discussion help
8---- TVPES AND LEVELS OF PUBLIC MORALITV
York Willbern Indiana University
Students of government and public administration, from Plato to Wilson and from Weber to the proponents of the "new public administration," have nearly always known that what public officials and employees do has a central and inescapable normative component, involving values, moral- ity, and ethics,1 although they may have differed as to the degree to which this component could be separated, either analytically or in practice, from aspects of administration involving facts, science, or technique. Discus- sions about moral considerations involving public officials, however, fre- quently deal with significantly different types of forces and phenomena.
The most obvious distinction is that between consideration of the ethical behavior (honesty, rectitude) of the official and consideration of the moral content of the public policy or action the official promulgates or carries out." Most public criticism of public ethics focuses on the former; the con- cerns of adherents of the "new public administration" were on the latter.
Serious attention to the ethical and moral components of public official- dom suggests that there are other important distinctions also. This essay is primarily one of taxonomy; it attempts to identify and characterize partic- ular components or facets of official ethics and morality in an effort to lay out a rough map of the terrain.' Classification is difficult in this area not only because of the overlapping of the concepts and the activities, but be-
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C o p y r i g h t 2 0 0 1 . R o u t l e d g e .
A l l r i g h t s r e s e r v e d . M a y n o t b e r e p r o d u c e d i n a n y f o r m w i t h o u t p e r m i s s i o n f r o m t h e p u b l i s h e r , e x c e p t f a i r u s e s p e r m i t t e d u n d e r U . S . o r a p p l i c a b l e c o p y r i g h t l a w .
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cause of the ambiguities of the words used to describe them. Nevertheless, such an effort may be helpful in joining discussion and in making it more likely that people talk about comparable rather than different things.
While for some purposes it would be valuable to distinguish the ethical problems involving elected or politically appointed officials from those in- volving civil servants, or among those in particular aspects of public service (i.e., public works, social work, university teaching, or others), no concen- trated attention will be given here to such differences.
It is suggested that six types, or levels, of morality for public officials can be discerned, with, perhaps, increasing degrees of complexity and subtlety. There are, of course, substantial interrelationships among these levels, but they are different enough to be analytically interesting. They are: (1) basic honesty and conformity to law; (2) conflicts of interest; (3) service orienta- tion and procedural fairness; (4) the ethic of democratic responsibility; (5) the ethic of public policy determination; and (6) the ethic of compromise and social integration.
In general, the first two or lower levels (and in some degree the third) concern aspects of personal morality and, hence, the ethical conduct of the individual public servant; the other, or higher, levels deal more with the morality of the governmental decisions or actions taken by the official or employee. Public scandals and outrage at unethical behavior focus mainly on the lower levels. Most public officials and employees are confronted with choices, as individuals, which involve ethical concerns at these levels. At the higher levels, most actions and decisions and policies in modern complex governments and bureaucracies are more collective, corporate, and institutional in nature, in which the individual moral responsibility is shared with others in complex ways. This is true even for chief executives; even if "the buck stops here," the bulk of the work in preparing "the buck" and its possible alternatives will have been done by others.
Basic Honesty and Conformity to Law
The public servant is morally bound, just as are other persons, to tell the truth, to keep promises, to respect the person and property of others, and to abide by the requirements of the law. The law-the codes enacted or en- forced by the legitimate organs of the state-usually embodies these basic obligations and provides sanctions for violating them. The law also in- cludes many other requirements, and there is a moral obligation to con- form, with arguable exceptions only in the most extreme circumstances. An orderly society cannot exist if individuals can choose to follow only those laws with which they agree; civil disobedience is an acceptable moral tactic only in very extreme situations. Conformity to law is especially nec- essary for public officials and employees.
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These behaviors are basic requisites of an orderly society, which exists only if people can be reasonably secure in their persons and belongings, can normally rely on the statements and commitments of others, and can expect others to conform to the established norms of conduct. There are, of course, liars and thieves and law breakers in the public sector, as there are in the private, and it is transgressors of this kind which are particularly noticeable and which bring public condemnation.
