers me."

That being the case, the ethics of checking up on her friend's background aren't really the point. If what really bothers my reader is the suspicion that her friend may have lied, going behind her back to sniff out the facts won't really solve anything. She may not be able to find the information she wants and, even if she can confirm that her friend didn't graduate, she won't know what may be behind the lie.

If my reader really wants to know if her friend has lied about receiving a degree, the right thing for her to do is to ask the friend directly. If she wants to check up on her friend's credentials at the community college, she should tell her friend that she is going to do so.

Either her friend was telling the truth or she was not. In either case, there is absolutely no reason for my reader to let her fear of the truth get in the way of her honesty.

SOUND OFF: BUSH'S DEFENSE DECISION

President George W. Bush waited until the day after the November elections to announce the resignation of Donald Rumsfeld, his secretary of defense. I asked readers if they considered it ethical for Bush to have said prior to the elections that he planned no change, when he now admits that he was in fact planning a change even then. Most of my readers took a cynical -- or is that realistic? -- perspective.

"Pray tell, when is `ethical' applied to a politician?" asks Kathleen Parker of Huntington Beach, Calif.

"I do not see any ethical question involved," writes Dunbar Jewell of Charlotte, N.C. "One is not required to govern for benefit of the media, and is required to use one's best judgment before elections."

"This kind of tactic is unethical," writes Wendy Hagmaier of Fullerton, Calif., "and I would not do business with someone who employs these kinds of schemes."

"When politics is considered, ethics is the last thing that either party considers -- getting elected is all that is important," writes Charlie Seng of Lancaster, S.C.

"A lie by any other name still stinks," writes Jane Scharankov of East Marion, N.Y.

Check out other opinions or post your own by clicking on "comments" below or at: http://jeffreyseglin.blogspot.com/2006/11/sound-off-influencing-elections.html.

Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of "The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today's Business" (Smith Kerr, 2006), is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics. He is also the administrator of http://www.jeffreyseglin.com, a Web log focused on ethical issues.

Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@nytimes.com or to "The Right Thing," New York Times Syndicate, 609 Greenwich St., 6th floor, New York, N.Y. 10014-3610.

SOUND OFF: PARENTS WHO SPY ON KIDS

While a guest on "Late Night with Conan O'Brien," actress Patricia Heaton said that she regularly reads her 13-year-old son's e-mail without his knowledge. She said that it was the only way for her to know about those things he doesn't tell her about.

A child's safety is obviously a paramount concern for a parent, and checking his e-mail is one way to monitor safety. But does reading a child's e-mail without permission violate privacy? Are there boundaries that parents shouldn't cross to glean information about their children?

Send your thoughts to rightthing@nytimes.com or post them here by clicking on "comments" or "post a comment" below. Please include your name and your hometown. Readers' comments may appear in an upcoming column.

Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of "The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today's Business" (Smith Kerr, 2006), is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics. He is also the administrator of http://www.jeffreyseglin.com, a Web log focused on ethical issues.

Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@nytimes.com or to "The Right Thing," New York Times Syndicate, 609 Greenwich St., 6th floor, New York, N.Y. 10014-3610.

WHAT WAS I THINKING?

The arrival of the new year is the perfect time to reflect on the past 12 months and try to realign anything that, in retrospect, seems a bit off. Throughout the year readers eagerly offered me alternative solutions and/or additional advice. Now and then they also asked, "What were you thinking?"

Responses to three columns in particular prompt me to revisit some issues. Links to these columns can be found below.

CAN DO?

The most response I received was to a column I wrote last January about a reader from Columbus, Ohio, who was torn about whether to report a man who regularly intercepts bags of recycled cans delivered to a bin at a local Home Depot. [See The Right Thing: WHO'S STEALING MY TRASH?] I wrote that this scavenger was no more in the wrong than the guy who visits my neighborhood every Friday morning, before the recycling truck arrives, to collect recyclables from our neighborhood recycling bins.

Readers such as Mario Fiermonte of Mission Viejo, Calif., continue to e-mail me that this practice can divert funding from a municipality's recycling efforts. That's a valid point. In addition, many municipalities have city codes comparable to Columbus' statute 1305.07, which prohibits anyone from removing waste set out for collection unless given permission by the "owner of such waste." If you're willing to give your recycling to an individual collecting cans, the smartest thing is to tell him that it's OK to pick up yours.

