Resources & Learning

We have been batting this around for a while, and have come up with the following list:The Top Ten BEST ETHICS Movies of all time1. Man for All SeasonsPaul Scofield brilliantly plays Thomas More who stands up for his principals against the ultimate difficult boss, King Henry VIIII. In the end, he d…

I just watched this 6.5 Minute TED Talk that pulls apart all the reasons that we become "disengaged" in the political process.I think he has hit the nail on the head - he left me feeling a faint ray of hope - that we can use our power as voters to push for reforms of all of his points.Please watch …

At last, I have put up online a final version of what has turned out to be a separate book, The Regulation of Local Lobbying. This free 342-page resource has three parts. The first part explains what local lobbying is, how it differs from lobbying at the state and, especially, the federal levels, a…

I was fortunate today to see an American film focused almost entirely on local government ethics. Although it is an excellent film, it has not been included in City Ethics' (but not my) Top Ten Ethics Films list or in any of the comments suggesting additions. The film is City of Hope (1991), writte…

Lee Drutman’s The Business of America is Lobbying: How Corporations Became Politicized and Politics Became More Corporate (2015) is an excellent book about corporate lobbying at the federal level. Drutman is especially good on the reasons for the growth of this lobbying, particularly the reasons wh…

Last week, Edward B. Foley, who directs Election Law @ Moritz, Ohio State's law school, put online the draft of a paper entitled "Voters as Fiduciaries." The paper makes the argument that voters should not be voting their personal interests, but should instead be expressing their best judgment of w…

       WELCOME !!!This webpage is the result of my 2 year affiliation (2013-5) with the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard. I was fortunate to participate as a Network Fellow in Larry Lessig's "Lab" on Institutional Corruption (IC). My goal in creating this webpage was to curate and summa…

Robert Prentice, McCombs School of Business, University of Texas at Austin(Robert has developed an excellent website for teaching ethics: 3 series and 44 videos, including teaching notes. One of the best ethics educational resources in the country.)                An important portion of the future…

Please click on the link below for the course document in Word (docx) format. Course Materials: The Purpose of Government Ethics

Ethical Reasoning: Institutional Corruption was a course held from January 28, 2014 through May 26, 2014 at Harvard College.  It was taught by Lawrence Lessig (Law School) and William E. English.  The course consisted of 26 lectures and accompanying materials. Course description:  Institutions make…