In general, the difficulties in interpreting and following these broad man- dates are about the same for public servants as for others. Definitional problems (What is true, and should all the truth be told? What property belongs to whom? What is the law?) which produce moral dilemmas are probably no more difficult in the public sector than in the private.
Even at this level of basic honesty and conformity, however, there may be some ways in which the public service differs. 'It) some observers, the fact that public officials are vested with the power of the state produces more danger and more opportunity for transgression of the basic moral code. Power and access to public goods may provide more temptation; the necessity to communicate and deal regularly with the public may lead to more occasion to prevaricate or to ignore promises and commitments.
T'his may be more true in other societies than in America. In this coun- try, two factors seem to limit, in some degree, the relative danger of offi- cial misbehavior at this basic level. One is the obvious fact that power is less concentrated in the government. The power that is lodged in private economic institutions and aggregations, especially apparent in the United States, may be no less corrupting than the power of public offi- cials. Ours is a rather pluralistic society, with countervailing powers scattered quite widely, A second and related factor is the existence of stronger and more independent control mechanisms in our system, espe- cially stemming from the judiciary and the press. In the United States, every public official (even the president, as the last decade demon- strated) lives in the shadow of the courthouse. And in America, unlike many other systems, it is the same courts which exercise control over public officials and private citizens. Moreover, the American press is particularly vigorous in trying to exercise surveillance over public offi- cials and employees.
The visibility of public life may well make dishonest behavior less fre- quent there than in private life. Public officials are expected not only to be honest, but to appear to be honest. Both Caesar and Caesar's wife are to be above reproach, and departures from that norm are noticed. There is al- most certainly less tolerance of public employees than of private employees who deviate from accepted standards in such personal matters as marital behavior, sexual deviance, and use of alcohol and drugs, as well as in basic honesty.
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Some would argue that the nature of political discourse in a democratic system greatly increases the likelihood of falsehoods and insincere and bro- ken promises. There is no doubt that political campaigns and even the prospect of such campaigns produce statements that are at least selective in their veracity, and that neither the makers nor the recipients of campaign promises seem too surprised if the promised performances do not fully ma- terialize. Without questioning the immorality of campaign falsehoods and forgotten promises, the fact that knowledgeable listeners to puffery of this sort do not really take it too seriously nor depend upon it for their own de- cisions may mitigate somewhat the seriousness of the sin. The same sort of salt is applied to advertising and salesmanship assertions in the private marketplace; regulations such as those of the Federal Trade Commission and the Securities and Exchange Commission attempt, without complete success, to limit inaccurate allegations and promises. Campaign puffery aside, however, the importance of veracity and adherence to direct inter- personal political commitments is widely recognized.
There are, on the other hand, areas of public official behavior where de- ceit and lying are not only condoned but approved. The police use under- cover agents and "sting" operations to try to catch criminals. Official false- hoods and deception certainly accompany foreign intelligence and some national defense activities. In covert operations in particular countries, pub- lic employees may go well beyond falsehood in contravening the normal moral code. These are very difficult ethical areas, where the end is presumed to justify the means, and raison d'etat provides shaky moral justification.
Conflict of Interest
The ethical problems associated with conflicts of interest in the public ser- vice are even more complex and difficult. T'he general presumption is that the moral duty of an official or employee of a unit of government is to pur- sue the "public interest" -i.e., the needs and welfare of the general body of citizens of the unit. His own interests, and the interests of partial publics of which he may be a member, are to be subordinated if they differ from the broader, more general, public interest-as they almost inevitably will, from time to time.