Given the minimal effort needed, the choice should not be whether or not to recycle in the first place.

FREE AS THE AIR

In February I wrote that it was up to people setting up wireless Internet connections to make them password-protected if they don't want others to use them occasionally. I was deluged with responses from readers on both sides of the issue. [See http://jeffreyseglin.blogspot.com/2006/02/surfing-on-borrowed-time.html ]

In March, after my column appeared, an Illinois man was fined $250 for tapping into the wireless connection of a not-for-profit agency while sitting with his laptop in a parked car outside the agency's office.

I still maintain that the ethical responsibility for securing the connection should fall on the person setting it up. Rest assured, if you're caught parked outside my house tapping into my wireless connection, and I have not made it password-protected, I will not press charges.

NOT SO FAST!

Finally, in October I wrote about a trucker from Orange County, Calif., who had received a speeding ticket for going 63 miles per hour in a 55-miles-per-hour zone, even though he had set his cruise control to 55 miles per hour. [See http://jeffreyseglin.blogspot.com/2006/10/keep-on-trucking.html ] His boss refused to pay the ticket. The trucker discovered that the speedometer on his truck was out of calibration, and I told him that his boss should pay for the ticket and whatever it cost to check the calibration.

"Shame on you for such bad advice," wrote Cathy Worley, a retired attorney from Columbus, Ohio. "A person who travels for a living does not need a speeding violation on his record when he is not personally at fault."

It wasn't enough for the boss simply to pay the ticket, Worley argued, since the incident would still be a black mark on my reader's driving record. The trucker's boss should also pay for any court costs involved in fighting the ticket, which should be dismissed on the grounds of mechanical failure. Her counsel is wise, and I'm happy to pass along her advice.

I trust I can count on Fiermonte, Worley and my other readers to do the right thing by continuing to share their wisdom with me as the new year progresses.

FOR WHOSE EYES ONLY UPDATE

Thanks to my reader from Madison, Wisc., I've an update to the column I wrote on November 5, 2006, "For Whose Eyes Only," about campaign documents detailing the Democratic Party's strategic plans for last November's election that somehow ended up in Republican Party hands. (The original column can be read at http://jeffreyseglin.blogspot.com/2006/11/for-whose-eyes-only.html.)

The State of Wisconsin Ethics Board issued a press advisory today (December 28, 2006), that indicated that a Senate staffer had taken the documents from a folder and copied them on a state-owned photocopier and then gave copies to his Republican colleagues.

The Ethics Board fined the staffer $100 for using a state-owned copier, but determined that "Laws the Ethics Board administers do not address the appropriateness of...taking the Democratic documents and conveying them to his Republican colleagues." (The complete text of the State of Wisconsin Ethics Board Press Advisory can be found at http://www.thewheelerreport.com/releases/Dec06/Dec28/1228ethicsbdcampaignplan.pdf.)

The Board's finding leaves open the question of the ethics of taking the documents that the staffer knew were not his own and then sharing them with colleagues to use in their campaigns. The advisory does not address whether, simply because the action fell outside of the laws administered by the Ethics Board, the board condones it as an ethical act.

THE BEST OF YEARS, THE WORST OF YEARS

It's time again to look back at egregious ethical lapses of the past year. As usual, however, believing that as much can be learned from those who do the right thing as from those who don't, I'm sticking with my tradition of offering positive alternatives that stand in stark contrast to the misguided actions or wayward intents of many people in the news.

AN IMPLAUSIBLE `PRETEXT'

In trying to find out who might be leaking information about their company, Hewlett-Packard executives engaged in "pretexting," which involved posing as someone else in order to gain access to the telephone records of some of their own board members, as well as those of journalists covering the company. As a result the company's reputation was tarnished and its former board chairwoman and others face criminal charges. [UPDATE: To here an interview I gave on NPR's "Here and Now" on HP's pretexting on January 12, 2007, you can click on Here and Now : Prosecutors Press Charges in Hewlett-Packard Case ...]

A much better example is provided by Nike. The athletic-shoe company has turned around its previous image as a company that didn't pay attention to the sweatshop conditions in some of the foreign plants at which its products were assembled. This year Nike was recognized by the Sustain Ability Global Reporters Program as the top company in the United States, and one of the top 10 in the world, in reporting the working, environmental and community conditions wherever it does business.

