In other words, it is the moral justification and consideration for decisions and actions made during the completion of daily duties when working to provide the general services of government and nonprofit organizations.
Ethics is defined as, among others, the entirety of rules of proper moral conduct corresponding to the ideology of a particular society or organization (Eduard).
Ensuring the ethical behavior in the public sector requires a permanent reflection on the decisions taken and their impact from a moral point of view on citizens.
This concept of ethics, a branch of philosophy which seeks to address morality, is not a relatively new idea within government.
Niccolò Machiavelli wrote The Prince, which serves as a manual to illustrate what a monarchy should do to maintain power.
This treatise is often viewed as a tool of how a public official should not act in modern society, as it is an enumeration of the specific steps one should take to maintain control and power.
Paul Douglas, a former United States Senator from Illinois, argues that while many may secretly follow Machiavelli in their heart, most do not.
“Instead, most men want a life of integrity and goodwill in which public officials are stewards rather than masters and treat their jobs as a means of helping people rather than dominating them”.
“Our government is now so huge and affects our lives so directly that we cannot be content with merely a moderately decent level of behavior on the part of our public officials.
It addresses issues such as bribery and the relationship of civil servants with the businesses in the industries they regulate, as well as concerns about transparency, freedom of information and sunshine laws, and conflict of interest rules.
[4] While Machiavelli and Douglas are distant in time, the two opposing viewpoints of the types of public administrators, and the ethical stance of the decisions they make, are very relevant today.
Further illustrating the bifurcation of thought on ethics in government, Cody and Lynn discuss the two opposing factors: utilitarian's and deontologists.
This is because the concept of ethics is vague and ultimately is based upon principles and values, which will differ among situations and people.
He writes, “because bureaucrats govern through authority that is discretionary, and because they are not elected, the ordinary means of popular control are inapplicable”.
However, public administrators are protected with due process rights as government employees, and ethical violations can be difficult to justify the removal of a person from an office.
For example, they cite the general litmus test for administrators regarding whether or not they would like to hear about their actions on the front page of tomorrow's newspaper.
Rohr argues that this type of approach, known as the Low Road merely places an understanding of what not to do in order to steer clear of trouble (1978, pp. 53–54).
The High Road, according to Rohr, is the basis of decisions upon a pursuit for social equity, which is based upon political philosophy and humanistic psychology.
[6] He contends that regime values are built upon three considerations: The basic contention upon which Rohr builds his argument is that rulings by the Supreme Court are sufficient measures upon which an ethical framework can be constructed.
The responses at this level are often built upon "moral rules we acquire through the socialization process from our families, religious affiliations, education and personal experiences."
Decisions on how to handle the situation are then whittled down based on what we feel is the most appropriate action within our own personal moral bank.
[7] The Level of Ethical Analysis: There are times when a personal moral code will seem inadequate for the situation, or that the alternatives and consequences do not feel right.
This ensures that at each point, an effort was made by the administrator to uphold ethical principles and that fairness and equality were the standard.
Opposing viewpoints to this argue that public officials should not have to disclose financial information because they are sometimes linked to personal contacts that prefer to remain anonymous.
One way of interpreting public sector ethics from a theoretical perspective is to view a workers behavior as a function of their psychological field.