In their cruder manifestations, conflict of interest transgressions fit clearly into the category of ethical problems discussed above, the obliga- tion to respect the property of others and to conform to the law. Embezzle- ment of public funds, bribery, and contract kickbacks arc all actions in which the offenders have pursued their personal interests in obvious con- travention of the public interest, as well as in violation of the law. Expense account padding is a more common illustration of both conflict of interest and of theft. There are generally laws against the more obvious conflicts of interest.
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Types and Levels of Public Morality 119
But there are also very difficult and subtle conflicts of interest that are not so clearly theft, and which may not involve law violation. At a sim- ple level, to take a trip at public expense which may not have been nec- essary but which enabled the official to visit family or friends, or just to have a semi-vacation without using leave time, presents a problem of conflict of interest ethics, as does nepotism, or the appointment or ad- vancement of a relative or friend as is the case involving political party patronage systems.
Every public employee belongs to other groups than his governmental agency-church, professional, local community, racial, or ethnic group. Most officials and employees, especially those in public service for only limited periods, worked for and with someone else before the government, and may anticipate such employment after their government service. It is very easy to presume that the interests of those groups coincide with the in- terests of the entire public, but others may disagree. Moreover, officials have private financial investments which can be affected by public policy decisions.
Among the most difficult and subtle of the public service conflict of in- terest problems are those relating to the obvious and inevitable interest of a person or group or party to win elections. This is related to the ethic of democratic responsibility, to be discussed later. It is sufficient to note at this point that to award contracts or jobs or shape public policies in such a way as to reward people or groups for their past or expected campaign support rather than on the merits of the public purpose involved raises tough ethi- cal questions:! Campaign financing, for example, may be one of the most vulnerable spots in a democratic system. Those who contribute to a suc- cessful campaign usually expect, and get, a degree of access to decision makers that raises questions about the even-handedness of decisions and actions.
There are conflicts of interest in private life, as well. In the private as in the public sector, people are imbedded in collective entities--corporations, firms, associations-and they are confronted with many occasions in which their personal or small group interests may conflict with those of the larger entity. The potential, and frequently real, conflicts of interest be- tween the management and the stockholders of a corporation, or between management and rank-and-file employees, arc obvious illustrations.
There is a very important difference between conflicts of interest in pub- lic life and in private life. A basic cornerstone of the Western economic sys- tem is that the vigorous pursuit of self-interest by each participant is the most effective way to secure the general interest-the "invisible hand" of the market will transform selfish pursuits into the general welfare. The pre- sumption that what is good for Ceneral Motors is good for the country, and vice versa, seems a truism in the capitalist economic system. In spite of the variety of exceptions that modern economists will make, the power and
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pervasiveness of this idea make conflicts of interest in the private sector considerably different than in the public.
This vigorous pursuit of self-interest by private economic entities, in their relationships to government, is one of the great causes of moral prob- lems in the public sphere. Modern government has great impact on eco- nomic activity, and every economic entity needs and wants to influence public policy in its own interest. Government can give and withhold privi- leges of great value. The tendency to presume that what is good for the particular group or social segment of which a person is a member is also good for others is almost irresistible.
Lincoln Steffens, in attempting to explain the cause of corruption in gov- ernment, compared the situation to that in the Garden of Eden. The trou- ble, he said, was not the serpent-that was his nature. Nor was it the weakness of Eve, nor of Adam-they also did what was natural. The fault, he said, was in the apple.
It can be argued that the political world is also a marketplace, where the pursuit of self-interest by all the varying segments will produce a harmo- nious general welfare. This was essentially the argument of Madison in Federalist Paper number 10, suggesting that the enlargement of the polity would increase the number of interests participating in the political mar- ket, and thus make more likely the achievement of a general rather than a particular interest.
But governmental decision making is far more institutionalized than the decision making of a free economic market, and the public official is al- ways torn between acting as proponent of an interest (his own, or that of his department or agency, or of his profession, or of his faction or party) and acting as an arbiter among competing interests. Should U.S. Senator Richard Lugar support the interests of Indiana coal miners in dealing with acid rain? Can a real estate developer serve impartially on a zoning board? A longtime public servant coined an aphorism that is now widely known in the public administration community as Miles' Law: "Where a man stands depends on where he sits."
