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NORTH SOUTH

UNIVERSITY
Lecture 24
PHI 104 (Section 03, 04 & 05)
Introduction to Ethics
Fall Semester 2019
14/11/2019
Ethics & Governance

Ethical Issues in
Public Governance
Prelude
 The current topic attempts to explore ethical issues in
public governance & their critical implications in public life.
 It discusses the importance of civil service ethics based on
conceptual arguments & professional literature to raise &
sustain ethical standards in the public sector.
 The main purpose of the discussion would be to identify
specific meaning & instruments that can be successfully
implemented in public institutions for dealing with ethical
problems in public sector.
 It ties to focus on the unethical practices & dilemmas in

civil service of Bangladesh.


Meaning
 Ethics primarily refers to a person’s moral character.
 It is an attitude of mind & practices that an individual may posses
& pursues throughout life.
 These are the rules & procedures that define moral conduct
according to the culture of a society.
 Ethics is a system of accepted beliefs, morals & values that
influence human behavior for doing good things.
 One major problem dealing with ethical behavior is the differences
of opinion among stakeholders, especially in current partisan-
driven administration.
 Often moral behavior & ethical principles are used interchangeably
due to the similarity in their scope.
 Meaning
 Ethics is the framework of moral principles for the
guidance of individuals & society.
 The word ethics generally refers to the principles that
ensures good or right behavior & avoids or restricts bad or
wrong doings.
 Truthfulness is the cardinal principle of ethical behavior &
ultimately it is the ‘truth from which two other principles,
the good and the beautiful derive’ (Alam: 1997).
 Basically, truth, good & beautiful are the attributes that are
reflected in the concept of ethical excellence in every

