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Newsday - Long Island, NY, USA
26 February 2006

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EDITORIAL:Are they honest? Zap

If only we had a meter to rate people on ethics, we could fight corruption; meanwhile we do have other ways to test for integrity

BY RUSHWORTH M. KIDDER
Rushworth M. Kidder is president of the Institute for Global Ethics. His latest book

February 26, 2006

Pity the poor souls of Nassau and Suffolk counties. Ethics scandals are oozing up all around them. They need my next invention, the Ethimeter.

Ethimeters work like the radar guns used by the police. You aim them at your targets - fleeing school officials, fast-talking town council candidates - and pull the trigger. If the needle slams all the way over, you're looking at a person of great integrity. If it barely rises, you're seeing industrial-strength dishonesty.

How would that help? Well, look at the local landscape: guilty pleas by two William Floyd school district officials on charges of stealing from the public till; the arraignment of two others for allegedly faking credentials to hire one's daughter-in-law; and a blowup over whether the Town of Islip Ethics Board is impartial enough to investigate alleged improprieties by a town councilman. And that's just this month.

Earlier, the slime seeped into Roslyn, where school officials have been charged in a $11.2 million embezzlement scheme, and into Hempstead, where a consultant has been indicted on charges of bribing a school board member.

Last November, to stem the sludge, a Suffolk grand jury ordered each of the county's 70 school districts to turn over cartons of documents detailing just about every aspect of school operations for the past four years. That's good, insofar as a powerful legal fire hose is needed to flush out this much muck. But it's bad if legal fees cost districts even more dollars that should have gone to educating kids.

In such situations, tough legal action may seem to be the only remedy - and it does bring to justice the wrongdoers du jour. But what's missing from this solution is a long-term sense of ethics.

That can be a puzzling word, as Islip is learning. One of the nicest definitions was penned by a British parliamentarian in 1924, who described ethics as "obedience to the unenforceable." Lord Moulton was distinguishing between the domain of law, which "inexorably determines our course of action," and the domain of ethics, which entails "the obedience of a man to that which he cannot be forced to obey" and where he is "the enforcer of the law upon himself."

From the grand jury's point of view, what's going on in Nassau and Suffolk counties requires more than self-enforcement. When things get this far out of hand, what's needed are courts and convictions, penalties and punishments.

The downside is that, when county, state or federal officers sweep into town, parents with children in these districts, and townspeople who simply want local government to work well, feel increasingly powerless over their own locale. Is this really democracy? they ask. Does my voice count? How can I make a difference?

Let me insist on the obvious, which is that in a democracy you make a difference with your vote. You reduce the opportunity for scandal to take root by putting people of integrity into office. The hard part is identifying such people. That's where Ethimeters come in.

Don't worry that they haven't yet been invented. There are already some good ethics measures you can use as you look for citizens to serve in public office. Here are six simple scales:

Ego versus public service. If life is all about self, there's hardly any room for ethics. Some candidates are running because they love other people and want to build better communities. Others are running because they love themselves and want to build better fortunes. Look for the former.

Moral neutrality versus shared values. It's been well said that if you're too open-minded, your brains will fall out. Values-neutral candidates may look appealing because they don't offend. They'll even tell you that in this multicultural world you can't really teach values, because whose values would you teach? In fact, our research at the Institute for Global Ethics tells us that five ethical values are so widely shared that they show up in every culture: honesty, responsibility, respect, fairness and compassion. Look for candidates who believe shared values exist and that they matter.

Hypocrisy versus transparency. The most dangerous threat to values is not from competing values but from their counterfeits. Hypocrisy is a brilliant forger. It hasn't got a shred of interest in, say, the value of responsibility. But it's smart enough not to appear irresponsible. So it wraps itself in a wily cloak of earnest dutifulness and righteous fault-finding - while acting with a self-centered, reckless unconcern for rightness. Look for transparency, which shows up as an alignment of speech and action that has nothing to hide.

Cynicism versus trustfulness. Cynics are lots of fun: They can skewer their opponents with a sharp-edged phrase and turn serious motives into farcical charades. At bottom, however, cynicism is a sneering dismissal of good - a contemptuous conviction that goodness doesn't really exist, so why even bother to imagine it? Integrity, by contrast, trusts that goodness can be achieved if we work at it. Look for candidates who trust in good.

Rationalizing versus reasoning. Good legislators make good laws; bad ones make excuses. Leading a life of integrity and ethics isn't easy. It takes deep thought and a willingness to argue forcefully for right. Sometimes the reasoning can miss the mark and even offend. But that's better than no logic at all. Beware of those who merely toss up explanations for failure or resort to blaming.

Chutzpah versus moral courage. Moral courage, translated into our five values, means the courage to be honest, responsible, respectful, fair and compassionate. Courage is always a balancing act, however, between timidity and cowardice on one side, and chutzpah and bravado on the other. Look for candidates with the courage of clear principles, sober awareness of risk and a capacity to move forward despite fear, ambiguity and unpopularity.

You can't take an Ethimeter into a polling booth. But you can take these tests into every campaign. They won't tell you everything you need to know about a candidate: You're also looking for experience, social skills, political prowess, and skills in finance and management.

But when sludge is on the rise, ethics trumps everything else. Elect citizens of integrity to top posts, and law doesn't need to be so dominant. When that happens, corruption has fewer places to hide and begins to self-destruct - a principle that's as true in Islip and Hempstead as in Albany and Washington.

Words, the clues to their essence

How can we tell who's likely to be ethical in public life? Think of the categories that count, and listen to what he or she says. As in the following examples:

Ego or public service? If convicted former lobbyist Jack Abramoff were a candidate, the Ethimeter would need only his gleeful comment to his partner from 2001, about a pending lobbying deal with an American Indian tribe - "Can you smell money?!?!?!" - to put him deep into the red zone

Moral neutrality or shared values? "The hottest places in hell," John F. Kennedy quoted Dante as saying in 1963, "are reserved for those who in a period of moral crisis maintain their neutrality." High in the green zone for Dante and JFK.

Hypocrisy or transparency? The Ethimeter would have given a high reading to

Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Barbara W. Tuchman.

"I do not invent anything, even the weather," she said. "Leaving things out because they do not fit is writing fiction, not history."

Cynicism or trustfulness? When financier Ivan F. Boesky famously opined in 1986, "Greed is all right, by the way ... I think greed is healthy. You can be greedy and still feel good about

yourself," cynics were

delighted. But would you trust him as your mayor? Red zone.

Rationalizing or reasoning? Point the Ethimeter at James Frey, the now-discredited author of "A Million Little Pieces," and it picks up all kinds of rationalizing.

Frey now calls his book, which purports to be a factual memoir, "a subjective truth, altered by the mind of a recovering drug addict and alcoholic."

Oprah Winfrey flatly described it as "lying," with which the Ethimeter would agree. Red zone.

Chutzpah or moral courage? Winston Churchill's ringing comment of 1941 - "never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never - in nothing, great or small, large or petty - never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense" - puts him about as far into the green zone as the Ethimeter will go.

- Rushworth M. Kidder

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Newsday - Long Island, NY, USA26 February 2006

EDITORIAL:Are they honest? Zap

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Newsday - Long Island, NY, USA
26 February 2006