Once viewed as a pariah, Nike now is a leader in making its supply chains transparent enough to safeguard employee rights.

[For more on Sustain Ability's Report, see CSRwire.com - News from Nike, Inc.: SustainAbility Names Nike Top ... and for more on overcoming sweatshop conditions, see Rising Above Sweatshops, edited by Laura Hartman, Denis Arnold, and Richard Wokutch (Praeger, 2003) at Rising above Sweatshops: Innovative Approac... ]

IF YOU CAN'T SAY SOMETHING GOOD...

I was relieved when News Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch finally pulled the plug on O.J. Simpson's book and television interview about how he might have murdered his ex-wife. More than enough said.

But not nearly enough has been said about Bangladeshi economist Muhammad Yunus and his book Banker to the Poor: Micro-Lending and the Battle Against World Poverty (Public Affairs, 2003). Yunus makes extremely small, unsecured loans to very poor people to help them lift themselves out of poverty. While initially many were skeptical of his efforts, the default rate on his loans is negligible and the impact of the loans on his borrowers has been transformational.

This year Yunus and his Grameen Bank were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts. It brought renewed attention to Yunus and his efforts, but they deserve even more. [Yunus' book is available at Banker to the Poor: Micro-Lending and the B...]

IN VINO VERITAS?

On July 28 Mel Gibson was arrested and charged with driving under the influence. During the arrest he let loose a barrage of anti-Semitic and sexist statements. The next day he apologized, saying that he was ashamed of everything he had said. Gibson's outburst raised the suspicion of deep-seated feelings of hatred toward particular groups in him and perhaps in others as well.

Compare that to an incident that occurred in September on the campus of the University of Minnesota. A member of Hillel, the Jewish student association, received a call from a member of the Muslim Student Association who on Sept. 9 had noticed a swastika painted on a sidewalk near the Minneapolis campus.

Members of the two groups, as well as those of the Episcopal Student Association and others, met to discuss the issue. The students saw the incident not as a Jewish, Muslim or Christian issue, but as a human issue.

The meeting was the first time the groups had come together, but, according to Lauren Palay -- who, besides being the president of Hillel, is also my niece -- they intend it to be the beginning of a unified commitment to do the right thing and to stand together against any such instances of hate in the future. [I happened to be visiting Minneapolis when this incident occurred. For a fuller report, see the university newspaper's (The Minnesota Daily) story at A message of hate inspires peace - Minnesota Daily]

SOUND OFF: A CIVIL RESPONSE

Many of my readers believe that civility and candor are not mutually exclusive.

"One may only be civil when one is candid," writes Mary Beth Harris of Charlotte, N.C. To be anything less than honest, she adds, "is the biggest sign of disrespect one can bestow on another."

E. Carroll Straus of Orange County, Calif., draws a distinction between candor and "mean-spiritedness or bullying."

While Debbie Billings of Corona, Calif., agrees that we can state our honest opinions civilly, she believes that people have become less civil about protecting their own right to express their views while restricting the expression of views that differ from their own.

Charlie Seng of Lancaster, S.C., writes that, because of a "seeming craze to be candid about everything," we have gone "from a civil type of life toward an uncivil and mistrusting type of life." It's not necessary, he writes, "to be candid all the time."

Check out other opinions at http://jeffreyseglin.blogspot.com/2006/11/sound-off-shut-up-and-read-this-column.html or post your own by clicking on "post a comment" or "comments" below.

Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of "The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today's Business" (Smith Kerr, 2006), is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics. He is also the administrator of http://jeffreyseglin.blogspot.com, a Web log focused on ethical issues.

Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@nytimes.com or to "The Right Thing," New York Times Syndicate, 609 Greenwich St., 6th floor, New York, N.Y. 10014-3610.

SOUND OFF: CHARITY PARTIES

According to a recent story in The Wall Street Journal, there is a growing trend among holiday-party givers to request attendees to make a donation to a specific charity, rather than bring wine, food or gifts to the party. While the motives may be well-intentioned, some have suggested that guests may feel alienated by "too much of a hard sell" or that they "don't appreciate the social pressure to give to what the host, not the guest, determines is a good cause."

