The Ethics of Public Administration : The Challenges of Global Governance [1 ed.] 9781602584723, 9781602582484

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The EThicS of Public a d m i n i S T R aT i o n

The challenges of Global Governance

S a r a R . J o r d a n & P h i l l i p W. G r ay

The Ethics of Public Administration

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The Ethics of Public Administration The Challenges of Global Governance

Sara r. Jordan and PhilliP W. Gray

BAYLOR UNIVERSITY PRESS

“Phillip W. Gray is currently lecturing on American government in the Humanities Department of the United States Coast Guard Academy. This text is not endorsed by and does not necessarily reflect the views of the United States Coast Guard.”

© 2011 by Baylor University Press Waco, Texas 76798 All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission in writing of Baylor University Press. Cover Design: Nita Ybarra Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Jordan, Sara R., 1980The ethics of public administration : the challenges of global governance / Sara R. Jordan and Phillip W. Gray. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-60258-248-4 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Public administration--Moral and ethical aspects. 2. Ethics, Comparative. I. Gray, Phillip W. (Phillip Wesley), 1978- II. Title. JF1525.E8J67 2011 172--dc22 2010038757

Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper with a minimum of 30% pcw recycled content.

We dedicate this book to our mothers, Linda Wren and Colette Smith

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Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

ix PART I introduction

1

Public Administration Ethics through Time and Place

2

The Five E’s of Orthodox Public Administration

3 19

PART II Ethical traditionS for Public adminiStration 3

Ethical Traditions of India

49

4

Ethical Traditions of Daoism

83

5

Ethics in the Buddhist Traditions

107

6

Traditions of Confucian Ethics

137

7

Ethics in the Judaic Tradition

163

8

Ethics in the Constitutionalist and Republican Traditions

175

9

Ethics in the Christian Tradition

195

10 Ethics in the Traditions of Islam

217

11 Ethics in the Traditions of Africa

249

vii

viii

Contents

12 Ethics in the Liberal Tradition

275

13 Marxist–Leninist Ethical Traditions

295

14 Ethics in the Russian Tradition

321

PART III concluSion 15 Revisiting the “Global” in the Challenges of Global Governance

345

Appendix

355

Notes

359

Bibliography

383

Index

409

Acknowledgments

T

his is an ambitious book. Fortunately, surrounding daily are many loving and similarly ambitious friends, students, and colleagues, whom we would like to thank briefly here. This project began at the frustrated behest of the many master’s and undergraduate students enrolled in the course “Ethics in Public Affairs” in the Department of Politics and Public Administration at University of Hong Kong. To these students, we owe a debt of thanks for their patience with our ignorance and the inevitable foibles as we each tried to negotiate intercultural communication between us. We would also like to thank members of the Department of Government and International Studies at Hong Kong Baptist University and members of the Department of Politics and Public Administration at University of Hong Kong for their encouragement with this project. We also thank the Texas A&M University Political Theory Convocation for their comments on our introductory chapter. We must thank those members of the Lamma Island community, particularly our boatloads of supportive friends in the Lamma Dragon and Lamma Ladies Dragon Boat Club and the Lamma Outrigger Canoe Club for their patience with our “academic moments” in and out of the boats. In particular, we wish to thank Lisa Stella, Greg Pittams, Brian Pittams, Josh Sellars, and Natalie Stenhouse-Stewart with their assistance in editing drafts of this book. Further, we must

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Acknowledgments

thank the employees of the Waterfront Café for their tolerance with our lingering, working breakfasts. Carey C. Newman, the director at Baylor University Press, was a great help in preparing this work for publication, and we thank all the staff at BUP for their assistance in shaping this research into book form. Last, but not least, we would also like to thank our families, particularly the mothers to whom we dedicate this book. Dearest thanks to Janet Shreves for her editing and suggestions on an early draft of the manuscript. Thanks also to Rick Smith, Henry Wren, and Justin Gray for their support. We hope that you may all see yourself reflected in these pages.

Part I

INTRODUCTION

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Chapter 1

Public Administration Ethics through Time and Place

T

his book began with a sense of frustration. Like so many professionals today, we (the authors) found ourselves standing in front of a classroom of students from a distinctly different culture and thinking “we are just not communicating here!” Confronted with the problem of being American professors teaching ethics to public servants in Hong Kong, we just did not know how to communicate. After poring through more than a few books on “intercultural communication” (and after pouring a few more glasses of wine), the idea for this book emerged. It was not that we lacked the skills to communicate ideas or that the students lacked the motivation to take up the ideas; the fundamental problem was that we simply lacked enough shared background knowledge between us to truly talk with one another. That eureka moment—when we realized that the roots of our problem were lack of a shared ethical vocabulary, a shared repository of histories and stories, and a common sense that we were all “of one piece”—should not have come as a surprise. We had read from works of the best minds of this modern era that if we lacked a “lifeworld” held in common, or lacked a sense of moral and ethical pluralism, or lacked a sense of moral experimentalism, then we would be able to speak only past our students. But so many platitudes and exhortations could not save us from frustration. We needed knowledge. To impart knowledge, not deliver more moralizing demands 3

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for nuance, difference, pluralism, and universalism, is the goal of this book. We anticipate that the readers of this book will, at some point in their career, experience the frustration borne of attempting transcultural communication when both parties know comparatively little of one another. We also expect that the readers of this book will fall into the trap of believing themselves to be worldly enough to communicate anywhere with anyone because they are proficient with chopsticks, can recognize the calls of the muezzin, know a few bars of this or that language, can recite the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and believe deeply in the values of Kantian moral universalism while waxing philosophical at an Irish pub in Singapore. This book is not a panacea for those feelings. It is a summary and application of the history of morals and ethics around the world, written from the perspective of two authors who have “been there.” This book is written for a group of people we surmise will have to “be there” more often than their professional training programs suggested. Students and, later, professionals in the fields of politics and public administration will find themselves at the forefront of the movements of globalization and global citizenship. As nations, states, agencies, universities, and municipalities deepen their political or cultural ties and their economic interactions with partners around the globe, those individuals whose task it is to negotiate the agreements and push the mountains of paperwork will find they must work in concert with counterparts from foreign cultures and lands. Individuals on both sides of the intercultural divide will experience the frustrations we lament above, and we commit this work to them. In this book, we seek to provide the reader with a focused history of moral traditions from time immemorial (Hinduism) to modern political movements (Marxism and Leninism) and apply the lessons of historical texts to the practice of public administration in a globalized environment. We believe, and we have lived with the experiential knowledge, that globalization can be a confronting phenomenon where individuals in one location must correspond politely, knowledgably, and respectfully with others whose histories, traditions, and beliefs may seem alien, even hostile. To overcome mutual feelings of alienation and frustration, we believe that

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parties to all sides of the confrontation need information about the others that goes beyond the encyclopedic or anthologized collections found in some predecessors to this text. Finally, this book is written for busy professionals, working on the front lines of globalization. Owing to the subject matter and our belief that platitudes are plenty but knowledge is not, this is not always an easy read. To account for this, we try to simplify the most complex of topics into digestible arguments. Where we fail to do so, we apologize and refer the curious reader to any of the many texts included in the bibliographies to each chapter.1

The State of Universalism at Present When confronted with the frustrating moments of intercultural communication, even among like-situated professionals, reflection on modern moral and political and even management theory is likely to bring only cold comfort. Modern philosophy can tell us directly only about itself, it cannot guide us through everyday problems. In the context of ethical dilemmas—those situations where values conflict—much contemporary moral and management theory has abjured the task of describing the basis of values and assumed the task of preaching moral pronouncements. For example, in the quest for universal prescriptions for right and good action, well-known scholars like Rawls encourage us to run from the historical sources of public moral pronouncements—religions and other comprehensive doctrines (Rawls 1999a, 1999b). Such an evacuation of meaningful narratives runs counter, we suggest, to their cries for the reinsertion of integrity and ethics in the conduct of public affairs. Neutered of strong statements of “ought” that have a historical repository of substantiating arguments, exhortations to be ethical become little more than faddish pronouncements about the author’s perception of good and bad. In the public sphere, however, we cannot remain “fuzzy on the whole good/bad thing.”2 A demoralized place is an unethical place, not a neutral one. We take as axiomatic that abiding by a standard of moral neutrality and engaging in ethical behavior are incommensurable desires. If we lack a standard of “good,” “bad,” “right,” or “wrong,” we can say little about how people ought to behave. Even if we accept a very minimalist “compliance”-based notion of ethical behavior, we

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cannot say anything effective about the ethicality of legal compliance without having the ability to say that following the law is good. The relationship proposed here among moral, ethical, and legal behavior needs some elaboration. Without delving extensively into the intricacies of the lexical or historical relationship between these concepts, we offer that morality is the realm of individual appreciation of the fundamental or first-principle definitions of “good” or “bad.” Morality is the public expression of one’s comprehensive doctrine, such as religion. The ethics that any individual or organization espouse deeply intertwine with the moral views held by the individual or the consortium of individuals that found and manage the organization. Ethics, or the prudential, public expression of morality, are standards of good or bad behavior and action. Ethics may be commensurate with legal pronouncements or statements on the actions that political powers may reasonably enforce under an agreed constitutional framework. Or, ethical standards may be supererogatory when compared to legal standards. Yet, at the roots of laws and codes of ethics lie morality, and standing in defense of morality is a history of dialogues and narratives that help individuals make sense of “good” and “bad” when seeking to comprehend or act upon those morals (be ethical). Morality, as we see it, is contextual, and to be neutral with respect to morality is to be neutral with respect to culture. Can we, and importantly should we, be neutral to cultures and morality? Our view is that if the intention of globalization and globalism is to encourage individuals and the organizations that they are part of to cast a broad view that includes respect and recognition of multiple traditions of morals, then bringing in arguments for moral neutrality or moral universalism brings us to a point of argumentative incommensurability. Respect, recognition, pluralism, and toleration require knowledge about others, as well as judgments about the behaviors, histories, and morals that others represent. Evaluation and appreciation of cultures that are like “us” and unlike “us” require judgment, and judgment requires the non-neutral application of knowledge. There are likely arguments that others could marshal against our position. The first is that we are espousing relativism. To this position, we suggest that the purpose of this book—providing

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knowledge of the bases of morals and ethics in multiple cultural systems—runs counter to the argumentative purpose of relativism. Relativism, or the doctrine that all moral or cultural values are as good as any other, does not require knowledge of the systems argued to be relative. The relativist position requires the suspension of efforts to gather knowledge and the suspension of belief that efforts to understand are independently valid. The relativist may say that the virtues espoused by Buddhist thinkers are just as metaphysically and morally good as those espoused by the Daoists, but saying so does not commit the relativist to any further explanation. As a “it is just so” doctrine, the deployment of the charge of relativism often comes when a speaker’s knowledge fails or the incommensurability of the speaker’s principles emerges. If we believe strongly in moral neutrality in the public sphere, we may be able to argue cogently that this stance is ordinally better at securing ethical liberty of choice than any other that espouses a particular code of morality, but we cannot say why ethical liberty of choice is so finally fundamental without committing ourselves to some form of crude “ethnocentric” doctrine that this belief is better because it is “just so” (for a contrary position, see Rorty 1991). If committed to the “just so” position, there is no point to which others can reasonably argue and we have painted ourselves and our conversation partners in a relativistic corner where both arguments for the “just so” are independently as good as the other. Relativism, then, becomes a cudgel with which to beat our moral selves until we convince ourselves and others that we are very open-minded. We must, if we commit to relativism, watch that we do not become so open-minded that our brains fall out (Rorty 1991, 203). Another argument against our view of the historical support for morality is that it is historicist. However, we separate from historicism in the following ways. First, we do not assume that ideas simply serve in a particular time of history, merely making them res gestae when considered in the present. Rather, we believe that traditions continue to have vitality even in changed circumstances: in this way, we acknowledge that ideas in traditions change as a result of historical events and dynamics without thereby assuming that the ideas cease to have continuous meaning. Second, against more Hegelian forms of historicism, we do not assume that the present has

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some form of normative or epistemological priority over the past: or, in other words, we do not subscribe to the fallacy of “presentism.” By “presentism,” we mean the tendency to view the contemporary era as the most morally advanced, or most hideously evil, in human history. Presentism, therefore, can present itself positively or negatively: whether expressed as a feeling of moral superiority over those in past times or as apocalyptic (and often hysterical) ruminations about the world “on the edge of destruction.” While we in the present have the luxury of seeing broader patterns and dynamics in the history of ideas than those who came before us, we do not assume that this itself gives us greater access to truth, nor that these historical changes must lead inevitably to a “higher” form of existence found in the present. Third, in contrast to more reductionist forms of historicism, often expressed by writers resting on the authority of Thomas Kuhn,3 we do not believe that different traditions are mutually incomprehensible (or, in other words, that those living under different normative ideas are on “different worlds”). While intertradition communication is often difficult, in terms of both language and presupposed cultural knowledge, we do believe that there are “bridges” by which individuals in differing moral communities can interact with each other and gain some level of mutual understanding. The traditions themselves show ample evidence of ideational communication, and civil servants interacting with their counterparts today show this interaction in practice. Finally, against “New Historicism,” we do not assume strict embeddedness of ideas within material practices, nor that access to unchanging truths is impossible. Most of the traditions we examine begin from the ideas that truth exists and that truth can (in some manner) be ascertained. To assume a priori that these views are a result of material networks/ practices and that there is no unchanging truth would require us to begin our investigations by fundamentally denying the foundations of these traditions themselves. If we wish to understand these traditions as they understand themselves, we must not begin from a position where we will see only our own theories reflected back to us; rather, we must be open to the possibility that any one of these traditions could be true. By doing so, we can begin to ascertain the self-awareness of those within the traditions themselves.

