ABSTRACT Imagine Oskar Schindler before the bar of moral theory. Schindler, a minor industrialist, sheltered more than 1000 Jews during the Holocaust. This would seem to be a record of virtue. Or is it? The dominant consensus in moral theory stresses a rationality and universality of judgement and action that Oskar did not even consider. Efforts to interpret Schindler in universal terms by reference to human rights or to the tenet that ought implies can are entertained and denied. If Schindler's (...) deeds are moral reality, the consensus in contemporary moral theory is the poorer for being unable to recognise them. Schindler's virtue is noteworthy in its own right and also as a limiting case for the mainline of contemporary moral theory. (shrink)

Objective: To determine the views of people with multiple sclerosis (MS) and professionals in relation to confidentiality, consent and access to data within a proposed MS register in the UK. Design: Qualitative study using focus groups (10) and interviews (13). Setting: England and Northern Ireland. Participants: 68 people with MS, neurologists, MS nurses, health services management professionals, researchers, representatives from pharmaceutical companies and social care professionals. Results: People with MS expressed open and altruistic views towards the use of their personal (...) information to facilitate service provision and research, placing trust in responsible guardianship and legitimate use of their information. Participant’s proposed that people with MS should be able to select their individual level of involvement in a register using levels of consent. It was agreed that access to the register should be governed by a guardianship committee composed of a range of stakeholders. People with MS did not wish their details to be used by marketing agencies and did not consider this a legitimate use of their data. Whilst participants were positive of the role a register could play in promoting research, participants felt that access to data by pharmaceutical industries should be administered by the guardianship committee. People with MS are concerned should their employers be able to access their personal information. Professionals were more cautious than people with MS in their approach to the use of patient personal data within a register. Conclusions: Whilst all stakeholders were positive of the benefits of an MS register, development of such a resource must incorporate robust data security and guardianship measures in order to ensure that, whilst opportunities are maximised, risks to the privacy of individuals and legal challenges to professionals are avoided. (shrink)

The concept of supererogation is an act that it is right to do but not wrong not to do. The moral trinity of the deontic logic excludes such acts from moral theory. A moral theory that is based on duty or obligation unqualified seems inevitably to make all good acts obligations, whether construed from a teleological or deontological point of view. If supererogation is a moral fact, no moral theory can survive without acknowledging it. One way to distinguish supererogation from (...) obligation that is not arbitrary is to draw the line of obligation at death and dismemberment. Such a limit to obligation is often implicit in moral theory. Inclusive obligation requires us all to be heroes all of the time. The moral limit to obligation is one of Hobbes's teachings. Though it is seldom noted in contemporary political and moral theory, it is, for example, implied in Rawls's definition of ‘supererogation.’ In this definition it is said that heroic supererogation would be a duty but for the high cost associated with it. This cost is the risk of life and limb;.it distinguishes supererogation from both benevolence and obligation.A supererogation is a good act with a high cost. The goodness of the act, however determined, must be proportionate to the cost to the agent. If life is risked, life or something deemed no less valuable must be gained. The intention to effect such important goods for others is sufficient for an act to be supererogatory even if it fails.If moral reality is inevitably vague, complex, and incomplete, then it is no surprise that moral theory is that way, too. The challenge is that moral theory be no more vague, complex, and incomplete than necessary and in ways justified by the nature of moral reality. A science, Aristotle advised, can be no more precise than its subject matter permits. (shrink)

