Public Management Research Association

A Distinct Public Administration Ethics? Author(s): Robert P. Goss Source: Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory: J-PART, Vol. 6, No. 4 (Oct., 1996), pp. 573-597 Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of the Public Management Research Association Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/1181906 Accessed: 29-01-2019 18:46 UTC

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A Distinct Public Administration Ethics?

Robert P. Goss

ABSTRACT

The public administration literature enumerates many values of attributes desirable in civil servants, and it proposes at least two paradigms or frameworks-a bureaucratic ethos and a demo- cratic ethos-associated with such values. The writings also sug- gest the existence of a public administration ethic. The broader professional ethics literature has similarly posited that each profession has an ethics or morality of its own; in fact, the separatist thesis holds that such an acquired ethics is role-based and may take precedence over ordinary citizen ethics. This article reports the results of empirical research into a public administration ethic, by testing the importance of twelve public administration values among bureaucrats, elected officials, and voters.

Within the last two decades or so there has been an outpour- ing of written works on the subject of ethics, particularly the ethics of those in government service. Numerous writers have identified ethical problems in government, called for moral reform and the enactment of ethics laws and codes, posited what are or should be the components of a bureaucratic and/or demo- cratic ethos for public administration, identified one or more ideals or elements of such a moral guide, hypothesized about a grand theory of administrative ethics and the duties of bureau- crats, explored subject specific dilemmas in government policies, urged the teaching of ethics within the schools of public admin- istration and public affairs, and suggested ethical guidance for practitioners of public management.

Since Watergate and Vietnam the schools of public adminis- tration have introduced courses in ethics, texts for the field have been published, the American Society for Public Administration and others have promulgated or reissued their codes of ethics, and federal and state governments have enacted ethics laws-but government official scandals have continued. Public and private professional conduct in many fields has been scrutinized and J-PART 6(1996):4:573-597

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Conference on Ethics in Public Administration

seriously questioned as never before. The questioning of public administration ethics is but a part of the reevaluation of ethics in many disciplines.

Concurrent with the public administration ethics literature of the last twenty-five years and the increasing professionalization of the public service for the last several decades, there have been developments in the professional ethics literature as well, includ- ing the articulation of the separatist thesis, which suggests that professions have a morality or ethics of their own, different from and perhaps inconsistent with the morality of ethics of ordinary persons or the general public. Indeed, the separatist thesis holds that this acquired ethics is role based and may take prece- dence over ordinary citizen ethics. Principles, norms, and values for individual professions have been enumerated, described, defended, sometimes ordered, and compared in the professional ethics literature.

Little empirical research has tested whether there is a separate public administration ethics and, if there is, of what elements it may be composed. Given the fundamentally demo- cratic and representative nature of American government, any separate public administration ethics may have wide implications for public governance and for the practice and teaching of public administration. Research is needed to help fill this empirical gap. This article reports on the testing of normative statements and the potential values of career public servants against those of the citizens and their elected officials, to determine whether the norms and values held by public servants are different from the norms and values held by the public and/or elected officials and, if significantly different, whether they may constitute a separatist professional public administration ethics. The norms and values suggested in professional and public administration ethics litera- ture during the twentieth century have been used to test the following hypothesis: Career civil servant values are not different than those of citizens or elected officials.

Two significantly different fields of literature are relevant to this empirical research: first, the literature about professions and, particularly, professional ethics; second, the literature about public administration and, specifically, public administration ethics.

PROFESSIONAL ETHICS

Individual professions have developed over a long time; classic professions, for example, include the clergy, medicine, and law. But with the industrial and information revolutions came

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Conference on Ethics in Public Administration

a multitude of professions that have been defined relatively recently. While no clearly accepted definition of the term profession exists, professions are nonetheless distinguished from occupations not just by their level of technical knowledge, competence, and specialized training, but also by a commitment to a set of ethics and an obligation to serve faithfully (McDowell 1991, 6; Barber 1984, 597). A set of characteristics of profes- sions, possessed by all professions and only by professions, may not exist (Bayles 1989, 7; Moore 1970, 4-5), but there are some

characteristics that appear common to many professions and others that appear central to professions. Features central to

professions include extensive training, a significant intellectual

component, the provision of an important service in society, and perhaps credentialing; common characteristics include an organi- zation of members and autonomy or self-regulation (Bayles 1989, 8-9). It is arguable whether public administration is yet a pro- fession (p. 9), but it is clear that the public service has at least

undergone increasing professionalization and is becoming more like a profession (Mosher 1982, 142; Waldo 1980, 60; Kaufman 1984, 56; Mosher and Stillman 1982, 631-32; Burke and Patte- naude 1988, 225-26).

Ethics is a ‘system or code of conduct based on universal moral duties and obligations which indicate how one should

behave; it deals with the ability to distinguish good from evil, right from wrong and propriety from impropriety” (Josephson 1989, 2). Professional ethics can be viewed as a system of norms, meaning how things “should” or “ought to” be (Bayles 1989, 17). This is different than seeking to describe by empirical evidence how people actually behave, a process sometimes mis- leadingly referred to as descriptive ethics, favoring the perspec- tive of the nonjudgmental observer most commonly associated with ethical or moral relativism (Josephson 1989, 5). Descriptive ethics does not lend itself to a comparison of behavior patterns in ethical terms (Bayles 1989, 18). Rather, professional ethics is a normative ethics, concerned with the discovery and application of moral norms or standards that help us distinguish right from wrong; it is based upon a bedrock premise that people ought to do what is right and avoid what is wrong (Josephson 1989, 5). While universal norms apply to all people, role-related norms apply to people in particular roles, including professional roles (Bayles 1989, 17; Goldman 1980, 1-6; McDowell 1991, 27). Ethical relativism does not maintain merely that people have different sets of beliefs and norms, but that these different beliefs all can be correct; it makes meaningful ethical disagreement impossible (Bayles 1989, 18). Ethical relativism is not accepted by many authors (Bayles 1989, 18; Goldman 1980).

