Title: Restoring responsibility : ethics in government, business, and healthcare /
Authors: Thompson, Dennis F. 1940-
Publisher: Cambridge University Press,
Year: 2005
Subjects: Delivery of Health Care ethics; Social Responsibility; Ethics, Institutional; Ethics, Professional; Political ethics.; Medical ethics; Business ethics; Responsibility
Abstract: Dennis Thompson argues for a more robust conception of responsibility in public life than prevails in contemporary democracies. Thompson suggests that we stop thinking about public ethics in terms of individual vices (such as selfishness or sexual misconduct) and start thinking about it in terms of institutional vices (such as abuse of power and lack of accountability).
Contents: Part I. Demands of Institutional Politics: 1. The problem of many hands -- 2. The responsibility of advisers -- 3. Bureaucracy and democracy -- 4. Judicial responsibility -- 5. Representatives in the welfare state -- Part II. Varieties of Institutional Failure: 6. Democratic secrecy -- 7. Mediated corruption -- 8. Election time -- 9. Hypocrisy and democracy -- 10. Private life and public office -- Part III. Extensions of Institutional Responsibility: 11. Restoring distrust -- 12. The institutional turn in professional ethics -- 13. Hospital ethics -- 14. Conflicts of interest in medicine -- 15. The privatization of business ethics -- 16. Democratic theory and global society.