Stephanie Spadaro's article, "Student hazing, business fraud: We need ethics" ties the recent transgressions of some corporate executives, the brutal hazing of students in the Chicago suburbs, and the New York Times' fact vs. fiction scandal to a lack of ethics training in the U.S. In the article, Spadaro cites a 2002 survey that indicates immoral behavior is on the rise in high schools across the country. She calls for a return to ethics education as a remedy to these problems, citing Germany's experience with teaching ethics to students. Spadaro asserts that the situation calls for action whether or not parents are up to the task, and that "there must be some universal values everyone can agree on". She implies at the end that the crooked CEOs and violent students knew their actions were wrong, but an ethical deficiency kept them from acting accordingly.

Spadaro's article is right on target with its main point; we do need ethics in this country. However, her proposed remedy isn't enough to cure the moral problems in this country. Teaching students the difference between proper and improper conduct is a good start, but to accomplish anything, we're going to need a philosophical overhaul.

Today's moral environment is nothing but a by-product- inconsistent principles lead to inconsistent actions. Ethics is a branch of philosophy, but it depends on two fundamental parts, metaphysics and epistemology. Metaphysics deals with reality; epistemology deals with questions of knowledge. A system of ethics should stem logically from those branches. A successful philosophy must have all parts in agreement with the real world.

Today's children are brought up with the idea that reality is negotiable, that actions don't necessarily have consequences, especially in school. They're told one thing, but see another in practice. Consider "grade inflation"- a student who does poorly on a test can probably convince the teacher to give him a better grade, despite the teacher's insistence of the contrary on the first day of school. Students are led to believe that a class valedictorian must work hard and earn top grades. However, according to the Associated Press, a girl sued her school because she failed to earn high enough grades to be her school's only valedictorian last May. She won, and the judge ordered the school to name her sole valedictorian.

The same problems exist in "real world"- a lot of adults aren't making the connection between "real" and reality. The financial scandals involving Arthur Anderson, Global Crossing, Enron, Tyco, and others didn't first appear in 2001; people in those companies had been deluding themselves and their investors for years. The inconsistencies that plague schools have their counterparts in the business world. The usual idea of a successful company is one that managed its resources well, served its consumers, and stayed within the confines of the law. However, many corporations during the "new economy" found that that wasn't necessarily the case. Why report a loss when some clever accounting and "creative" mathematics will turn it into a huge profit on paper?

Even if regulators get it together and start meaning what they say, merely teaching ethics isn't going to make kids (or adults) more honest. Ethics classes may be able to get students to parrot "Stealing is wrong. Killing is wrong. Lying is wrong," but unless the students know why those things are true, they're likely to have little effect. Why is stealing wrong? Why is lying not OK? These are questions philosophy needs to answer. To come up with a set of values "everyone can agree on", those values must be based on objective principles. Objective reality isn't negotiable; existence exists and actions have consequences. One can't alter reality merely by wishing or thinking. Humans live together and function by interpreting data with their senses. Lying thwarts that process; if one's senses say one thing, a person who lies and says the opposite is denying reality. Humans need to act in their own self-interest while respecting the right of others to do the same. Stealing is wrong because it sacrifices one individual's self-interest to another. Violence, including that involved in vulgar hazing rituals, is wrong because it both forces someone to deny reality and ignores one's right to act in his own interest.

There's no question that we need ethics, but we need a foundation for those ethics, too. When people know why they need to act in their own self-interest, and why lying and cheating aren't in their self-interest, the problems in question will be resolved.