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� FIVE MAJOR APPROACHES TO

ADMINISTRATIVE ETHICS

Ethics is a topic that has captured the imagination of scholars and the pub- lic alike since antiquity. Man always has questioned the premises upon which he acts, and so he has sought guidance for treating like cases alike, the quintessential definition of ‘‘equity,’’ a key feature of ethics. ‘‘Treating like cases alike’’ means that distinctions are made based on identifiable actions that allow for praise or blame to be assigned based on the nature of an event. Some actions are deemedmorally praiseworthy, whereas others are viewed as contrary to the standards of ‘‘right conduct.’’ The general goal of identifying ethical precepts is relatively straightforward—to develop stand- ards of ‘‘right conduct’’ that are known and knowable beforehand and apply to more or less everyone—but maddeningly difficult to specify with preci- sion, and evenmore onerous to practice.1

Aside from the general study of ethics, the more specialized field of administrative ethics as a rigorous area of academic inquiry first emerged from the shadows of the broader public administration literature during the 1970s. Scholars and practitioners in the public sector were not oblivi- ous to ethical concerns before that time, nor were they amoral autom- atons disinterested in questions of right conduct. Rather, administrative ethics as a systematic field of study before the 1970s was amorphous and undeveloped. No more-or-less agreed set of normative assumptions and theoretical propositions existed as part of a generally recognized body of

C o p y r i g h t 2 0 0 9 . P r a e g e r .

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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literature, nor did academics and practitioners agree on a well-established set of empirical techniques. A well-read student of administrative ethics might contend that a well-established set of normative assumptions and empirical techniques remains a missing piece to the puzzle that is the field of administrative ethics, and the point would have to be conceded. None- theless, the literature on public administration and ethics has grown tre- mendously since the 1970s, and attempts have been made to develop the necessary analytic tools even if a satisfactory synthesis of the disparate theories and schools of thought has not been forthcoming.

It was little wonder that the field, if it could even be called that, was in disarray before the Watergate era. In earlier decades, public administra- tors focused on questions of efficiency as though individuals staffing public agencies did not exercise discretion in decision-making. As a consequence, an ‘‘ethical’’ administrator was someone who sought to understand the leg- islative will or the orders issued by administrators ranked higher in the organizational hierarchy and acted as quickly and efficiently as possible. The idea that unelected public servants had a hand in developing policy and, therefore, inevitably faced potentially intractable questions of right and wrong in exercising discretion was unfathomable.2

In retrospect, the emphasis on maximizing timely efficiency was an ironic understanding of societal needs and values. Progressives at the end of the nineteenth century professed their concern for the injustice of machine-controlled politics and sought ways to root out cronyism and corruption from the public sector. On the federal level in the United States, passage of the Pendleton Act in 1883 was an initial step, although by no means the only one, toward the goal of establishing a professional civil service where recognizable standards of merit trumped the prover- bial smoke-filled back rooms where public employment and political favors were bandied about as though they were little more than market- driven quid pro quo transactions. By creating an efficient system of public administration where knowledge was more important than political con- tacts, progressives hoped to equalize the playing field for the talented albeit not well-connected masses. This level playing field, they contended, would lead to a more ‘‘scientific,’’ hence more equitable, public adminis- tration. The irony, of course, was that efficiency and justice were viewed as interrelated concepts where one would be fully realized only when the other was maximized. In time, the idea that efficiency and justice are blood brothers would be severely criticized as a chimera. For many

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scholars in the latter half of the twentieth century, justice and efficiency, although perhaps not antithetical, were at best distant cousins who were not always on good speaking terms.3

Scholars began to assail the positivism that had influenced the growth and development of American public administration, especially after World War II, and this led to important changes in administrative ethics. As the American Founders had recognized during the eighteenth century, efficiency has its rewards, but it also has its problems. An efficient govern- ment can lead to abuses of power when efficiency is transferred from a means to the end of serving the populace. When efficiency is an end in itself, the government makes decisions based on maximum return for minimum investment. If efficiency is to be adopted as a political value, it must be analyzed and tested.4 Nobel Laureate Herbert Simon famously argued that so many of the well-accepted axioms in public administration were little more than homilies that had remained unexamined throughout the history of the field. The ‘‘proverbs of administration’’ needed to be identified and understood or the field could not advance beyond its static approach to fundamental questions of governance. Similarly, Dwight Waldo questioned whether supposedly value-neutral terms such as ‘‘economy’’ and ‘‘efficiency’’ were not value-laden. The idea that a concept is value neutral is itself a value-laden conclusion. Simon and Waldo used the rapidly developing tools of social science to devastate the muddled thinking of a previous age.5

On the few occasions when administrative ethics received academic scrutiny before the 1970s, the analysis generally concerned the need to develop a code of ethics akin to the codes used to police professionals such as lawyers. The quintessential call for an ethical code came from Fritz M. Marx in 1949, although he was not alone in this assessment. Marx argued that public administrators needed to be ‘‘conscious agents of a democratic community.’’ Their values could not be based on their own personal predilections; rather, they had to be predicated on a deep under- standing and appreciation of a democratic ethos, especially the American version of a republican form of government. Administrative ethics, there- fore, must be developed broadly, keeping in mind the values of the re- gime. This approach, as we shall see later, became one of the major approaches to the study of administrative ethics.6

Another influential public discussion about codes of ethics occurred in the famous Friedrich-Finer Debate, which focused on the differences

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between ‘‘internal’’ and ‘‘external’’ controls on the behavior of public administrators. In his opening salvo, Carl J. Friedrich argued that an indi- vidual sense of moral responsibility is a crucial behavioral control. If peo- ple do not internalize a sense of ethics, nothing apart from around-the- clock surveillance can force them to behave appropriately. Friedrich wrote that ‘‘[r]esponsible conduct of administrative functions is not so much enforced as it is elicited.’’7

The idea that individual responsibility lies at the core of any system of ethics is a crucial component of modern ethical theory, but Friedrich wrote at a time when the politics-administration dichotomy was still widely accepted within the field of public administration. The primacy of personal responsibility implies that administrators are more than autom- atons carrying out directives issued by leaders placed higher in the hierar- chy. It implies that discretion is possible, nay even desirable. Discretion requires public servants at all levels of an organization to shoulder no small measure of responsibility for their role, however insubstantial or unheralded, in the policy-making process.8

Herman Finer presented the counterpoint to Friedrich’s arguments. ‘‘Moral responsibility is likely to operate in direct proportion to the strict- ness and efficiency of political responsibility, and to fall away into all sorts of perversions when the latter is weakly enforced,’’ he wrote.9 It sounds promising to rely on individual conceptions of ethics, but the problem is that such conceptions almost always are suitably vague or ambiguous and, thus, meaningless. Absent some form of external control, it is diffi- cult, if not impossible, to hold an administrator accountable for his or her actions. Individuals will either misunderstand democratic values or they will pursue their own interests. Although Finer later acknowledged that public administrators may enhance their accountability by educating themselves to appreciate public opinion and technical and professional standards, the paramount issue in ensuring ethical conduct is to improve external controls to the extent possible. Democratic government operates best when behavioral controls are external and ethical behavior is clearly defined in a codified, rule-based system that is known and knowable beforehand.10

This concern with whether a code of ethics is desirable is a crucial question, and not one that is easily resolved. On one hand, a code repli- cates the specificity of a positivist law, which allows for precision in iden- tifying standards of conduct and holding administrators accountable for

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knowing violations of the code. On the other hand, a code of ethics can- not address every situation that will arise. Moreover, if the principles of right conduct are not sufficiently understood and internalized, the rules may be nothing more than a series of obstacles that must be negotiated with no appreciation of the underlying ethical values.

