Abstract

Ethical issues arise in all walks of life, but none have implications as far-reaching and serious as those related to public management. Most people working in the public sector want to do the "right" thing, but the issues can be highly complex or just not lend themselves to easy answers. Practical Ethics in Public Administration, Third Edition, provides the tools, techniques, and methods needed to help meet these challenges. This completely updated third edition provides public sector professionals the information they need to face the ethical issues that arise in the course of a day’s work, address those issues with greater self-assurance, perform their duties in an ethically justifiable manner, and explain their actions reasonably. This new edition: Covers emerging ethical issues surrounding public-private partnerships Examines the shift from compliance-based to integrity-based ethics programs Explores the context of moral competency Contents The Real World • Ethics in the Public Sector/Ethics in the Private Sector • What Is Ethics, Anyway? • Raising the Right Questions: Ethical Approaches to Five Important Cases • The Real World Revisited • Who Am I? Who Do I Want to Be? What Do I Want? • Making Choices • Problems That Might Arise and How to Analyze Them • Developing an Ethical Style: How Would You Analyze Problems That Might Arise? • Addressing Public Ethical Conflict by Means of the Unified Ethic • Leadership Development and Moral Agency in Contemporary Governance • Perspectives on Contemporary Reform: Reinventing Government and the New Public Management • Ethics, Quality, and Performance • Ethical Dilemmas in Hybridization and Outsourcing • The Competent Moral Agent • Wrap-Up and Key Points About the Authors Dean Geuras is Professor of Philosophy at Texas State University in San Marcos, Texas. In addition to articles in philosophy, Dr. Geuras has authored interdisciplinary publications relating philosophy to other fields, including theology and counseling. Charles Garofalo, Professor of Political Science at Texas State University, teaches graduate and aundergraduate courses in public administration, public policy, administrative ethics, and business- government relations. Together, Geuras and Garofalo have also co-authored Ethics in the Public Service: The Moral Mind at Work and Common Ground, Common Future: Moral Agency in Public Administration, Professions, and Citizenship.