IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - March 2022 - 19

declare and register the receipt of such gifts with the
company (see [14]), suppose that there is no relevant
code of conduct or ethical guideline that you can
rely on in such cases. It would seem that low-value
gifts including pens, calendars, diaries, flowers, other
mementos, and tokens of appreciation; and hospitalities
such as lunches, dinners, or refreshments, cannot
also be considered to be forms of bribery. Furthermore,
high-value gifts such as a car should be considered
to be a bribe. In the absence of guidance, it might
be difficult to pinpoint the exact boundary between
gifts and bribes. According to the NYTT, in such situations,
you should imagine a scenario in which you has
accepted the gift in question, and to further imagine
that a report of your accepting the gift is published in
The New York Times. The NYTT would then have you
ask yourself whether the publishing of such a report
would be embarrassing. And whether you would
comfortably be able to answer a reporter's questions
about this matter. The NYTT would also have you ask
yourself whether you would be comfortable informing
your spouse or children about this. If the answer is
" no " or " probably not, " then the decided-upon action
is probably unacceptable from a moral point of view.
If applying the NYTT does not lead to a clear result
for a course of action, another possible course of
action might lead to a clear result in such a thought
experiment. Also, the NYTT can be used not only to
reveal morally questionable decisions, but also to
affirm the morality of one's decisions. If the general
public praises or applauds an act's morality, then it
is probably a moral act.
Trevino and Nelson [15] provide an example
in this regard: " A public relations manager, Mary,
described an incident with a printing company
(we'll call it Type Co.) sales representative who
was trying to get her business. Type Co. already did
business with a number of departments within her
company, but Mary was satisfied with her current
printer and saw no reason to switch. Just before the
holidays, Type Co. sent a popular electronic device
(worth about $250) to Mary and to all of its customers
in her company. Mary immediately felt that the
gift was inappropriate; but to check out her judgment,
she called one of Type Co.'s other customers
in her company. Mary's colleague assured her that
there was nothing wrong with accepting the gift and
that it was simply a token of good will. (If Mary had
been friendly with one of her company's lawyers or
human resources managers, she probably would
March 2022
have received very different advice.) Mary listened
to her internal warning system, despite what her colleague
said. She sent back the gift. When asked why
she returned the gift, Mary said, 'I felt like I was being
bribed to do business with Type Co.' A reader of The
New York Times would probably agree. "
Some scholars claim that the NYTT can be justified
ethically by Kant's position-the categorical
imperative, which first formulation holds: " Act only
in accordance with that maxim through which you
can at the same time will that it become a universal
law " [6, p. 37]. These scholars interpret this formulation
to be a criterion of publicity or transparency,
and the extent to which one's course of action stands
up to public scrutiny [7], [8]. The second formulation
of the categorical imperative-the reciprocity
principle-holds that act so that you use humanity,
as much in your own person as in every other person,
always at the same time as an end and never
merely as means [6, p. 151]. A way to respect persons
as ends in themselves is to involve them directly
in the decisions that concern them. The NYTT can
be seen as an indirect representation of persons [2].
Although there are similarities between the NYTT
and the categorical imperative, it seems that the former
has more to do with common sense morality or
with moral intuition.
Advantages of the NYTT
The NYTT has some advantages compared to
other ethical guidelines. First, despite the fact that
most ethical problem solving requires contemplation
and deliberation, there are cases of ethical problems
in which quick decision making is required.
Example of this include ethical consultation or the
study of ethical sources. This test is a quick-check
test and can be helpful in such cases [15].
Second, in many cases, there are complications
in thinking about ethical choices in the framework
of ethical theories such as utilitarianism, deontology,
rights theory, justice theory, and so on. This added
level of complexity increases the probability of the
occurrence of errors. Contrary to this complexity, the
NYTT is simple to apply due to its intuitive nature [8].
Third, you might find yourself in a situation where
you know your decision is not immoral, but that it
could be misinterpreted by others. In such a situation,
others might think that your objectivity with respect to
your decision will have been compromised. This situation
is called an appearance of a conflict of interest,
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IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - March 2022

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