Speaking of values, notice also the concern with democratic values. A key feature of administrative ethics is that public servants, by virtue of their positions, wield enormous power to affect the lives of citizens. Con- sequently, the public nature of their positions necessitates a thorough understanding of the needs and pressures of a political and legal system based, at least in part, on the consent of the governed. The difficulty with linking the consent of the governed to public servants working within administrative agencies is that those servants do not stand before the pop- ulace in periodic elections. Direct accountability is absent. If public serv- ants are to serve citizens faithfully and still be held at least somewhat accountable to those who are governed, an appreciation of, and adherence to, what are sometimes called ‘‘regime values’’ or the ‘‘democratic ethos’’ is critical. This point will be more fully developed later in this text.

Suffice is to say that these issues, among others, lurked under the sur- face of administrative theory and practice, especially for a quarter century after the end of the Second World War. During this period, administra- tive ethics was not well developed or understood. The field of public administration in those years focused on administering a burgeoning executive branch as the power of government grew in tandem with the complexity of American society.

Enter the 1970s. The lingering effects of the Vietnam War and the pub- lic scandals of the Nixon administration in Watergate focused attention on public sector ethics in a manner previously unimaginable. Despite Paul Appleby’s well-known warning that the study of ethics should involve a broader inquiry than merely focusing on ‘‘crude wrongdoing,’’ administrative ethics was revitalized, if not revolutionized, by the increased attention to public malfeasance. It is little wonder that assaults on the imperial presidency and the bureaucracy, including the 1973 War Powers Resolution and the Federal Election Campaign Act, date from this era. Public administration as a field and administrative ethics as a topic of occasional academic discourse may have started much earlier, but the study of administrative ethics as an ongoing, well-developed body of liter- ature begins with this period.11

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From a perspective of public administration, the systematic study of administrative ethics was born out of the political strife and fears of cor- ruption. Much of the literature from the early 1970s lamented the ‘‘neglect of metaphysical speculation’’ and the focus on step-by-step prac- ticality. Perhaps if administrative ethics focused more on the values underlying the public sector and the ideals of a democratic polity, instan- ces of public malfeasance would be reduced or eliminated, or so the thinking went among many leading scholars.12

Despite all the advances in the public administration literature since the 1970s, administrative ethics remained a relatively amorphous set of theories and concepts without a satisfactory grounding. As this book will discuss in subsequent chapters, administrative ethics lacked a core set of principles and, for that matter, an uncontested view of how an ethical ad- ministrator should act. A well-known ethical theorist, Terry L. Cooper, noted in a 2004 Public Administration Review article, ‘‘Big Questions in Administrative Ethics: A Need for Focused, Collaborative Effort,’’ that the ‘‘interesting but highly disparate’’ literature on administrative ethics lacks ‘‘anything like a focused effort by groups of scholars to study specific sets of significant research questions in a sustained and systematic fashion.’’ He attributed the absence of a systematic approach to ethics as a result of the failure to build consensus on ‘‘specific theoretical perspectives, sets of related problems, or significant issues.’’13

Cooper is correct that a theoretical grounding must precede the devel- opment of any systematic approach to administrative ethics. Moreover, a theoretical grounding varies according to the type of regime involved and its underlying values, so it is important to examine and articulate underly- ing regime values. The problem is that the values of a regime can be as varied and numerous as the commentators who seek to identify and understand them. Because the regime means different things to different people, its values can be interpreted in innumerable ways. This multiplic- ity of legitimate ideas about what constitutes the core values of the United States makes the search for regime values a never-ending process.

Building on Cooper’s insights, the question addressed in this book is whether a theoretical perspective (or a combination of perspectives) can be developed from the broad regime values in the United States and the disparate literature on administrative ethics and, if so, whether a workable model for practicing administrative ethics can be developed. The answer to the first question is no, whereas the book suggests that a workable

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model for ethics can be developed even in the absence of a satisfactory theoretical basis.

It may seem unusual to argue that a unifying theme or perspective is not possible, but this insight need not be surprising. Many thinkers have tried to develop an all-encompassing theory of ethics, but all have failed. They failed because the task itself is misguided. The source and content for standards of right conduct vary because individuals have freedom of choice. One person may believe that his or her conduct should be gov- erned by principles expressed in the Christian Bible, whereas another may subscribe to a Kantian deontological view that is not necessarily at odds with Christianity—indeed, it may be a slightly different articulation of similar values—and still another individual may suggest that a prag- matic consequentialism is an appropriate system.

The temptation is to spend one’s time arguing among and between schools of thought until the best possible argument can be crafted in sup- port of theory A. No matter how well the argument is crafted, however, others will support and defend theory B or theory C. In the meantime, the harried administrator working in a public organization calls out for assistance in discerning a pragmatic approach to determining what con- stitutes right conduct. No amount of theoretical groundwork will assist each administrator in determining an incontrovertible source of adminis- trative ethics. In Chapter 5, therefore, this book ‘‘cuts to the chase,’’ as they say. It outlines a decision-making process that provides a framework for taking action in the absence of a clear, overriding ethical theory.

