The sidewalks were filthy to Randy Cohen before New York City passed a law requiring people to pick up after their dogs about 30 years ago. After the law passed, Cohen said the majority of people followed it, even though it was not enforced.

‘It utterly changed the way we behave,’ said Cohen, a columnist for The New York Times Magazine. ‘There should be a monument for this law, although it would probably be disgusting.’

Cohen spoke Tuesday evening as a part of the University Lectures series in Hendricks Chapel about how changing the ethics of public policy can change the behavior of a community.

Cohen described two subtopics when dealing with ethics: ‘What is the right thing to do?’ and ‘How do we get people to do it?’

Cohen said most people generally agree it is wrong to lie, cheat and steal. But he asked if people follow these moral rules on a daily basis.

‘I am not hired to personify a virtue, but to analyze it,’ he said after explaining he does not have a degree in ethics.

Cohen said he thinks he was hired to write his column, The Ethicist, because of his humorous take on the subject. He is the winner of five Emmy Awards, three of which are for his humorous writing for ‘Late Night with David Letterman.’

‘If we want to change people’s behavior, the best way to do it is to address ourselves to questions of character as a community,’ Cohen said.

To prove this, Cohen gave multiple examples of how rules and regulations affect how the community responds to different situations, such as the law that required New Yorkers to pick up after their dogs.

At the end of Cohen’s speech, the floor was open for questions. One audience member said polls show, time and time again, the majority of the public hates negative political ads, and he asked Cohen why politicians keep running new ads if they produce such negative results.

Cohen said polls are known to be inaccurate because people believe what’s out there, regardless of what the truth may be.

‘People say they don’t like political ads, but they in fact respond to them,’ Cohen said. ‘It’s a lack of self-knowledge on the part of the responder.’

If there was a poll asking whether people kicked their dogs, everyone would of course say ‘no,’ but that is not necessarily the truth, Cohen said.

‘Character has to be consistent, or it doesn’t mean anything,’ he said.

Nikki Horgen, a freshman public relations major, said the speech was a fun way to look at ethics.

‘I thought he used humor in a good way and intertwined it well with the message,’ Horgen said.

Horgen said she agreed with Cohen that people are not as prone to do the right thing when in a group setting. She said it is hard for one person to stand up and do the right thing when there are so many people around doing another thing, even in everyday situations, such as answering a question in class.

Lauren Teng, a freshman magazine major, said sometimes there are so many people choosing one thing that they do not even realize there is another option. Although she has not read Cohen’s column before, she said she will now.

‘I loved when he said ‘There’s no certification to become an ethicist,” she said. ‘He was very honest in the fact that he was chosen for his entertainment value, not necessarily because of his experience with the subject.’

Teng summed up Cohen’s message as to analyze oneself as ‘outside inside oversight.’

She said: ‘You have to have the eagle eye on yourself at all times.’

Klross01@syr.edu

Published on October 19, 2010 at 12:00 pm

Contact Kristin: klross01@syr.edu | @kriskross22