Since both potential and real conflicts of interest arc so pervasive, major efforts are made to provide a degree of protection by procedural safe- guards (a subject to be considered further in connection with the next level of public morality). Public acknowledgement of outside interests is re- quired, and arrangements are made for officials to refrain from participa- tion in matters where their interests may conflict. But these safeguards are far from sufficient to remove the moral responsibility of the individual em- ployee or officer.
Here, as in so many other moral matters, degree may become crucial. Some conflict of interest is inevitable; the question becomes, how much conflict of interest taints a decision or action so much as to make it un- ethical?
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Types and Levels of Public Morality 121
Service Orientation and Procedural Fairness
We now enter areas where the overlap with private morality, while still present, is less noticeable, and where the problems are more peculiarly those of public officials and employees.
The purpose of any governmental activity or program is to provide ser- vice to a clientele, a public. This is true even if the activity is in some degree authoritarian, a regulation or control. It is sometimes easy for this moral imperative to be obscured by the fact that government, and government of- ficials, have and exercise power. The auditor at the Internal Revenue Ser- vice, the policeman on the beat, the teacher in the classroom, the personnel officer in an agency, are there to serve their clients, but they also exercise authority, and there is real moral danger in the possibility that the author- ity comes to overshadow the service.
Attitudes and the tone and flavor of official behavior are morally signifi- cant. Where power is being exercised, arrogance can easily replace humil- ity, and the convenience of the official becomes more important than the convenience of the client. Delay and secrecy can become the norm. Proce- dures are designed for official purposes, not those of the public. This may well be the kind of corruption Lord Acton had in mind, rather than thiev- ery or bribery, when he said that "power corrupts."
The effort to provide some degree of protection for the clients against the potential arrogance of officials is one of the reasons why procedural fairness is one of the central components of public morality. The concept that a person threatened with the power of the state has firm procedural rights is a very ancient one. The right to a trial, a public trial, or a hearing, with proper notice of what is alleged or intended, the right to counsel, the right of appeal, are built into administrative as well as judicial procedures. "Procedural due process" is a cornerstone of public morality.
In addition to the need to protect citizens against the corrupting power of the state officialdom, there is another important ground for a proce- dural component of public morality. As will be noticed further in connec- tion with the sixth (highest?) level of morality to be discussed here, it is in- evitable that in a complex society interests will be opposed to each other, that not all can be satisfied, and that often not even a Pareto optimality can be achieved. The public decision-making process may not be a zero-sum game, with inevitable losses accompanying all gains, but the difficulty of satisfying all makes it necessary that the process of arriving at decisions about action, or policy, be a fair one.
The Ethic of Democratic Responsibility
In our consideration of various types and levels of pu blic morality, another transition occurs. The first three levels deal with the conduct of public offi-
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cials as they go about their business, the last three with the content of what they do. It is upon these first three levels (particularly the first two) that at- tention is usually focused in discussions of official ethics. They are impor- tant, and difficult, but they may not be as central as the considerations af- fecting the moral choices involved in deciding what to do, in pursuing the purposes of the state and the society. The first set might be said to deal with collateral morality, the latter set with intrinsic morality.
The dogma of the morality of popular sovereignty is now general throughout the world, and nowhere is it more strongly entrenched than in the United States. To be democratic is good, undemocratic bad. Observers acknowledge the existence of elites, even power elites, but the suggestion is that their presence is unfortunate and, by implication at least, immoral. Citizen participation is encouraged, even required, in governmental pro- grams. Hierarchy is suspect, participatory management the goal, even within an agency or institution.