Despite the lack of a clear, coherent theoretical foundation for admin- istrative ethics, many clarion calls have been issued for improved public sector ethics, and it is instructive to understand the most prevalent theo- ries. As Terry L. Cooper has suggested, the public administration litera- ture over the last three decades generally has reported on administrative ethics using one of at least five theoretical approaches: (1) ethics as virtue; (2) ethics as regime values, constitutional theory, and founding thought; (3) ethics as citizenship; (4) ethics as social equity; or (5) ethics as the public interest. Cooper does not limit administrative ethics to these, and only these, approaches. He also recognizes that some overlap occurs as the- ories incorporate parts of each approach. To some extent, however, each of these approaches has developed its own distinct literature as though the schools of thought were mutually exclusive; that is, each approach has been studied and written about as though no overlap occurred with other

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approaches. Thus, researchers who touted ethics as virtue often have assailed researchers who believe the most fruitful source should be ethics as social equity. In some cases, researchers have discussed overlapping approaches, but they have not done so in a systematic way, as Cooper has noted. Although this book is not designed to champion one school of thought over the others, a summary of the major features of each approach can provide perspective on the difficulties inherent in administrative ethics.14

ETHICS AS VIRTUE

Virtue is a concept that harkens back to the ancient Greeks. Today, the concept has no precise meaning, filtered, as it has been, through the prism of the Victorian age. In its basest, and silliest, sense, it can mean the reluc- tance of a woman to submit to the whims of an ardent suitor, or it can mean the shouldering of a heavy burden while displaying admirable forti- tude. For Plato and Aristotle, however, it referred to qualities of excellence necessary to govern oneself and, ultimately, one’s regime. Virtue was an excellence that came from the imposition of rigid self-discipline, from the ability of reason to conquer appetite and desire through personal will and self-control, and from the willingness of the individual to strive for goals and thereby grow while working at maximum capacity. A person dis- played virtue when he overcame his base instincts and, through habit and ongoing dedication, practiced asceticism. To be virtuous was to display qualities and traits that few possessed, thus becoming a sine qua non for public leadership.15

Niccolo Machiavelli, the great Florentine philosopher of the early six- teenth century, assailed the Greek notion of virtue as an immutable fea- ture of self-control, hence, ethics and good government. Reflecting a more skeptical philosophy than was possible during the apex of the Hel- lenistic age, the Italian obfuscated the distinctions between ‘‘virtue’’ and ‘‘vice,’’ insisting that such concepts were artificial constructs that had lost their usefulness, if they had any to begin with, in an age of realpolitik. For Machiavelli, ‘‘virtue’’ was a woman who, if immodestly attired in a cloak of self-righteousness, would be raped by stronger forces unaccustomed to, and disinterested in, the niceties of abstract concepts such as ‘‘right,’’ ‘‘wrong, ‘‘good,’’ and ‘‘evil.’’ In its place, Machiavelli argued in favor of ‘‘virtu,’’ a far more resilient, indelible concept. ‘‘Virtu,’’ although suitably

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vague, was his idea of an ethical value that could change as time and cir- cumstances changed. ‘‘Right conduct,’’ according to this view, occurs when a person or a nation acts in ways that advance one’s ‘‘values,’’ how- ever they might be defined.16

Machiavelli is a disturbing figure for anyone interested in absolute standards. He seems only a half-step removed from the doctrine of ‘‘might makes right.’’ If the ends justify the means, if ‘‘virtue,’’ in the classical sense, betrays weakness, if appearing to act virtuously is preferable to acting virtu- ously, ethics becomes situational. Whatever must be done to accomplish a task, however odious the task and however suspect the means of accom- plishing the task, ethics becomes a thin veneer of supposed justification for all manner of bad behavior. In Plato’s world, Machiavelli was a sophist who preached that his adherents should embrace any activity as long as it got him close to his desired ends.

After Machiavelli passed from the scene, ‘‘virtue’’ seemed an anti- quated idea, an old-fashioned and naı̈ve version of ethics. Anyone espous- ing faith in a higher virtue over and above the size of one’s army or the weapons in his arsenal was seen as masking an inner weakness that no amount of abstract ethical theory could erase. Individuals and nations often were content to speak of virtue in the light of day but practice real- politik in the dark of night. It would be Kant’s task almost three centuries later to rehabilitate the deontological perspective.17

Why, then, would a school of thought champion administrative ethics as virtue? Surely such an approach in the modern era would be summar- ily dismissed as out of touch and more than a little jejune. As with many old concepts that reemerge fortified by a richer intellectual tradition than they previously enjoyed, the ‘‘ethics as virtue’’ school is more subtle and nuanced than the conception of virtue that Machiavelli found contemptible.

As noted previously, prior to the 1970s, many theorists focused on developing ethical rules and codified systems of ethics for public sector agencies. In 1981, researcher Mark T. Lilla challenged this analytical emphasis, which he derided as simply training public administrators to memorize lists of rules without fully exploring their meaning or conse- quences. Absent a normative foundation, Lilla argued, ethical rules are hoops that must be jumped through, but they do not provide guidance for resolving situations where the rules do not seem to apply. In addition, codified rules can be manipulated in different ways to rationalize all sorts of behavior. Lilla concluded his appeal by arguing that a ‘‘democratic

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ethos’’ must be cultivated in public organizations as part of character for- mation. A democratic ethos, of course, is the idea that administrators are first and foremost public servants; as such, they must understand and act on the principles found in any regime built on the consent of the popu- lace as a principle of legitimate rule.18

‘‘Character formation’’ initially resembles a politically conservative call to return to the halcyon days of yesteryear when people of ‘‘good character’’—for example, Ivy League-educated, white, Anglo-Saxon, Prot- estant males—formulated American public policy based on the values they had acquired through privilege, connections, and schooling in tradi- tional notions of statecraft. Although some apologists of the ‘‘ethics as vir- tue’’ school may, indeed, yearn for a bygone era, the approach is more nuanced than it might originally appear. Virtue as character is the idea that certain more-or-less uncontested core values exist, and actions based on those values occur when people who understand the values and can act on the courage of their convictions are in positions of trust and authority. The values might be broadly identified as a belief in the beneficial aspects of pluralism, the creative possibilities inherent in diversity and conflict, the importance of safeguarding liberty and property interests, the need to pro- tect minority rights through ‘‘mitigated democracy’’ created and main- tained by institutional controls of government, and the relative sovereignty of citizens who participate in consensual self-government. Internalizing and thereafter championing these values requires a public servant to do more than pledge allegiance to an external oath or set of codified rules. If a public servant is going to ‘‘walk the walk’’ and not simply ‘‘talk the talk,’’ a life-long commitment to a republican form of government is required through study, habituation, and practice to face, and ultimately resolve, the moral crises that invariably spring up in the context of a life and career.19

ETHICS AS REGIME VALUES, CONSTITUTIONAL THEORY, AND FOUNDING THOUGHT

Identifying the source of ethics has always presented a major difficulty in setting forth a normative grounding for administrative ethics. If a pub- lic servant is to be held accountable for his or her actions, it is helpful to understand beforehand what constitutes ‘‘right conduct’’ in the public sector. Unlike Justice Potter Stewart’s much-ridiculed observation that he could not define obscenity, but ‘‘I know it when I see it,’’ ethical standards

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must have some form of precision if administrators are to be judged by how well they adhere to ethical standards. Where do these standards orig- inate, and what constitutes the substantive content of such standards? Proponents of constitutional theory suggest the answer by arguing that the system of American government established by the Founders is the appropriate source of ethics.20

According to this perspective, the Founders created the American regime; therefore, it is appropriate to look to the Founders for a source of ethical principles because they set into motion the political regime that exists today. Their values—which rested on the bedrock notion of ‘‘repub- lican virtue,’’ an ideal whereby citizens elect officials to represent their views and citizens act partially out of self-interest and partially out of a sense of the common good—are the values that persist and are reflected in our governmental institutions as well as our political culture.21