The task of the historian is not one of tracing a series of links in a temporal chain; rather, it is his task to analyze a complex pattern of change into the factors which served to make it precisely what it was. The relationship which I therefore take to be fundamental to historiography is ... a relationship of part to whole, not a relationship of antecedent to consequent.Mandelbaum's historian relates the part to the whole, leaving it for the sociologist to (...) relate the antecedent to the consequence.If that is so, then Maigret is first an historian ascertaining and accumulating the subjective meanings that individuals use to produce the facticity of their own lives. And in the course of so doing he discovers the nature of the reality in which the crime occurred. Once he finds his way into the realities of the crime there is time and need for the sociological analysis of antecedent and consequent. To suggest a comparison, Maigret practices in miniature the method of Norbert Elias in that he tries to understand his subjects as they understand themselves. Maigret's is an idiographic science and not a nomethetic one. For this reason Maigret, unlike Holmes, almost never refers to previous cases in the effort to understand the matter at hand.The temptation is to conclude that Maigret is a little like Fernand Braudel in combining history and sociology by turns. But I wonder if there is not a more profound sense in which Maigret, if not all sociologists, is an historian. If we have any knowledge it is of the past, not of the present or the future. Minerva's owl does indeed take wing only at dusk, as Hegel wrote. By the time we have understood the present, it is the past.If Maigret's aim is not the unvarnished truth, that is not because of the constraints of police work but because of the constraints of the world. The irony of Maigret's ethnomethodology is this. Simenon's style is rightly celebrated for its evocation of atmosphere. The apposite analogy occasionally offered is between Simenon's spare and laconic style and Impressionist painting. Simenon does not describe people and places in the Maigret stories but suggests them with a sentence or two. The style is not realism, whatever the effect. As Rafael Koskimies has written, Simenon selects and simplifies. Impressionism is the style of painting that accepts the surface as reality. The play of light and color on the surface of objects is suggested on the surface of the canvas with the texture and color of the paint. If Simenon is an impressionist in his art, Maigret cannot be in his. He does not settle for the surface, but goes inside of it. Once there he learns all he needs to know and all that he can know. The confessions that so frequently occur in the Maigret stories do not confirm his suppositions, but release the tensions of the drama in a catharsis. Finally, if Maigret's Maigret must admit in his Memoirs that he could not in fact go into the detail of every reality personally in the manner described above, it only proves how terribly taxing the method called Verstehen is.To conclude, Maigret has a method, but it is not a recipe that others can follow step-by-step. His method is an orientation to reality and a commitment to understanding in a certain way. To call Maigret's procedure a method requires the definition of “method” to include more than cook books, however brilliant the cook books are. Maigret's method is a part of the context of discovery. Naive realists like Méchin imagine that they live only in the context of justification.Of course, no one's understanding is perfect. Maigret makes mistakes. There are times when an explanation based on behavior would be more accurate and economical. If Simenon does not dwell on Maigret's failures it is clear that Maigret uses other methods, too. The triangulation of a variety of methods is what in fact most of us practice whatever we preach. (shrink)

My hope has been to persuade readers that Hobbes's mighty thought experiment of the state of nature distorts our conceptual learning because it ignores the second morality. Instead, it inflates the first morality as the whole of morality. This inflation arises from Hobbes's exclusive preoccupation with universalizable reason. As important as universal reason undeniably is, it does not encompass the whole of moral reality. To suppose that it does is to distort moral reality. Like so many Enlightenment figures, Hobbes would (...) have political theory be more like logic than life.To refer once again to the Enlightenment allows me to observe that the drive to universality through reason is a distinctive feature of European civilization. To proceed along this line might lead to the conclusion that the pursuit of the universal is a cultural artifact. It is itself culturally relative. I am in no position to argue that point here at the end of the day, but did not the universal criteria propounded by the Enlightenment prove serviceable in the justification of European imperialism? By the universal standards of the Enlightenment only Europe was civilized.Reason is often a weapon. Alasdair MacIntyre has termed the search for rationality in moral philosophy a masquerade. MacIntyre sees the quest for rationality to be a quest for authority. He cites John Maynard Keynes's observations that “in practice, victory [in moral argument] was with those who could speak with the greatest appearance of clear, undoubting conviction and could best use the accents of infallibility.” Rationality is a weapon. “In moral argument the apparent assertion of principles functions as a mask for expressions of personal preference.” Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue, 2nd ed. (London: Duckworth, 1985), pp. 9, 17, and 19. Seasoned participants in academic conferences and learned seminars realize the intensity of involvement in what Sheila Ruth has called “The Hunt.”Sheila Ruth, “Methodocracy, Misogyny, and Bad Faith,” Men's Studies Modified, Dale Spender (ed.) (Oxford: Pergamon, 1981), p. 48. The speaker is the quarry. The others, the auditors are the hunters. Some are accomplished, others are not yet blooded. They wait for the weak point. It's blood. They attack. The inexperienced hunters are enthusiastic. The seasoned hunters take their time. The quarry defends. An arbitrary time limit ends the combat, and after tea it is someone else's turn. Can anyone say that this is the best way to search out alternatives, weigh experience, assess implications, evaluate assertions? My title “The Government of Reason” is deliberately ambiguous. On the one hand it might mean governing according to the light of reason. This was, of course, the avowed aim of the Enlightenment. The conduct of political life would follow the bright line of reason. On the other hand, the title could mean governing reason, taking control of reason and using it as a weapon. Here we may be forgiven for thinking of Michel Foucault on the use of knowledge as power. The ambiguity of the title is meant to reflect the ambiguity of reality where both alternatives have occurred. Only half of the moral realm has been made the subject of political theory. (shrink)

