Book Reviews

Laura Hartman and Crina Archer's essay "<a href="http://works.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1038&context=laura…; target="”_blank”">False
Beliefs, Partial Truths: Personal Myths and Ethical Blind Spots</a>"
(January 2012) provides a valuable new view on how our blind
spots hamper our handling of ethical matters.<br>
<br>
<b>Double Blindness</b><br>

Self-justification is an important element in ethical misconduct,
cover-ups, and officials' public denials and explanations of conduct. It aids and abets our blind spots. It is a
sign of weakness, anxiety, and fear more than of poor character<br>
<br>
Self-justification is something each of us engages in. Sometimes we fight
it, sometimes we effectively compromise with it, and sometimes we give in to it.
The one thing most of us rarely do is think or talk openly about
it.<br>
<br>

"The deep problem with the system was a kind of moral inertia. So
long as it served the narrow self-interests of everyone inside it,
no one on the inside would ever seek to change it, no matter how
corrupt or sinister it became — though even to use words like
'corrupt' or 'sinister' made serious people uncomfortable, so
Katsuyama avoided them. Maybe his biggest concern, when he spoke to
city residents, was that he be seen as just another nut with a
conspiracy theory."<br>
<br>

The draft of Fordham Law professor Zephyr Teachout's new essay, "<a href="http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2383317&quot; target="”_blank”">The
Forgotten Law of Lobbying</a>," which will appear in <i>Election Law
Journal</i>, looks at the history of how American courts have viewed
lobbying. This history provides a valuable perspective on lobbying,

I've been writing a lot about government ethics and behavioral
psychology over the last few years. I consider some of the findings
of behavioral psychology, especially about blind spots, essential to
understanding what leads to ethical misconduct and, therefore,
essential to ethics training, ethics advice, and ethics enforcement.
But behavioral psychology has not yet been embraced by American
government ethics programs, at least as far as I have seen.<br>
<br>

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>

<b>The Privatization of Economic Development</b><br>

I recently read the latest, third edition of <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=UYhDA4h43sIC&printsec=frontcover&sourc…; target="”_blank”"><i>The
Ethics Challenge in Public Service: A Problem-Solving Guide</i></a> by
Carol W. Lewis and Stuart C. Gilman (Jossey-Bass, 2012). This is the
second most popular text used in Public Sector Ethics courses,

This is the third of three posts on how Richard W. Painter's recommendations for federal ethics reform in his book, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Getting-Government-America-Deserves-Difference/dp…; target="”_blank”"><i>Getting
the Government America Deserves: How Ethics Reform Can Make a
Difference</i></a> (Oxford U.P., 2009), may be applied to local government ethics programs.<br>
<br>

Two weeks ago, <a href="http://www.bettergov.org/action_policy/bgaalper_services_integrity_inde…; target="”_blank”">the
Better Government Association-Alper Services Integrity Index</a> was published, the first
since 2008. It grades each state's conflicts of interest, freedom of
information, open meetings, and whistleblower-protection laws.<br>
<br>