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A View of Government Few can rebut successfully the force of the well-known formulation of government by Easton (1953, 1957)—that government is the authoritative allocation of values. Individual citizens, an economic firm, or an interest group or organization asking for government intervention are each requesting an authoritative resolution of a value conflict. Each attempt at resolution of even the most simple of conflicts—their claim on the property line is incorrect, therefore I ask you, government officials, to deny them permission to plant a shrubbery in my space—requires the intervention of some part of the apparatus of government.4 This apparatus, the collection of offices and officers responsible for authoritatively allocating values, is what we know under the names “the administrative state,” “the bureaucracy,” “the civil service,” “public administration,” or “public management.” This apparatus does not move independently, though. The machinery of the state is designed and its parts intended for coordination by a set of governors acting above the offices themselves, be they “the people,” “citizens,” “the electorate,” or “the demos.” For behind the authoritative allocation of any value lie the authors of said values. Sometimes the authors write elegantly and with foresight, sometimes they do not, yet they always write, and often with a polemical edge enjoining the mechanisms of the state to manifest a particular ethics and morality. Thus, government, historically and today, is more than just a set of legislators and implementers acting in symphonic coordination, seamlessly articulating this and implementing that. Government is the authoritative allocation of a morality. If government must implement a morality, then certainly the authors of government can articulate moral principles clearly and with demonstrable intent to implement these principles. Alas, the lack of moral specificity in the authorizing mandates guiding the apparatus of government (hereafter, public administration) is a source of both comfort and consternation among the people within and, increasingly, outside of a state. Lack of moral specificity—the dearth of accepted pronouncements on the standards of justice, rightness, and truth—is comforting as it leaves the horizon of interpretation open to newness. Specificity, some fear, is too prescriptive

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to cope with a changing objective world of technological innovation and too polemical to cope with the inevitability of pluralism in the intersubjective world. Yet, ambiguity in the authorization of morality leaves open room for chicanery; without a fixed morality of universal proportions, ethics becomes relative to the person, the moment, or, worse, the technology at hand. Moral ambiguity, a scholar like Arendt might charge, is even the wellspring of the banality of evil in administrative affairs (Arendt 1994). Lacking a moral compass and an attendant body of ethical norms, evil can seep in through the cracks of law and policy, unnoticed by those enforcing it, until an abyss of evil swallows them and countless others whole.

Rescuing Ethics Rescuing ethics from the void, we suggest, requires a critical theory—one that, from inside the void, searches through the detritus for a toehold upon which to begin the climb out. Fortunately, the very terms ethics and morals guide the search for a hold in the emptiness. Asking the question “how might I rescue myself/this agency/ this government/the world from ethical ambiguity?” entails a three-part answer, one practical, one ethical, and one moral. The practical answer requires that we search for the rational, technical solution—in a void, use a rope to aid our climb. Yet, throwing a lifeline to another in the same void requires that we have an ethical stance to do so, not merely the practical tool of a rope at our disposal. The ethical answer consists of giving practicable advice on why, when, how, or to whom one ought to throw a rope. This answer, though, depends on not only the context of the person throwing but also their view of the person(s) they are throwing the line to as well as their beliefs on the value of life(lines) to begin with. Thus, the ethical answer requires deep consideration of the values, the morals, that one has. Contrary to the aspirations of the moral-allergic, these values cannot come from nowhere. Pace Kohlberg, ethics are context-laden—why, when, how, or to whom we throw a lifeline does depend on who we are, where we stand, when we stand there, and how we see ourselves in the situation. We may believe ardently that all persons ought to be saved as they are intrinsically ends in and of themselves, but this begs the questions “who is a person?” and “what is an end?” A question of ethics thus begs a moral question,

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which in turn might invite a metaphysical suggestion of the presecular variety. For example, the answer that all life is sacred and valuable implies a measure of sacredness and value outside of the stance of “all life,” thus constraining the speaker to presuppose some valuing (and valued) agent “out there.” This suggestion might differ from the one given by the person to whom we throw the lifeline, leading us to the inevitability of a conflict of moral beliefs and ethical maxims that might lead us to clarify discretely our roles in the effort to save a life or resolve moral ambiguity. The inevitability of moral difference and ethical conflict is a guiding axiom of this book. Another is the belief, following the suggestion of theorists of moral discourse and communication, that this inevitability does not imply hopelessness. Instead, moral conflict implies room for hope—hope that through the processes of reaching a mutual understanding of moral difference we can also realize the kernels of similarity that may yet generate ethical maxims that all could agree to live by. We are hopeful for such a future but remain dubious about some previous efforts to identify such kernels of similarity. Our doubt springs from a suspicion that there is a genuine, but not always intentional, lack of information about the history and context of plural forms of belief. In short, what prevents moral understanding is an initial lack of information—history, vocabulary, narratives—that allows people with moral conflicts to do more than “talk past one another.” The tendency to “talk past one another” is particularly acute in the realm of ethics in politics. Given that all forms of government must effectively impose their values upon a set of actors they identify as culturally their own and that another group may also see the same group as belonging, by identity, to them, conflicts over the way that values are implemented are not only likely, but likely acute. Particularly under conditions of globalization, as moral conflicts play out as political conflicts, the need to address deficiencies of information on all sides becomes more an imperative. This will not eclipse the ever-present need to address any deficit of will to “come to the table,” but providing information, thus allowing discursive partners to speak more easily and fluently with one another, may alleviate some of the burdens shared by parties to the conflict. Outside of small, simple, isolated governing systems, of which there are increasingly few, the administration of government is

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influenced (and influences) the general society and culture in which it operates. As a result, civil service ethics throughout time illustrate a diversity of forms and directives. This diversity itself presents numerous challenges to public administrators not only at the international level but also within states themselves. Through the dynamics of globalization, civil servants come into increasing contact with their counterparts across national boundaries as necessitated by increased interdependence between states. These interactions involve a multiplicity of policy areas: finance, telecommunications, environmental protection, counterterrorism, capital flows, public health, and others. It would be a mistake, however, to assume that these substantive policy and administrative issues can be dealt with on a purely technical basis: norms will still play a large role in shaping the alternatives and methods used by civil servants in pursuance of moral goals. As a result, public administrators will increasingly encounter norms from other cultures that appear opaque, incomprehensible, and (at extremes) even irrational. What, then, are civil servants to do? It would appear that civil servants are locked in an untenable situation: Either they must ignore these differing systems of morality and push through using merely technical means and rules, or they must impose their own set of meaning-making norms and ethics on the situation. Or they must become experts in the cultures of their counterparts, able to fluently translate concepts and categories between languages, times, policies, and technologies. Each of these options is hardly feasible as a complete alternative. By focusing on only technical matters, public administrators from different cultural contexts must ignore the underlying values that direct them to conceive of one alternative as better than the other, thus causing inefficiency and mistrust in their interactions. On the other hand, most civil servants lack the time, resources, or inclination to gain access to the moral basis for the ethical rules of their counterparts. Public administrators working for agencies focused on environmental protection or Internet security must focus their time and mental energies on the specific areas of their expertise, and for most of them, historical exegesis is not likely to play a large role in their respective fields. Even at the level of initial training, such as in master’s programs of public administration, inculcating the ability to historically analyze various philosophical traditions would sit uncomfortably in the

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general curriculum: as these programs aim to instruct students in techniques of technical analysis and problem solving, philosophical analysis would present multiple difficulties (Rohr 1989). Is there no solution, then? In this book, we try to fill a practical information gap that guides civil servants through historical sources of morality and ethics in various traditions in order to negotiate the complexity of the globalized present. By providing public administrators with an overview of historical development of philosophical/ethical norms in other traditions, these civil servants can better understand and, to an extent, predict the likely goals, methods, and operational “worldviews” of their counterparts from other societies. It is the task of political theorists and public administration ethicists, in this view, to provide this initial overview and framework. Though they may seem pedantic to the busy reader, some issues of method of analysis arise here. In this text, we use a “history of ideas” method. We justify this selection of method by inviting the reader to rethink modern history as a cumulative effect of previous history, a history that has not yet summed to something definitively “this” or “that.” While this method requires examination of a long tradition, it entails explicating the similarities and connections between various traditions over the passage of time. Some popular authors may claim that globalization is a recent phenomenon, dependent on modern technological innovations and speed, but the interactions between philosophical/normative traditions trace back thousands of years; as such, an investigation of one tradition will often point toward other traditions as well. Modernity itself is a product of history; the morality, ethics, and rules of today developed through the summed effects of the morals, ethics, and rules of yesterday, yesteryear, and a few millennia past. When we talk about the methodology of the “history of ideas,” we mean the following five things. First, this method aims to find the boundaries and contours of “traditions” themselves. “Tradition” itself is a contestable categorization, as one could argue that it reifies certain practices/language usages disproportionately and that this idea of tradition is itself merely a construction. Even if we grant that a tradition is a somewhat constructed entity, it provides us a way to access the normative ideas within different cultures. Civil servants, ethicists, and others often recognize themselves as

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part of a larger grouping (a faith, nation, ethical system) that has some level of continuity over time and place. By analyzing traditions, we merely acknowledge this self-perception as a part of social reality. Moreover, our work requires this focus on broadly cultural “traditions” in that civil service ethics are rarely self-contained conceptual constructs: rather, these norms are shaped, constrained, and clarified through the dominant forms of ethics within a culture itself and are in many ways a reflection of these norms in the specific realm of administrative ethics. Before focusing on the specific details of norms for civil servants, we must examine the larger picture of a cultural tradition’s general mores. Second, this method follows the creation/discovery, changes, and fortunes of ideas within a tradition over a period of time. In this manner, we show how ancient traditions continue to have relevance, pointing to the continuities from past to present and explicating their connections to the specific concerns of civil servants. Third, ideational historiography allows us to follow the language of ideas within a tradition and to see how these terms change in meaning as circumstances change. For instance, one need observe only the transformations in the meaning of “equality” for liberalism to see why the development of language matters. Fourth, this methodology notes the connections between ideational development and historical event: while not necessarily aiming to give causation, instead it aims to give viable interpretations of the dialectical interaction between idea and practice, immaterial and material in social dynamics. Finally, ideational historiography provides the tools by which to reasonably comprehend the ongoing developments within a tradition and/or between traditions, thereby offering some level of, if not predictability, at least anticipation of changes to come. The “history of ideas” obviously has some historicist tendencies within it. However, as mentioned above, our endeavor is not a historicist one but rather attempts to take seriously different traditions while at the same time not arguing that these traditions are only a product of their respective historical contexts.

Structure of the Text Having defended the character of the book, in the next few paragraphs we will introduce and defend the structure. First, we start

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from the commonsense perspective that world history is cumulative and that no set of morals, ethics, or cultures stands completely apart from others. Our cumulative,5 interwoven view of the nature of history suggests a chronological presentation. Since the standards of a culture at one time do not disappear but inform the culture at a subsequent time, we use a roughly chronological perspective across the chapters. It is, admittedly, an imperfect chronology given the dependent arising of these seemingly disarticulated systems. Yet, we believe this is the most reasonable presentation of the book. The astute reader will also note a spatial dimension to the organization of the book. Our early chapters represent “non-Western,” specifically South and East Asian traditions. This does not connote some normative pride of place but rather indicates that the historical records of this area include documents and other forms of relevant artifacts that can be dated earlier than those in other areas. We begin with the earliest form of civil service ethics, found in the historical documents from the present-day Indian subcontinent. India appears first because it is the first tradition with texts directly relevant to our purpose of elaborating on the ethical standards for civil servants, such as Kauṭilya’s Arthaśāstra.6 Second, various other traditions we look at are, at least indirectly, influenced by the Indian tradition in one manner or another. For example, the Buddhist tradition emerged as a heterodox or “protestant” version of the other Vedic traditions. Given this, beginning with the traditions of India seemed satisfactory. From India, we turn to the East and the traditions of China. We begin with the complex tradition of Daoism, given the apparent similarities with the spirit of renunciation in the Vedic traditions of India. Following this argumentative vein, and acknowledging the origination of both in a similar context, we then discuss the traditions of Buddhism. Our discussion of Buddhism includes attention to both the Mahāyāna and Theravāda variations as well as elaborations on some of the modern elaborations on this rich tradition. Our final analysis in this region focuses on the traditions of Confucianism, particularly its Chinese variant. In each of these three traditions we see elements of continuity within them. In particular, each emphasizes the importance of learning and knowledge as a source of technical expertise and, also, moral expertise.