Of course, this endeavor is not without its challenges. The United States has changed in innumerable ways, large and small, since the incep- tion of the regime. The Founders did not foresee, and could not have envisioned, the complexities found in the world of the twenty-first cen- tury. As strict constructionists from the ‘‘original intent’’ school of juris- prudence have discovered, determining what the Founders did, or should have done, in specific situations based on their writings and ruminations requires no small measure of broad interpretation; therein lies the heart of the conundrum. Looking to long-dead champions of a republican form of government for guidance from general articulations of regime values is a Herculean enterprise. As Publius observed in Federalist 37, ‘‘All new laws, though penned with the greatest technical skill and passed on the fullest and most mature deliberation, are considered more or less obscure and equivocal, until their meaning be liquidated and ascertained by a series of particular discussions and adjudications.’’22

Despite potential pitfalls in identifying the Founders’ views on crucial ethical issues, proponents of ‘‘regime values’’ argue that although it is impossible to determine how earlier thinkers would handle specific situa- tions, the ‘‘higher law’’ background of American government can be iden- tified and communicated to the current crop of administrators.23 Note what this process involves, and what it does not. According to John Rohr, arguably the best known of the proponents of the ‘‘regime values’’ school of thought, the process involves delving into authoritative pronounce- ments of what a regime stands for in an effort to understand the crucial

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ideas that lie beneath the nation’s institutions. To use a crude analogy, regime values are the hardware upon which the institutions, or the oper- ating software, depend. To the extent that the United States ‘‘stands for’’ anything, its stands will be reflected in regime values. To understand these values, therefore, administrators need to read and digest a variety of sources that provide a window into the American Founding, but espe- cially opinions of the U.S. Supreme Court.24

Because the court must decide hard cases involving specific, concrete litigants, it is the one place in the American system where the high ideals of the Founders meet the real-world, day-to-day concerns of ordinary citizens eking out a life in the country. Because the Justices must vote to reach an opinion that will resolve current disputes and because the deci- sions of a majority of Justices become the law of the land, U.S. Supreme Court opinions provide an almost ideal perspective on the salient issues in American life at a given period in time but against a backdrop of cur- rent societal concerns. Added to the usefulness of the majority opinion as a method of understanding changes in the law, dissenting and concurring opinions shed light on alternate perspectives not fully captured by the majority.25

Consider two vastly different landmark segregation cases as an illustra- tion. In 1896, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld legal segregation as consti- tutionally permissible in Plessy v. Ferguson by a 7–1 vote (with one justice not participating). Justice John Marshall Harlan the elder, the lone dis- senter, argued that the U.S. Constitution was color-blind, and a citizen’s race should not be a determining factor in extending constitutional pro- tection to individual rights.26 Fifty-eight years later, the high court reversed Plessy v. Ferguson in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, one of the most influential court decisions in history. A unanimous court held that segregation was not constitutionally permissible. Instead, it was a dis- credited doctrine propagated by a legal system steeped in an earlier, less progressive era.27

Plessy and Brown offer valuable insights into the regime values of the United States during different times in the nation’s history; they are snap- shots into national values. In 1896, the United States was still very much a nation controlled by the white power structure at the federal, state, and local levels. Blacks were denied the equal protection of the laws and were systematically denied access to public accommodations throughout much of the country. Although some progressives, white and black, lamented

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the sorry state of race relations, by and large blacks were relegated to sub- missive positions in society, and they had little recourse but to accept their inferior places in the economic, political, and social strata. The nation changed during the ensuing six decades. By the 1950s, even as the modern civil rights movement was about to emerge, thinking in many parts of American culture had evolved. Segregation and other discriminatory laws were America’s shameful burden. A revolution was in the air. Regime val- ues had shifted, and this shift was reflected in authoritative pronounce- ments of American courts, especially the highest court in the land.28

In Ethics for Bureaucrats, John Rohr argued that searching for regime values in published court decisions avoids problems associated with ask- ing public servants to study great works of philosophy to locate ethical guidance. Court decisions provide a context in which issues are framed and explanations provided for why a recognized, authoritative govern- mental entity decided a case in a certain way. The general principles of the regime are fit to specific legal problems. In contrast, asking adminis- trators to consult philosophical works can raise as many questions as they resolve because such works often are vague, difficult to understand, and open to multiple interpretations. The ‘‘real-world’’ application of princi- ples and rules discerned from legal cases avoids the ambiguities inherent in reading general works of philosophy. ‘‘A haphazard perusal of the works of the great philosophers will yield nothing more than a gentle- man’s veneer,’’ Rohr contended, because it will never provide a context for decision-making the way a court case provides a context.29

Despite Rohr’s desire to provide administrators with an authoritative source for identifying regime values, ‘‘black letter law’’ is not always read- ily apparent in court decisions. Sometimes, legal rules are in flux, and dif- ferent courts reach different conclusions. In addition, the search for regime principles presupposes that law and ethics coincide. In many cases they do, but not in every case. As illustrated in the Plessy case, the law may decide to treat persons differently based on characteristics that ethi- cists would argue are indefensible. In such cases, an authoritative entity does not provide the clear guidance that John Rohr and others seek in their quest to identify regime principles.30

Other scholars have contended that the search for regime values is a useful enterprise even if the results do not always convey the precision that Rohr sought. Ronald Moe and Robert Gilmour suggested that grounding administrative ethics in public law requires administrators to

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meet the needs of society while simultaneously protecting the constitu- tional rights of citizens.31 Similarly, David H. Rosenbloom argued that public administrators must understand and protect the public law herit- age of the United States.32 Laurence J. O’Toole, Jr. suggested that a lack of constitutional grounding led scholars to create a hypothetical politics- dichotomy that may have served as a useful tool for analysis during the early years of the field, but it failed to reflect the reality of administrative operations. Although today the dichotomy has been rejected by most stu- dents of American public administration, it still provides ‘‘statutory fram- ing’’ for bureaucracy.33 Another influential public administration theorist, Charles R. Wise, championed regime values as they are articulated by the courts because judicial decisions, especially U.S. Supreme Court opinions, influence the manner in which the bureaucracy operates.34

For all proponents of regime values and Founding thought, the key point is to understand and apply the values of the Founders to a world that has changed significantly. As noted previously, this is neither a sim- ple task, nor one free from controversy. Assuming that twenty-first cen- tury researchers can set aside presentism, which is the tendency to interpret past events through the values and sensibilities of the modern age, understanding the Founding perspective can be challenging but a worthwhile effort ‘‘to the end of trying to actualize the ideal of the Found- ers to become a republic of virtue.’’35

