Peter Morgan (4)

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.… (mais)