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Moving toward the west from the Indian subcontinent, we then address civil service ethics as found in the tradition of Judaism. Unlike the traditions considered to this point, Judaism is the first to be explicitly and constantly monotheistic rather than polytheistic or nontheistic. Among other things, the Jewish tradition also shows us the manner in which traditions modify themselves in changed historical situations while retaining continuity with their earlier forms. For instance, with the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 C.E. and the creation of the Diaspora, Jewish scholars and leaders developed new and innovative means of balancing duties to the Law while also living in (often) hostile circumstances. From a tradition of religious law, we turn to the republican and constitutionalist traditions of the West and the more secular role of law. Looking at both the Roman context as well as more contemporary forms of republicanism/constitutionalism, constitutionalism shows how a tradition can reappear as time goes on. The republican tradition serves as an example of how a form of ethics in ancient times might reemerge in new ways, such as during the Renaissance, or undergo modification to meet contemporary problems, as in modern day constitutionalism. We turn next to religious traditions, starting with the Christian tradition of civil service ethics. As the Christian tradition has its origins both in Judaism and in the Greco-Roman imperial culture, we can see the intersection of religious and secular law in this tradition. But these connections should not blind us to the unique contributions the Christian tradition makes in terms of the separation of religion and politics. Likewise, we should note the striking similarity with the tradition of renunciation in the Vedic and Buddhist traditions. Following the Christians, we then turn to the Islamic tradition of ethics. While sharing similarities with both Christianity and Judaism, the Islamic tradition shows significant differences. This tradition reminds readers of the importance of religious law for morality and ethics as well as demonstrating the power of meshing politics and faith. At this point, our investigation moves from the religious traditions toward the regional traditions. In particular, we look at those regions of the world that were in some ways less affected by the

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cultures of Eurasia until the age of exploration and colonization. Unlike the previous traditions discussed, the African tradition is complicated in its close relationship to other regions and cultures. In the African traditions, a great difficulty is the attempt to reconstruct traditions within these regions from before the time of colonization. Moreover, the period of decolonization and postcolonization in these regions has seen many movements that are, in some ways, derivative of other traditions from the former colonizing cultures, making description of a historically authentic ethics problematic. However, relying heavily on the nascent and well-executed literature on African philosophy, we attempt to construct a reasonable approximation of a singular tradition. It is only at this point in history that we reach the time of liberalism’s origins and expansion, eventually creating the Five “E’s” of the modern public administration orthodoxy. When viewing public administration ethics from the historical perspective, it is striking how liberalism varies strongly from the vast majority of traditions thus far considered. Rather than following the individualistic ethic of liberalism, many of the previous traditions have a communitarian flavor. While some (such as the constitutionalist and Christian traditions) have individualist elements within them, the liberalism chapter demonstrates the argumentative power of individualism in public administration. Going from ascendant liberalism, we turn to a tradition that has faded from its former glory: Marxism–Leninism. While this tradition’s influence on world affairs has decreased greatly since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the influence of its vanguard party ideal and “democratic centralism” has lessons of importance to this day. Marxism–Leninism presents the major administrative alternative to liberal democracy in the twentieth century, showing arguments for different forms of organization based on egalitarianism and redistribution. While there are few explicitly Marxist–Leninist states still in existence, the organizational models from that tradition will likely influence other forms of administrative ethics in the future. Finally, we consider a tradition that has tried to reform itself after the collapse of Marxism–Leninism, being the Russian tradition. Originating within the harsh environment—both geographically and politically—of Eurasia, the Russian tradition provides a glimpse of

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a fatalistic perspective on administrative ethics. Built upon collective responsibility at the local level and varying levels of autocracy at the nation’s central government, the Russian tradition of administrative ethics provides insight into societies where intermediary administrative institutions did not exist between the local and the central levels. Even after the period under Soviet rule, the tradition still retains much of its strength among the Russian people.

Concluding Remarks Before you set out on this journey around the world, summarized, we issue one final caveat to the reader. Like with so many books, the value of the knowledge contained herein may not be readily apparent. Until confronted with the moments of frustration that mark intercultural communication, what you learn here might seem irrelevant or significant only as objects for “mere curiosity.” We hope that reading these chapters and, as you wish, perusing the many works cited in the bibliographies you gain a greater breadth and depth of knowledge to help bridge the knowledge gaps between cultures. Having additional background knowledge shared in common, we hope, will help to simplify intergovernmental administrative or political processes and ameliorate the tensions that inevitably arise when confronted with the depth of cultural differences. As you confront those tensions and this book, we ask for your patience.

Chapter 2

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A

nalyzing the ethics of public administration means more than probing an individual’s moral values (Rest 1986; Swisher, Rizzo, and Marley 2005; Wittimer 2005) or the “regime values” (Rohr 1986, 1989) that public servants rely upon in their daily decision-making tasks. To analyze ethics in public administration practice means to understand what moral concepts and moral questions signify to actors in the first place. Thus in this chapter we begin by asking questions about the definitions and quandaries posed by concepts of ethical import to public administration. What are the assumed concepts of ethical import to modern public administration? In the case of this work, we begin with what we describe as the “orthodox” position in public administration. The orthodox position suggests that public administrators should be neutrally competent, nonpolitical agents who exercise limited discretion to implement policies efficiently, economically, and efficaciously. How, when, and why these concepts came to represent the “orthodox” position is a complicated question already addressed by various scholars. Offering an extended analysis of how, when, and why the current orthodoxy of public administration ethics came to be is beyond this chapter. Yet, an initial discussion of the background of the orthodoxy will help to contextualize the arguments presented in this chapter. 19

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Unpacking the Orthodoxy A survey of the theoretical literature of public administration, such as is done by Frederickson and Smith (2003), a survey of some crosscultural theories and practices of public administration, such as is done by Raadschelders (2000), and the accumulation of the “classics,” as is done by Shafritz and Hyde (1997) and Shafritz and Ott (2001), reveals a pattern of emergence, eruption, dominance, and decline of “orthodoxies” in public administration. The historical basis of orthodoxy should come as no small surprise to the initiated reader—dominant patterns of thought do not spring from nowhere; they possess an intellectual history, complete with a language, grammar, method, and (oftentimes) mayhem of their own. The history of any particular orthodoxy is frequently what makes it orthodoxy to begin with. Periods of Orthodoxy in the Study of Public Administration Bureaucracy and the Politics-Administration Dichotomy (1880–1940) Scientific Management (1910–1940) Progressive Administration (1920–1950) Behavioralism (1940–1990) Pluralism and Administrative Organization (1935–1990) New Public Administration (1960–1990) Reinventing Government and New Public Management (1980–present) Governance (1990–present) (Shafritz and Hyde, 1997)

Important for the context of this book, we draw upon the field of theology for our understanding of orthodoxies. Indeed, the theological implications of the term should not be forgotten even when studying such a secular exercise as public administration (though see Raadschelders 2000 and Jordan 2005 for an analysis of the religious bases of public administration ethics). Etymologically, orthodoxy is combination of the Greek terms orthos and doξa (doxa), or right and opinion. Hence, to maintain an orthodox position is to

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hold to the right or correct opinion on a particular subject. The reference to religious orthodoxy is significant for the interpretation of public administration orthodoxy for two primary reasons: (1) the significance of authorities in declaring orthodox positions and (2) the importance of faith in the orthodox position. Orthodox authorities come in two types: texts and persons (or institutions). The texts will serve as the starting point for interpretation, often being the anchor upon which the authority of persons and institutions is built. That is, the scriptural foundation posits the organizational structures that may legitimately comment upon the scriptures. To follow what is right opinion—what is orthodox—is to follow a system with extensive procedural and value controls that are internally defined and justified for the making of an agreedupon final product, the exercise of faith. Such orthodox texts can gain their importance from claims of divine origin, or simply from the general community-wide tacit consensus as to their worth. Whether we begin with the Bible, Marx’s Das Kapital, or Wilson’s articles on public administration, key texts shape orthodoxy. But persons and institutions also matter as types of authorities, both to interpret texts as well as to enforce orthodoxy. In public administration, especially the study of its ethics, there is no strong organizational hierarchy of legitimate authorities, such as one sees in the Catholic Church or other “high reliability systems” (LaPorte and Consolini 1991; Perrow 1999; see also Frederickson and Smith 2003, 80–81). However, authority in persons and institutions matters: one need only consider the importance of the Public Administration Review or the various programs at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University at Blacksburg, Virginia, in order to see the influence of orthodox authority. The importance of faith in the legitimate trappings of orthodoxy must not be seconded to the importance of faith in the orthodox position itself. Faith, whether of an explicitly religious variety or any of the multitudinous secular forms,1 is critical to establishing communities of meaning, including professions. As with a religious faith, the faith in the profession of academic public administration includes such nominally religious trappings as succession and legacy, appropriate vestments (i.e., degrees), a vocabulary of faithfulness, particular acts of accountability holding cum contrition, and an identifiable canon of literature. We accept the legitimacy and authority of the

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leaders in the field based partly on their chain of succession and their embodiment of an orthodox legacy along with their fulfillment of other articles of faith, such as the production of a lasting literature for subsequent generations of the faithful. In sum, the importance of the religious nature of orthodoxy should be remembered throughout the subsequent elaborations in the book. For any expression to be orthodox, we must accede that we have faith in it and in the organizational structures that support and legitimate it.

Concepts of the Orthodox Position and Their Ethical Significance What are the concepts that make up the orthodox canon of ethics in public administration? Public administration, particularly as conceived of in the “West,” has experienced multiple periods of orthodoxy, heterodoxy, and perhaps even a heresy or two, within the confines of a single overarching orthodox position—administrative rationality. This orthodox position can be captured in what we describe as the “Eminence of the Five E’s.”2 The Five E’s of the Administrative Orthodoxy Efficiency Economy Efficacy Expertise Equality

Within the broad literature of public administration, one finds repeated references to the “Three E’s”—Efficiency, Economy, and Efficacy; or Efficiency, Economy, and Expertise. We can recognize these concepts as the consistent values for all public servants to hold in the fulfillment of their professional obligations.3 Starting in the literature of the bureaucracy orthodoxy through the governance literature, the Three E’s came to symbolize the acceptable values for public servants. Yet, the Three E’s are insufficient as symbols

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of value for public administrators, in part because there are decidedly Four E’s among the permutations of the Three E structure. Efficiency, Efficacy, Economy, and Expertise each represent a part of the orthodox value constellation. Even with these four, the collection of E values is not complete. In the contemporary literature, notably within the literature on representative bureaucracy (Kingsley 1944; Meier 1993; Meier and Nigro 1976), a fifth E—Equality— appears. Though it is a comparatively recent addition, the normative and moral force of this fifth E propelled it to an elevated position in the contemporary hierarchy of orthodox values. The ethical significance of these concepts, though, is not always readily obvious. Since the study and practice of public administration are without any one piece of revealed wisdom, the orthodox definitions of these key concepts must be drawn from the, often heterodox, body of literature.