ETHICS AS CITIZENSHIP

The ‘‘ethics-as-citizenship’’ approach requires public administrators to do what they can to ensure that people within the regime are treated and respected as citizens. The term ‘‘citizens’’ has a precise meaning in this context; it refers both to the status of an individual and to the practice of participating in civic life. Citizenship status is the idea that persons who reside under the authority of a particular government because of geographic boundaries possess a litany of rights and responsibilities such as the right to vote, freedom of speech, press, religion, and assembly, and an obligation to obey the laws of the regime. Participating in civic life is the next step aside from a person’s status. This ideal suggests that persons who see themselves as citizens will actively seek to engage in civic affairs by running for political office, serving on juries or in the armed services, as appropriate, and seeking to know and honor the public good.36

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Ethics as citizenship highlights a fundamental problem in the history of ethics—indeed, the history of human beings as individuals with aspira- tions toward collectivity. Individuals often are motivated by self-interest to maximize private concerns even if this means they sacrifice the com- mon good. This is exactly the issue that political economists call the ‘‘tragedy of the commons,’’ which, as explained in a well-known article by Garrett Hardin, is when individual users of a resource that is not privately owned (a ‘‘common pool resource’’) have an incentive to use as much as they can, even if they exhaust the resource, to satisfy their individual desires. Because they take a short-term view of their actions, individuals potentially destroy the resource. Hardin’s article highlights the need to engage individuals and remind them that as citizens, they have a civic duty to act on interests over and above their own self-interest.37

Proponents of citizenship ethics emphasize common themes. First, they insist that citizens, once they are empowered, can exercise authorita- tive judgment over political issues. This democratic ethos typically is expressed as a means of limiting the power and influence of elites. In the meantime, empowerment and action move good citizens to think in terms of the public interest, however it is defined. An emphasis on the public interest is not to suggest that citizens will be compelled to renounce ‘‘self-interest, properly understood,’’ in Tocqueville’s words.38

Instead, they will recognize that self-interest can be maximized only when the public good is protected through the organs of government.

Citizens understand the value of education as a tool for improving public affairs. If a democratic government requires eternal vigilance to ensure its continued success, as many commentators and theorists have argued, citizens of a regime must be instructed on appropriate regime val- ues and the processes and procedures required to govern with a demo- cratic ethos. Education includes not simply rote memorization of key facts and data related to the regime, but it provides citizens with the tools to think about political and ethical problems analytically, with an empha- sis on appreciating a common heritage and practical problems associated with governance.

An appreciation of a common heritage can lead to the final insight, namely the importance of community. With its emphasis on the primacy of individual rights, a democratic political system and a capitalist eco- nomic system can lead to a life where citizenship is not valued. People are satisfied to labor in pursuit of their own interests with little or no regard

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for the interests of the collectivity. Citizenship ethics seeks to transcend this cramped notion of life in a democratic/capitalist regime by fostering a sense of mutual regard among and between the denizens who live in a polity. When mutual regard exists, the regime stresses that the rights of every individual citizen are equal to the rights of every other citizen. Pub- lic administrators can foster this spirit of citizenship by remembering that they work for citizens, and they must engage in their duties in a manner that respects citizenship.39

Citizenship ethics recalls the notion of a shining city on a hill, but for many skeptics, this ideal seems impossible to attain and naı̈ve to attempt. According to researchers Linda de Leon and Robert B. Denhardt, among others, skepticism about the ideals of citizenship is hardly surprising. Since reform movements emerged in public administration during the 1990s, especially the New Public Management and Reinventing Govern- ment, scholars and practitioners alike have championed the market model, focusing on customers rather than citizens, which invariably leads to ‘‘glorification of entrepreneurial management.’’ The market model pos- its that government should be organized, operated, and evaluated as though it were a private, for-profit business. Despite the appeal of holding government agencies accountable through measures of efficiency and effectiveness, de Leon and Denhardt suggested that government has other values—e.g., constitutional protections and a belief in the primacy of indi- vidual participation—that preclude close adherence to a market model. Moreover, focusing on customers undermines the advantages of treating people as citizens. Citizens have duties and obligations in a democratic society that extend far beyond a customer-supplier relationship, which rests on the idea that customers express their needs and desires, and sup- pliers jockey to meet those needs and desires. Citizens have rights and obligations that are absent from the customer-supplier interaction.40

ETHICS AS SOCIAL EQUITY

At its core, the term ‘‘social equity’’ seems to refer to concepts of fair- ness and justice, but these concepts are so vague and open to interpreta- tion that they seem to have little value apart from serving as a crude Rorschach test for determining a person’s liberal or conservative political values. One person’s ‘‘fairness’’ or ‘‘justice’’ is another person’s ‘‘impedi- ment’’ or ‘‘interference with markets.’’ Equity, to some extent, is in the

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eye of the beholder. Nonetheless, in the context of public administration, social equity refers to the delivery of government services in a fair and impartial manner regardless of the economic resources or personal traits of the recipients. Moreover, goods and services must be provided equally or at least in such a way that the disadvantaged receive a greater degree of benefits.41

Supporters of social equity contend that when the Wilsonian paradigm of a politics-administration dichotomy was rejected after the 1930s, the resultant change in thinking allowed administrators to recognize their duties were broader than merely carrying out orders set forth by political appointees placed higher in the bureaucratic hierarchy. Administrators at all levels act on behalf of the public welfare, which means they have a heightened responsibility for ensuring that members of the public are treated fairly and impartially. Because so many people have been denied fairness and impartiality on account of their gender, race, ethnicity, or age in times past, disparities continue to exist in the American regime. To the extent that such disparities can be recognized and rectified by admin- istrators, they are obliged to promote social equity.42

Arguably, the most famous articulation of social equity as a concern for the least fortunate in society was found in the landmark 1971 work of John Rawls, A Theory of Justice. Rawls was arguing in a broader context than public administration; however, his defense of equity applies in this con- text. According to Rawls, the reason social equity is controversial is because people know their position in society. Decision-makers in the upper eche- lon of government are elites. They secured their positions by virtue of supe- rior knowledge, education, or political contacts. Although some elites will champion social equity as a desirable goal, many other elites will see social equity as an illegitimate means of assisting the disadvantaged by redistrib- uting wealth, thereby violating the rights of all citizens.

Rawls contended that elites arguing against ‘‘handouts’’ for the least advantaged are guided by self-interest, as are most human beings. Because many elites cannot fathom themselves as the least advantaged, they are safe in arguing against social equity. Would they propound a laissez-faire position if they were ignorant of their social position? Rawls believed they would not. He constructed a hypothetical ‘‘original condition’’ where de- cision-makers must decide on how goods and services will be distributed in a society, but the decision-makers are ignorant of their status. Rawls la- beled this hypothetical construct the ‘‘veil of ignorance.’’

