Book Reviews

To commemorate the death of Václav Havel, here are some quotations from his work that are relevant to government ethics: "The prerequisite for everything political is moral. Politics really should be ethics put into practice." “Even a purely moral act that has no hope of any immediate and visible p…

Henry Adams' 1880 novel Democracy is a must-read for those interested in government ethics. It's also a first-rate novel, full of wit, excellent writing, and a good portrayal of post-Civil War Washington. It's available free from Project Gutenberg, in six e-book formats. The climax of the novel is …

This fourth blog post on Philip Zimbardo's book The Lucifer Effect is a miscellany of various ideas in the book that have relevance to local government ethics. An Ethics Commission With Lips Zimbardo raises an interesting thought experiment. What if there were a reverse Milgram authority experiment…

This third blog post on Philip Zimbardo's book The Lucifer Effect looks at some ways to deal with situational forces. Recognizing Our Limitations One of the college students who played a guard in the Stanford Prison Experiment said later, "I was actually beginning to feel like a guard and had reall…

This second blog post on Philip Zimbardo's book The Lucifer Effect applies the situational approach to government ethics programs, and looks at the situational forces at play with respect to ethical misconduct. The Situational Approach It is in the interests of those who are responsible for the pre…

A year and a half ago, I wrote a blog post about a 2007 book by Philip Zimbardo, entitled The Lucifer Effect. I had read about Zimbardo's book in another book, Susan Neiman's Moral Clarity. I finally got around to reading The Lucifer Effect, and I highly recommend it, despite its length and the sma…

The participation of professionals in local government has become problematic, according to the authors of Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life. Professional standards used to be ethics-oriented, but they have become predominately technical. "Being good becomes a matte…

Trust in government is a requirement for participation in government, what the authors of Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life refer to as "civic membership." This is strongest at the local level, where we are most likely to get involved in person rather than through p…