Chapter 5 explores the importance of professional integrity during times of crisis. Snyder recounts how professionals like lawyers, doctors, and businessmen became complicit in Nazi atrocities by abandoning their ethical standards and professional integrity. When individuals rationalize unethical actions as necessary or exceptional, systemic violence with far reaching impact can ensue.

Reflection Questions:

Can you identify professional contexts in which you have witnessed (or participated in) compromising ethical standards, and what rationalizations were used to justify those compromises?

How do the professional norms and ethical guidelines in your field create accountability, and what mechanisms exist to prevent the kind of systemic ethical breakdown Snyder describes? Are there any structures in place that can be taken advantage of to implement harmful policies?

When faced with directives that contradict fundamental ethical principles, what resources (professional and/or personal) can you draw upon to maintain your integrity and resist potentially harmful systemic pressures?

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit seamushawkins.substack.com