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A rational decision-maker acting under a veil of ignorance would design a society so that the least advantaged would not be made worse off by any policies developed and implemented by government. Because no decision-maker can be assured that he or she is an elite, the decision- maker must consider the possibility that when the veil of ignorance is lifted, and persons in the society move beyond the original position, he or she will be poor and destitute. This insight—that people should design a government and a society without reference to one’s own socioeconomic status—is essentially an argument in favor of social equity. Because the disadvantaged exist and require assistance, administrators have a moral, and perhaps a legal, obligation to provide assistance.43

Social equity has been criticized for being too lofty and left-leaning in its political sensibilities. The New Public Administration, which reached its apex during the 1970s, was dedicated to promoting social equity through government programs, but the movement fell on hard times in the Reagan era when smaller government was heralded as the solution to problems of malaise and stagflation. Moreover, many academics were troubled by the notion that unelected public administrators would deter- mine what constitutes ‘‘social equity’’ and take action to implement their vision inside their respective agencies. To conservatives of the ‘‘live-and- let-live’’ school of thought, administrators who championed social equity as a political ethic were the worst sort of activists; they were engaged in ‘‘social engineering’’ without directly answering to the electorate, a fright- ening prospect for social and political conservatives who believe that government is best which governs least.44

Beginning in the reform-minded 1960s and 1970s, a movement arose within the field of public administration dedicated to legitimizing the exercise of broad administrative discretion within a political and legal sys- tem based on the rule of law. If decisions that affect a large percentage of the population are made by public administrators who are not directly accountable to the population, the concept of a truly democratic nation is potentially threatened. Proponents of the ‘‘legitimacy movement,’’ as it came to be called, argued that career public administrators must exercise discretion based on ‘‘legitimate’’ sources of authority such as the U.S. Constitution, statutory law, and well-worn rules and regulations. These theorists use terms such as ‘‘statesmanship,’’ ‘‘stewardship,’’ and the ‘‘public interest’’ to explain how and why unelected public officials have an obligation to protect the public. The key insight is that public

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administrators must demonstrate how and why they make principled decisions based on reasons they can articulate and defend—in short, something far removed from arbitrary and capricious grounds. This heightened duty to perform the work of the public stands in stark con- trast to the duty imposed on persons laboring outside of government service.45

ETHICS AS THE PUBLIC INTEREST

Closely related to equity is the old adage suggesting that government should be devoted to protecting the public interest, whereas business should be left to pursue private interest. Yet, this simplistic definition does not differentiate between divergent conceptions of the public inter- est. According to one interpretation of the term ‘‘public interest,’’ the core objective is to achieve procedural balance so that all rights and interests are protected equally without regard to the status of the individuals involved. In the realm of constitutional law, the concept is embodied in the term ‘‘procedural due process.’’ The process, not the end result, is the important insight; the public interest is served if each person is afforded his or her day in court, even if the outcome is not ideal.

A competing view of the public interest might be thought of as a sub- stantive debate over the ends of a democratic government. According to this view, which is referred to in constitutional law as ‘‘substantive due process,’’ a government that purports to be founded on the consent of the governed necessarily protects individual rights from abrogation or encroachment by obdurate, potentially tyrannical governments. If citizens enjoy liberty and property rights, for example, government cannot infringe on these rights absent a justifiable cause based on the actions, rather than the status, of the individual. The protection and advancement of these rights is a substantive ethic; that is, a government cannot under- mine these rights without eroding fundamental elements that comprise a democratic government.

Whichever view is adopted, the paramount consideration is that the protection of individuals leads to a higher good, the notion of a commu- nity. Whether it is seen as an amalgamation of individual interests or a wholly new, somewhat mystic creation, a ‘‘community’’ is greater than the sum of its parts. It is a belief that we are all in this together, that to be an ‘‘American’’ (or Czech or Swede or Russian or whatever) is more than

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a national myth. It is a value that sets us apart from other nations and other forms of government.46

Throughout the history of the United States, the public interest has been a compelling concept, one endlessly debated but never satisfactorily resolved. The public interest is ambiguous. As Barry Bozeman has writ- ten, ‘‘So long as public interest concepts are hopelessly ambiguous, usage will necessarily be inconsistent, measurement efforts have little likelihood of success, and it will be difficult systematically to consider ‘a great num- ber of examples.’’’47

Bozeman’s comment about the inconsistency and imprecision in mea- surement helps to explain, at least in part, why the market model has been so persuasive compared with the public interest model. The market model suggests that rather than focus on the substantive or procedural rights that give rise to a sense of community, we should focus on the indi- vidual as the unit of analysis. What, exactly, is the amorphous, ambiguous public interest, and how would one know it if he or she encountered it? How does one measure the public interest? In contrast, private interest, as reflected in the marketplace, can be measured relatively easily. If an entre- preneur introduces a product into the marketplace to advance his or her interest in increasing personal wealth, the measure of whether this private interest is advanced is whether the product sells. The outcome can be quantified through monetary measures.

This easy quantification resonates with the public in a way the more imprecise, ambiguous concept of the public interest cannot. Asking a tax- payer to forgo income or pay a higher income tax rate so that wealth can be redistributed to assist the less fortunate through government assistance programs in the name of the public interest or the common good is a hard sell. The taxpayer feels and can quantify the loss of monies, the slight diminution in his or her private interest, but the resultant benefit to the public interest—especially in light of stories about abuses within public assistance programs—remains theoretical and therefore unreal.48

CONCLUSION

It is unlikely that any work can adequately sift through the disparate literature on administrative ethics and develop a unified theory that resolves all the nagging questions that abound. Part of the problem is inherent in the nature of ethics as opposed to, for example, law. The latter

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is a known and knowable system of positivist rules developed to resolve public disputes in an equitable manner and enforced, as necessary, through state sanctions. Law is designed to resolve specific cases in a manner that allocates fault and/or property among and between parties. Because legal proceedings frequently pit one party against another, the process generally is adversarial; one party achieves most or all of its goals at the expense of the other party. In contrast, ethics generally is a set of heuristic principles that guide individuals in decision-making, but the principles are less clearly defined than legal rules. As a result, ethical inquiries often are vague, amorphous, and open to multiple interpreta- tions. When the law is vague and open to competing interpretations, this is seen as a failure to draft an appropriate set of rules because precision is needed to resolve disputes. When ethics is less well-defined and precise than law, the ambiguity can be deemed profundity.49

Having recognized the fundamentally amorphous nature of ethics, all hope is not lost. A fruitful effort can and should be made to wade through the literature and make sense of the disparate schools of thought. Each of the five theories of administrative ethics identified by Cooper explores dif- ferent features of ethical thinking; therefore, they reach different conclu- sions. That schools of thought focusing on different aspects should reach different conclusions is to be expected. Any intellectual inquiry that uses one conceptual framework versus another will naturally emphasize differ- ent aspects than another school of thought employing a separate frame- work. The task here is to examine the commonalities among each framework and offer insights into mutually agreeable premises. A suitable starting point for this endeavor is to review recent literature on ethics to discern how theories of administrative ethics fit into a larger context.

