Is the Principal Cause of Ethical Misconduct Within Us?

I'm reading an excellent novel right now:  <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=AsFLaG69M-wC&pg=PA382&dq=quiet+chaos&h…; target="”_blank”"><i>Quiet
Chaos</i></a> by Sandro Veronesi, translated from the Italian by
Michael F. Moore (Ecco, 2004, 2011).<br>
<br>
The narrator has just learned that his boss stole money from the
company they worked for. He was very close to his boss, and saw
nothing in him that would lead him to believe he could steal. He
wonders whether the boss had had a predisposition to steal. He
wonders where the boss's "dishonesty was when he was still honest?"<br>
<br>
His boss's boss tells him, "It wasn't there. That's the answer. <i>It
wasn't there.</i><br>
<br>
"You see, at college I majored in physics. And I remember
learning that an atom, passing from one state to another, emits a
particle of light called a photon. I especially remember the
question they asked me at the exam: they asked me, where does a
photon come from? How does it manage to appear? Where was it before?
… I, who had not thought about it, said something foolish: I said
that the photon is already inside the atom. So it was explained to
me that no, the photon wasn't inside the atom at all. The photon
appears the same moment as the electron's transition, and it appears
precisely <i>because of</i> that transition. Do you see? It's a
simple concept: <i>the sounds that my voice is producing in this
moment are not found inside of me.</i> That's how I've managed to
reconcile myself to Jean-Claude's dishonesty without having to erase
thirty years of my life: the actions he committed in the past two
years did not come from inside of him. Like the photons, they
appeared at a very distinct moment, due to very distinct causes."<br>
<br>

In government ethics situations, a lot of people's energy is wasted
trying to determine how "corrupt" the actors are, what sort of
"character" they have, how much the cause of their misconduct was already within them. There is no doubt that people get corrupted,
and that those with power are more likely to become corrupted. But
if this is true, the best approach is not calling them "corrupt" or
"bad," but rather establishing procedures that seek to prevent that
corruption and to prevent misconduct that might accompany that
corruption.<br>
<br>
Punishment is one approach, but it is not the most important or effective
approach. Much more misconduct can be prevented, for example, by a
rule that requires withdrawal from participation in matters for a
variety of reasons, combined with a process that provides for the
reading of a list of all individuals and entities involved in a
matter that arises and a statement that anyone with a
relationship to any one of these individuals or entities should declare it and either withdraw or discuss
the conflict situation, and one's handling of it, openly with the others at the meeting.<br>
<br>
And yet while enforcement of ethics laws is common, procedures like
the one described above are not. This is because we believe that
others' misconduct is something that comes from inside of them, that
is lurking there all along waiting to come out. Of course, we also
believe that there is no misconduct lurking inside of us. And on
this basis, we decide how to deal with ethical misconduct.<br>
<br>
The especially sad thing about this is that it doesn't even matter whether
someone who deals irresponsibly with a conflict situation is corrupt
or not. As long as that individual is trained to recognize conflict
situations, and has someone to go to for advice on how to deal with
them, there are only two things that matter:  (1) the
misconduct itself and (2) what caused the "transition," that is,
what forces in the official's environment might have led the
official to act the way he did.<br>
<br>
There are many cases, as with the boss in the novel, where the cause
of the "transition" was external to the environment (in this case, a
romantic relationship). In government ethics, such external causes
include family and business pressures.<br>
<br>
But there are also many cases where the cause of the "transition" is
in the government's ethics environment, where there are pressures to
do what others do, pressures to raise money to get re-elected, and
fears of ostracism or retaliation if one reports misconduct or even says that a colleague might have a conflict situation.<br>
<br>
And sometimes, yes, an official has been so corrupted by power that
the cause of the "transition" is within, and external causes are no
longer necessary to produce misconduct. That's why government ethics programs are so
important. An effective program can do a lot to both prevent such
corruption and to change a government's ethics environment so that
the pressures on officials are less. The goal is an environment
where the pressures are pushing the other way, toward responsible
handling of conflict situations and the encouragement of reporting
of misconduct.<br>
<br>
In a good ethics environment, people tend to argue that no ethics
program is necessary. But it is rare that such an environment lacks
an ethics program. It's just that the ethics program is as informal
as the harmful unwritten practices in an unhealthy ethics
environment. But such informal practices can change under different
leadership. It is safer to formalize informal practices that are
working.<br>
<br>
Robert Wechsler<br>
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics<br>
<br>
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