Do you think it crosses an ethical line to make such requests, and to allow admission only if the attendees agree to give to a charity they might not have chosen on their own? Would you make a point of going and not giving to the charity if it wasn't one of your causes? Or should invited guests who take issue simply and politely stay home?

Send your thoughts to rightthing@nytimes.com or post them here by clicking on "comments" below. Please include your name and your hometown. Readers' comments may appear in an upcoming column.

Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of "The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today's Business" (Smith Kerr, 2006), is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics. He is also the administrator of http://jeffreyseglin.blogspot.com, a Web log focused on ethical issues.

Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@nytimes.com or to "The Right Thing," New York Times Syndicate, 609 Greenwich St., 6th floor, New York, N.Y. 10014-3610.

THINKING ABOUT ETHICS IN A VACUUM

Three years ago I was asked to give a welcoming address to new students at Emerson College, where I teach. My oldest grandson happened to be about to start kindergarten, so -- figuring that the concerns about starting a new school don't change much from childhood to the teen years -- I asked Evan if he had any worries.

"Two things," he said. "Making new friends and falling down."

I told the incoming class about Evan's concerns. I assured them that they would make plenty of friends, and that those friends would be there to pick them up if they should stumble.

Evan's advice immediately came to mind when James Winter, a reader from Baltimore, e-mailed to ask whom I myself turn to for advice in dealing with the ethical questions that readers toss my way. Winter is generous enough to imagine that "the occasion is rare indeed" when I find it necessary to turn to others for help, but in reality nothing is further from the truth.

Whether you're a seasoned ethicist or a complete beginner, ethics is not done in a vacuum. Rarely can I simply sit down and concoct a full-blown, thoughtful response to a reader's question. To bang out a glib observation with an amusing punch line might win me a chuckle at the reader's expense, but it would do little to help the reader think through an important choice -- and, even if the issue at hand is a minor one, the ethical issue that it raises is often important.

My challenge is to try to look past the superficial meaning of readers' questions and see what the readers aren't telling me, what motivated them to ask their questions in the first place. So I often return to questioners to see if I can better grasp what it is that they're trying to resolve. Whether it's through conversation or through correspondence, the questioner is often my best resource.

My resource pool reaches beyond the original source, of course. If a question falls into a specialized area about which I know absolutely nothing, I seek out an expert. If a question comes up that involves a skull being stolen from a graveyard, it never hurts to check in with an authority on cemetery law. But most of the time that isn't the case. Usually I turn to the same places to which you'd turn: to intelligent colleagues, friends and family members. I'm lucky that I can also rely on the wisdom of my students and the regular readers of this column.

Then, of course, there is the education I've received and the books that I've read. Often the perfect thought is already in my head, put there by some author whose work I've been fortunate enough to read.

For example: "Ethics is how we behave when we decide we belong together," Margaret Wheatley and Myron Kellner Rogers wrote in A Simpler Way (Berrett-Koehler, 1999).

Shortly after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, three women -- a Muslim, a Christian and a Jew -- decided to get together and write a children's book that would help explain to their own children and to others what their three faiths had in common. Instead their meetings turned into confrontations, often revelatory ones, about their own and one another's faiths.

The result of those meetings is "The Faith Club: A Muslim, a Christian, a Jew: Three Women Search for Understanding" (Free Press, 2006), by Ranya Idliby, Suzanne Oliver and Priscilla Warner. The book is a wonderful recounting of how three women chose to behave when they decided they belonged together. ["The Faith Club" is available at The Faith Club: A Muslim, A Christian, A Je... ]

When we're trying to sort through the gray maze of difficult ethical choices, the right thing to do -- and that turns out to be the question that Winter really was asking -- is to avoid making those choices in isolation. We should have faith that, on those occasions when we fall down, our friends will help to steady us.

HONESTY IS A GREAT SLEEPING AID

Several weeks ago I told the story of Eunice Kwon, the Pasadena High School student who won a Rotary Club district's annual ethics-essay contest by writing about how she and several of her friends who were "the smart kids" at school had lapsed into a culture of cheating. (See http://jeffreyseglin.blogspot.com/2006/09/you-tell-me-yours.html )

It was only after a friend told Kwon that he had found a password to a teacher's online grading book and easily could change all their grades that Kwon's ethical sense was jolted. She realized that her previous infractions of the rules, "no matter how petty, were all forms of cheating."