Is the 20th Century as obviously preferable to all other times as Rawls would have us assume? Is 20th Century Stockholm preferable to 12th Century Florence in each and every way? In 12th Century Florence men lived without liberty or equality. Yet Florentines were reasonably happy, accepted their place in life, and communicated directly with others. R. Dworkin, ‘The Social Contract’, The Sunday Times, 9 July 1972, p. 31. It was a society with sharply marked class distinctions. In such a (...) society the lowly can gain more self-respect through identity, excellence, and capacity within their station than in an egalitarian society. The lowly can perceive the importance of their labour, be secure that their place is assured by powerful protectors, see models of virtue to admire, and derive a sense of contributing to a meangingful social drama. They may also learn something of the difference between the noble and the ignoble. Are these not qualities Aristotle would appreciate? Medieval man was certainly not free but 'sneither was he alone and isolated ... Man was rooted in a structuralized whole, and thus life had a meaning which left no place, and no need, for doubt.Eric Fromm, Escape From Freedom (New York: Rinehart, 1941), p. 41. In a brief reference to feudalism Rawls himself seems to realise this state of affairs (74). In contrast, Stockholm is a competitive society where loneliness, anxiety, and identity crises have been endlessly documented by social scientists, all occurring despite the high material standard of living. Yet Stockholm would seem to be the model for Rawls and obviously not Florence. One wonders if this social scientific knowledge of Stockholm will be part of the knowledge available to persons in the original position.One critic lauds Rawls's grasp of the social sciences, but perhaps he is not serious, see Hugo Bedau, ‘Rawls’, Nation, 11 September 1972.Justice is not quantitative but qualitative, so Aristotle might say in a brief discussion. In a just society a person's possessions and consumptions are not on the minds of the other people with whom they meet and treat. When Odysseus came home he was delighted to climb into a peasant's cart to ride the last mile home. Contrast this king with King Arthur riding with another peasant on another road, choking with the anxiety that he may not be acting kingly by being in the cart. In Ithaca both king and commoner were sure of each other and, more importantly of themselves. (shrink)

Hegel transformed political philosophy in distinguishing between civil society and the state. That is Riedel’s thesis. Riedel reads Hegel in the context of the preceding and contemporary writers to whom Hegel responded, e.g., Plato, Aristotle, Hobbes, Rousseau, Haller, Wolff, Thomasius, and Kant. In the tradition composed of such writers, civil society was the state and vice versa. In light of the English industrial revolution and the French political revolution, Hegel concluded that this identity was untenable. Riedel traces the intellectual arguments (...) of Hegel’s early works, like the Jenenser Realphilosophie, Naturrecht, and System der Sittlichkeit, to the Philosophie des Rechts. (shrink)

Hegel transformed political philosophy in distinguishing between civil society and the state. That is Riedel’s thesis. Riedel reads Hegel in the context of the preceding and contemporary writers to whom Hegel responded, e.g., Plato, Aristotle, Hobbes, Rousseau, Haller, Wolff, Thomasius, and Kant. In the tradition composed of such writers, civil society was the state and vice versa. In light of the English industrial revolution and the French political revolution, Hegel concluded that this identity was untenable. Riedel traces the intellectual arguments (...) of Hegel’s early works, like the Jenenser Realphilosophie, Naturrecht, and System der Sittlichkeit, to the Philosophie des Rechts. (shrink)

The sixteen essays on Hegel’s philosophy of right in relation to European constitutional history in this volume show the importance of the discovery of Hegel’s lecture notes. These notes from students before and after the publication of Die Philosophie des Rechts have done much to fill out Hegel’s elliptic style, at once grand and cryptic. Of particular use to several contributors to this collection are the newly published Peter Wannenmann manuscripts. Though the title of only one of four parts of (...) the book refers to constitutional matters, they figure in most of the other essays, too. (shrink)

In this book Peter Steinberger takes up one of the fundamental issues of political theory, namely the relationship between the individual and society. Most of Western political theory has accepted two principles: first, that individuals may be different and, second, that society requires rules and patterns. These two principles compete and may come into conflict.

