Resources & Learning

Not one of the recent books in my ethics library cites Jane Jacobs’ 1993 work, Systems of Survival: A Dialogue on the Moral Foundations of Commerce and Politics. The citations I found on-line do not include any about government ethics. This is a big loss for the government ethics community, because…

Gaining and retaining the public's trust in government is the principal reason given for passing ethics codes. But there is little talk beyond this about the concept of trust. I just read a book called The Moral Foundations of Trust by Eric M. Uslaner (Cambridge University Press, 2002). This book's…

At first glance, these two logical fallacies don't seem to have much to do with each other. When you beg the question, you assume something has been established or proved, according to my trusty dictionary. The way a logician would define the begging the question fallacy is that the premises includ…

One great advantage of handling local government ethics matters at the state level is that decisions and advisory opinions can be easily and widely disseminated to all local governments in the state. This sort of publicity is good for several reasons. One, it provides precedents and guidance to loc…

When an official makes an Ad Hominem attack, everyone realizes there is an attack. And when an official makes an Ad Populum defense, everyone realizes that there is a defense. But when an official sets up a Straw Man, the situation isn't so clear. It's not an attack or a defense, but a response to …

There is so much valuable material in Terry L. Cooper's book The Responsible Administrator: An Approach to Ethics for the Administrative Role (1998) that it's difficult to sum up in a review. So instead I will look at some of its most important points in a few separate blog entries. Responsibility …

Rushworth Kidder's 2005 book Moral Courage is something all municipal officials should read. It's not only a good introduction to ethics, but it focuses on the quality that is most important to create and maintain an ethical environment in any organization, and especially in governments. But since …

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 time 1. Man for All Seasons Paul Scofield brilliantly plays Thomas More who stands up for his principals against the ultimate difficult boss, King Henry VIIII. In the end, h…

One of the most serious obstacles to ethics training is cynicism. For example, a councilman in South Lake Tahoe, California said, according to a recent article in the Tahoe Daily Tribune, that the California requirement of ethics training for all municipal officials is an indication of a breakdown …

When the United States was founded, it was not power or wealth or religious diversity that the Founding Fathers felt differentiated Americans from others, allowing them to found a republic, but public virtue. A recent New York Review of Books essay by historian Edmund S. Morgan argued this convinci…