{"id":7920,"date":"2017-03-29T22:56:47","date_gmt":"2017-03-30T04:56:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/?p=7920"},"modified":"2017-03-29T22:57:07","modified_gmt":"2017-03-30T04:57:07","slug":"you-cant-say-that-you-didnt-know","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/you-cant-say-that-you-didnt-know\/","title":{"rendered":"You can\u2019t say that you didn\u2019t know"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cYou may choose to look the other way but you can never say again that you did not know.\u201d<\/span> \u2013 William Wilberforce<\/p>\n

That quote comes from a famous speech William Wilberforce gave to English parliament prior to the vote on the Abolition Bill in 1789. It was an incredibly powerful speech because he was reminding people that it is not okay to simply pretend something wrong wasn\u2019t occurring when they knew it was. He reminded people that choosing to look the other way doesn\u2019t actually release them from their responsibility to do the right things. What a powerful message he teaches with that one sentence.<\/p>\n

We can tell ourselves that it\u2019s not our problem, or that it\u2019s no big deal, but at the end of the day if we know about unethical things going on we have a moral (and often legal) obligation to do something about it.<\/p>\n

We can\u2019t allow ourselves to ever rationalize things that are unethical. Rationalization is a dangerous thing because it\u2019s used to convince oneself that there is no need to feel bad about something, whether it something unethical we ourselves have done or it\u2019s something bad we know someone else has done.<\/p>\n

Dr. Pamela Murphy, an accounting professor specializing in audit and fraud in organizations states, “Rationalization is an incredibly powerful force. What rationalizing does for us is that it allows us to do something that is unethical and downright fraudulent and not feel bad about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Pamela there are six degrees of rationalization that enable people to commit fraud while still convincing themselves they are maintaining their ethical principles. They are:<\/p>\n

1. Shifting The Blame: “Everyone does it.”
\n2. Pleading Ignorance: “I can’t see that it hurts anyone.”
\n3. Moral Justification: “I’m protecting the company… the employees…my family…”
\n4. Advantageous Comparison: “This is nothing compared to…”
\n5. Letting Victim Take the Fall: “They had it coming.”
\n6. Euphemistic Labeling: “I am trying to level the playing field.”<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t allow yourself to get sucked into rationalizing away what you know to be wrong\u2026remember William\u2019s powerful words \u201cYou may choose to look the other way but you can never say again that you did not know.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

~Amy Rees Anderson<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cYou may choose to look the other way but you can never say again that you did not know.\u201d \u2013 William Wilberforce That quote comes from a famous speech William Wilberforce gave to English parliament prior to the vote on the Abolition Bill in 1789. It was an incredibly powerful speech because he was reminding […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6720,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[12985,12978,395,3432,6570,163,12988,12991,12987,4387,118,6014,34,12986,12984,12993,12992,12983,2196,3269,12979,3429,12980,129,283,12981,12982,12989,2054,6577,336,6013,12977,1426,12990],"class_list":["post-7920","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-advantageous-comparison","tag-amazing-grace","tag-amy-rees-anderson","tag-blame","tag-choose-the-right","tag-courage","tag-dr-pamela-murphy","tag-duty-to-act","tag-euphemistic-labeling","tag-grace","tag-honesty","tag-immoral","tag-integrity","tag-letting-victim-take-the-fall","tag-moral-justification","tag-no-big-deal","tag-not-your-problem","tag-pleading-ignorance","tag-powerful","tag-protecting","tag-rationalization","tag-rationalize","tag-rationalizing","tag-responsibility","tag-right","tag-shifting","tag-shifting-blame","tag-six-degrees-of-rationalization","tag-stand-up","tag-sucked-into","tag-truth","tag-unethical","tag-william-wilberforce","tag-wrong","tag-you-knew"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7920","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7920"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7920\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7926,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7920\/revisions\/7926"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6720"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}