Book Reviews

In the October 28 issue of the New York Review of Books, there is an essay by the excellent South African novelist J. M.

Meredith McGehee wrote a thought-provoking Campaign Legal Center blog post yesterday about the upside of election time ethics attacks on opponents.

"Current political thinking generally laments this development, arguing that it cheapens the process and puts all politicians in a bad light." But she sees it as a good development. I don't agree.

Does the Prospect of Attacks Cause Politicians to Better Police Themselves?

Two years ago, I wrote a blog post about a book by Lewis Hyde entitled The Gift, which had a lot to say, philosophically, about gift-giving and -receiving, an issue of relevance to government ethics.

In order to develop their identities, and cement the loyalties of their members, organizations tend to contrast themselves with other organizations, and with those they deal with, whether they are clients, customers, or citizens. Bailey wrote, “If contact with outsiders is experienced as painful and involves rejection, organizational solidarity is likely to be enhanced." In other words, in the local government context, seeing citizens as irritants creates solidarity.

One of the problems in talking about conflicts of interest is that we tend to assume that people with conflicts analyze their situations before acting. We think that, for example, they balance acting in their personal interest, or in the interest of a family member or business associate, against the consequences of getting caught. Or we think that the principal ethical considerations they bring to bear on their situation arise from their local code of ethics or their spiritual or philosophical beliefs.

Bailey has a word for putting the organization ahead of the individual:  holism (as opposed to individualism). What complicates this concept in government is that there are two wholes, the organization itself and the community it works for. One of the things that most determines a local government's ethical environment is which of the two wholes an official or employee is most supposed to put above his or her personal interest.

This is a follow-up to yesterday's blog post on ethics fines. This week, I've been reading Karen Pryor's bible on positive training, Don't Shoot the Dog: The New Art of Teaching and Training (Bantam, 1999).

I'm reading the book to get ideas for training the puppy I will soon be getting. Positive training is a more humane and, supposedly, more effective approach than traditional obedience training.

This is the eighth and last in a series of blog posts inspired by reading Susan Neiman’s book Moral Clarity: A Guide for Grown-Up Idealists (Princeton, 2008), which is itself inspired by the moral philosophy of Immanuel Kant. What’s wonderful about Kant’s approach to ethics is that it not only focuses on the role of reason. It also shows how ethics allows us to transcend our ordinary limitations.

This is the seventh in a series of blog posts inspired by reading Susan Neiman’s book Moral Clarity: A Guide for Grown-Up Idealists (Princeton, 2008). Neiman’s discussion of Daniel Ellsberg, the government official who let us know about the Pentagon Papers, shows the effect that access to confidential information has on government officials. It’s very similar to the effect of power.

In my first blog post relating to Susan Neiman’s book Moral Clarity: A Guide for Grown-Up Idealists (Princeton, 2008), I referred to Immanuel Kant’s “categorical imperative.” It’s time to say a little more about it.