Defining Efficiency Efficiency is a multifaceted term drawn from the vast literature of economics and other social sciences, and its meaning is determined partly by which modifier we attach to the term. Significant definitions of efficiency—Pareto efficiency, efficiency of transaction costs, efficiency of organizational fit, efficiency of input use (reduction of rents)—all figure prominently in important parts of the administrative theory and inform the administrative ethics literature. Pareto efficiency in the ideal welfare economy means that “no reallocation could be made that would make someone better off without making someone else worse off” (Vining and Weimer 2005, 212). An alternative definition is that “Pareto optimal efficiency is understood as the allocation of public goods so that at least one person is made better off without everyone else being made worse off” (Frederickson and Smith 2003, 86). Normatively, the conclusion of attaining Pareto efficiency is that welfare should be maximized for all while any reduction in welfare for any one person should be avoided; there is an acceptable minimum level of welfare to be accorded to all. This standard of efficiency requires a broad normative perspective from any individual decision maker in the public setting; one’s decisions must be universalizable to a relevant population of rightful welfare recipients. In a welfare state, the relevant population is the totality of the state. More expansive still, in

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a globalized, cosmopolitan welfare state, the universe includes all members of the state as well as present immigrants and their families. The normative implications of Pareto efficiency, then, require a neo-Kantian position similar to the categorical imperative—given the possibility that one can provide a minimum threshold of welfare to the full population, one has a duty to do so, simply because one ought to. If we accept the normative prescriptions of Pareto optimality, we must have previously accepted two foundational premises that carry moral weight, namely (1) that the world is subject to rational calculations of welfare and (2) that these rational calculations are predicated by the good will to use them well. These are hefty assumptions. The first premise, that the world is subject to rational calculations, is elemental for any understanding of economics. Even though scientific economics addresses itself to the observable, empirical world, it is, alas, a field that is wedded to the study of particular phenomena and the values of commodities for participating in the phenomenal world. For example, it is not that a tire or a wooden wheel is a thing itself (tires have noumenal properties but the noumenal tire is insignificant without the phenomena of appraising tireness and the corresponding values of tireness) but that a tire or a wooden wheel is a phenomenal object. We seek to know the value of the tire because we have a task that requires one. We know that the tire is preferable to the wooden wheel if we are replacing the tires on our Nissan, even though in their noumenal properties (their “Platonic” forms) the two are roughly similar. The economic valuation of the tire versus the wooden wheel requires phenomenal appraisal or the judgment of those things in the world based upon our previous categories of knowledge, namely space, time, and causality. And, how we judge those things in the world is partly dependent on our context, or our subjective interpretation. In order to use the concept of Pareto efficiency in public service, we must acknowledge the interpretation of related concepts such as calculations of welfare and calculations of equality. The second premise, that the rational calculations of Pareto efficiency will be informed by a good will to use the calculations to laudable ends, brings us to two contestable points for the use of Pareto efficiency as ethical standard for public administration. Already within the use of Pareto efficiency is the importance of subjective

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interpretations, even those of a universally rational mind. Subjective interpretations, being a priori informed by the three categories of knowledge—time, space, and causality—include cultural particulars and preset goals that render the “objectivity” of Pareto efficiency suspect. What is contestable in the use of Pareto efficiency (in making decisions in public organizations) is that the subjective interpretation of any one decision maker is unlikely to be universalizable to all possible relevant constituencies, unless that constituency is homogenous on an unattainable array of factors. Hence, Pareto efficiency is neither objective nor universalizable. The subjectivity of the calculations, and their instrumental value for subsequent action, may eclipse the restraints of a universalistic, rational mind, though any given decision-making actor may attest to the goodness of her will (and indeed, any actor may have a genuinely Kantian good will). A good will must be good in and of itself, as a good will is never an instrumentally valuable thing. The use of Pareto efficiency, however, employs instrumental rationality (means-ends calculation) to achieve some broader end of greater welfare to the population. The instrumental characteristics of Pareto efficiency calculations, particularly for the action-oriented field of public service, prohibit classification of Pareto efficiency as a good (measure) in itself. Despite the praise one could heap on Pareto efficiency’s achievements, it is still a (potentially) defective, ideal measure. The imperfections of Pareto efficiency are not absent in other definitions of efficiency. Neither efficiency of transaction costs, nor efficiency of organizational fit, nor efficiency of input use (reduction of rents) is without similar constraints. While Pareto efficiency fails as a universalizable and objective measure of efficiency, these other three forms of efficiency are inadequate measures for ethical practice for different reasons. Efficiency of transaction costs is primarily concerned with efficient management of information and the efficient structuring of agency (organizational) boundaries. The key insight of agency theory is the recognition that an efficient hierarchy is one that minimizes agency costs, which include the “cost of structuring, monitoring, and bonding a set of contracts among agents with conflicting interests, plus the residual loss incurred because the cost of full enforcement of contracts

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exceeds the benefits.” So, for example, public managers may impose rules (contract structuring) that prohibit employees from using work time for personal tasks but do not fully enforce them because the resource costs of monitoring and disciplining violations, as well as the cost of the harm to employee morale and productivity, would be larger than the benefits of the gains in employee work time that would result from full enforcement. (Jensen and Meckling 1976, 305, quoted in Vining and Weimer 2005, 213–14)

Implicit in the efficiency of transaction costs notion is the almost omnipresent assumption of efficiency: “less is more.” For any given transaction, whether between a principal and an agent (theoretically), a legislator and her chief executive, or a higher member of the administrative hierarchy and his subordinate, the amount of resources (costs) put into the exchange should be minimized with respect to the transaction payoff (Epstein and O’Halloran 1999). In practice, an efficient transaction is one where fewer exchanges occur, using fewer overall resources, and generate the maximum gain possible discounted by the resources used per exchange (see Horn 1995). The problem with this notion of efficiency is it promotes a decidedly negative orientation toward administrator-client or even network nodes deliberation and reflects a variation on a position (related by Waldo in 1952) that “autocracy during hours is the price of democracy after hours” (Waldo 1952, 87, quoted in Frederickson and Smith 2003, 46). Efficiency of transaction costs, in short, promotes the view that minimizing communication is necessary to maintain the cost of productive outputs, and as such it goes against the value of equality, favoring instead an economically justifiable version of paternalism, and thus works nicely in tandem with expertise. In attempting to minimize transaction costs, the unsettling risk arises that clients’ and subordinates’ views will be ignored in order to reduce costs. The ethical consequence of taking the efficiency of transaction costs to heart is that it allows for the minimization of alternative values in favor of efficiency calculations: people, programs, projects, and principles become quantified and evaluated solely by economic merit. The efficiency of organizational fit is a matter of interest presently, particularly given the increasing transmission of public goods

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provision from the state to contracting partners in the private or semipublic market. The logic of contracting suggests the government should produce goods using the least resources for the greatest gain, even if this requires using nongovernmental providers. Contracting, by its very nature, aims to increase efficiency through participation in the economy. To increase efficiency through contracting, the purchaser of services (the government) seeks to reduce both bargaining costs and production costs. Yet, the reduction of one form of cost, bargaining or production, does not necessarily entail the diminution of costs in the other form. For example, the reduction of bargaining costs to an absolute minimum, whether by assigning contracts through patronage, nepotism, or contract favoritism, does not reduce the probability that production costs will reach a minimum. Indeed, driving bargaining costs to the minimum may necessarily precede an increase in production costs, even in the longer term. There are sundry examples of this trade-off in the private market—by contracting out to build a commoditized item in the People’s Republic of China, a private firm can reduce production costs in the near term, though bargaining costs are necessarily higher (as contracting out requires multiple layers of international negotiation or the copious use of middlemen). But, the investment in initial bargaining with the firm, while high, reduces further bargaining costs later. As the firm becomes comfortable with the production price and quality offered by the contract player, it may reduce the level of repeat bargaining and related oversight, increasing the propensity of the contract player to shirk quality so as to keep production costs artificially low and maintain the relationship. In repeat instances, the lack of continued bargaining and related oversight may lead to dramatic reductions in quality that lead to significant later costs on the production side.4 The mirror of this situation in the realm of public service is the trade-off between costs of management and oversight (i.e., bureaucracy) versus production and service provision. As the government seeks to reduce its overall production costs through contracting, to ensure that products and services are provided at an acceptable (even merely status quo) level, an increase in bargaining costs must occur. If we examine total costs of an organization producing a particular good over time, then we may find that contracting does not

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yield significant reductions in overall costs but merely shifts the costs from production to bargaining. The notion of efficiency of production and organizational fit assumes that the contractor that will produce the good (which the rational maximizing firm contracts with) is the ideally efficient producer of the good. Competition for production, it is said, will reduce the production costs of each unit as contractor firms compete for the scarce resource of contract dollars. Yet that the lowest bidding firm is the optimal producer, or importantly the most ethically satisfactory producer, of any given good is a significant assumption. One example is the contracting for mental health and other human services (Wildavsky 1979; Dicke and Boonyarak 2005). That a particular social service or mental health service firm is able to offer the lowest per hour prices for community treatment or management of schizophrenia does not mean that this firm will be the most efficient producer of the service. Instead, it may (despite the contract application assertion to the contrary) be the optimal producer of the services of autism treatment/management. As firms chase government service provision contracts, there is an increasing incentive to engage in misstatement and deception of one’s service abilities when attempting to gain a government contract. The granting of the contract to a suboptimal provider, then, is an issue of reducing bargaining and initial oversight costs for the gain of lower overall production costs. Though contracting out generally lowers overall production costs relative to the typically (though not always) higher production costs for true public provision, the total costs savings discounted by the uncertainty of provider fit may be less than initial costs savings. Additionally, incentives to engage in deception and shirking in the private market will, in the longer term, result in greater demand (and likely supply) for the labor of oversight and bargaining officials to monitor contract players who have an incentive to underprovide or inadequately provide goods or services (Dicke and Boonyarak 2005, 190–98). Attempting to achieve efficiency of organizational fit through contracting out may surreptitiously promote unethical acts such as lying and misappropriation of funds. Efficiency of organizational fit is further complicated by another normative dimension of contracting out for public services. As Machiavelli makes clear in The Prince (chap. 12), use of mercenary

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armies is inefficient and possibly fatal in the long term for republics. Mercenaries, like unscrupulous contract players, lack the internal controls (ethics of duty, perhaps) to behave with the interest of the firm (government) in mind. Similarly, contract players may not operate under the same external controls on their behavior—economically or ethically—as government players (see Wittimer 2005 for a description of internal and external controls on ethics in government; see also Cooper 2006, 249). Consequently, mercenaries have an incentive to cease producing a particular good (or goods at all) when it no longer suits their interests. The disbanding of an army in a crisis will provoke instability and a reduction in overall customer trust. Similarly, the scuttling of one’s contract in order to save the company from an unsavory situation will result in instability of service provision and a decline in citizen trust for the managing governmental organization. In order to prevent such things, again, the management of contracts and contractors must increase, thus creating additional costs relative to initial self-provided product costs. Though the services provided may take on a lean form, the consequence of inefficient organizational fit is organizational bloat and the encouragement of normatively reprehensible acts on the part of contract players. Finally, efficiency of inputs use or the reduction of the possibility of profit and rent seeking suggests that administrators themselves must be directly managed in order to reduce administrative waste. Profit is the amount of total surplus less total production and bargaining costs gained within a suboptimal or inefficient market environment. Rent is “surplus (profits) in a completely efficient public sector” (Frederickson and Smith 2003, 86). Rents, opposed to profits conventionally understood, are not purely monetary but can include power, prestige, budget flexibility, and other intangible gains made through market-like transactions. As suggested in the public choice literature of Buchanan and Tullock (1962), Buchanan, Tollison, and Tullock (1980), Niskanen (1971, 1994), and Tullock (1965), bureaucrats have an incentive to increase their rents (maximize the budget) and transform an efficient public sector where surpluses (additional welfare) are shared throughout the population into an inefficient public sector where surpluses are retained by the organization or the individual themselves. As theorized by Niskanen (1971, 1994) (and subsequently questioned by Blais and Dion 1991),

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bureaucrats who seek additional budget appropriations in order to provide for favored programs, more prestige among related organizations, or budgetary flexibility prefer inefficiency of inputs. The budget-maximizing bureaucrat seeks additional budget appropriations primarily through manipulation of efficiency calculations. By falsely quoting the costs of production or bargaining, bureaucrats compel their supervisors (legislators) to pad their budgets for them. Efficiency of inputs, then, requires discounting the possibility of good will leading to good action among public servants. To counteract the theoretical possibility of inefficiency of inputs, legislators are encouraged to underprovide inputs in the first instance and engage in costly transactions themselves (and compel public servants to engage in similarly costly transactions) in order to reach a point of equilibrium between inputs and outputs. The costs of repeat bargaining to inputs-outputs efficiency aside, the striving for input efficiency results in other costs, specifically that the reputation of public administrators and their own belief in the integrity and goodness of their post are damaged, including any beliefs in the moral force of government action. As in the case of efficiency of outputs, the efficiency of inputs requires that the individual good will and rationality of public servants and contract providers be viewed with increasing skepticism. The longterm cost of this is additional forms of nonmonetary rent seeking as public servants seek to recoup reputational costs lost to bargaining, possibly encouraging ethically questionable practices such as lying and misappropriation. Likewise, repeat bargaining over the value of inputs or outputs casts a pall over the full process, limiting the possibility of trust between organizations and increasing long-term bargaining costs. The overvaluation of efficiency as a norm with moral import for public servants has problematic consequences for the public and public servants themselves. Taken as a moral norm, efficiency is a many-headed hydra, compelling administrators in multiple (possibly ethically troublesome) directions that become more difficult to manage, particularly as values such as equality and efficacy compete for attention. Yet, as part of the orthodoxy of public administration, efficiency continues to play a significant and unquestioningly important role.

