Foot and Fire

  The Ethical Executive (Becoming aware of the root causes of unethical behavior: 45 Psychological traps every one of us falls prey to) 2008, Stanford University Press By Robert Hoyk and Paul Hersey I believe, all leaders and decision-makers of a country should read this book. I have read this book years ago and sometimes after I became a public servant. This has been in my mind for a long time already given our social and political realities these days. One lingering question I could not get off my mind after I read this book was when it asked and answered: Why many good people became instruments of the holocaust? This book offered the root causes of unethical behaviors so we can recognize and avoid traps leading to them.      This book has scientific approach, not just some philosophical, religious or business sense to ethics. One has to read the thin book of 118 pages only to understand, but let me run down the 45 traps so you can have a bird's ey...

 Why Echegaray did not confess guilt until his death? (Reflections on how cheap lives are these days) Anyone can win any argument here whether he espouses Echegary's innocence or his guilt. But to put things in a proper perspective, under our criminal justice system, Echegaray was found guilty and thus, he was sentenced to death. But many firsthand accounts from his priest, lawyer and others who came to his side before his state-sanctioned death claim that he did not confess guilt. Since the supposed natural (and thus, expected) reaction of someone facing death is to say the truth, some believed in his innocence. But he did not confess guilt. I believe that he was guilty, and I always have in mind that his victim is condemned with the ill-effects of the gruesome crime of rape committed to her by her stepfather. But then, he did not confess guilt. If Echegaray confessed guilt, our society could have had let go of a sigh showing some relief that we did the right...