Tolerance of Intellectual Dishonesty

In the November 5 issue of the New York Times Book Review, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/05/books/review/Kinsley.t.html?ex=116434… Kinsley wrote</a>, "The biggest flaw in our democracy is ... the enormous tolerance for intellectual dishonesty. Politicians are held to account for outright lies, but there seems to be no sanction against saying things you obviously don't believe. ... Yet one minor exercise in disingenuousness can easily have a greater impact on an election than any number of crooked voting machines."

Nowhere does intellectual dishonesty have a greater effect than in dealing with conflict of interest issues. Excuses and justifications abound whenever the issue comes up.

Probably the most popular of all is, "What I did was ethical because it's not covered by the Code of Ethics." Everyone who says this knows that a Code of Ethics covers a limited number of ethical matters. Excusing one's conduct in this manner is almost an admission that one is unethical.

And yet, because of the tolerance for intellectual dishonesty, almost everyone gets away with it. When was the last time you read a newspaper article that followed such a line with the truth? Or heard another politician or administrator respond with the truth? A young reporter may not know better, but every politician and administrator in the room does know. How many of them are thinking that they might need to use the same line in the future?

It is not just politicians who depend on our tolerance for intellectual dishonesty. Ethics professionals do, as well. They often say that 99% of municipal officials and employees act ethically. This simply isn't true.

Every day municipal officials and employees confront situations where conflicting loyalties are tested. In cities and towns where loyalty to the people who run the town is effectively the administration's ethic (organizational loyalty is often seen as akin to familial loyalty), even the most ethical people have to favor loyalty to the administration (no matter how unethical its leaders' conduct) over loyalty to the public they are supposed to be working for. The only other choice is to give up their job and their pension. It is very difficult to think and act independently.

To say that 99% of municipal officials and employees act ethically is to ignore organizational realities, which are more important to ethical conduct than any other factor. Municipal ethics is not about rotten apples, but about rotten baskets. And far more than 1% of our nation's municipalities are rotten.

Please share some of the intellectually dishonest, disingenuous statements you feel are regularly made and accepted.

Robert Wechsler
Director of Research-Retired
City Ethics, Inc.