society.
 Heritage
 The importance of ethical behavior in individual & public
life has been recognized from time immemorial.
 As the society developed, it was soon realized that unless
every member of the community follows ethical behavior,
there will be no peace & security in the society.
 The Ten Commandments is the earliest Divine code of
conduct in human history recognizing the importance of
ethical behavior for maintaining peace & tranquility among
the people.
 In ancient India, ethical excellence emerged from the
three fundamental principles: ‘satyam, shivam,
sundaram’or the truth, good, & the beautiful.
 Heritage
 Highlighting the role of ethics in ancient Greece political
thinkers gave emphasis on how to establish good life in the
society.
 With the advent of the liberalism in the West, the
traditions of ethical standard developed & became
acceptable across the globe.
 In Islam, honesty & fairness in social life has been
repeatedly mentioned in the Holy Qur’an & the examples
set in the Hadith by Prophet Muhammad (pbuh), the
judgments of Islamic jurists subsequently.
Ethical Rules in Islam
 The Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) observed:
 (i) to remain conscious of Allah, whether in private or in
public;
 (ii) to speak justly, whether angry or pleased;
 (iii) to show moderation both when poor & when rich,
 (iv) to reunite friendship with those who have broken off
with me;
 (v) to give to him who refuses me;
 (vi) that my silence should be occupied with thought;
 (vii) that my looking should be an admonition;
 (viii) that I should command what is right.
 Generally speaking, Islam interpreted ethics as ‘noble
character’ of any individual.
 Ethical Rules in Islam
 Al Qur’an suggests:
 Be kind, polite & humble to one's parents.
 Be neither miserly nor lavish in expenditure.
 Do not commit adultery.
 Do not kill unjustly.
 Care for orphaned children.
 Keep one's promises.
 Be honest & fair in one's interactions.
 Do not be arrogant in one's claims or beliefs.
 Importance
 Ethics in public governance are important for serving based
on the needs of a town, state or country.
 Ethical administration builds moral accountability of the
public officials to the public.
 Adhering to a code of ethics that ensures public receiving
what it needs in a fair manner.
 Public leaders must have the guidelines to carry out their
tasks & inspire employees to enforce laws in a professional
& equitable manner.
 The pursuance of integrity helps for building public trust
towards the leadership & the public understand that the
former is working in favor of public interests.
 Importance
 Unethical behavior by public officials create public distrust & hurts
the government’s reputation.
 It also gives the administration guidelines for Help maintaining
transparency in their operations.
 A code of ethics creates standards of professionalism that
employees in the public sector can expect from each other & the
public can also expect the same from their leaders.
 An ethical administration can perform timely & maintain
informative communication with the public.
 Strong ethical practices are utmost necessary for public sector
maintanance.
 Importance
 Ethical practices can remove corruption.
 Safeguard stakeholders interests.
 Resolve conflicts of interests.
 Control sexual harassment in workplace.
 Allows mutual respect between colleagues.
 Protect dignity of subordinates.
 Implement equal opportunities for everyone.
 Create ideal working environment.
 Ensure providing quality services to clients.
 Essential for maintaining the rule of law.
 Ensuring individual to work with full potential.
 Increase trustworthiness in official responsibilities.
 Ultimately help ensure effective governance.
 Maxims of PA Ethics
 Maintaining responsibility in an accountable manner.
 Managing work commitment of the employees.
 Showing excellence in total quality management.
 Fusion of innovative ideals with commitment.
 Responsiveness & resilience to external & internal demands in the
political environment.
 Ensuring ‘greatest happiness of the greatest number of people.’
 Compassion for adopting pro-poor people.
 Taking care for national interests all the time.
 Adopting actions on the basis of personal integrity.
 Ensuring justice based on equality, equity, fairness, impartiality &
objectivity.
 Sherman’s Ethical Values
 In an article ‘Public Sector Ethics: Prospects and Challenges’, Tom
Sherman (1998) demonstrated the importance of core ethical
values to promote & reinforce ethical behavior & attitudes in the
public sector.
 Sherman’s ethical values include: (i) honesty & integrity, (ii)
impartiality, (iii) respect for the law, (iv) respect for persons, (iv)
diligence, (v) economy and efficiency, (vi) responsiveness, & (vii)
accountability.
 In terms of ethical standards administration can be characterized
into three categories: immoral, amoral & moral administration.
 OECD Recommendations, 2002
 The Organization for Economic Cooperation and
Development(OECD) Council recommended ethical principles for
Public Service as follows:
 Ethical standards should be reflected in the legal framework.
 Ethical standard should be available to public servants.
 Public servants should know their rights & obligations when
exposing wrongdoing.
 The decision-making process should be transparent & open to
scrutiny.
 Gains of PA Ethics
 Safeguard stakeholders interests
 Resolve conflicts of interest
 Control sexual harassment at workplace
 Allows mutual respect & dignity
 Implement equal opportunities for all
 Create conducive working environment
 Maintain the rule of law
 Ensure every person to work to the best of their capacities
 Ensure service delivery quality
 Maintain workplace safety
 Increase truthfulness in official responsibilities
 Establish good governance.
 Causes of Ethical Failures
 Public officials become unethical when they stop considering the
wants & needs of the people & work the way they think better or
ideal for the society, often on party lines.
 The society, educational institutions, laws and their
implementation and family play a large part in inculcating good
values and morals in people.
 The political environment also plays a significant role as well as
the behavior of politicians directly & majorly affects the behavior
of their subordinates in their ethical behavior.
 Causes of Ethical Failures
 Heavy government intervention & restrictions only create a
stronger atmosphere for underhanded dealings & an increase in
corruption due to the added “red tape” to any process or
procedure.
 A US public administration specialist Caitlin P. Stein (2017)
viewed, ‘ethical accountability remains a matter which can be
controlled by greater transparency of public administrators’.
 Administrators must ensure that their actions & decisions are
transparent & based on the promises to the people, & to the
wants of the people.
Bangladesh Dilemma
 Bangladesh had been rated as one of the most corrupt countries
in the world by various organizations due to absence of high
standard of ethical implication all aspects including civil service.
 Transparency International (TI) rated Bangladesh as the most
corrupt countries in the world for five consecutive years.
 Up till now, the magnitude of corruption seems not to have
changed significantly that much.
 The constitution of Bangladesh (Article 21, clasue-2) & public
service conduct rules-1979 suggest practical mechanisms for
setting & institutionalizing high standards of public service &
ethical conduct integrity.
 Bangladesh Dilemmas
 In Bangladesh, however, ethical dilemma arises in public
governance because of its subordinate nature that does not
comply with its democratic nature of administration & politics.
 The pervasive nature of corruption at many levels of public
institutions e.g. election commission, judiciary, civil service,
enforcement agencies etc. are fundamental obstacles to edifice
trust in public governance.
 Many scholars & practitioners identified the ethical responsibility
of the public administrators to maintain the basic building blocks
of the public sector.
Conclusion
 In conclusion we can say that corruption, conflicts of interest,
favoritism, nepotism, gang rape, drug trade etc. are the outcome
of unethical actions in politics.
 By contrast, moral values, practice of accountability &
transparency can help ensure the practice of effective public
governance.
 The adoption of RTI Act, Citizen's Charters, code of conduct for
public employees, public-private partnership, Whistle blower
Protection Act are some of the ethical measures taken by the
country.
 It is generally agreed that the public governance in Bangladesh
needs to build up ethical administration for achieving country’s
short-medium & long term goals in future.
Acknowledgement for these lecture slides
to Professor Dr. M. Emdadul Haq
Transparency,
Openness and
Ethics in Public
Governance (2010)
By Professor Dr. M.
Emdadul Haq
FINAL EXAM
Fall 2019
Syllabus: Lecture 16-24
Question Pattern: I. Short
Questions II. Broad Questions
III. A Few Problem Solving
Total Marks: 30
THANK YOU

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