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Defining Economy Economy is a concept strongly related to and sometimes conflated with efficiency. But there are important differences between the two that validate including both in the analysis of administrative ethics and orthodoxy. First, efficiency (as described above) addresses the processes of production and allocation, while economy addresses the state of affairs over all. Economy is a term that refers largely to institutions as a whole while efficiency refers to processes within the whole. In a field like public service, where institutions and processes are coequal in their importance, both efficiency and economy have an important place. Normatively, as a basis for ethical moral decisions, economy is a value that directs us to preserve efficiency of processes for the stability of the organization and to maintain economizing institutions. An economizing institution, roughly speaking, is one that ensures its processes are maximally efficient and minimally wasteful—as would be a market economy in perfect equilibrium. Equilibrium and the implications carried with the term have the most ethical impact for our understanding of the value of economy. Equilibrium comes in two primary forms in economics: Nash equilibrium and general equilibrium. General (supply-demand) equilibrium is the condition where the supply of a product is produced and available at a price level that reflects quantity of the product demanded in the marketplace. For example, five rupees for “Hello Kitty” stickers may be an accurate price given the cost of materials and labor necessary to produce the stamp, and there may be a supply in Bangalore that would potentially satisfy the full population in the area. But if “Hello Kitty” is now considered to be a powerful symbol of Japanese cultural incursion in the area, no matter if the stickers were revalued at one rupee (far less than their production costs), they would not be saleable and the market for “Hello Kitty” stickers would be in demand disequilibrium. The ethical implications of a general equilibrium are broached by Keynes, who queries whether markets will always return to equilibrium following a period of flux or disequilibrium. Keynes asks not only whether the market will return to an equilibrium state but also whether it would be preferable for it to do so. In questioning the preference for market

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stability at equilibrium, Keynes directs us to a critical question for those in charge of administering the economy as an institution: is equilibrium a conservative position? And if equilibrium is a conservative position, what externalities in the social and political worlds will be brought about through efforts to move the market back to its equilibrium state? For public servants charged with handling the regulation and remediation of an economy that is at equilibrium only in theory, the conservative implications of general equilibrium are problematic. When we seek to move institutions and productive arrangements to or from one state to another, we do so at grave risk of indeterminate consequences. Especially given the rapidly changing and fluid nature of the world economic system, actions meant to bring about general equilibrium may actually result in a fundamentally “uneconomical” economy, as the equilibrium point itself may not be stable but dynamic. While proponents of the general equilibrium position would note that the equilibrium moves, they would also argue that at any given time we could find the point of equilibrium. But if the economic system is inherently dynamic, such a point might never fully exist—like Heisenberg’s electron, perhaps the general equilibrium’s “position” or the economic system’s “velocity” could be measured individually, but not both at once. The theory of general equilibrium, while allowing for various iterations, is inherently static. General equilibrium, therefore, posits a type of status quo position, which will tend to benefit previously powerful/influential players rather than emerging or weaker ones. As such, public servants attempting to maintain or achieve a general equilibrium in the economy will have to look backward rather than forward, to sectors or institutions that held sway in the past more so than sectors or institutions that will shape the future. Also under this view, right administrative action would entail solidifying the power base for those institutions/groups that are already strong, even to the detriment of the worst off—a position that sits uncomfortably with the public servant’s duty to ensure equality. Though economy, as reflected in the normative desire for general equilibrium, may be a laudable goal, it is not a neutral goal. A Nash equilibrium is a more theoretical form of equilibrium, discussed primarily by economists and social scientists. Due to the

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popularity of the Nash equilibrium, one could argue it has some normative force upon the development of conceptualizations of economy equilibrium among scholars of government and social scientists. A Nash equilibrium is a set of strategies for players in a noncooperative game such that no single individual player would be better off by switching strategies unless other players did so as well. When no reason exists for a player to change strategies unilaterally, the game ends at the “optimal” position, though a Nash equilibrium reached rationally may not necessarily be optimal as a matter of final utility (e.g., in the “prisoner’s dilemma”). Predicating Nash equilibrium are two critical assumptions of game theoretic modeling: a self-interested competitor and a noncooperative situation. The assumption of a self-interested competitor (“rational actor”) is significant because it reinforces a negative view of humanity, where agents require significant inducements to behave in otherwise unselfish ways. Moreover, this assumption constricts the space of “rationality” so narrowly as to prevent any notion of reasonable deliberation (rather than rational calculation) to enter into these situations. For instance, let player 1 have a preference set of A > B > C. If player 1 knows the strategies of all other players, she could choose not to unilaterally change strategy in order to achieve her highest possible preference, B, thus bringing about Nash equilibrium. But there is no possibility, under this notion of rationality, that player 1 could be persuaded that B should be her highest preference, that in fact her preference set could be changed to B > A. In other words, all decisions by actors must remain in the realm of means (strategy) but can never touch on ends (preferences). This assumption underpins the notions of human nature that encourage later conclusions, such as the inevitability of “the tragedy of the commons” or the depredation of common pool resources. The second assumption (the noncooperative condition) has important consequences for the prevention of tragedy of the common situations. Namely, under conditions of self-interested noncooperation, only powerful external inducements—carrots and sticks, law and regulation—can bind individuals together to moderate their consumption of a public good. While this deduction can have some normatively positive elements (such as supporting the notion of rule of law), it also opens the door for many problems as well. Given its internal logic, there is no necessary limit on where such regulation

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should end. As long as there are self-interested actors in noncooperative conditions, the only block on regulatory “creep” would be a negative cost-benefit calculation: there is no principled reason to bar regulation, only instrumental reasons. More importantly, if rational actors are self-interested competitors with preference sets that cannot be changed, then one of the most efficient inducements to solve public goods problems is through fear. As Machiavelli points out in chapter 17 of The Prince, fear (sticks) is more useful than love (carrots), if properly used, since “a dread of punishment . . . never fails.” Given that actors (especially in zero-sum games) will not all gain their highest level of utility, and given that preferences themselves cannot change, public servants would be better served inflicting costs rather than benefits upon citizens: while administrators cannot bring about equilibrium through carrots (by giving everyone what he/she wants), public servants can bring equilibrium by threatening what all players rationally want to avoid (imprisonment, heavy fines, etc.).

Defining Efficacy The term efficacy (much like efficiency and economy) has multiple meanings, even in the limited context of public service. Like the problem of efficiency, the structures of the state in which public administrators work affect any understanding of efficacy (West 1995, 64). In the environment of public service, efficacy takes four forms: client-side efficacy, provider-side efficacy, political efficacy, and administrative efficacy. All of these forms correspond roughly with their respective definitions: alleviation of problems, the rate of success discounted by the costs of inducing compliance, the amount of institutional or system change per unit of effort, and the success in matching resources to problems. The combining of these types makes up the full notion of efficacy as normative standard, but each must be discussed in turn so that the composite definition is fully understood. Client-side efficacy means the alleviation of problems. Public service, for good or ill, is chiefly concerned with the alleviation of problems of citizens and would-be citizens. Whether we examine immigration services, customs services, methadone clinics, or research grant administration, public administrators are problem

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solvers. From the client (i.e., citizen, customer) perspective, efficacy of administrative action is measured by the number of problems that are alleviated given the resources put in by the client and the provider. From the client perspective, a “magic-goodies creator” may be the most efficacious way of providing solutions for problems as it reduces client input to merely asking (indeed, magic wands would also be quite efficient). But efficacy means more than providing for client desires in the near term. For a policy or program to be efficacious, the effects must be longer lasting. It is not that the state is able to move citizens out of a dangerous area in an emergency but rather that the precursors to the dangerous situation are removed and similar emergencies are avoided for the foreseeable future. For something to be efficacious, it must contribute to longer-term goals of stability and perhaps prosperity. Provider-side efficacy roughly means the ability of providers (public servants) to induce compliance with policies and reforms without resort to coercion or other relatively costly means of goal attainment. Providers can demonstrate efficacy in their work when clients have what they deserve according to the policies and the resources put into any one client do not outstrip the material or human resources of the providers. One example of an efficacious policy would be seat belt laws. Enforcing (or merely threatening to enforce) seat belt laws compels drivers to wear seat belts and prevents road fatalities. Using only minimal amounts of staff and resources, road fatalities are decreased and the desired policy is attained. Political efficacy generally entails the amount of institutional/ system change per unit of effort, in terms of policy or output change. In other words, political efficacy is determined by the amount of “voice” one has in changing the output and/or the policy. While social scientists tend to measure political efficacy as the influence of some one individual or group on the legislative part of the state, equally important is the influence (not limited to the legislature or executive leaders) on public administration itself. In a way, political efficacy is the other side of the coin of administrative efficacy: the better one can match a problem to resources, the more politically efficacious. As in recent scholarship on deliberation in legislative policy making, administrative policy making also requires the

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deliberative input of citizens (or potential “customers”) to determine what constitutes a problem requiring some type of resource allocation. There are various difficulties that arise in political efficacy, which include ensuring equality of influence (discussed below), giving due weight to expertise, and balancing responsiveness against the type of short-term views mentioned in client-side efficacy. For instance, a very politically efficacious system could result in a high level of administrative inefficacy. Finally, administrative efficacy means the success in matching resources to problems. Taking the problems as given, possibly but not necessarily determined by a politically efficacious system, administrative efficacy involves determining the amount, and what type, of limited administrative resources best correspond to fixing or counteracting a problem. For example, should salmonella infection become a problem, an efficacious health department would allocate material and human resources not only to treatment centers but also to investigators (to determine the origin of the outbreak) and to regulation enforcement (to decrease the likelihood of future outbreaks via sanctions, such as large fines). Once again, however, there is a potential tension between forms of efficacy, as an administratively efficacious solution may not necessarily be a provider-side efficacious one. Efficacy as a whole, then, is a normative standard for public administrators that requires a balance of the above four types: an efficacious body is one that is responsive to the public (political) in alleviating problems (client-side) by properly ascertaining and assigning resources to solutions (administrative) that can bring about compliance with a minimum of coercion or extreme sanctions (provider-side). What makes this standard difficult is the balance itself, as these various types of efficacy do not necessarily mesh well as a coherent whole. A very client-side efficacious department might also be quite politically efficacious but as a result would probably be administratively inefficacious (as there are too many problems to be resolved with scarce resources) as well as providerside inefficacious (due to the lack of resources, harsher sanctions would be necessary to ensure compliance). Similarly, political inefficacy could result in administrative efficacy, as a department with fewer problems to solve could match resources to areas of concern

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much more easily. The notion of efficacy itself lacks principles that could bring about the necessary, unified balance: there is no guidance within the notion that could direct a public servant to be efficaciously efficacious.

Defining Expertise Fundamental to the identity of public administrators is the idea that each civil servant is an expert, a technically competent and authoritative judge, in his particular area. Whether he is an expert in sewage treatment plant construction and management, in the legal intricacies of domestic and international adoptions, or in the management and coordination of large and diffuse service delivery teams, a public administrator is an expert. As a concept with ethical import, expertise directs public servants’ acquisition and deployment of knowledge. First, with respect to the acquisition of knowledge, we can conceptualize expertise as broadly informed technical capability, but the question arises, “how broadly must an individual be informed in order to become an expert?” This question itself raises larger (epistemological) questions of “how can an individual know at all?” The orthodox position of public administration answers the epistemic question by arguing that public servants come to know through (rational) assessment of the empirical world around them. This empirical world of observable materials and states includes the legal and institutional framework of the state, an individual department, bureau, and office, as well as the range of material and human resources that are at the disposal of the aforementioned institutions. The orthodox position assumes that public administrators engage the world in a roughly scientific manner—they observe phenomena, posit theories, form hypotheses based upon those theories, gather evidence to test the hypotheses, and adapt their conclusions, measured as policy implementation decisions, to fit the observed world. The process of observation includes the interaction with clients and with the materiel of the profession of which the individual administrator is a part. The accumulation of professional knowledge is done primarily through the processes of (professional) education, certification or licensing, continuing education, networking with other similar professionals (i.e., conference participation and professional

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memberships), and engagement with the extant literature that informs the profession itself. The accumulation of knowledge from client interaction (though a method of information gathering not widely advocated in the literature until the advent of the deliberative democratic turn, but implicit in much administrative practice) comes through the daily learning of engaged experience on the part of attentive administrators. This “on-the-job” acquisition of knowledge, while less formal, is of ethical significance: in order that any administrator may best learn from a client or fellow service provider, he/she must treat the client with, minimally, respect or, preferably, equality. Another form the professional accumulation of knowledge takes is through program evaluation. As various policy scholars, such as Baumgartner and Jones (1993) and Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith (1993) propose, policy makers and public administrators learn through the policy evaluation process. As policies are evaluated for their efficacy, economy, or (in)efficiency, those charged with designing and implementing the policies learn from mistakes and successes. Likewise, as Pressman and Wildavsky (1984) suggest, as policy makers and planners in a central government office or bureau take in data and stories from the implementation of a policy in multiple locations, they learn and adapt future policy prescriptions to reflect the actual situations of individual locations. Such “adaptive learning” (Baumgartner and Jones 1993) is paramount for the accumulation of expertise among both policy makers and those making decisions on prescribed policies. Expertise, defined as broadly informed technical capability, suggests that administrators must operate rationally with an unadulterated filter of observation and input to aggregate knowledge from multiple sources, including from clients. What troubled previous scholars analyzing the concept of expertise in public administration is the deployment of expert knowledge or the employment of technical capability. The proposition prevalent in much of the literature prior to the widespread introduction of democratic theory to public administration (in the Anglo-American literature predominantly, but later in the prescriptive literature for administrative reform around the globe) was that of neutral competence. Neutral competence was posited as a middle ground between two significant issues of the role of expertise in public administration. On the one hand, scholars troubled