In spite of almost universal adherence to the dogma, there are some reservations about its practice. Government by referendum does not al- ways arouse enthusiasm. "Maximum feasible participation"-the legal re- quirement for several national programs-was certainly not an unqualified success; U.S. Senator Patrick Moynihan called it "maximum feasible mis- understanding." Many have reservations about open records, open meet- ings, public negotiations-all justified on the grounds of the public's "right to know." But these reservations are still only "reservations"; the basic no- tion of popular sovereignty is seldom challenged.
In its simplest logic, the legitimacy of popular control is transmitted to operating public servants through a chain of delegation. The legislature is supposed to do what the people want, while the public executive and ad- ministrator are to conform to legislative intent. The politically chosen offi- cial, either elected or appointed by someone who was elected, bas the man- date of the people. The civil servant is ethically bound to carry out the instructions of these politicians, who derive their legitimacy from the peo- ple. The military is subordinate to politically chosen civilians. The "career" officials or employees are supposed to carry out Republican policies during a Republican administration, Democratic policies during a Democratic ad- ministration, because that is what the people want. For public employees to substitute their own judgments as to what the people want for the judg- ment of those who ha ve the electoral or political mandate is unethical, ac- cording to this logic. 'fhey may advise to the contrary, but they are to carry out the instructions of their political superiors to the best of their ability. If they cannot conscientiously do so, their only ethical choice is to resign their posts.
In reality, of course, the situation is never as clear as the simple logic sug- gests. In this country (more, probably, than in other practicing democra-
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Types and Levels of Public Morality 123
cies), there are usually multiple rather than single channels for the expres- sion of the public will. Both the legislature and the executive (sometimes many executives), and sometimes the judges, are elected by the people, and they may emit different signals from their popular mandates. A statute, or a constitutional provision, may be considered to embody the popular man- date better than instructions from a political superior. Arrangements for di- rect citizen participation through hearings or advisory commissions may complicate the process further. A public employee may have considerable range of choice in choosing which popular mandate to respond to. But, in principle, strong support would be given to the concept that a public offi- cial in a democracy has a moral responsibility to follow the will of the peo- ple in his or her actions.
This ethic of democratic responsibility, the logic of which is quite pow- erful, produces difficulty for public employees. The employees may have goals and values which differ from those transmitted through the politi- cal channels. Or, the political superiors, even the people themselves, may not be fully informed. There may be no better illustration than the resis- tance which professors in a public university might make to instructions from a board of trustees or a legislature as to what to teach or who should teach it.
The conflict is particularly severe when the logic of democracy conflicts with the logic of science or of professional expertise. What is the ethical position of the public employee when the people, directly or through their properly elected representatives, insist on the teaching of "creationism" which is repugnant to the scientist? Or when the certified experts say that fluoride in the water is good for people but the people say no? To put it in the simplest terms, should the public official give the people what they want or what he thinks they ought to want?
To some, the voice of the people in a democracy may be equivalent to the voice of God. But, for most public officials in most circumstances, that axiom will not provide answers that allow them to escape their personal responsibility to make moral choices based on their own values. The voice of the people will not be clear, it will not be based on full knowledge, it will conflict in small or large degree with other persuasive and powerful nor- mative considerations.
Here, as in other situations, the most popular (perhaps the best) answer may be a relativistic one. The official may be responsive to democratic con- trol and his political superiors, but not too much. Democracy may be inter- preted not as government by the people, but as government with the con- sent of the people, with professionals (either in a functional field or as practicing political leaders) making most decisions on the basis of stan- dards and values derived from sources other than a Gallup poll, and sub- mitting to only an infrequent exercise of electoral judgment as to the gen-
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eral direction of policy. Civil servants carry out the instructions of their po- litical superiors with vigor and alacrity if they agree with them, and with some foot dragging and modification if they disagree. They try to give the people, and the political officials representing them, what they would want if they had full information, meaning of course, the information available to the particular person conducting the activity.
