Book Reviews

In <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/node/1087&quot; target="”_blank”">my first blog post</a> relating to Susan Neiman’s book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Moral-Clarity-Grown-Up-Idealists-Revised/dp/06911…; target="”_blank”"><i>Moral
Clarity:
A

This is the fourth in a series of blog posts
inspired by reading Susan Neiman's book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Moral-Clarity-Grown-Up-Idealists-Revised/dp/06911…; target="”_blank”"><i>Moral
Clarity:
A
Guide for Grown-Up Idealists</i></a> (Princeton, 2008). <br>
<br>
One problem Americans have with respect to

This is the third in a series of blog posts inspired by reading Susan Neiman's book <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Moral-Clarity-Grown-Up-Idealists-Revised/dp/06911…; target="”_blank”">Moral
Clarity:
A
Guide for Grown-Up Idealists</a></i> (Princeton, 2008). One of her topics is how an

This is the second in a series of blog posts inspired by reading Susan
Neiman’s book <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Moral-Clarity-Grown-Up-Idealists-Revised/dp/06911…; target="”_blank”">Moral
Clarity:
A
Guide for Grown-Up Idealists</a></i> (Princeton, 2008).<br>
<br>
A controversial aspect of government ethics involves intentions or

I recently read Susan Neiman’s book <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Moral-Clarity-Grown-Up-Idealists-Revised/dp/06911…; target="”_blank”">Moral
Clarity:
A
Guide for Grown-Up Idealists</a></i> (Princeton, 2008) and found a lot
there
of value to government ethics, even though government ethics doesn’t
generally involve the

It is a truism of government ethics that a sense of entitlement is an
important cause of unethical conduct. People who feel entitled to the
power they wield feel they have the right to deviate from ethical norms
in ways others do not (see <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/node/100&quot; target="”_blank”">my blog post</a> on this
topic). Now there is research that supports this view.<br>
<br>

End runs around ethics and campaign finance laws are one of my favorite
topics to write about. A sizeable percentage of the creative energies of
government officials and their attorneys seems to go into coming up
with ways of getting around these laws. And then arguing that such laws are
of little value since you can't plug loopholes as fast as they can invent
them.<br>
<br>
The <a href="http://www.cgs.org/&quot; target="”_blank”">Center for Governmental

Reading Garry Wills' <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Necessary-Evil-American-Distrust-Government/dp/06…; target="”_blank”">A
Necessary
Evil</a>: A History of American Distrust of Government</i> (1999)
made
me think about how anti- and pro-government feelings jive with views on
government ethics.<br>
<br>

A chapter in Jonah Lehrer's new book, <span><a href="http://www.amazon.com/How-We-Decide-Jonah-Lehrer/dp/0618620117/&quot; target="”_blank”">How
We Decide</a>,</span> sheds some interesting light on ethical
decision-making. The book shares the latest discoveries neuroscientists
have made using hightech views of the brain at work, especially when it
is making various sorts of decisions.<br>
<br>

I recently read a fascinating classic study by Albert O. Hirschman (Institute of Advanced Study)
called <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Shifting-Involvements-Interest-Historical-Economi…; target="”_blank”"><span>Shifting Involvements: Private Interest
and Public Action</span></a> (1982). This book focuses on the various