Conflicts

Many people believe that conflicts of interest are in and of themselves bad, and that government ethics laws should prevent those with conflicts of interest from becoming public servants. Many people believe that government ethics is about being good or bad. When the two come together in one person and one speech, the result can be fireworks.

People who have misconceptions about government ethics also tend not to be able to distinguish between different sorts of conflict situation...

A settlement in a Massachusetts ethics proceeding can be used as an educational opportunity in several ways.

According to a February 28 press release from the Massachusetts Ethics Commission, which has jurisdiction over local...

Police Officer Side Businesses and Revenue Distinctions
There's an interesting article in yesterday's New Pittsburgh Courier about Pittsburgh police officer side businesses and the sorts of problem they create. One of the problems derives from a false distinction between different sorts of revenue.
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There's a lot of food for thought in the February 21 decision of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania in the case Lodge No. 5 of the Fraternal Order of Police v. City of Philadelphia.

The suit was brought in order to end the prohibition on police officers making campaign contributions to local candidates directly or through a party or PAC, including the...

In ethics, there are two basic approaches: (1) an ends-based approach, also referred to as utilitarian or consequentialist; and (2) a means-based approach, also referred to as rules-based or deontological. Government officials, and most people when speaking about government, generally use the former, while government ethics uses the latter. This causes a lot of problems.

Therefore, it is very heartening to see an academic taking a critical look at ends-based approaches to solving a...

People (including government officials) usually talk about conflict situations as if they involved the public (represented by do-good ethics types) trying to get public servants (who are represented as corrupt) to sacrifice either their family, friends, or business opportunities or their duty to do their jobs as representatives or officials.

This is sad, because this leads people to ignore the other side to conflict situations:  the effect living and dealing responsibly with...