The Appearance of Impropriety: How the Ethics Wars Have Undermined American Government, Business, and Society

by Peter W. Morgan, Glenn H. Reynolds

Demonstrates how an over-sensitivity to the mere appearance of impropriety has prevented the addressing of real problems

Genres: Nonfiction, Philosophy

288 pages, Hardcover

First published September 15, 1997

Reviews

[Douglas Wilson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a real eye-opener. It shows how the debacle of Watergate led to the formation of what we might call Big Ethics. And when you emphasize this matter of appearances to such an extent in a nation that does not have true godliness, the results (thundering hypocrisy) are about what you might expect.

[Rodney Harvill · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book, written in the late 1990s, explores the post-Watergate development of an ethics standard based on avoiding the appearance of impropriety and its impact on government, business and the science establishment. The major points of the book can be summed up as follows:

1. The appearance standard has failed in its mission to improve trust because individuals and institutions have focused on appearances rather than substance.
2. One can get short-term gains in credibility by focusing on appearances, but the best and most lasting credibility results from appearances based on an underlying reality. For example, the best way to get a virtuous reputation is to be virtuous.
3. Application of the appearance standard has often resulted in convoluted rules such that minor distinctions can separate acceptable behavior from felonious behavior. One set of government ethics rules was described in the book as 1984 redone by Money Python.
4. The appearance standard empowers critics such as the press or political opponents without requiring them to investigate and research the issues to determine if there really is a problem. That is time-consuming hard work, and it is easier to lob accusations based on an appearance of a problem.
5. The diversion of finite resources into appearances rather than substance and the time and effort wasted on dueling accusations have limited the ability of talented individuals to use their skills to improve the lot of humanity. For example, a scientist unfairly embroiled in an ethics scandal is limited in his ability to perform his research.

This is a thought-provoking book and worth the time spent reading it.

[James Henderson · Rating 4 out of 5]

The issue of "the appearance of impropriety" seems to be continually in the news. The ubiquity of the phrase led me to seek out this book and I was not disappointed. The ethics business seems to be booming and the quality of public morality exhibits the symptoms of this business as a disease rather than as a cure. The decrease in accountability for one's actions seems to be just one of the unintended consequences of a focus on appearances.
More than a century ago Herman Melville wrote a novel about a confidence man who fooled everyone - it was a modern novel in style and unintentionally prescient in describing an issue that would be important in a future American society. The authors are witty and use commonsense in their diagnoses and suggestions for actions that may ameliorate the problem. This is a good approach to the problem of confidence men and others for whom appearances hide the real problem.

[Dave Peticolas · Rating 2 out of 5]

Morgan and Reynolds put the 'Ethics Establishment' on trial and find it wanting. The establishment in question is the network of federal regulations, federal regulators, lawyers, public interest groups, and corporations that has grown up since the Watergate scandal and which is concerned with the appearance of wrongdoing as much, or more than, actual wrongdoing itself.

The authors charge that a focus on appearances rather than substance is the principal cause of the loss of trust in government and business in the later part of the 20th century.

They conclude with a back-to-basics set of recommendations for curing the ills appearance-based ethics has engendered.