One of my interests is philosophy, and in particular epistemology and ethics . I provide an invited presentation to the Australian Defence College twice a year titled – “Rwanda: A Case Study in Ethical and Leadership Dilemmas ” . The key points of the presentation are: 

• Ethics are reflective of societal norms and vary within society and groups.
• Ethics are as much an attitude as they are a set of values, skills and knowledge. 
• Ethics are not constant – they will vary from society to society, and group to group.
• Decisions are developed within an attitudinal framework.
• Do not expect your colleagues to apply your own ethics to their decisions. 
• The focus should be on decision making, not on issues of ethics in isolation.

But I digress. Pat Byrne sent me this link to the Carnegie Council website , which is a great resource for anyone interested in ethics. (A good Australian resource is the St James Ethics Centre ). What caught my attention was the Ethical Blog Project , which naturally has its own blog called “The Ethical Blogger ”. Apparently this blog attracts thousands of visitors a day, and has been nominated by Google as a blog of note. I’ve added it to my bookmarks.

Coincidentally David Snowden has a blog today about cyber-vandalism on Wikipedia called Anonymity - I also blogged a couple of days ago about cyber-vandalism. It seems to me the Ethical Blog Project has a lot to offer the blogosphere and online collaboration communities such as Wikepedia. I can say it no better than the Carnegie Council –

"We are trying to encourage civility in the blogosphere because blogs have the power to do good, giving voice to the voiceless and shining a spotlight on corruption, human rights abuses, or environmental degradation. … if unethical blogging gets out of hand, governments will step in and regulate. Let's not let a few bad apples spoil it for the rest of us. Technology guided by ethics can help create a better world."

I couldn’t agree more! Ethics in all spheres of life matter.

Regards, Graham