The Ethic of Public Policy Determination
Perhaps the most complex and difficult of all the moral levels is that in- volved in determining public policy, in making actual decisions about what to do. The problems of honesty and conformity to law, difficult as they sometimes are, are simple compared to those in decisions about public pol- icy. And these are inescapably moral judgments; some policies, some ac- tions, are good, some bad. Determinations about the nature of the social security program and how it is to be paid for, for example, turn only in mi- nor degree on technical information; they depend chiefly on basic consider- ations about human values.
There can be no doubt that normative determinations are made at all levels of public service. They are not made just by legislatures, or by city councils, or school boards. They arc also made by the street level burea u- crats-the policeman on the beat, the intake interviewer at the welfare of- fice, the teacher in the classroom. These individuals make decisions in their official capacity that involve equity and justice and order and compassion. Rules, regulations, and supervision of others in a chain of command stretching back, in theory, to the sovereign people may provide a frame- work for decisions, but not a very tight framework. Every teacher knows that the department chairman and superintendent really have very little to do with how the job is actually done, and every cop knows the same thing about the police chief.
Though right and wrong certainly exist in public policy, they are fre- quently-usually-difficult to discern with confidence. There are degrees and levels of right and wrong. A medieval English verse about the enclo- sure of the village commons by the nobles goes:
The law locks up both man and woman Who steals the goose from off the common,
But lets the greater fclon loose Who steals the common from the goose.'
The perpetrator of a regressive tax, or of a regulation which permits water or air used by thousands to be polluted, or of a foreign policy position which produces or enlarges armed conflict, may do far more harm to far
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Types and Levels of Public Morality 125
more people than hundreds of common burglars. But is he or she a greater criminal? Or more immoral? The regressive tax may be better than leaving an essential public service unfunded; the pollution may result from a high- way that allows people to go about their affairs expeditiously, or a power plant that permits them to air condition their homes; many reasonable peo- ple believe that the most effective way to deter armed conflict is to threaten, with serious intent, to initiate or escalate armed conflict.
T<he judgments that must be made about the rightness or wrongness of a public policy or decision involve at least two types of considerations-one, the benefit-cost calculation, and the other, the distributional problem (who gains and who loses).
Benefit-cost calculations arc generally more difficult in the public arena than in the private, for two reasons. One is the matter of measurement- the currency in which the calculations are made. There are, of course, non- monetary considerations in many private decisions, but they are more per- vasive in public determinations. The other reason is the greater necessity for concern a bout externalities, for spillover costs and benefits. T'his is an important but usually secondary consideration in a private decision, but often central in a public one. The making of good benefit-cost calculations may be more a matter of wisdom (either analytical or intuitive) than of morality, but normative consideration in choosing factors to consider, and assigning weights to them, are inescapable.
Ethical considerations are particularly salient in determinations about distribution of benefits and burdens in a public activity or decision. Here we confront squarely the problems of equity and justice and fairness. Any attempt to define these concepts (which have occupied philosophers a long time) is obviously beyond the scope of this short paper. But a few reflec- tions may be offered.
Policies which do not provide equal treatment for all, or which enhance rather than diminish inequality, are usually condemned as unjust and un- fair. But equity is not synonymous with equality. Equity may require simi- lar treatment for those who are similarly situated-but not all are similarly situated. Many public policies do, and should, discriminate. The critical question is whether the basis for differentiation and the kind of differentia- tion are appropriate. It is appropriate and desirable for public policy to re- ward desirable behavior and punish undesirable behavior. To give an A to one student and an F to another, and to admit one to graduate school and turn the other down, certainly discriminates, but it may be just and fair and equitable. A central purpose of social policy is to elicit desirable be- havior, and discourage undesirable.
1t is also usually considered appropriate to differentiate on the basis of need-to provide things for the widow and the orphan and the physically and mentally handicapped that are not provided for others. Compassion
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would certainly seem a morally defensible ground for such discrimination. And there are many other grounds for such discrimination, many of them morally debatable. For example, is it appropriate (ethical) to provide free education for a citizen but not for an alien? Is it ethical to deport a refugee from economic privation but not a refugee from political oppression? Is it inequitable, unjust, and unconstitutional to deviate from one man-one vote apportionment in electing members of state legislatures and city coun- cils, but not in electing U.S. senators?
