What Are Administrative Ethics?

When a highway administrator awards a paving contract in return for$10，000 in small，unmarked bills，most of us would agree that he has behaved unethically.So，too，would we think it unethical when the director of a state environmental agency puts her patently unqualified brother-in-law on the payroll for an essentially“no-show”job，uses public funds to build a new deck on her summer home，or runs up a fortune in personal overseas calls on the office phone?These are easy cases，involving a minimum bribery，theft，and nepotism.

But how about the highway administrator who accepts an unpaid speaking engagement before the monthly dinner meeting of the local Highway Contractors Association，which reimburses him for his carfare and feeds him chickenàla king?What about the agency director who hires her patently qualified brother-in-law for a real job，uses public funds to cater a party at her summer home for a visiting delegation of foreign environmental officials，or charges the monthly rental on her cellular car phone，which she uses primarily for public business，to her office account?These cases are less clear;certainly there appears to be no outright bribery or corruption involved.Any evaluation of the probity of these actions will probably start out with“Well，it depends...”What are the agency rules about free meals from contractors?Was the brother-in-law the most qualified applicant?Was the catered party a matter of official business?(https://www.daowen.com)

Even answers to questions like these do not always provide clear resolutions of ethical dilemmas in the public service.Knowing what is ethical is not always easy.To be ethical is to do the right thing.But what is the right thing?As with law，medicine，and other professions，public administration has developed ethical guidelines to help its practitioners deal with questions of this sort.One such set of guidelines is the code of ethics adopted by the American Society for Public Administration(ASPA)in 1981.As one would expect，the standards in this code stress the primacy of law，the importance of sound management，and the need to avoid conflicts of interests.The emphasis clearly reflects the traditional values of the profession and its historic sense of itself as a value-free instrument of public policy.