I challenged readers to tell me the kinds of ethical dilemmas in which they have found themselves, and they responded with some beauties.

Two stories stand out as examples of how everyday activities can challenge an individual's integrity, and several stories sent by high-school students in Columbus, Ohio, poignantly evoke how early the struggle to do the right thing begins.

THE CUSTOMER GOT THE TIP

While vacationing on the San Juan Islands in Washington with her husband, Genie Hufham of Charlotte, N.C., visited a restaurant gift shop and decided to buy a jacket that bore the restaurant's name on the breast pocket. The hostess put the jacket into a bag and told Hufham that the cost would be added to the bill for her dinner.

"After driving 15 miles back to our hotel," Hufham writes, "we realized that the cost hadn't been added to the meal bill."

The following day they returned to the restaurant to pay for the jacket. The hostess recognized them from the night before, and the waitress who had forgotten to add the charge to the bill was summoned.

"I wanted her to know that I would never be able to wear it without thinking that I had taken advantage of her mistake," Hufham says.

They settled the bill, and today Hufham wears her jacket with a clear conscience.

AN OPEN-AND-SHUT CASE

About two years ago Karen A., a reader from southern California, was putting her kitchen through a substantial remodeling. She located the cabinet pulls she wanted, and had a saleswoman at the store copy the catalog page and make a note of the sizes and prices for her.

When she returned, some weeks later, the same saleswoman assisted her. Unfortunately Karen had misplaced her notes, so the saleswoman pulled up a price on her computer.

"She said that the cabinet pulls were $6.48 each," Karen writes. "I was sure they were discounted to me previously to $4.34. I was insistent, and she agreed to let me order them for $4.50."

The pulls arrived, and Karen picked them up without any problem. A few weeks later, however, she came across her original notes and was horrified to see that the quoted price had indeed been $6.48. Many cabinets had been involved, and the different was significant -- a total of about $100.

When she returned to pay the money she owed, Karen was directed to the accounting office, where a confused clerk looked up and asked, "You want to pay more?"

Karen went through what she calls her "I-will-sleep-better-at-night explanation." The clerk consulted with another clerk, she writes, and the two of them went into the back office, where Karen heard them let out what she calls "a giant isn't-she-stupid roar."

"Thankfully," Karen writes, "honesty is its own reward ... and a great sleeping aid too."

TRIED AS JUVENILES

I received several letters from juniors in Beverly Graves' literature class at Worthington Kilbourne High School in Columbus. Graves, who has been teaching English for 34 years, often uses newspaper stories to make literature relevant to her students.

"It's a great way to update the choices the kids are struggling with," she says.

One student wrote about how her math teacher uses candy to reward pupils who answer difficult problem sets. But one day recently, when the teacher left the classroom, another student grabbed a handful of candy and tossed it to several other kids in the back of the room. The student who wrote me struggled with whether to turn in her classmate and risk being labeled a tattletale or not do anything and be tormented. She chose the latter, but continues to be plagued with guilt.

Another student wanted to know how he, as a lacrosse player, could keep from being viewed negatively in the wake of scandals allegedly involving lacrosse players at Duke University and in Dublin, Ohio. He worries that the misguided values of a few highly publicized players and coaches may tarnish what has been for him a wonderful sport.

Yet another student learned how long it can take to repair the damage done by even a small lie earlier this fall, when she told her mother that she would be spending the night at a friend's house and instead spent the night at Bowling Green University in a girlfriend's dorm room. Weeks later her older sister innocently let the secret slip.

"I've lost my trust," my correspondent says. "I'm still kind of grounded."

Despite the easy opportunity to do otherwise, both Hufham and Karen A. chose to do the right thing. And Graves' students are learning at an early age how to wrestle with the kinds of ethical issues that each of us faces throughout our lives.

Copies of my book, "The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today's Business" (Smith Kerr, 2006), are on their way to Hufham, Karen A. and Graves, as is a gift from the New York Times Syndicate to Graves' students for sharing their stories.

Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of "The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today's Business," is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics. He is also the administrator of http://jeffreyseglin.blogspot.com, a Web log focused on ethical issues.

Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@nytimes.com or to "The Right Thing," New York Times Syndicate, 609 Greenwich St., 6th floor, New York, N.Y. 10014-3610.