The Ethic of Compromise and Social Integration
To some, morality means uncompromising adherence to principle. To com- promise with evil, or with injustice, is immoral. But "principle" and "evil" and "injustice" are not always certain, especially in complex social situa- tions. One man's social justice may be another man's social injustice. Lin- coln's classic formulation, "with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right," seems to carry with it the implication that God may give some- one else to see the right differently, and that he also may be firm.
We must live with each other, adjust to each other, and hence make com- promises with each other. T'his is a central feature of politics and of a bu- reaucratic world that is also political. We are all involved in politics-the only place without politics was Robinson Crusoe's island before Frid<lY C<lme. As every successful politici<ln knows, it is necessary upon occasion to rise above principle and make a deal. Thus, compromise can be viewed as a highly moral act-without concessions to those who disagree, disagree- ment becomes stalemate and then conflict.
If sincere people hold to differing values, there must be institutional arrangements which legitimize courses of action which certainly can not satisfy all and may not fully satisfy any, and there is a moral obligation for both citizens and officials, but particularly officials, to participate in and support such arrangements. These institutional arrangements are, in large degree, procedural, permitting and encouraging public policy discourse and mutual persuasion and, finally, resolution of differences. The needed public policy discourse is more than the discourse of a marketplace which involves bargaining between and among economic self-interests. It is some- what different than the discourse in the "republic of science," in which ev- idence and proof (or at least disproof) can be marshalled. It may never at- tain the level of discourse which Habermas calls an "ideal speech situation." But it must be social discourse with a strongly moral compo- nent.
Since complete substantive due process, measured by the standards of a particular participant in the political process, can rarely be achieved, a large measure of procedural due process is a moral necessity, not only to
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Types and Levels o( Public Morality 127
protect an individual against the power of the state, but to make legitimate the process of public decision making. Complete reconciliation, or social integration, will always be elusive, but social cohesion, loyalty to and par- ticipation in a group, and in larger communities, is a moral goal of the highest order.
T. V. Smith put it this way: The world is full of saints, each of whom knows the way to salvation, and the role of the politician is that of the sin- ner who stands at the crossroad to keep saint from cutting the throat of saint. This may possibly be the highest ethical level of the public servant.
Notes
1. To the cynic, of course, the phrase Public Morality is an oxymoron-like Holy War, or United Nations, or Political Science.
2. This distinction has been pointed out by several writers-particularly by Wayne A.R. Leys in "Ethics and Administrative Discretion," Public Administration Review 3 (Winter 1(43), and in Ethics (or Policy Decisiolls (New York: Prentice- Hall,1952).
3. This outline map differs from others-and they differ from each other. Several which have been particularly suggestive, even though they differ, are the items by Leys cited in note 2, above; a particularly rich two-volume collection of papers edited by Harlan Cleveland and Harold Lasswell, I::thics and Bigness and The Ethic o( POUler (New York: Harper, 1(62); two substantial essays by Edmond Cahn, The Sense o( injustice (llioomington: Indiana University Press, 1964) and The Moral Decision (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1(66); a volume by George A. Graham, Morality in American Politics (New York: Random HOllse, 1(52); and a lecture (unfortunately unpublished) given by Dwight Waldo at Indiana University in Bloomington in 1977.
4. A very sensitive description of such problems, based largely on his own expe- riences as mayor of Middletown, may be found in Stephen K. Bailey, "The Ethical Problems of an Elected Political Executive," in Cleveland and Lasswell (eds.), Ethics and Bigness, 0/7. cit., pp. 24-27.
S. I borrowed this from George Graham, op. cit., p. 33. I'm sure he borrowed it from someone else.
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