| Pages in topic: < [1 2 3] > | A translator who talked
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| | Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 15:14
Member (2008)
Italian to English
| The trouble is... | Jul 23, 2014 |
Renée Annabel W. wrote:
With regard to Orrin Cummins' comments, surely there IS some kind of personal "moral threshold" when it comes to that type of thing, yes!
The trouble is that you don't know where that moral threshold is, until something triggers it and you have to decide what you're going to do. There's no hard and fast rule.
| | | | Kay Denney 
France
Local time: 16:14
French to English
| career or conscience | Jul 23, 2014 |
Tom in London wrote:
Ask yourself: if you get an email today asking you to translate a document that says "Gentlemen: please do not tell anyone that eating our food product causes cancer" what would you do?
[Edited at 2014-07-23 10:05 GMT]
It's never quite that clear-cut.
While working at an agency, my colleague had to translate reams of scientific data about soya products and noticed that the conclusion seemed very much to play down the dangers of overconsumption. She put in translator's notes to that effect, but of course the client could just hit "delete all notes" and be done with it.
I had to translate a very cynical letter for the same multi-national company where the writer was proposing ways to repackage genetically modified foods to win the public over. This included a complete overhaul of how the firm marketed itself, basically with a focus on science rather than chemicals. I didn't think there was enough solid information in the letter for it to be worth sending the letter on to Greenpeace, but it did give me a headache, so I wrote a cheque for Greenpeace instead.
| | | | Mark
Local time: 16:14
Italian to English
| "No hard and fast rule." | Jul 23, 2014 |
Very contemporary.
The test cases proposed, quite naturally, involve a scenario in which lives may be saved. Then you're talking about various degrees of certainty and there's the evaluation of the actual effect that you might have.
The fundamental question is whether client confidentiality is of more value than human life and what responsibility you have in terms of both: the rest is a matter of practicalities and judgement.
| | | | Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 15:14
Member (2008)
Italian to English
Sometimes it's clear. I recently turned down a job that consisted of a survey to find out what brand of cigarettes people prefer.
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Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 15:14
Member (2008)
Italian to English
| "No hard and fast rule." | Jul 23, 2014 |
Mark Dobson wrote:
Very contemporary.
What do you mean?
| | | | Mark
Local time: 16:14
Italian to English
I was referring to a widespread tendency to stress the singularity of each and every moral situation and the subjective difficulties in assessing them rather than attempt to define workable and consistent moral criteria.
As I say, I see it as an intellectual tendency; I'd prefer it if people were more confident about asserting that some things are worth more than others (e.g. human life vs. confidentiality).
| | | | | Yes, this is true | Jul 23, 2014 |
Tom in London wrote: Renée Annabel W. wrote:
With regard to Orrin Cummins' comments, surely there IS some kind of personal "moral threshold" when it comes to that type of thing, yes! The trouble is that you don't know where that moral threshold is, until something triggers it and you have to decide what you're going to do. There's no hard and fast rule.
No one can really know what he or she is truly capable of until placed into certain situations, this is absolutely true. Just ask the surviving members of the Donner Party.
It's the main reason why I am wary of saying that I would never do something. It's just impossible to know without being in the middle of it.
| | | | Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 15:14
Member (2008)
Italian to English
Mark Dobson wrote:
I was referring to a widespread tendency to stress the singularity of each and every moral situation and the subjective difficulties in assessing them rather than attempt to define workable and consistent moral criteria.
As I say, I see it as an intellectual tendency; I'd prefer it if people were more confident about asserting that some things are worth more than others (e.g. human life vs. confidentiality).
Maybe it's because I live in England amongst the English that I abhor overarching universal solutions to all problems (even before they have arisen) and go for the pragmatic solution instead. I'm sure that's true in every conceivable situation, has always been true, and always will be.
[Edited at 2014-07-23 15:25 GMT]
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| What is the extent of our duty to confidentiality? | Jul 24, 2014 |
To play devil's advocate, what about lawyers? If lawyers were to break confidentiality whenever they knew their clients had committed a crime, what would happen then? Is our duty to confidentiality on par with that of lawyers, doctors, etc.? Or is it somehow less than is expected in these other professions?
| | | | Phil Hand
China
Local time: 22:14
Chinese to English
| Confidentiality vs. secrecy | Jul 24, 2014 |
We have to maintain confidentiality - that does seem to be a fairly hard and fast rule, to be broken only in times when you'd break other hard and fast rules.
But I detest this culture of secrecy. There are some arguments to be made for personal privacy, and I can see why we should respect that. But corporations are not people, and they don't deserve to have secrets. I wouldn't ever tell corporate secrets I knew, but IMO we should move towards a world in which openness is expected.
| | | | | Who would kill a child? | Jul 24, 2014 |
Mark Dobson wrote:
As I say, I see it as an intellectual tendency; I'd prefer it if people were more confident about asserting that some things are worth more than others (e.g. human life vs. confidentiality).
This whole matter reminds me of the typical beer-in-the-hand dilemma on whether one would, if by chance went back in time, kill one of the children who later became the dictators who killed in the millions in the 20th century. In most religions, killing is strictly forbiddeen, so should a Christian, for instance, kill a child if this would keep this child from becoming a bloodthirsty ruler? Luckily we shall never have to face this decision, so let's have our beers in peace.
