Ethics Environments

Last September, I wrote a blog post about an ethics initiative in Palm Beach County, Florida. A response to numerous scandals, it featured an ethics pledge, primarily for government officials, and a successful attempt to get an independent ethics commission and inspector general for the county government. I felt that the business leaders in Palm Beach County who led the...

It would be easy to say that politics is a team sport, like football, while ethics is an individual sport, like tennis. But this simply isn't true. Both ethical behavior and unethical behavior can be done as a team.

Pennsylvanians have, for some time, been entertained with a scandal called Bonusgate, which involves state legislative staff not only being used for campaigns, but getting bonuses, which makes a common practice appear even uglier. The ugliness has recently increased in intensity:  defense counsel for two of the legislators is accusing the attorney general (who instituted the criminal actions) of doing the very same thing, without the bonuses. And the attorney general, of a different political...

This is the third in a series of blog posts inspired by reading Susan Neiman's book Moral Clarity: A Guide for Grown-Up Idealists (Princeton, 2008). One of her topics is how an individual’s organizational environment can greatly affect his or her conduct. Her goal is not to excuse misconduct, but to explain it and to...

Ethics charges are often not the end, but rather the beginning of a process to improve government ethics. Take a recent instance in Los Angeles.

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? In English: Who will guard the guardians? This is a question many people ask about ethics commissions. But the question I would like to raise is, Is this the right question to ask?