Q: I am the assistant to the president of a general-contracting company. Although I have no authority to hire subcontractors, several seem eager to cultivate my goodwill. This past fall when I participated in a charity race, I added a line to my e-mail signature describing my involvement and linked it to a website where people could donate to this worthy cause. Several subcontractors did so, and the charity automatically alerted me. Was I wrong to solicit money this way? — Kelly Verdin, Austin, Texas
Q: Your concern is well placed. By announcing your admirable activity through office e-mail, you make it vaguely work-related, tempting subcontractors to donate who would not otherwise do so, presumably to curry favor with you and thus help themselves get hired. To avoid the hint of inducing a sort of benevolent (even if ineffectual) bribe, you would do better to separate your personal and professional projects.
I would go further and argue against most workplace calls for charitable contributions. A boss’s invitation to donate may feel like a requirement for promotion or the (creepy) cost of doing business for a supplier or subcontractor. Unless contributions can be truly voluntary, those who have power over other people should avoid requesting such things.
There is a way to make such solicitations voluntary: Insulate yourself from the donors’ identities. Ask the race organizers not to alert you to who has contributed on your behalf, and make sure donors know that this is the case. There’s no harm in e-mailing information about a charity: Let a thousand flowers bloom, just so there’s no sense that gardening is compulsory.
Update: Verdin received $475, about half her total, from her work e-mail announcement; the rest came from friends. The charity’s website does allow anonymous donations, and that’s the setup Verdin will link to for next year’s race.
Q: A friend was caught by police radar going 51 in a 35 mph zone. In front of his children, he admitted that he was speeding but asked if I knew a lawyer to help him fight the ticket. I think he should accept the consequences, learn from the experience and give his children a lesson in ethics. He looked at me as if I were from Mars. Shouldn’t he just pay the ticket? — Bruce Pellegrino, Far Hills, N.J.
A: Even those who think themselves guilty are entitled to their day in court, and there is civic virtue in their exercising this right. A trial is a way to hold officials accountable for their conduct. Was the radar gun accurate? Was the speed zone clearly marked? Did the police officer behave properly? And what, given all the circumstances, is an appropriate punishment? Little of this could be scrutinized if everyone simply paid the ticket.
Yours is a variation on a question sometimes put to lawyers, public defenders in particular, about the propriety of defending a “guilty” client. Another answer is that “guilt” in this sense is a legal determination that can only be made in a court of law.
James Boswell, himself a lawyer, once asked his great mentor about the propriety of a lawyer’s “supporting a cause which you know to be bad.” Dr. Johnson replied: “Sir, you do not know it to be good or bad till the Judge determines it. . . . An argument which does not convince yourself, may convince the Judge to whom you urge it: And if it does convince him, why, then, Sir, you are wrong, and he is right.”
Update: Pellegrino’s friend paid the ticket, more as a matter of convenience than high principle.
Write Randy Cohen at Universal Press Syndicate, 4520 Main St., Kansas City, MO 64111, or ethicist@nytimes.com.
