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This chapter very briefly outlines the book's five contributions. First, the book identifies two broad perspectives on organizational wrongdoing and misconduct, conceived broadly as corporate crime, white-collar crime, unethical behavior, and socially irresponsible behavior. One perspective characterizes wrongdoing as an abnormal phenomenon, and the other characterizes it as a normal one. Second, it elaborates two general approaches to analyzing the causes of organizational wrongdoing. One is dominant in the field today, and the other represents an emerging alternative view. Third, it delineates eight specific explanations of organizational wrongdoing. Two explanations are associated with the abnormal perspective and dominant approach, five are associated with the normal perspective and alternative approach, and one occupies a bridging position. Fourth, the book illustrates these perspectives, approaches, and explanations with rich case material. Fifth, it explores the implications of the theoretical ideas presented for those interested in curbing wrongdoing in and of organizations.

This chapter asks what blaming someone adds to believing that he has acted badly. It examines three of the most popular accounts of the additional element: roughly, those which construe it as a public expression of one’s disapproval, as a belief that the agent’s misdeeds have marred his moral record, and as a negative emotional reaction. Of these familiar accounts, each is shown to be inadequate.

This chapter presents an integrated, moral-therapeutic perspective on crime and punishment. It begins by noting how the morality-therapy dichotomy constricted classical debates about punishment. Using as examples kleptomania (compare compulsive gambling) and drug abuse (compare alcoholism), it is shown how serious crime can be both a wrongdoing and a sickness. These examples are familiar in debates about therapeutic approaches to crime, and they provide continuity with the preceding discussions of addictions. The chapter then discusses the possibility of extending a moral-therapeutic approach to other serious crime, and concludes with comments on legal insanity.

The chiastic frame, rings 1 and 1*, bring the narrative contrast between Saul and David to a conclusive focus. The second part of the frame, ring 1* interlocks with a four‐part pattern of David's wrongdoing and response, emphasizing the centrality of the narrative concern with leaders doing wrongfully, at the expense of the community. Ring 1, Saul Sins: Blame, 3 Years Plague, Resolution (II, 21:1‐14) is echoed by Ring 1*, David Sinning, Blame, 3 Days Plague, Resolution (II, 24:1‐25). This latter (Ring1*) also concludes another major pattern, “David Sinning”: David Sins: (Abigail Confronts), I, 25; David Sins (Nathan Confronts), II, 11‐12:25; David Sins: (Joab Confronts), II, 19:1‐8; David Sins [also Ring 1* of chiastic conclusion] (David Confronts Himself), II, 24:1‐25.

Israel's second king, David, will commit what looks like far greater wrong than anything done by God's first choice, King Saul. But David proves much the superior leader. Why might God have given up so quickly on Saul, and what does this intimate about God's reversal of choices, for David? Possible answers begin to emerge with the narrator's presentation of Saul's three anointings and paralleled wrongdoing, the latter sandwiching a picture of Jonathan, of everything good that Saul isn't. With Saul we find an anatomy of failure that goes beyond mere wrongdoing. Something within Saul is tragically lacking, a flaw that will prove definitive as a contrast with David. Brought into a unifying vision by this and other patterns are “blocks” of material considered quite disparate by many biblical scholars.

The final four chapters of the Samuel text are arranged with no regard for proper chronology but with great care as a conclusion. Here we find a chiastic pattern of repetition (ring composition) that gathers together and concludes major dramatic concerns of the whole story: contrast between Saul and David, particularly with respect to wrongdoing; David's leadership capacity (implicitly contrasted with Saul's); and, the happy synergy of David's God‐devotion and political acumen. This chapter deals with the middle two rings: Ring 2, David's Warriors & Leadership (II, 21:15‐22, echoed by Ring 2*, David's Warriors & Leadership (II, 23:8‐39); and Ring 3, Poem, God & Politics: Divine Assistance (II, 22:1‐51) echoed by Ring 3* Poem, God & Politics: Leadership (II, 23:1‐7).

