| Malicious Obedience
It is my opinion that self-interest, moral disengagement and moral detachment have combined and spawned malicious obedience within the United States Department of Justice's Civil Division's Civil Litigation Group of the DOJ's Washington office, commonly and ironically referred to as "Main Justice". Malicious obedience is defined as the opposite of civil disobedience when manifested within the Government.
It is:
the achievement of agency or departmental goals while passively (but willingly and knowingly) violating specifically legislated municipal, state, or federal rules, regulations or laws; most specifically, evading and circumventing the expressed and written intent or stated will of the Congress (or the people's interest) while positively affecting the individual's or Governmental group's interest, or
agency bureaucratic intrigue and self-dealing.
Attorneys represent specific clients.
The Justice Department is the attorney-of-record and represents any defrauded Government agency. In medical and defense industry fraud cases, the DOJ Civil Division represents the defrauded agency. If the defrauded agency, the DOJ, and the FBI do not prevent, discover, or terminate the fraud, a private citizen, under certain conditions, can file a qui tam fraud lawsuit in the name of the Government and share in the recovery. He must obtain his (or her) own attorney.
Conflicts of Interest.
Young attorneys, fresh from law school, strive for recognition and to put a few years at Main Justice on their resumes. Career attorneys know the self-preservation game and career bureaucrats, minions and flacks feed the hopper with results-oriented actions to sate the bosses, politicians and lobbyists.
The following table (See Endnote 1) illustrates the presumed opposition between two sets of norms:
| Societal norms or ethics |
vs |
Organizational counter norms |
| Be open and honest. |
vs |
Be secretive and cautious. |
| Follow rules faithfully. |
vs |
Do whatever it takes to do the job. |
| Be cost effective. |
vs |
Use it or lose it. |
| Take responsibility. |
vs |
Pass the buck. |
| Be a team player. |
vs |
Enhance your own status. |
Decision makers must chose one, the other, or some combination of both. At its worst, this systemic problem has been diagnosed by Kenneth Goodpaster as 'teleopathy' - the mind set or habit of valuing the achievement of goals above all else, and ignoring the moral licitness of the means employed to gain them. Teleopathy is the unbalanced pursuit of goals by an individual or group.
Teleopathy...is a suspension of "on-line" moral judgment as a practical force in the life of an individual or group. It substitutes for the call of conscience the call of decision criteria from other sources: winning the game, achieving the goal, following the rules laid down by some framework external to ethical reflection. These other sources generally have to do with self interest, peer acceptance, group loyalty, and institutional objectives that themselves may have broad social justification. (See Endnote 2)
This is my opinion, after 14 years of research, and it may only be worth the amount you paid for it.
Respectfully,
- - -
Endnotes:
1 - Adapted slightly from Jansen and Von Glinow "Ethical Ambivalence and Organizational Reward Systems", Academy of Management Review, 10, 1985, pp. 814-822, quoted by R.A. Sims, "The Challenge of Ethical Behaviour in Oranizations", Journal of Business Ethics, 11, July 1992, p. 508.
2 - Roger M. Boisjoly, "Personal Integrity and Accountability', Accounting Horizons, Vol. 7, March 1993, p. 94-5.
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