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Conference on Ethics in Public Administration

Professional ethics can be analyzed properly only against a

set of social values and a conception of the general role of that

profession in society. The role must be examined from the view-

point of citizens or the average members of the society (Bayles

1989, 5). Laymen typically judge the behavior of professionals

by applying ordinary moral categories and principles to assess the conduct of those professionals (Goldman 1980, 1). Citizens need good reasons to accept the professional ethical norms that regu-

late individual professions (Bayles 1989, 5) because the conduct

of professionals is judged by those citizens on the basis of their

“ordinary ethics,” while charges of misconduct in the professions

are defended by appeal to special professional goals, norms, and

roles (Goldman 1980, 1).

Values are core beliefs or desires that guide or motivate

attitudes and actions. Some values, such as the importance

persons attach to honesty, fairness, and loyalty, are ethical in

nature because they are concerned with the notion of moral duty; they reflect attitudes about what is right, good, or proper rather than what is pleasurable, useful, or desirable. A study of history, philosophy, and religion reveals a strong consensus as to a cer-

tain core of ethical values that transcends cultures and time to

establish ethical norms and standards of moral conduct essential

to the ethical life. These values include, for example, trust- worthiness, integrity, fairness, and caring. It is the universality of such ethical principles and values that gives support to the notion of moral absolutism, a view that there are eternal principles that

exist beyond time and are always and everywhere applicable

(Josephson 1989, 2; ASPA 1989, 102).

Any defense or justification of the acts or behavior of pro-

fessionals is first to professional norms, then to the social or

other values that may support the professional norms, and lastly to more general ethical theories (Bayles 1989, 19). Occasionally,

specific examples that illustrate such a defense or justification and

appeal to such professional standards as can be supported by the

citizens are cited, even in the public administration ethics litera-

ture (Thompson 1985, 558). Norms themselves can be justified

by their being acceptable to reasonable people or ordinary citi-

zens expecting to live in a society in which the norms operate,

and often this acceptability depends on the social values reason-

able people have (Bayles 1989, 19). The notion of ethics becomes meaningful only as one begins to specify the values con-

sidered to be intrinsic to ethics and morality (Josephson 1989, 4).

There are a number of general views or theses about pro-

fessional ethics (Burke and Pattenaude 1988, 229-33). One view

is that there is a single encompassing framework, that of ordinary

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Conference on Ethics in Public Administration

morality that includes professional ethics, so that the latter is not distinguished from the former (Goldman 1980; Veatch 1972, 531-59; and Williams 1985, 259-69); this suggests the possibility of moral absolutism. A second thesis has been labeled the separa- tist thesis (Gewirth 1986; Freedman 1981, 626-30; Wasserstrom 1983, 25-37; Overman and Foss 1991, 131-46). This article explores the application of the separatist thesis to public admin- istration. A third view is a pluralist or political approach, which suggests that there is no unified or single moral authority such that each group, professions included, might have its own group ethics if it has the necessary political will and power. Taken to its extreme this approach can lead to ethical relativism, since such a political approach arises from the idea that each person has an inherent moral right to decide what is right and wrong-a truism, but it does not lead to the conclusion that such personal ethics systems are equally ethical, even if all persons are morally autonomous (Josephson 1989, 5).

Individual professions are expected to have a morality or ethics of their own attached to their professional roles (Freedman 1978; Gewirth 1986, 282). Fundamental values and norms of each profession differ (Goldman 1980, 2). If professional norms are independent of universal norms and social values, then they can require or permit conduct completely different from, or even inconsistent with, that of nonprofessionals; they constitute a distinct ethical system alongside of, and perhaps taking prece- dence over, the universal ethical system (Freedman, 1978). It is this separatist thesis that assumes that a specific profession has an identifiable set of ethical principles, unique and clearly different from the morality or ethical positions held by ordinary persons or the public in general (Freedman 1978; Overman and Foss 1991, 133). The strong version of the separatist thesis is a form of ethical relativism (Bayles 1989, 21). Others take the position that some appropriate limits exist on professional practice (Gewirth 1986; Burke and Pattenaude 1988), a view that there might be diverse traditions, beliefs, and opinions about morality within a society, but that this does not preclude widely shared agreement on the morality of certain basic practices (Josephson 1989, 102).

The essence of this professional morality involves the idea that professionals are more constrained by their professional values than they would be were they not professionals, because their professional ethics places professional values at a higher position in the ethical hierarchy. Professional morality commits one to a different ordering of values from the very outset; thus, the difference between professional and ordinary morality is the way professionals resolve value conflicts (Freedman 1978). Principles, norms, and values, including the various codes of

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Conference on Ethics in Public Administration

professional conduct or responsibility, consistently appear in the professional ethics literature (Gorlin 1994).