This chapter examines the de minimis plea: the allegation that the wrongfulness of the defendant's criminal conduct is too trivial to justify the imposition of penal liability and punishment. It argues that a critical examination of this neglected defence sheds important light on several of the most central topics in criminal theory: criminalization, the rule of law and the parameters of discretion, the relationship between morality and law, the structure of wrongdoing, the contrast between offenses and defences, the concepts of justification and excuse, and even the nature of retributive justice itself.

This introductory chapter explains that the book explores the question of whether state secrecy threatens the interests of citizens or whether it actually furthers them. It examines a means by which citizens and lawmakers can be—and indeed are—alerted to wrongdoing: unauthorized disclosures of classified information. It argues that the possibility of unauthorized disclosures provides the most effective and credible guarantee that those who have the formal authority over state secrecy cannot systematically use it to their own advantage. The book considers whether the judicial review of state secrecy has been deferential, and, if so, whether such deference can be justified. It also discusses the practice of leaking as a practical means by which officials could alert citizens and lawmakers to wrongdoing. The chapter provides an overview of the chapters that follow.

This chapter examines whether state secrecy is commonly abused in contemporary America. A number of scholars argue that the real and apparent abuses of state secrecy are due not to flaws in the Constitution but rather to a lack of courage and wisdom on the part of representatives and citizens. The chapter challenges this claim and suggests that the Framers viewed state secrecy as an essential element of statecraft, and that they vested the authority to keep secrets in the executive because they saw it as best suited to exercise this power. It explains how the regulatory mechanisms that have been championed in recent decades, such as the judicial enforcement of the Freedom of Information Act, have proven ineffective at exposing wrongdoing. Meanwhile, the regulatory mechanisms that have proven effective at exposing wrongdoing, whistleblowing and leaking, are condemned as unlawful or undemocratic and therefore illegitimate. The chapter also considers oversight and regulation of state secrecy by Congress.

This chapter examines the circumstances under which an official will be justified in violating laws that prohibit unauthorized disclosures of classified information. It explains why we cannot rely on the practice of whistleblowing to counter the misuse of state secrecy. It argues that an official may “blow the whistle” if he/she encounters classified information that clearly reveals wrongdoing posing an immediate and serious threat to the public interest, and if he/she makes a good faith effort to minimize the harm that the publication of this information may cause national security. It also asserts that the official must identify himself/herself so that we can assess whether his/her view of what constitutes a wrongful exercise of executive power is a disinterested one. Finally, it shows that would-be whistleblowers have little incentive to disclose their identity, because doing so makes them vulnerable to retaliation from their managers and colleagues.

This chapter explains the practice of leaking as a means by which officials could alert citizens and lawmakers to wrongdoing. It shows that officials are able to disclose classified information anonymously, because they recognize that the executive is often hard-pressed to identify the responsible party. However, it also highlights the fact that officials can—and do—make anonymous disclosures of classified information to advance narrow or partisan agendas by revealing classified information that casts their actions (or those of their adversaries) in a favorable (or unfavorable) light. In light of this danger, the chapter considers whether we might be able to utilize reporters, editors, and publishers to help us detect when anonymity of disclosures is being used to advance narrow or partisan interests.

This concluding chapter summarizes the book's main findings, beginning with the deep sense of anxiety that pervades contemporary discussions on state secrecy. This anxiety stems not from the concern that state secrecy is contrary to democracy but rather from the concern that the government can use state secrecy to conceal wrongdoing. The institutions charged with regulating the use of state secrecy, Congress and the courts, have struggled to detect wrongdoing owing to constraints of information and expertise. The book has also explored whether whistleblowing and leaking constitute legitimate means of regulating state secrecy. This chapter outlines some of the means by which we might minimize the downsides of our dependence on unauthorized disclosures of classified information and argues that we need to ensure how executives and those who watch over them will utilize responsibly the discretion they are bound to enjoy.

This chapter presents the accident explanation of organizational wrongdoing. This explanation is the fourth of five alternative accounts of wrongdoing considered in the book. It is rooted in the assumptions that organizational environments are complex and organizational participants are boundedly rational, assumptions that underpin several of the alternative explanations of wrongdoing considered to this point. This chapter argues that complexity and bounded rationality sometimes cause people to make mistakes and that sometimes mistakes constitute wrongdoing. It examines the factors that can give rise to accidents that constitute wrongdoing, analyzing them as the product of system failures at four levels of social organization: the individual, the small group, the formal organization, and the organizational field. Further, it distinguishes between two types of causal factors: faulty system design or operation and unavoidable system complexity and tight coupling (i.e. normal accidents). The chapter concludes with an overall assessment of the accident explanation.