As mentioned in the Introduction, this book argues on behalf of a process approach to administrative ethics. In lieu of arguing that one of the five approaches to ethics discussed above is favored, this text suggests that as long as one of these approaches is adopted and can be defended through argumentation and persuasion, the crucial component to ethics is in the process of reaching a decision and taking action. It is helpful to know the universe of approaches and theories before making a decision, and it is to the various systems of modern and postmodern ethics that we now turn.

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2

� CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE

AFFECTING ADMINISTRATIVE ETHICS

The literature on ethics and the public interest outside of public adminis- tration is voluminous and thus far beyond the scope of a single book. Nonetheless, it is essential to understand the more influential trends that have helped to shape the development of administrative ethics since writ- ers and thinkers who specialize in the field operate within a framework of broader ethical concerns and concepts. Accordingly, this chapter will review contemporary literature on ethical theory as a prelude to exploring questions of administrative ethics.1

THE NATURE OF PHILOSOPHIC INQUIRY

Ethics is the branch of philosophy that is concerned with how and why people act based on the choices they make. Philosophy, as distinguished from science, is the idea that human beings can discern the answers to fundamental questions about how life ought to be lived based on reason and rational inquiry as opposed to experimentation. In other words, whereas science seeks answers to fundamental questions through empiri- cal research that supports the development of hypotheses, or educated guesses, about how the world works, philosophy relies on the ability of human beings to explore crucial issues through thinking and deductive reasoning. Because philosophy does not rely on empirical research apart

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from general observations about the world, it cannot provide answers to many basic questions about human beings and their world, but it can raise questions that can be empirically tested, and it can enrich human life by identifying questions that are fundamental to the human condition. Philosophy is not antithetical to empirical research; rather, it exists sepa- rate from empirical investigations, serving as the foundation for later experimentation.

Philosophy can be thought of as a means of inquiry into the nature of things. In some cases, it is speculative, which generates knowledge for the sake of knowledge regardless of its practical effect. Metaphysics, a branch of philosophy, argues for the pursuit of knowledge regardless of how the results might be used in a concrete, real-world application. This approach is vastly different from philosophical traditions such as logics, ethics, or aes- thetics, which seek to provide guidance on practical action and behavior.

Theorists who delve into ethics typically immerse themselves in the concrete applications of philosophical principles. According to many modern theorists, metaphysics does not provide a useful foundation for ethics because it is so abstract and generalized that the knowledge gleaned from metaphysical musings is not readily applicable to the everyday world of a public administrator, for example. For a philosophy of ethics to be useful in making day-to-day decisions, it must be focused on the kinds of problems that human beings face as they travel through their lives, and it must be presented in a manner that allows decision-makers to take action based on the ideas and concepts covered.

For the concerned public administrator who seeks to ‘‘do the right thing,’’ a philosophical inquiry can be maddening. Despite the desire of many ethicists to produce a practical system of ethics, the truth is that multiple schools of thought that champion radically different concepts of ethics can leave a harried administrator frustrated at the lack of specificity in ethical theory. This frustration is responsible to some extent for the many attempts to develop codes of ethics in professional fields. Codes of ethics can provide a small measure of specificity, to be sure, but they can- not address every instance where a human being confronts an ethical di- lemma. For that reason, if for no other, it is helpful for all administrators, even those ‘‘street-level bureaucrats’’ about which much ink has been spilled, to have at least a passing familiarity with some of the modern the- ories of ethics that provide a foundation for codes of ethics and positivist bases of right conduct.

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Theories of ethics vary, and different schools of thought exist. Much of the difficulty in reconciling schools of thought and competing theories of ethics occurs because theorists, and to some extent practitioners, talk past each other. Some ethicists contend that the important inquiry concerns de- scriptive ethics (the ‘‘is’’), whereas others argue for normative ethics (the ‘‘ought’’), and still others champion analytic ethics (sometimes called ‘‘meta- ethics,’’ an offshoot of normative ethics that questions the premises that sup- port moral judgments). Moreover, one group of thinkers posits a system that focuses on the individual as the appropriate unit of analysis, whereas the other group contends that the collectivity is the paramount consideration.

The analysis of the factors that ground ethics also varies widely among and between schools of thought. The twentieth century witnessed the pub- lication of numerous books and articles about ethics. Whether these publi- cations successfully improved upon preceding works on the subject remains open to debate; nothing is new under the sun. Theories must grap- ple with perennial questions of deontological and teleological approaches to ethics, but the manner in which they proceed and the quality of their arguments determine which works endure and which slip into obscurity.2

This chapter will review a few of the most influential and salient theo- ries of ethics in the modern and postmodern era. Although each system has much to recommend it (and much to undermine it, for that matter), each is not ‘‘the answer’’ to resolving ethical dilemmas. If one were to ex- perience a ‘‘Eureka’’ moment and become ecstatic at the prospect of hav- ing found the ‘‘right answer’’ to administrative ethics, the epiphany no doubt would have occurred far before this moment in this text. What this brief summary will do is provide a snapshot view of the most engaging theories on ethics in the literature beyond the field of public administra- tion. At the conclusion, the question will remain: As compelling as many of these schools of thought appear, how do they assist in the reconciliation of the competing perspectives identified by Terry L. Cooper in Chapter 1? As discussed in Chapter 5, reconciliation may be impossible, yet decision- makers must not become paralyzed by indecision. A decision-making process, whatever school of thought rules the day, becomes crucial.

THE CONTINUED VITALITY OF UTILITARIANISM

Utilitarianism has been, and remains, one of the most influential philo- sophical doctrines in the Western intellectual tradition, largely because it

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strikes even those persons unaccustomed to philosophical discourse as intuitively justified. Democratic theorists and elected officials have taken refuge in the notion that public policy must be developed with an appre- ciation of how many citizens (and voters) will be affected by a particular policy. Although utilitarianism has not suffered from a shortage of critics, it has withstood numerous assaults because of its resiliency and popular- ity among policy-makers.

Proponents of utilitarianism argue that men engage in rational decision-making according to the principle of utility, which holds that people always seek the greatest happiness, or the greatest pleasure, from a choice among alternatives. The English philosopher Jeremy Bentham developed this philosophy based on David Hume’s theory of moral senti- ments, which asserted that human beings have an instinctive understand- ing of which acts are useful and therefore appropriately undertaken. Bentham’s godson, John Stuart Mill, writing in the mid-nineteenth cen- tury, refined Bentham’s justification of utilitarianism by suggesting that it is intuitively obvious that human beings seek pleasure in their day-to-day lives in the real world. The wisdom of individual choices is dictated by the character of the people who make decisions. People often set aside their own short-term happiness to advance a larger goal, such as their future happiness. Evidence of this insight is visible everyday when people choose to attend school in lieu of pursuing leisure activities, or they place money in a savings account instead of spending it today. More to the point, a person of good character often chooses a course of action that is not pleasurable; he chooses ‘‘higher’’ pleasures based on his past experi- ences with pleasure and pain.3