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by the concept of expertise were disquieted with the use of administrative expertise as a tool of domination of otherwise underinformed citizens, leading to (antidemocratic) paternalism. On the other hand, scholars troubled by the nondeployment of expertise were concerned that if expertise were not a dominant value, then administrators would infuse their own value schema into policy implementation, with disastrous results for clients with alternative viewpoints or needs that are incompatible with administrators’ values. In short, one group of scholars analyzed the problems that may arise if knowledge is deployed without ethical restrictions while the other focused on issues of (individual) ethical concerns overtaking the purportedly neutral deployment of knowledge. These two camps have been in long-standing conflict with one another and still compete today. The seminal articles by Friedrich (1940) and Finer (1941) laid out the terms of the battle, which has yet to be won nearly seventy years on. Siding with Friedrich, facts—the unalloyed data of observation and science—should be broadly informed by values. Administrators should engage in adapting policies to fit the resource situations and the value preferences of the place and time. Though legislatures, along with courts, should be the ultimate arbitrators regarding which values are acceptable in the government, administrators should exercise discretionary latitude in fulfilling policy goals. Siding with Finer, facts should be accumulated unadulterated and deployed with direct consideration to stated policy goals. Administrators, if confronted with conflicting or vague policy goals, should seek legislative and judicial guidance prior to making further decisions. That is, with respect to the goals and outcomes to be attained, public servants should exercise only neutral competence to carry out orders. Though the Friedrich and Finer debate wages on, as the acquisition of knowledge has expanded to incorporate meaningfully the position of clients, a less dichotomous position on the role of expertise has been popularized. The use of expertise as an ethical standard is a less dogmatic position than either explicit neutral competence or explicitly value-laden paternalism. Administrators have an ethical duty to seek knowledge from multiple competing and conflicting sources and have the corresponding duties to make judgments that they can explicitly account for to an underinformed

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public or investigative legislature. Expertise as an ethical value has become the ability to systematically account for the acceptability of one’s actions, taking both facts and values into consideration.

Defining Equality Equality is the most recent addition to the orthodox position in public administration. Equality, or equity, does not appear in the early seminal pieces that ground the field, such as Weber’s “On Bureaucracy” or Wilson’s “The Study of Administration” (Shafritz and Hyde 1997, 14–27, 37–44). Equality, it seems, was not a significant concept in the administrative orthodoxy system until after World War II, though it did appear in some pieces associated with the American Progressive movement. That equality is a latecomer to the orthodox position does not signal that it is less important than the earlier values of efficiency, economy, or expertise. Equality, as Frederickson notes, was quite conspicuously absent: To say that a service may be well managed and that a service may be efficient and economical, still begs these questions: Well managed for whom? Efficient for whom? Economical for whom? We have generally assumed in public administration a convenient oneness with the public. We have not focused our attention or concern to the issues of variations in social and economic conditions. It is of great convenience, both theoretically and practically, to assume that citizen A is the same as citizen B and that they both receive public services in equal measure. This assumption may be convenient, but it is obviously both illogical and empirically inaccurate. (1980, 37, quoted in Frederickson 1990, 228)

The importance of equality for public administrators is paramount for understanding and measuring the other value concepts in the orthodox position. As with the other concepts discussed in this chapter, equality is a concept with multiple meanings. As Dworkin (1981a, 1981b), Rae (1981), and others point out, equality is at best an ideal concept with little practical value until we answer the question, “equality of what?” Dworkin’s (1981a, 1981b) popular articles from Philosophy and Public Affairs provide a usefully condensed (though at 126 pages,

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still of some length) assessment and answer to the question, “equality of what?” Dworkin investigates the importance of equality of resources and equality of welfare, in addition to some consideration of the importance of equality of political efficacy and equality of opportunity. Equality of welfare is, in short, the assessment of the happiness and potential that one’s life has, measured with respect to one’s philosophy of life and relative position to others. The equality of welfare is a primarily subjective measure of how much one can regret or lament the state of life that one has presently. Dworkin suggests that this is evaluated most importantly through what he calls an “envy test.” We can argue that we have achieved equality of welfare to the extent that persons of relatively equal means do not envy another their greater or lesser happiness or potential. Equality of resources, on the other hand, is the assessment of the parity of material wealth that one person has against a reasonable ideal of what any person would need to live in such a way that their welfare is not markedly less than that of others. Equality of resources, for Dworkin as well as for Rawls (1971), does not mean that each person must have exactly the same amount of any given material as any other but rather that each person has what she will need to achieve the same state of overall welfare. We can consider that the equality of resources has been achieved if, given an ideal game theoretical situation, no one person would change her strategy in order to seek further advantage over the others. To capture the importance of equality of resources and welfare for politics, and thusly for public administration, it is helpful to examine the role of equality, conceived broadly as fairness, in Rawls’ A Theory of Justice (1971). Such a sentiment is echoed by Frederickson: When ideas such as social equity or the public interest or liberty are suggested as guides for public action, the most compelling definitions are often the most abstract. . . . The Rawlsian construct as an ideal type addresses the distribution of rights, duties and advantages in a just society. Justice, to Rawls, is fairness. To achieve fairness, the first principle is that each person is guaranteed equal basic liberties consistent with an extensive system of liberty for all. The second principle calls for social and economic inequalities to be managed so that they are of greatest benefit to

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the least advantaged (the difference principle); it seeks to make offices and positions open to all under conditions of fair equality of opportunity. (1990, 230; emphasis in original)

Under the guise of Dworkin’s and Rawls’ conceptualizations of equality, what then is the normative implication of the concept of equality for administrative ethics? Though the desired (ideal) end states of government action to reduce inequality are the equality of welfare and equality of resources, the notions of equality of opportunity and equality of political efficacy are more informative as ethical concerns for public administrators. In his piece “Administrative Ethics and Democratic Theory,” John Burke (1994) surveys the range of values suggested as the most appropriate for public servants in a democratic system. Burke lists “optimism, courage, and fairness tempered by charity,” “social equity,” “the patriotism of benevolence,” “ethics of civility,” “ethics of creativity,” “ethics of citizenship,” “justice,” and “fairmindedness, rationality, prudence and courage” as values suggested in the literature. Each of these, we suggest, relates to the notions of equality of political efficacy and equality of opportunity. In the present literature of public administration theory (and even theories of public policy making), which is largely influenced by theories of deliberative democracy, the equality of political efficacy is paramount. As Dworkin (whose elaborations largely anticipate those of Gutmann and Thompson 2004; Hajer and Wagenaar 2003; Fischer and Forester 1987 and 1993; Forester 1999; Stivers 1993; and Fischer 2003) suggests, an individual’s sense of equality diminishes given lack of attentiveness to his political position. From the standpoint of any sophisticated economic theory, an individual’s command over public resources forms part of his private resources. Someone who has power to influence public decisions about the quality of air he or she breathes, for example, is richer than someone who does not. So an overall theory of equality must find a means of integrating private resources and political power. (1981b, 283)

Dworkin (1981a, 1981b), Rawls (1971), and other theorists of political equality often base their notions of equality of political efficacy on the idea that citizens gain political efficacy vis-à-vis access to the

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legislature or, in some cases, the institutions of the public sphere, such as the media. While such conceptualizations of political equality are true, they are not complete; access to policy-making avenues such as voting, legislators, and media outlets, while necessary for an individual’s sense of political efficacy, are not completely sufficient. A step toward sufficient models of political efficacy, given the size and proximity of public services and public servants, is measurement of the degree to which individuals can engage directly with public servants to shape the implementation of policies. As Lipsky (1980), Pressman and Wildavsky (1984), Meier (1993), and others suggest, the wide-ranging discretionary powers of administrators significantly shape the outcomes of public policies. That an individual can shape outcomes at the level of policy implementation may be just as critical, if not more so in the case of disadvantaged minorities (such as members of lower castes, previously disenfranchised racial minorities, or displaced persons), than one’s position gaining a response at a legal-legislative level. For public administrators, then, we may argue that the concept of equality is prescriptive of an ethic that demands providing equal opportunity for voice. Equality of opportunity is a difficult concept to define, much less implement, given the range of individual natural endowments and handicaps. As famed American author Kurt Vonnegut suggests, achieving full equality of resources as well as opportunity can lead to ridiculous policies with appalling results (1993). Equality of opportunity is more readily conceptualized and implemented with the Rawlsian first principle in mind: “. . . each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive scheme of equal basic liberties compatible with a similar scheme of liberty for others” (Rawls 1971, 53). For public servants, what is essentially ethical in the concept of equality, taken to indicate equality of opportunity, is the equality of liberty. In the case of the Rawlsian conceptualization (and indeed in the conceptualization that most markedly grounds modern understandings of liberty—that of Sir Isaiah Berlin), equality of liberty means equality of both negative and positive liberty. That is, public servants must ensure that each person under their care and jurisdiction (which in a networked system of global governance may be quite an expansive population) is granted liberty from coercion and liberty to explore and express her fundamental values with the restriction that he/she allows all others to do the same. In terms

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of implementing a value of equality of opportunity, public servants must work to ensure that there is an environment of equal liberty in the administrative realm. This means that no individual is denied the resources, opportunities, or voice due to her/him under the strictures of the system in which public servants work. To uphold equality in the administrative realm requires the adoption of an oath, implicit or explicit, which is fundamentally similar to that of physicians—“First, do no harm.” Maintaining the sanctity of equality, however essential to the task of ethical public administration, often conflicts with the employment of the previous concepts, particularly efficiency, efficacy, and economy. To offer an environment with equal liberty and voice does not readily satisfy the values of efficiency, as it requires the consumption of time and material resources for no readily measurable output gain. Likewise, equality can hinder the value of efficacy, as deliberation over program and organizational fit with an individual client’s values may consume more program and organizational resources—or indeed require an adjustment to programs or organizations themselves—than simply implementing a program without client consultation. Indeed, equality may interfere even with the value of expertise. If we assess expertise as neutral competence or broadly informed technical capability, we must address the problem captured by Forester—are citizens’ views and values part of the constellation of informative sources that public servants must survey in order to be “experts”?

A Summary of the Orthodox Position Some readers may be struck that we are not confronting some of the more popular concepts in the current public administration literature. As depicted above, there are many values suggested as paramount for contemporary public administrators. Though these values are part of the litany of concepts that do inform theories and arguments about ethics in public service, we focus upon the Five E’s framework because (unlike the other values) there is a single unifying value for the Five E’s that does not include some of the other values. Namely, the Five E’s can be brought under the overarching concept of rationality. This concept, we argue, is the dominant

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expectation with significant, though perhaps surprising, ethical force in contemporary public administration. Rationality is not often included in the major concepts of ethics today. Concepts such as justice, equality, fairness, nonviolence, and consensus figure more prominently. However, the role of rationality is one that is a priori to the others. If I am to assess whether my actions are good or right or fair or just at all, I must first be able to make causal assessments and observations of the world based on my accumulation of phenomena through the lens of noumena. That I may be ethical, I must first be rational. Ethical actions require at their base some notion of intentionality that can be explained, which assumes a rational actor (though not necessarily rational in the way advocated by contemporary economics). If I merely act without any intention—say how an infant child or a significantly incapacitated adult will act—irrespective of whether my actions lead to a good or ethically laudable outcome, the act itself cannot be described as ethical: I could not have acted based upon my observations of the world and the accumulation of knowledge according to abstract categories such as goodness or evil. Likewise, without the prior capability of rationality, I cannot be said to possess a will, much less the good will required of a Kantian notion of ethical behavior. All of the concepts discussed above, in addition to being considered rational and therefore laudable under the contemporary, economic-scientific notion of rationality, are rational in terms of a dominant paradigm of ethics in the modern age. That instrumental or economic rationality seems to be the overarching framework that gives systematic meaning to these concepts in public servants’ daily use does not mean that instrumental rationality is required for all concepts related to public administration. Instrumental rationality, a primarily Western-centric framework, is dominant through a series of historical incidents, not a natural necessity. Certainly many of the ethical concepts explored by Burke and others are not directly related to instrumental or economic rationality. Alternative forms of rationality ought to be explored as other competing or complementary avenues for administrative behavior and administrative ethics. In order to explore multiple forms of rationality, we explore those from inside and outside of the “Western” tradition.

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Concepts of the Administrative Orthodoxy and the Remainder of the Book Despite the attractiveness of the concepts of ethics in the administrative orthodoxy, the orthodoxy itself is only a limited part of the large system of theoretical and applied ethics. As those in the many countries and traditions outside of the “West” know well, those concepts of import to the “West” are not necessarily of value as imports from the West. Values, as we suggested in the author’s introduction to the book, are specific to a tradition and do not arise from nowhere. The predominance of Kantian ethics arose from the tradition of ethics in post-Reformation, (post-)Christian, Europe. Even in this time and place, more than a single orthodox position on ethics existed, as made clear by the bitterness of religious wars that immediately preceded Kant’s birth. Heterodoxy in ethics appears to be the natural state of human existence, as natural as the generation of different notions of God, gods, and the existence or meaning of human life. Thus, in order to investigate ethics on a global scale, as we would like to start to do here in this book, we must take the position that the orthodox concepts of administrative ethics discussed here are a form of heterodoxy. It is from the position of one heterodox position being posited as competitive with another that we hope readers will use this chapter to guide their understanding of the rest of the positions and traditions investigated here. In order to explicate the competing or complementary tendencies in the administrative orthodoxy versus other traditions, we are explicitly comparative in crafting the subsequent chapters. In each chapter, we describe the similarities and differences between these concepts and similar concepts in the tradition.

