Ethics Education and Training in the Public Service

Abstract

This paper contrasts two concepts of ethics education or training of public administrators. One concept, expressed by Daniel Callahan, advocates that ethics education should improve public officials' ability to recognize and analyze ethical issues but should not indoctrinate them or attempt to change their moral behavior. The other concept, expressed by Dalton Lee, argues that normative training should go beyond rational analysis of ethical theory to inculcate moral behavior in public officials. We argue that both concepts rely upon the assumption that ethical values cannot be derived through purely rational or empirical analysis. We maintain that, rather than accepting or rejecting a questionable assumption to determine practice, we should allow practice to itself confirm or deny the assumption. We therefore recommend rationally and empirically based ethics education with the intent of improving ethical behavior. The success or failure of such education provides evidence for or against the questionable assumption. We examine the Kohlberg model and the organization development model as possible methods of moral education. We find those models promising but in need of refinement.

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