This handsome tome comprises twelve original contributions together with a detailed introduction by the editors. The anthology begins with Jan Narveson’s wide-ranging survey of the theses of universalizability. He begins with the claim that morality somehow involves universalizability because it ensures consistency. Implicit in this essay and throughout the volume is the assumption that morality consists of rules and principles. Consequently, moral philosophy is the search for and elucidation of such rules and principles. Though Narveson acknowledges that there are those (...) that have thought that character is more important, he brushes this exception aside. Narveson arrives at the conclusion that a rule “is an acceptable moral rule only if there is sufficient reason in terms of their own values, for all moral agents who have reason to decline the ruleless state to accept” it. (shrink)

This handsome tome comprises twelve original contributions together with a detailed introduction by the editors. The anthology begins with Jan Narveson’s wide-ranging survey of the theses of universalizability. He begins with the claim that morality somehow involves universalizability because it ensures consistency. Implicit in this essay and throughout the volume is the assumption that morality consists of rules and principles. Consequently, moral philosophy is the search for and elucidation of such rules and principles. Though Narveson acknowledges that there are those (...) that have thought that character is more important, he brushes this exception aside. Narveson arrives at the conclusion that a rule “is an acceptable moral rule only if there is sufficient reason in terms of their own values, for all moral agents who have reason to decline the ruleless state to accept” it. (shrink)

The purpose of this book is to describe and evaluate the work of the Idealists in the period 1880–1914. Of course, the prince of these Idealists was T. H. Green, but it is made clear that he had many colleagues. For the Idealists the state was not merely an instrument, it was also an end. It provided a focus for a sense of community. The religious doctrines and metaphysical theories of the Idealists led them to emphasize the state.

The purpose of this book is to describe and evaluate the work of the Idealists in the period 1880–1914. Of course, the prince of these Idealists was T. H. Green, but it is made clear that he had many colleagues. For the Idealists the state was not merely an instrument, it was also an end. It provided a focus for a sense of community. The religious doctrines and metaphysical theories of the Idealists led them to emphasize the state.

The Paris manuscripts made Marx’s humanism into a controversy. Louis Althusser argued that these early works were irrelevant to the mature work of Capital, while Shlomo Avineri contended that they were essential. In this book the thesis is that there is a continuous and complex development in Marx rather than Althusser’s coupure epistémologique or Avineri’s seamless web.

The Paris manuscripts made Marx’s humanism into a controversy. Louis Althusser argued that these early works were irrelevant to the mature work of Capital, while Shlomo Avineri contended that they were essential. In this book the thesis is that there is a continuous and complex development in Marx rather than Althusser’s coupure epistémologique or Avineri’s seamless web.

These two fragments, the earliest surviving examples of Hegel’s political theory, have not before been available in English. Though each is obscure, the germs of many of Hegel’s ideas are visible, including “spirit.” Annotations and appendices round off each fragment. An excellent index allows for cross-referencing. Moreover, H. S. Harris provides introductions to each fragment. That for the “System of Ethical Life” exceeds 90 pages. All told, more than two-thirds of the book is devoted to that fragment, but Harris is (...) right to say that is it illuminated by the “First Philosophy of Spirit” and vice versa. (shrink)

