The exploitation that you are to describe is obviously wrong, even if the inequitable circumstances that incite wrongdoing are also morally wrong. But these are cases in which the authorities have already reviewed the evidence and decided that an applicant is eligible for permanent residence; one does not see why they should reconsider their determinations on the word of a third party who does not have independent access to the facts.
The self-petition provision you refer to has a compelling rationale. Non-citizens who are victims of domestic violence or cruelty may be particularly vulnerable: they may not know English or know US laws, and they may fear deportation if they seek help. But the authorities are well aware that the system can be abused. While these petitions have increased dramatically over the past few years, the number reported as potentially fraudulent has also increased. The Government Accountability Office, which conducts audits and assessments for Congress, has asked U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to develop an anti-fraud strategy, and the agency has pledged to do so. . The aim is to try to protect victims of abuse without encouraging wrongful claims against innocent people – which is not easy to calibrate. The mills of bureaucracy turn slowly, but they turn.
What you can do, however, is make sure your callers seek help from law enforcement if they are assaulted. Nothing prevents the authorities from investigating whether the victims themselves are able to provide evidence of their ill-treatment.
I wrote a book and self-published it through Amazon, which allows the author to hide that fact by listing a fake publisher on the title page. My first question is whether the use of fake publisher identification is ethical. My second concerns the following incident. At a local bookstore, I inquired about the possibility of leaving a few copies of my book on consignment. The owner agreed. As I was leaving, he asked me who my editor was. Knowing that some bookstores don’t like to sell self-published books, I named my fake publisher. Was my response ethical? Masked name
A large number of self-published books appear every year, often adorned with fanciful press names. The practice is not really disturbing. If you had chosen a vanity publisher instead, they would have emblazoned your book with a big name that, while referring to a genuine commercial enterprise, would have been no more or less misleading. One can easily imagine invented names that would be deliberately misleading: Random Home, Farrah Strauss. But you are not appropriating the cachet of an existing publishing house.
As for your exchange with the bookseller: if he had typed your putative publisher into a search engine (as I just did), he would have immediately seen that it was not a real entity. Either way, self-published authors will be those who consign books for their own account. The fact that you hoped to mislead him, however, misleads you. He may not see a big difference between Kindle Direct Publishing, vanity presses, and publishing outfits so obscure they never made it onto his inventory lists. But even if he weren’t seriously misled, he would have reason to question your honesty. A personal inventory might be in order.
Kwame Anthony Appiah teaches philosophy at NYU. His books include “Cosmopolitanism”, “The Honor Code”, and “The Lies That Bind: Rethinking Identity”. To submit a request: email ethicists@nytimes.com; or send mail to The Ethicist, The New York Times Magazine, 620 Eighth Avenue, New York, NY 10018. (Include daytime phone number.)
#surgery #lose #weight #people