Part II

ETHICAL TRADITIONS FOR PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

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Chapter 3

Ethical Traditions of India

A Brief Introduction to the Traditions of India, Chiefly Hinduism

I know morality, which is eternal, with all its mysteries. It is nothing else than that ancient morality which is known to all, and which consists of universal friendliness, and is fraught with beneficence to all creatures. That mode of living which is founded upon a total harmlessness towards all creatures or (in case of actual necessity) upon a minimum of such harm, is the highest morality. —Śāntiparva (262.5–6)

Philosophy in India Although long regarded as “religious,” “mythological,” or “mystical,” this perception of Indian philosophy is mistaken. There is a rich history of philosophy qua philosophy in India. This tradition, as we will elaborate here, contains some of the earliest, most poetic, and most decidedly universal insistences on moral conduct, knowledge, reality, and human nature. If by philosophy we mean texts that address problems of metaphysics, physics, metaethics, ethics, ontology, epistemology, logic, and their contrarian, argumentative counterparts, then India’s philosophical history is decidedly one of the greatest of the ancient, medieval, modern, and contemporary worlds. Although disambiguating philosophy as such from philosophies of religion in the Indian tradition can be difficult, particularly for those (many) who are not scholars of Sanskrit, the wealth 49

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of Indian philosophical material extant in various languages makes this ripe for exploration. Elementary to understanding the philosophies of India is an appreciation of the four aims of life as the basis for all philosophy, historical and contemporary (see Krishna 2007 for a contradictory approach). The four aims, puruís çārtha,1 in broad strokes are (1) artha, (2) kāma, (3) dharma, and (4) mokṣa. The Four Aims of Life in Indian Philosophy 1) Artha . . . is material possessions. The arts that serve this aim are those of economics and politics, the techniques of surviving in the struggle for existence against jealousy and competition, calumny and blackmail, the bullying tyranny of despots and the violence of reckless neighbors (Zimmer [1951] 1989, 35). 2) Kāma . . . is sensual pleasure, particularly as manifested in sexual and aesthetic experience. In its wider meaning, kāma refers not only to sensual pleasures and desires, but to desire in general and can thus be understood as including the desire for wealth (artha), the desire to fulfill one’s duty (dharma), and the desire for liberation (mokṣa) (Holdrege 1991, 16). 3) In its naturalistic dimension, dharma . . . “to uphold, maintain, preserve,” is the cosmic ordering principle that promotes and upholds the evolution of the universe as a whole and of each of its individual parts. Dharma establishes each part in its proper place, ensuring that every aspect of life is properly balanced and coordinated with every other aspect and thus contributes the maximum to its own evolution and to the evolution of the whole. The principle of dharma can be found operating at every level, encompassing greater and greater wholes: individual, family, caste, society, and cosmos (Holdrege 1991, 13). 4) Mokṣa is redemption or spiritual release. This is regarded as the ultimate aim, the final human good, and as such is set over and against the former three (Zimmer [1951] 1989, 41).

Blinded by the longstanding focus on the religious aspects of the philosophical texts of India as well as the argument that philosophy is the exclusive province of the “Western” progeny of the Greek tradition, there is comparatively little systematic exploration of the political implications of the philosophies of India in the West (though this is changing). Historically speaking, however, Indian philosophers represented some of the most paradigmatic political thinkers of the ancient world. If by political philosophy we mean systematic treatises describing the office of authority (e.g., kings,

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princes), the apparatus of power (e.g., ministries or the administration of departments), and the civil association (e.g., social organization), then major texts of the Indian epic period are decidedly political philosophy (Oakeshott 1991). Likewise, if the exploration of ontology, metaphysics, and epistemology is an essential precursor to political philosophy, then the orthodox and heterodox philosophies of the Vedas represent important preludes to political philosophy.

An Abbreviated History of India As with most modern nations, the India represented on the modern map is not the historical India. The India of history is a complicated place of many histories coevolving through conquest, conflict, and (occasional) cooperation. The place of India in history is one of crossroads, a cosmopolitan place where philosophies, practices, and people were transformed and disseminated throughout the Asian continent and into the continents of Europe and Africa and into the oceanic islands. The first evidence of “civilization” in India—known as the Indus Valley Civilization—dates to approximately 3000 B.C.E. and is one of the first societies with a sophisticated writing system known in Asia. The Āryans, peoples from Northern-Central Asia, overtook and largely assimilated the Indus Valley peoples around 2000 B.C.E. Many historians locate the beginning of Indian cultural history as we know it today with the establishment of rule by the Āryans over the Dravidian peoples who had previously populated the area, in approximately 2000 B.C.E. (see Zimmer [1951] 1989, 615–19 for a useful comparative chronology of Indian and “Western” history). Along with the Āryan people came two of the cultural emblems that still represent India’s cultural heritage today—Sanskrit and the Vedic religious tradition. Corresponding with the establishment of Āryan rule was the rise of the Vedic tradition in northeast India. Originally, a religious tradition of ritual sacrifices performed by the priestly class of Brāhmins preserved through oral teachings passed down through individual families, the evolution of the Vedic tradition we know today began with the recording of the Vedas in approximately 500 B.C.E. The oldest of the four Vedas, the Ṙg Veda, is a lengthy composition of over one thousand hymns organized into ten books, describing the

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immensity of the universe, the relationship of gods and men within it, and the immensity of knowledge that is the Absolute. The other four Vedas, “the Yajur Veda, which deals with sacrificial formulas, the Sāma Veda, which refers to melodies, and the Atharva Veda, which has a large number of magic formulas” are interesting texts of cultural and religious practices but are not often considered to be of great philosophical importance (Radhakrishnan and Moore 1957, 3). The Ṙg Veda, the oldest of Indo-European language texts, traverses a range of philosophical perspectives, the most important being monism or the idea that everything material and immaterial is part of a single “Absolute” which cannot be comprehended completely given the failings of the human mind. Included in the many hymns of the Ṙg Veda are the well -known “Hymn of Creation,” “Hymn to the Unknown God,” and elaboration on truth (Ṛta; “Ṛta represents the law, unity or rightness underlying the orderliness of the universe”; Radhakrishnan and Moore 1957, 25). From the discussion of Ṛta comes the major ethical principles found in the Ṙg Veda. Specifically, we find hymns exhorting the importance of truth telling, purification of thought (intention) and action, charity, piety, generosity, fulfilling one’s duty, and the division of social order into duty-bound castes (Radhakrishnan and Moore 1957, 26–31). Though elaborated extensively elsewhere in the Indian philosophical canon, the doctrines in the Vedas include the origins of the Indian caste system. In the global West, critics of the caste system suggest that it is a rigid system designed to ensure denial of human rights and human dignity to particular groups not historically empowered. Yet, the modern, rights-centered interpretation of the caste system is, perchance, an incomplete examination of the historical documents and practices that order the extensive system itself. Extant in the Indian philosophical tradition and cultural practices, there are a multiplicity of categorizations of persons, things, material and immaterial substances, actions, and states of being. Caste, like the classifications of knowledge and action, goes well beyond the strictures elaborated in some of the early texts. For the purposes of explaining the modern caste system and the system of social ordering in historical and modern India, the ideas of the fourfold varṇas and the fourfold way of life are essential knowledge.2

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An individual’s varṇa is the general social order into which he/ she is born.3 Yet, varṇas alone are not the only designation of social organization that determine the duties and roles of an individual. An individual person’s jati (birth) also plays a part, resulting in the individual’s own sva-dharma, or position and duties (Zimmer [1951] 1989, 152–53). Taken together, a person’s jati and varṇa work together to determine the characteristics (guṇas) of the person.4 Guṇas break down into three categories—sattvas, rajas, and tamas—or illuminating, stimulating, and indifferent or dull.5 Only taken together do (social) group, birth, quality, and life stages determine the caste of an individual. The simplest exposition on the caste and life-stage system is found in the Laws of Manu dharmaśāstra (ethical text) written around 300 B.C.E. (see table B in the appendix). These categories, though seemingly arbitrary to the eyes of those outside of the Vedic tradition, are essential for the proper ordering of the economic and political world of classical India. According to the designations of “caste” and corresponding life-stage rules, the notion of dharma or duty born of the moral order arises. According to the laws of dharma, everyone has an appointed place in the world, determined by the content of character and the action the individual’s eternal self (Ātman) displayed in their previous life, that dictates the appropriate rules of conduct, moral, ethical and practical. The correct manner of dealing with every life problem that arises, therefore, is indicated by the laws (dharma) of the caste (varṇa) to which one belongs, and of the particular stage of life (āśrama) that is proper to one’s age. One is not free to choose; one belongs to a species—a family, guild and craft, a group, a denomination. And since this circumstance not only determines to the last detail the regulations for one’s public and private conduct, but also represents (according to this all-inclusive and pervasive, unyielding pattern of integration) the real ideal of one’s present natural character, one’s concern as a judging and acting entity must be only to meet every life problem in a manner befitting the role one plays. . . . Everybody is born to his own place (sva-dharma) in the phantasmagoric display of creative power that is the world, and his first duty is to show it, to live up to it, to make known by both his appearance and his actions just what part of the spectacle he is. (Zimmer [1951] 1989, 152–53, emphasis added)

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Descriptions and aphorisms describing Indian social roles and their corresponding duties represent the primary content of many of the Vedas, Upaniṣads, and other śāstra texts. One learns of one’s role according to the intersection of caste and life stage, and one perfects one’s role by studying extensively those tales of moral conduct embodied in these texts. These lessons appear in more poetic form in a few stanzas of the Bhagavad-Gītā (33–36): Even the man of knowledge acts in accordance with his own nature. Beings follow their nature. What can repression accomplish? For every sense-attachment [anger and desire] and (every) aversion are fixed in regard to the objects of that sense. Let no one come under their sway, for they are his two enemies. Better is one’s own law [dharma] though imperfectly carried out than the law of another carried out perfectly. Better is death in the fulfillment of one’s own law, for to follow another’s law is perilous. (Radhakrishnan and Moore 1957, 115)

Knowing what one’s duties are, one can know what actions are acceptable/unacceptable, good/bad, leading to actions that increase one’s positive karma and increase the possibility that one will attain mokṣa (liberation from the wheel of life or leading to a subsequent life in a lower caste group or even species). To conclude this lengthy section, according to the strictures of the caste and life-span designation, those individuals permitted to take up the mantle of state administrators are Brāhmins, Kṣatriyas, and Vaiśyas in the second, householder, period of life. Brāhmins, as the priestly class, ought not to pursue secular administration tasks in the first instance, but as the times dictate, may do so. Kṣatriyas, ideally, should confine themselves to political or military leadership, or the highest of the ministries. Indeed, it was for the Kṣatriya caste groups that many of the epic texts and other śāstra texts (e.g., Kauṭilya’s Arthaśāstra) were composed. Vaiśyas, it seems, are the ideal estate from which state administrators could be drawn, if the caste system were rigorously followed.6

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Applications of Ethics in the Indian Tradition to Public Service There are two broad sources of ethical exhortations in the Indian tradition—the epic texts and the primary and secondary Veda texts. There are two great epic texts that characterize the Indian tradition—the Rāmāyaṇa and the Mahābhārata. Like the Iliad and the Odyssey, the two epic texts continue to be definitive sources of ethical and philosophical knowledge today. In this section, we focus on the longest of the Indian (and Greek) epic texts, the Mahābhārata. Many readers will recognize the Mahābhārata only as that work encompassing the well-known Bhagavad-Gītā, but the Mahābhārata as a whole is a fascinating, dynamic, wellspring of aphorisms, beast fables, and chivalrous tales that capture, nearly in full, the narratives of a time and a people. As Zimmer makes clear, For the past fifteen hundred years this prodigious folk-epic, in its present form, has supplied the prayers and meditations, popular plays, princely entertainments, moral admonitions, fables, romances, puppet plays, paintings, songs, poetic images, yogī aphorisms, nightly dreams, and patterns for daily conduct of the hundreds of millions dwelling between the Vale of Kashmir and the tropical Isle of Bali. As they say in India today “If you do not find it in the Mahābhārata you will not find it in the world.” ([1951] 1989, 69n29)

Indeed, from the Mahābhārata, we might glean a number of lessons on civil service ethics pertinent to the orthodox public administration notions of expertise, equality, and efficacy. Often included in the category of epic texts (though preceding and not part of the Mahābhārata or the Rāmāyaṇa) is the Arthaśāstra, composed by Kauṭilya. In this extensive text, written as a guidebook for the new Mauryan kings around 300 B.C.E., discussions of state administration go to great lengths. Known for its biting realism and account of how to establish and coordinate internal and external spying networks, Kauṭilya’s Arthaśāstra is elementary reading for any analysis of Indian political ethics. The other broad category, the Veda texts, includes the Vedas themselves, the Upaniṣads, and the later “orthodox” text elaborations

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on the content and authority of the Vedas. As mentioned above, there are four Veda texts, which form the source for the more than two hundred Upaniṣads,7 the various dharmaśāstras,8 and the six orthodox systems (Nyāya, Vaiśeṣika, Sāṁkhya, Yoga, Pūrva Mīmāṁsā, Vedānta).9 Taken together this literature is broad and complex, imparting a wealth of ethical precepts for followers of the Brahmanical faith. In a fashion true to the tradition of philosophical argumentation emblematic of Indian philosophy (Sen 2006), there are three corresponding heterodox systems, Jaina (Jainism), Cārvāka, and Buddhism, in opposition to the six orthodox texts. Of these, Buddhism is most well known (Buddhism is left aside for exposition in a later chapter, but some precepts of Jaina and Cārvāka will be elaborated upon here). Through exploration of this category of texts, the lessons contained in the epic texts solidify and expand into greater analyses of epistemology, ontology, equality, efficacy, and expertise.