This chapter describes the two main perspectives on organizational wrongdoing, the abnormal and normal perspectives, in detail. It also describes the two main approaches to explaining wrongdoing, the dominant and alternative approaches, in depth. The chapter also establishes the link between the abnormal and normal perspectives on organizational wrongdoing, the dominant and alternative approaches to explaining the causes of wrongdoing, and the eight specific explanations of wrongdoing that form the core of the book. The eight specific explanations focus on rational choice, culture, ethical decision-making, administrative systems, situational social influence, power structures, accidental behavior, and the social control of wrongdoing. The chapter illustrates the two approaches to explaining organizational wrongdoing with a detailed description of a professional bicycle racer's experience with the use of banned performance-enhancing substances. It concludes with a few remarks about the book's overarching message.

Overall blameworthiness is seen as a function of two moral properties, wrongdoing and culpability. This chapter and the four next succeeding all deal with culpability. Prima facie moral culpability is prima facie only in the sense that considerations of excuse are temporarily excluded. The chapter gives an overview of possible gradations in degrees of culpability depending on whether a given harm was: desired for its own sake; intended as a means to something else that was desired for its own sake; believed with certainty to follow on one’s actions; believed to some substantial degree of risk to follow on one’s action; unreasonably risked even if not desired, intended, or unaccompanied by any level of predictive belief. These states of intention, desire, belief, and unreasonable risk, constitute the various degrees of prima facie culpability with which a given wrong can be done.

This chapter asks whether the members of Group O (see chapter 11) have individual reasons to contribute to the group’s efforts by adhering in at least some suboptimal-result cases. It is argued that if enough of them are actually contributing, then they all have moral reasons to contribute in order to avoid riding free on one another. If too few of them are contributing, however, then the case for contributing becomes more difficult to make. Three possible moral principles are suggested, any one of which would support contributing under conditions of general defection. If one of them is true, then it can be argued that judges have reasons to adhere in at least some suboptimal-result cases, even when most other judges are deviating too frequently. This discussion culminates in the defense of individual policy, which specifies permissible deviation rates for judges based in part on how often other judges deviate. The chapter concludes that we must choose between (1) denying that judges must obey restrictive rule, because we have found no sound argument for that conclusion, and (2) accepting as a foundational principle, requiring no argument, that judges must obey restrictive rule.

This chapter argues that closeness, union, and love come in two modes: ordinary and strenuous. To make this case, it examines the analogy of two notions of freedom of the will, the ordinary and the strenuous (of the sort associated with the work of Harry Frankfurt). In order to make sense of this distinction among kinds of freedom, it is helpful first to make a distinction between two notions of the true self, a metaphysical and a psychological sense. The psychological sense depends on the metaphysical sense; in its turn, it undergirds and explains the strenuous notion of freedom. It also helps to explain the strenuous senses of closeness, union, and love; it also elucidates the way in which moral wrongdoing fragments the self. On this basis, the chapter then considers the nature of shame and the distinction between guilt and shame. It shows that both guilt and shame can produce a kind of willed loneliness.

This chapter considers the way in which human moral wrongdoing fragments the psyche of the wrongdoer. It examines the theological doctrine of original sin and argues against attempts to show that a human tendency to moral wrongdoing, of the sort postulated by the doctrine of original sin, is incompatible with the existence of a perfectly good, omniscient, omnipotent God. It then presents the remedies for the human proclivity to moral wrongdoing as Aquinas sees them. These consist in the processes of justification and sanctification. The chapter argues that each of these processes requires a certain kind of passivity and surrender on the part of the person engaged in the process. Contrary to Harry Frankfurt's position that passivity is inimical to the true self and to human flourishing, it is argued that some significant goods for human beings, including the love of friendship, are impossible without some reciprocal passivity.