Certainly life and human rights should have the maximum priority for every human being, but I doubt the translator discussed in this topic was confronting a bloodthirsty killer, but instead a car manufacturer whose intention is not to obliterate races, kill his political adversaries, and conquer the world, but to increase their market share a bit.
[Edited at 2014-07-24 06:02 GMT]
| | | | | Secrecy is part of development | Jul 24, 2014 |
Phil Hand wrote:
But I detest this culture of secrecy. There are some arguments to be made for personal privacy, and I can see why we should respect that. But corporations are not people, and they don't deserve to have secrets. I wouldn't ever tell corporate secrets I knew, but IMO we should move towards a world in which openness is expected.
I do not understand this position: aren't corporations but groups of people who join forces towards a business end? If you can have secrets as a person, why should you be deprived of that right if you join other people for a common purpose?
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Phil Hand
China
Local time: 22:14
Chinese to English
| We have IPR protections; secrecy harms society | Jul 24, 2014 |
Tomás Cano Binder, CT wrote: Phil Hand wrote:
But I detest this culture of secrecy. There are some arguments to be made for personal privacy, and I can see why we should respect that. But corporations are not people, and they don't deserve to have secrets. I wouldn't ever tell corporate secrets I knew, but IMO we should move towards a world in which openness is expected. I do not understand this position: aren't corporations but groups of people who join forces towards a business end? If you can have secrets as a person, why should you be deprived of that right if you join other people for a common purpose?
Tomas, it's a bit of a judgment call, you're right. But it is my view that when companies don't want others to steal their ideas - for product development, perhaps - IPR law could protect them most of the time. And secrecy has a serious downside, because a lot of corporate profits these days come directly from under-informed consumers. These days the primary purpose of advertising is not to inform, but to obfuscate and arouse. I just can't see many benefits that we would lose by denying corporations some rights. But that's not really relevant to this case, because in this world, corporations do have those rights.
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Tomás Cano Binder, CT wrote:
Certainly life and human rights should have the maximum priority for every human being, but I doubt the translator discussed in this topic was confronting a bloodthirsty killer, but instead a car manufacturer whose intention is not to obliterate races, kill his political adversaries, and conquer the world, but to increase their market share a bit.
[Edited at 2014-07-24 06:02 GMT]
But if shortcuts are taken or defects are hidden to increase that market share, and those actions directly lead to deaths, who is responsible? I'm not saying that Toyota knew about the defects. But how would you ever know for sure unless someone leaked inside information?
It is all a matter of degree, I guess. But then, the translator in this article didn't hunt down and assassinate Toyota executives or engineers. She simply released some documents to the public. So while it may tank her translation career, it's a personal judgement call as to whether her actions were justified. Not to mention, she may make enough from the proceeds of a book about this whole affair to be financially set for a while. But that's neither here nor there.
Anyways, we live in the age of Edward Snowden. You can probably expect a lot more of this sort of thing in the coming years.
| | | | Samuel Murray
Netherlands
Local time: 16:14
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
| It takes courage to make the right decision | Jul 24, 2014 |
After reading about Betsy's journey on several web sites, I must say that I admire her for having had the courage to do what she believed to be the right thing to do.
She did not choose to whistle-blow lightly. She make her decision after months of research, after consuling an ethics expert, and only after hiring a law firm who gave her legal advice and can help her with subsequent legal issues.
I don't think that there is never a point at which moral values override a... See more After reading about Betsy's journey on several web sites, I must say that I admire her for having had the courage to do what she believed to be the right thing to do.
She did not choose to whistle-blow lightly. She make her decision after months of research, after consuling an ethics expert, and only after hiring a law firm who gave her legal advice and can help her with subsequent legal issues.
I don't think that there is never a point at which moral values override any written contract, and Betsy believed that that is where she was in her case. It is difficult to determine what that point is. I'm not really sure I agree with Betsy about whether the information in her possession had crossed that line, but one must admire her courage to do what she believes is right.
That said, in my limited opinion, I'm not sure if Betsy's revelations will save more lives. She exposes them for covering up something, but all companies will try to hide errors that they had made, and I personally don't think that that is immoral by itself.
It is unfortunately so that the liability "industry" in the United States makes the admission of liability such a bad business decision that businesses have little choice but to approach dealing with its mistakes with an aggressive stance, even if that may seem unfair to victims.
In most cultures, when a company makes mistakes, their public relations department will act with gusto. The people in the public relations department may or may not feel ashamed of what their company did, but their job is to put out fires, and I can't fault a public relations department senior person for taking pride in managing to do that, or for talking about the process as a strategist.
One of the news reports about Betsy's whistle-blowing implies that she decided to blow the whistle after witnessing a non-remorseful attitude of the public relations personnel tasked with cleaning up the mess. I understand that one feel offended by the attitudes of those people, but they are explicable, and I don't think that that would be reason enough to blow a whistle.
Does translator confidentiality override country laws? No. If the country's laws require you to report illegal activity that you are aware of, and you become aware of illegal activity in the course of your translation work, then your country's laws override the client's right to confidentiality. However, Toyota was not breaking the law in Israel (where Betsy lives), so this point does not apply to her situation. And even if it did, she did not report it to the police but to the press.
Is translator confidentiality absolute? No, but it is very nearly absolute. The translator must give his client a massive amount of benefit of the doubt before even considering that moral values might come into play. Clearly Betsy thought that she had reached that point (though we may disagree with her analysis), and we should admire her for her courage. ▲ Collapse
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