Institutional Corruption: Course summary for ethics professionals

Ethical Reasoning: Institutional Corruption was a course held from January 28, 2014 through May 26, 2014 at Harvard College.  It was taught by Lawrence Lessig (Law School) and William E. English.  The course consisted of 26 lectures and accompanying materials.

Course description: 

Institutions make modern life possible by organizing human interactions on a massive scale. We generally benefit from the incentives, norms, and information that institutions provide. However, if corrupted, institutions can cause grave harm. This course will introduce students to “institutional corruption” and equip them with the intellectual tools needed to diagnose, understand, and address its problems. The first half of the semester will draw on economic theory, political philosophy, psychology, and sociology to understand institutional corruption. The second half will examine cases of institutional corruption in medicine, finance, politics, courts, journalism, and academic research and further explore strategies for reform.

The lectures that are relevant to government ethics will be summarized in this section.

The first one of this series is “CORRUPTING INFLUENCES”, the lecture of Feb. 20, 2014. See this listed as an attachment below.