INTRODUCTION

The volitional account of ethical failures in leadership holds that leaders know what morality requires yet fail to act ethically out of a concern for self-interest. In essence, their unethical behavior is the motivational upshot of desires and preferences that compete with morality. Of course, proponents of this account allow that leaders who engage in immorality can be mistaken as to whether it is all-things-considered in their interests to act on these desires and preferences. For example, acting immorally to satisfy current desires and preferences sometimes leads to the dissatisfaction of future, perhaps weightier, desires and preferences. The claim of the volitional account, then, is that ethically failed leaders put their desires and preferences ahead of morality, knowing that it is wrong to do so but believing that it will make an all-things-considered contribution to the advancement of their interests. As such, there is no place for an appeal to mistaken moral beliefs in an analysis of ethical failures in leadership. Although leaders are sometimes ignorant of the effects that unethical behavior will have on their own interests, they are not ignorant of the immorality of engaging in it.

In Chapter 1, I introduced a competing account of ethical failures in leadership. On the cognitive account, these failures are the result of mistaken moral beliefs, specifically about the scope of morality.