[...]... in clarifying the inevitable and insistent moral ambiguities and perplexities associated with their personal and professional lives, including their responsibilities as members of the polity Its title, Common Ground, Common Future: Moral Agency in Public Administration, Professions, and Citizenship, signifies our principal purpose and our abiding hope: the development of a broad perspective on our individual... 1 What Is a Moral Agent? .1 The Special Ethical Aspects of Public Organizations 5 Citizenship and Public Administration 7 The Ethical Environment of Public Administration 9 The Need for Ethical Reasoning in Public Administration .10 Moral Agency, the Public Administrator, and the Private Citizen 15 References 16 Chapter 2 Moral Agency in the Public Sector... bending and breaking of the rules, and moral whistle blowing In such cases, especially those in which the public administrator’s moral judgment conflicts with standard procedures, a sophisticated level of moral analysis is required One should not be fixated with the ideal It may be so unattainable as to intimidate us and discourage us from even attempting to instantiate it in the imperfect world and in. .. We may begin by thinking of the agent, or actor, as being a person who acts in behalf 1 2 Common Ground, Common Future of another person, whom we will call, according to the current fashion in public administration literature, the principal A morally upright agent would therefore serve his or her principal in a moral manner Such an agent would be morally bound to pursue the aims of the principal but... examination 17 18 Common Ground, Common Future THE IDEAL PUBLIC ADMINISTRATOR In the earlier days of public administration theory, under the in uence of Woodrow Wilson, the public administrator was regarded as a tool of the public will, avoiding exercising evaluative judgments by only executing those of the public as represented through their elected officials Wilson (1887) argued that public administrators... individual and collective roles and responsibilities as citizens, professionals, and moral beings, as well as the recognition of our mutual obligations to the large and small challenges inherent in the processes of governance The initial chapter provides a general overview of the book’s central themes, including the notion of the moral agent, moral agency in the professions and in citizenship, and the... conducted in a moral manner In the second sense, one may also pursue morality itself as The Moral Agent, Moral Organization, and the Public Administrator 3 the goal Any person functioning as an agent should behave morally, in the first sense, while seeking some good that may be morally neutral An agent is subject to morality in the second sense when he or she acts with the purpose of promoting morality and. .. conservative and liberal perspective, of our respective positions on the public administrator as a moral exemplar Chapter 11 concludes with a proposal for meeting the conditions required to establish moral agency in public administration, across professions, and in the citizenry Table of Contents Preface v Chapter 1 The Moral Agent, Moral Organization, and the Public Administrator ... time in ethics training, away from the legalistic, procedural, and superficial and toward reasoning and judgment, as well as toward morally grounded decision-making skills and the exercise of discretion This book is intended to appeal to practitioners in various professions; to academics responsible for research and graduate teaching in administrative, applied, and professional ethics; and to citizens interested... Decisions In Public Duties: The Moral Obligations of Government Officials, eds J L Fleishman et al., pp 32–51 Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press 2 Moral Agency in the Public Sector In this chapter, we examine moral agency in the public sector by considering public servants in their ideal forms We discuss the ideal public administrator, elected official, political appointee, and member of the judiciary . alt="" Common Ground, Common Future Moral Agency in Public Administration, Professions, and Citizenship DK3160_half 6/2/05 1:32 PM Page A PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION. Prelas and Michael S. Peck 115. Common Ground, Common Future: Moral Agency in Public Administration, Professions, and Citizenship , Charles Garofalo and Dean