Recent large-scale personal data loss incidents highlighted the need for public bodies to more securely handle confidential data. We surveyed trainees from all specialties in the Welsh Deanery for their knowledge and practice. All registered trainees were invited to participate in an online anonymised survey. There were 880 completed and non-duplicated responses (52.9% response rate). Responses were analysed using Microsoft Access. Over 40% (388/880 (44.1%)) did not use formal guidelines on storage or disposal of confidential data. The majority appeared to (...) dispose of confidential paper documents securely, that is, using shredders and white shredder bags. However, there were significant numbers of unmarked responses. Clinical documents, such as theatre lists, were taken home by 281/880 (31.9%) of trainees. The majority secured their computers (569/871 (65.3%)) by either not keeping patient identifiable data on them or using encryption. However, 302/871 (34.7%) did not adequately secure their computers. The surgical and anaesthetic specialties were least aware of formal confidentiality guidelines (95/178 (53.4%)) and 52/102 (51.0%) respectively) and least secured their computers (106/178 (59.6%) and 63/102 (61.8%) respectively). Education is needed to improve knowledge and practice of confidential data handling. This may be delivered through workshops during induction programmes or as part of European Computer Driving Licence (ECDL) modules. Training is especially indicated for the surgical and anaesthetic specialties. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 9.4 (2002) 387-394 [Access article in PDF] Psychosis Good and Bad:Values-Based Practice and the Distinction Between Pathological and Nonpathological Forms of Psychotic Experience Mike C. Jackson and K. W. M. Fulford IN TWO PAPERS in this issue of Philosophy, Psychiatry, and Psychology, Marek Marzanski and Mark Bratton (2002) and Caroline Brett (2002) develop important critiques, from the perspectives respectively of Christian theology and Eastern (...) philosophy, of our 1997 analysis of the distinction between pathological and nonpathological forms of psychotic experience (Jackson and Fulford 1997).In this response, we briefly summarize the main points from our 1997 analysis; we consider, separately, the important although very different challenges to that analysis from the perspectives of our two critics; and we briefly indicate the main lines of recent developments in policy, practice, and research in mental health as they relate to this important area of human experience. The Jackson and Fulford (1997) Analysis In our 1997 paper, we presented three case studies from a larger series (Jackson 1991, 1997, 2001) selected with the express aim of bringing into focus the conceptual difficulties that arise at the borderline between psychotic illness and what we called benign spiritual experience. On the basis of these case studies we argued thatspiritual experiences, which are essentially benign, can involve explicitly psychotic phenomenology; traditional psychiatric diagnostic methods, which focus on the form and content of beliefs and experiences, are not capable of distinguishing between pathological and nonpathological forms of such psychotic experiences; [End Page 387]evaluation of such experiences (and claims about "illness" and health more generally) necessarily involves value judgments as well as judgments about matters of fact (specifically, the "facts" of traditional descriptive psychopathology); and more specifically, the distinction between pathological and nonpathological phenomena concerns the way in which they are embedded in the structure of the values and beliefs by which the actions of the subjects concerned are defined: "In the case of pathological psychotic phenomena," we argued, "there is a radical failure of action.... In the case of spiritual psychotic phenomena, action is radically enhanced" (Jackson and Fulford 1997, 55).We then proposed a cognitive problem-solving model of psychotic experiences. This model suggests that such experiences can be a normal and adaptive psychological response to existential crises, such as loss of meaning or purpose in life, coming to terms with death or bereavement, and so on (Batson and Ventis 1982; Jackson, 1991, 1997, 2001). The model is consistent with a subsequent position paper published by the British Psychological Society arguing the case for a psychological formulation of psychotic experiences and cognitive-behavioural methods in their management (2000).In the case of nonpathological psychotic experience, the psychotic elements of the experience promote a paradigm shift in the individual's underlying assumptions, which effectively resolves their impasse and allows them to move forward. This is normally a self-limiting process, in that when the individual is able to utilize their insight, it acts to resolve the stress which triggered it. In pathological psychosis, this process fails for various possible reasons, which were not explored in any depth in that paper (but see Jackson 2001 for a more detailed discussion). The Challenge From Marzanski and Bratton Marek Marzanski and Mark Bratton reexamine the questions raised by our cases from a Christian theological perspective (Marzanski and Bratton 2002). They suggest a theologically based definition of spiritual experience according to which the criteria for "genuine" experience concerns its context within the development of the individual's religious faith. In Bratton and Marzanski's account, these criteria are based on a Christian value system.They present three cases of their own, which, in contrast to the three cases in our 1997 paper, vividly illustrate how phenomena that may be valued negatively from a medical perspective (i.e., as defined by us in terms of their consequences for action), may, at one and the same time, be valued positively from a religious perspective (i.e., in terms of their consequences for the... