Administrative Ethics and Public Interest

Paper Summary:

This paper discusses how, although Herring, Mosher and Thompson would agree that there should be administrative ethics in place to keep administrators morally sound and in tune to the needs of the public, they would debate on employee consent of--and who was to blame for--administrative unethical conduct.

From the Paper:

"Many theorists have looked to examine the relationship between ethics and public administration. E. Pendleton Herring (1937) and Frederick Mosher (1974) were just two theorists that have addressed the issue of ethical accountability and responsibility of public managers. In Herring's "Public Administration and Public Interest," he discussed critical roles of bureaucrats and interest groups in the formulation of public policy. In "Watergate: Implication for Responsible Government," Mosher provided an overview of merit systems and equity issues of public administration. Both of their works can be compared to that of Dennis Thompson's (1985) "The Possibility of Administrative Ethics." In it, he raised the question of whether there is such a thing as administrative ethics at all. These three writings are similar in content; however, there are some portions where the ideas of the authors contrast."

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