YOU CAN'T TAKE IT WITH YOU, BUT WHAT THEN?

After my reader D.M.'s husband died in 2004, she worried that, when she herself died, the bulk of her estate would go to the state of California instead of to her eight adult children. D.M. is 77 years old, and her assets consist mostly of $100,000 in cash and a house worth about $700,000.

Five of her children make good incomes and live on their own, but two of her daughters and a son live with her in her house. Her son is blind but holds down a minimum-wage job. Her daughters work but, because of a series of unfortunate relationships and events, have outstanding bills that eat up most of their income. Each depends on D.M. for support.

A lawyer wisely advised D.M. to create a trust to protect her assets, but the question troubling her is, what's the right thing to do in terms of dividing her assets among her children?

If D.M. were to die and leave ownership of the house equally to her eight children, it would have to be sold. The three children now living there would be unlikely to be able to afford a new home, and their inheritance would quickly be eaten up by high rents. If the house were left solely to the three children, they could continue living there -- but the other five children would be shortchanged.

"I know it is up to me in the final analysis," D.M. writes, "but should I divide my assets evenly or according to their needs?"

I sometimes joke with my own children that I plan to die broke, thus avoiding any arguments over who gets what when I'm gone. A few years ago I went so far as to give my son-in-law, as a gift, a copy of the Stephen Pollan/Mark Levine book "Die Broke: A Radical 4-Part Personal Finance Plan" (Collins, 1997).

But I'm kidding, of course, and D.M.'s question is one that I regularly receive in various guises from many readers: "Must I treat my children equally when it comes to money, gifts or inheritances?"

The answer, of course, is no. It's your money and your stuff, so you can do with it whatever you want. You owe your children nourishment, protection and so forth when they're young, but the parent/child relationship carries with it no built-in ethical obligation as far as inheritance is concerned.

There are consequences to your actions, though. You have the right, for example, to favor one child over another for no apparent reason, but there's no fairness to such action, and it's very likely to create animosity toward yourself while you're alive and, after you're gone, animosity among your children.

D.M. has a compelling reason to provide for her children at different levels after she's gone, however. Three of her children seem clearly to be more in need. One reasonable solution might be for her to leave her house to the three who live in it and to split the $100,000 in cash among her other five children. If that's what D.M. is inclined to do, she should do so with a clear conscience.

The right thing for D.M. to do, after she decides how she wants to divide her assets after her death, is to talk with all of her children to let them know what she has decided to do. She doesn't need to explain herself or to ask their permission, but simply to let them know what to expect.

And the right thing for each of them to do is to thank her.

SOUND OFF: MADONNA'S ADOPTION

My readers were of mixed opinion about whether Madonna's adoption of a Malawian boy should have been fast-tracked because of her financial gifts to the country.

"Is it right that Madonna and other stars be allowed to circumvent the law because of their status or financial contributions?" asks Wendy Hagmaier of Fullerton, Calif. "No. This would mean that the rich could traffic in human beings."

Lena Lukings of London, Ontario, thinks that it all boils down to money.

"While I realize that Madonna can and will change that little boy's life far beyond what any parent can imagine," she writes, "I believe that money was behind the rapid adoption. Within days Madonna had that child in England. There just was not enough time allotted for a reasonable decision to be made."

J.J. Singh of La Palma, Calif., however, sees nothing wrong with the adoption.

"I question the challenge by the Human Rights Consultative Committee," Singh writes. "Their only objection appears to be the fast-track adoption procedures implemented. The committee has not objected to the child being adopted by Madonna."

A.J. Williams of Fullerton, Calif., agrees. "She is saving that child from a life of poverty and disease," Williams writes. "So what if her occupation fast-tracks her? It is that much sooner that the child can be rescued!"

Check out other opinions at http://jeffreyseglin.blogspot.com/2006/10/sound-off-madonna-and-child.html or post your own by clicking on "comments" below. You don't need to register if you post anonymously, but please include you name and location in the body of your comments.

Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of "The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today's Business" (Smith Kerr, 2006), is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics. He is also the administrator of http://jeffreyseglin.blogspot.com, a Web log focused on ethical issues.

Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@nytimes.com or to "The Right Thing," New York Times Syndicate, 609 Greenwich St., 6th floor, New York, N.Y. 10014-3610.