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Spiritual Experience and PsychopathologyMike Jackson and K. W. M. Fulford (bio)AbstractA recent study of the relationship between spiritual experience and psychopathology (reported in detail elsewhere) suggested that psychotic phenomena could occur in the context of spiritual experiences rather than mental illness. In the present paper, this finding is illustrated with three detailed case histories. Its implications are then explored for psychopathology, for psychiatric classification, and for our understanding (...) of the concept of mental illness. It is argued that pathological and spiritual psychotic phenomena cannot be distinguished by 1) form and content alone (as in traditional psychopathology), 2) by their relationship either with other symptoms or with pathological causes (as in psychiatric classification), or 3) by reference to the descriptive criteria of mental illness implied by the “medical” model. The distinction is shown to depend, rather, on the way in which psychotic phenomena themselves are embedded in the values and beliefs of the person concerned. This in turn is shown to have implications for diagnosis (it shows the need for clinicians to attend to the values and beliefs of individual patients), for treatment (it points to a cognitive problem-solving model), and for research in psychopathology (especially as related to the emerging sciences of dynamic brain imaging and cognitive neuroscience).Keywordsfirst rank symptoms, schizophrenia, delusion, hallucination, thought disorder, religious experience, mystical experienceIntroductionThis paper explores some of the conceptual and practical implications of the finding that phenomena which in a medical context would probably be diagnosed as psychotic symptoms, may occur in the context of non-pathological, and indeed essentially benign, spiritual experiences.The existence of non-pathological psychotic experiences of this kind (we will call them “psychotic phenomena” as distinct from “psychotic symptoms”—see also Endnote 1, terminology) was a key finding in a study carried out by one of us (MJ) at the Alister Hardy Research Centre (AHRC) in Oxford. Details are given elsewhere both of the overall empirical findings of the study, including the relationship between spiritual experience and personality variables, and of a hypothetical cognitive problem-solving model of these phenomena (Jackson 1991, and forthcoming a and b). In the present paper, 1) the background to the study is described briefly in relation to earlier work on the possible links between spiritual experience and psychopathology; 2) some of the psychotic phenomena identified are illustrated with three detailed case histories; 3) the significance of these phenomena is reviewed for our understanding respectively of psychopathology, of diagnostic syndromes, and of the concept of mental illness; and 4) some of the practical implications of the study for clinical work and research in psychiatry are indicated.BackgroundIt has long been recognized that there are similarities between spiritual and psychotic experiences. [End Page 41] William James (1902), for example, argued that “in delusional insanity, paranoia as they sometimes call it, we may have a kind of diabolical mysticism, a sort of religious mysticism turned upside down” (426). Other commentators have noted a wide variety of phenomena, such as time distortion, synesthesias, loss of self-object boundaries and the transition from a state of conflict and anxiety to one of sudden “understanding,” all of which are reported in both spiritual and psychotic experiences (Buckley 1981; Watson 1982; Wapnick 1969; and Wootton and Allen 1983).Yet the similarities notwithstanding, the distinction between these two kinds of experience can be crucially important. Spiritual experiences, whether welcome or unwelcome, and whether or not they are psychotic in form, have nothing (directly) to do with medicine (Fulford 1996a). It would be quite wrong, then, to “treat” spiritual psychotic experiences with neuroleptic drugs, just as it is quite wrong to “treat” political dissidents as though they were ill (Fulford, Smirnoff and Snow, 1993). Pathological psychotic experiences, on the other hand, or psychotic symptoms, are by definition a proper object of medical treatment, sometimes even against the wishes of the person concerned. Hence it would be both negligent and, as Wing (1978) put it, morally “repellent,” to leave untreated someone who is genuinely ill (244).Given how much turns on the distinction between spiritual experience and psychopathology, it is perhaps not surprising that scholarly discussion of the relationship between them has at times... (shrink)

The purpose of this research is to present the major factors that lead to ethical dissolution in an organization. Specifically, drawing from a wide spectrum of sources, this study explores the impact of organizational, individual, and contextual factors that converge to contribute to ethical dissolution. Acknowledging that ethical decisions are, in the final analysis, made by individuals, this study presents a model of ethical dissolution that gives insight into how a variety of elements coalesce to draw individuals into decisions that (...) result in the ethical undoing of an otherwise healthy organization. ENRON, TYCO and WorldCom did not happen in a vacuum. Nor can such debacles be explained as simply one or two individuals who were morally corrupt. The ethical breakdowns that occurred in these companies happened over a period of time, involved numerous individuals both inside and outside of the organization, and brought about the implosion of viable companies. Seeking to extend the work of previous researchers, this study attempts to tie together a disparate set of factors into a cohesive explanation of ethical breakdowns in organizations. (shrink)