Critics of utilitarianism argue that ethics based on maximizing a per- son’s individual preferences is base and undermines society by encourag- ing appetite-driven human beings to consider their selfish proclivities above all else. Mill’s rejoinder is that a proper utilitarian considers the happiness of other persons—the greatest amount of happiness in society as an aggregate collection of individual preferences. Utilitarianism, there- fore, is not solely concerned with the individual as the appropriate unit of analysis. The philosophy requires persons to calculate happiness based on an impartial judgment divorced from self-interest. A genuine utilitarian calculation occasionally requires an individual to sacrifice his own happi- ness for the happiness of a larger group. According to Mill, this is the philosophical basis for democratic government and majority rule. Public

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policy is most appropriately determined by discovering the greatest good for the greatest number of people and acting accordingly.4

Utilitarianism’s detractors contend that this numbers-based theory highlights the deficiencies of democratic government. A majority of peo- ple seek pleasure instead of pain—this insight is hardly astonishing—but pleasure-seeking does not necessarily form a justifiable basis for govern- ment or, for that matter, public sector ethics. Avoidance of pain in pursuit of pleasure is a base calculation that can lead to a base society. Concepts such as ‘‘just’’ or ‘‘right’’ do not depend on the desires of a majority. The tyranny of a majority can lead to oppressive public policy and abhorrent personal conduct all in the name of the higher good or the greatest good for the greatest number. In addition, utilitarianism presupposes that ethi- cal choices are a matter of calculating costs and benefits and selecting a policy that maximizes benefits and minimizes costs. Would that calculat- ing costs and benefits were a simple matter, but utilitarianism provides no workable mechanisms for judging among and between complex calcu- lations where the choices are not always obvious.5

Consider a common public policy issue: industrial development versus environmental preservation. Developers argue that an increasing popula- tion and the rise of the middle class throughout the world require aggres- sive policies allowing them to clear away forests and consume natural resources at an advanced rate. In the absence of such consumption, they contend, the infrastructure for supporting the citizenry will be absent, and extreme shortages will result. For their part, environmentalists con- tend that aggressive resource consumption without careful natural resource protection will exacerbate a variety of ecological problems, including soil erosion, water shortages, and global warming.

Utilitarianism, the champion of rational cost-benefit calculations, can be used to justify either position. Developers can calculate the resources necessary to sustain a growing population in the short term and leave it to future generations to handle subsequent environmental problems. Af- ter all, who knows what technological advances and scientific tools will be available to citizens a century from now? To worry about problems and issues in the distant future is to magnify the enormity of problems that scream out for resolution today. A strict weighing of pros and cons is dif- ficult when the possibly negative consequences are not likely to occur, or the probability of their occurrence is so far removed that the consequen- ces cannot be tabulated accurately. Environmentalists can take issue with

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this calculation and argue that based on their own cost-benefit analysis, prudent resource management is needed now so that resources are not exhausted. In short, the problems of future generations are problems to be dealt with now because without wise environmental protection in the present, there will be no resources available for those persons who come after the current generation passes.

This question of consequences is similar to the distinction between a direct cause and a proximate cause in the law. Because the question of liability often turns on the damages occasioned by a defendant, it is help- ful to determine what exactly flowed or resulted from the actions of the defendant. If he or she swings her fist and connects with another person, the injuries that occur are a direct consequence of the assault. The de- fendant is the direct cause of the damages and must be held accountable for this action. If the defendant swings his or her fist and the person ducks to avoid the contact but, in so ducking, knocks over a bucket that was precariously balanced on a ladder, causing the bucket to strike some- one else, the question of causation is much more difficult. The crucial question in that situation is whether the ultimate damage was foreseeable at the time the defendant swung his or her fist. We need not extend the legal analysis too far here; the point is that cause and effect is not always a straightforward calculation. Utilitarianism lacks precision and does not provide a mechanism for resolving this type of conundrum.6

Moreover, utilitarianism assumes that individuals are capable of reach- ing decisions based on rationality, yet understanding the many reasons that an individual decided on a course of action, much less a group of individuals, is difficult. People make decisions for many reasons, some of which may be irrational. In some situations, it is possible that persons would willingly sacrifice their liberty on the altar of the greatest good. In a totalitarian state, individuals might be willing to endure horrible abuses and surrender their civil liberties in hopes that the overall society will be improved. Moreover, different depths of preferences exist; some people desire a particular good a great deal, whereas others are disinterested. Utility calculations generally afford each person’s preferences the same unit value. Depths of preferences are not adequately considered.7

Despite these attacks, over time utilitarianism has been the predomi- nant philosophical justification for the liberal democratic state. G. E. Moore continued the trend but also signaled a new direction toward eval- uating and advancing utilitarianism in his landmark work, Principia

28 PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION ETHICS FOR THE 21ST CENTURY

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Ethica, first published in 1903. In that work he foreshadowed the impor- tance of linguistic analysis that would define much of the philosophy that followed. According to Moore, previous ethical theorists had developed elaborate meta-theories without adequately defining their terms at the outset. Initially, this insight may sound jejune, but it actually raises a pro- found, if subtle, point. Utilitarians, including Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill, argue in favor of the greatest good for the greatest number, but they do not explain what they mean by ‘‘good’’ except to assume that ‘‘goodness’’ refers to ‘‘pleasurable’’ without arguing the point. In some cases, pleasure and good may be identical, but this is not necessarily the case. Moore suggested that ‘‘good’’ is unique; it exists separate and apart from notions of pleasure. In fact, the ‘‘good’’ is such a simple, fundamen- tal concept that it cannot be defined outside of itself; to do so is to miss the nuances inherent in the term. People can speak of the good, but they can never quite pinpoint all facets of the concept.

The difficulty in defining the good means that any system of ethical reasoning can only approximate the good. Different circumstances, differ- ent backgrounds, and different levels of understanding or access to infor- mation mean that individuals are always guessing at what choices and actions are ethical. What constitutes the good can only be judged through a glass darkly. Because the good cannot be known firsthand, ‘‘good’’ acts must be judged by examining consequences and determining whether they are the hoped-for outcome. In short, the principle of utility requires someone asking the question ‘‘what should I do?’’ to base a decision on whether the action will cause or contribute to a desired outcome. With this analysis, Moore shifted the field of ethics from a concern about the right or wrong nature of certain actions (normative ethics) to a concern about the meaning or desirability of the terms ‘‘right,’’ ‘‘wrong,’’ ‘‘good,’’ ‘‘bad,’’ and so forth (metaethics).8

INTRINSIC VERSUS INSTRUMENTAL GOOD

Building on Moore’s insights, another theme in twentieth-century ethi- cal theory was a concern with goodness and value. Stated in its most ele- mental terms, the question is whether something is intrinsically good, that is, good for its own sake, or instrumentally good because it accom- plishes another underlying, more important goal. Determining whether something is an end or the means to an end determines, to some extent,

CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE 29

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