Ethics in the Vedas, Upaniṣads, and the Orthodox Texts Unlike the enormous number of dharma and arthaśāstra texts, which addressed the matter of ethical conduct to a wide audience of all of the varṇas, the texts of the six orthodox traditions primarily addressed the Brāhmins and, secondarily, their students of the other “twice-born” castes.10 From the expertise of the Brāhmin teachers, the students learned of the essential philosophical maxims and social organizational characteristics imparted through the Vedas and later the Upaniṣads. In brief, the essential maxims were the teachings on the fours aims of life, the orders of the varṇas, the life stages (particularly the importance of the release of ignorance through learning), and the encompassing import of Brahman for each of these. The Brāhmin caste group, as the authors, expositors, and teachers of the orthodox texts, formed the most significant class of experts in the classical Indian society. Indeed, according to the earliest articulations in the Ṙg Veda, the kings of the temporal world (members of the Kṣatriya caste groups) were subjects of the Brāhmin caste groups. In order that a good king could rule, there must be a good, expert, teacher of the Vedas in his past. Yet, measuring the expertise of the ideal priest was not a matter of measuring the amount that he knew—knowledge of the material world (Prakṛti) was a cloud over the knowledge of the Self (Ātman, also Brahman). Rather, the degree

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to which the priest of the Vedas attained ignorance of the self and symmetry with the divine was the degree to which he was an expert worthy of the name. The highest knowledge attainable in the Vedas is that of Brahman. “Knowledge” of Brahman, as captured in the three-word saying Tat Tvam Asi, or “That art Thou,” represented the complete eschewing of a personal, limited self and acknowledgment of the universal, impersonal Self. The realization of the elementary universal “That art Thou,” through study and practice, sacrifice and austerity, was the purpose of all orthodox teaching.11 The difference among the six orthodoxies is the path, particularly the path to attaining correct knowledge that one takes to this realization. Complexifying designations of knowledge, ignorance, and expertise in the Veda texts are these multiple schools of Vedic interpretation. As the doctrines of Buddhism became popular in India between 400 B.C.E. and 400 C.E., there arose the imperative to codify the multiple interpretations of Vedic texts already extant in the general environment of teaching and worship.12 While in some cases these elaborations contradicted one another, there are essential notions contained within these that point to the core ethics of the Vedic tradition. For the purpose of simplification, we organize these under five general rubrics. The first is the importance of logic and categorization, particularly the true knowledge of the self and the categorization of worldviews, as discussed in the Nyāya13 and Vaiśeṣika14 (often grouped together as the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika) systems. The Nyāya system is predominantly a system of logic while the Vaiśeṣika is a system of extensive categorization of objects. According to the Vaiśeṣika system, that an object has a name means that it has an objective reality, and most specifically a substance. As S. Hamilton suggests, “All substance of whatever nature is reducible to one or other of nine different kinds: earth, water, fire, air, ether, space, time, self, and mind” (2001, 72). Each of these substances has a different potential quality and action: There are twenty-four qualities, “These qualities are: color, taste, odour, touch, number, dimension, separateness, conjunction, disjunction, distance, proximity, intellect, pleasure, pain, desire, aversion and effort . . . gravity, fluidity, viscidity, faculty [speed],

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the two-fold invisible force (dharma and adharma, virtue and vice), and sound. Throwing upwards, throwing downwards, contracting, expanding and going—these are the only five actions. . . . (Vaiśeṣika, chap. 2, sec. 1, stanzas 5 and 6; Radhakrishnan and Moore 1957, 398)

According to the joint system of Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika, all individuals have a responsibility to gain knowledge of the universal Self. In this system, however, knowledge of this universal Self can arise only from knowledge of the pluralism of reality, the interrelation between the subjects matter and self. Although the two systems differ in their apprehension of liberation—Nyāya, freedom from connection; Vaiśeṣika, attainment of wisdom—they share the essential importance of liberation as the point of Vedic knowledge. The second important characteristic is the division between Puruṣa and Prakṛti, or Self and substance. The Chāndogya Upaniṣad particularly and Nyāya and Vaiśeṣika texts highlight the importance of attaining true knowledge, specifically true knowledge of the Self. It is through full, discriminating, and true knowledge of the universal Self (Puruṣa) that liberation from the material (Prakṛti) comes. The material (sensed object) world is fully necessary, and it is something for eschewing, as material objects are necessary components of acts, necessary for the accumulation of knowledge and karma. Note the following from the Chāndogya Upaniṣad: Verily, for him who sees this, who thinks this, who understands this, vital breath arises from the Self (Ātman); hope, from the Self; memory, from the Self; space, from the Self; heat, from the Self; water, from the Self; appearance and disappearance, from the Self; food, from the Self; strength, from the Self; understanding, from the Self; meditation, from the Self; mind, from the Self; speech, from the Self; name, from the Self; sacred sayings, from the Self; sacred works, from the Self; indeed this whole world, from the Self. (book 7, chap. 26, verse 1; Radhakrishnan and Moore 1957, 72)

Though the material world and immaterial self arises from the Self, if we attach ourselves overmuch to the material world, the possibility of attaining unity with the universal Self diminishes. Attachments to the material world detract from our ability to attain the

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immaterial and universal cosmos. The Puruṣa or eternal Self is the ultimate aim toward which the mind should train itself if enlightenment is the objective (as it ought to be) (S. Hamilton 2001, 110–17). The third is the importance of knowledge and the elaboration of an epistemic framework. One of the hallmarks of philosophy qua philosophy is the elaboration of an epistemology—framework for “how we know.” Basic categories of epistemology found in the Indian orthodox texts include perception, inference, comparison, testimony, recollection, intuition, postulation, and noncognition. Most important among these are perception and intuition. Testimony, recollection, postulation, and comparison can be unreliable sources of knowledge, contingent upon the perception of the world (Banerji 1996, 67–74). Intuition, as opposed to reason in the West, when coupled with defense through logic and intuition based upon experience, is the primary mode of knowledge construed as “reliable.” As made clear by Radhakrishnan and Moore, Indian philosophy makes unquestioned and extensive use of reason, but intuition is accepted as the only method through which the ultimate can be known. Reason, intellectual knowledge, is not enough. Reason is not useless or fallacious, but it is insufficient. To know reality one must have an actual experience of it. One does not merely know the truth in Indian philosophy; one realizes it. The word which most aptly describes philosophy in India is darśana, which comes from the verbal root dṛś, meaning “to see.” To see is to have a direct intuitive experience of the object, or rather, to realize it in the sense of becoming one with it. No complete knowledge is possible as long as there is the relationship of the subject on one hand and the object on the other. (1957, xxv; emphasis in original)

The preeminence of knowledge, and thus the likely reason for the extensive emphasis on epistemology within the orthodox (and heterodox) systems of Indian thought, comes from the constant insistence in the Vedic literatures on the necessary relationship of knowledge to liberation (mokṣa).15 The Vedānta commentary (of Śaṁkara and Rāmānuja) is the most essential philosophical system to comprehend in order to apprehend correctly the status and necessity of knowledge. Within this commentary on the Vedas, we find that the most important theme of the Vedas is the realization that the Self (Puruṣa) is coincidental with

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Brahman, and thus the realization of truth. “The great theme of all Vedantic teaching . . . is the identity of the individual life-monad [Puruṣa] with Brahman, which is of the nature of pure consciousness or spirituality” (Zimmer [1951] 1989, 417). Yet, the idea of knowledge captured in the Vedānta is not exclusively abstract. Knowledge of the empirical world is necessary to understand the true nature of Brahman, the universe. In this empirical universe, we have God (Īśvara [the creator and governor of the universe]), selves and the world. The individual self is the agent of activity. It is the universal Self or Ātman limited or individuated by the object. It is connected with buddhi or understanding, and this connection lasts until release is attained. By the practice of ethical virtues and by the pursuit of devotion and knowledge we reach the goal of self-realization (Mokṣa). Mokṣa (self-realization or freedom) is the direct realization of the truth which has been there from eternity. On the attainment of freedom nothing happens to the world; only our view of it changes. Mokṣa is not the dissolution of the world but is the displacement of a false outlook (avidyā) by the right outlook, wisdom (vidyā). (Radhakrishnan and Moore 1957, 507)

Mokṣa is, as suggested throughout this section, the highest goal that any learned twice-born person could attain. All work in the first, third, and fourth stages of life is preparation for mokṣa, observance of ethics and social order is for mokṣa, the fullness of the Vedic faith is mokṣa. Without the all-encompassing importance of gaining the eternal Brahman, there would be little Indian philosophy written. In fact, without the preeminence of mokṣa, one could argue (along with Zimmer) that the greater proportion of philosophy in India would not have been composed, instead restricted to limited, technical śāstra texts describing the first three of four aims of life. Within each of the orthodox systems, attaining the final release from the material and the coupling of the individual self (Ātman) with the universal self (Ātman) and ethereal plane of Brahman is the purpose of elaboration to begin with. The fifth is the general opposition to Cārvāka, Jaina, and Buddhist religion and texts. The Cārvāka is a heterodox philosophy reminiscent of agnostic hedonism. Within this system, not only is the preeminence of the Vedas challenged, but also the philosophy

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ordering the dharmas and the philosophy and sacrificial religion supporting the aim of mokṣa. Jaina, a faith associated with the earlier Dravidian peoples, rejects the authority of the Brāhmins and the Vedas. Jaina philosophy strongly emphasizes the classification of being and knowledge as well as emphasizing a threefold pathway to release that is not dependent upon knowledge of the Veda texts. For the Jaina, beings are essentially consciousness (perception and intelligence). Perception guides apprehension of reality, and in its fullest form wisdom based on correct perception is one of the three ways to release. The two other forms of release elaborated in Jaina are right faith in the principles (tattvas) and right conduct/virtuosity. “The practice of the five virtues, 1) ahiṃsā (non-violence), 2) truth-speaking, 3) non-stealing, 4) chastity, and 5) non-attachment to worldly things, constitutes right conduct” (Radhakrishnan and Moore 1957, 251). The commonalities between the Vedic tradition and Jainism are strong, the former suspected to originate (loosely) within the latter, but the rejection of the Vedas by Jaina philosophers means it is a heterodox system, which faithful followers of the Brahmanical faith must reject. Importantly, rejection of the heterodox schools did not include acts common in the West, such as religious wars or heretic hunting. Instead, indifference and discrimination of “outcastes” was the consequence of the orthodox/heterodox split. The sixth is the continual reemphasis of the elementary ethical codes of the four Vedas. Although one could select a number of passages to emphasize the importance of continual instruction in virtues and ethics, the Tattirīya Upaniṣad offers a summary, representative example. Having taught the Veda, a teacher further instructs a pupil:— Speak the truth. Practice virtue (dharma). Neglect not study of the Vedas. Having brought an acceptable gift to the teacher, cut not off the line of progeny. One should not be negligent of truth. One should not be negligent of virtue. One should not be negligent of welfare. One should not be negligent of prosperity. One should not be negligent of study and teaching.

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One should not be negligent of duties to the gods and to the fathers. Be one to whom a mother is a god. Be one to whom a father is a god. Be one to whom a teacher is a god. Be one to whom a guest is a god. Those acts which are irreproachable should be practiced, and no others. Those things which among us are good deeds should be revered by you, and no others. Whatever Brāhmins there are who are superior to us, should be comforted by you with a seat. One should give with faith. One should not give without faith. One should give with plenty. One should give with modesty. One should give with fear. One should give with sympathy. . . . This is the teaching, this is the admonition. This is the mystic doctrine of the Veda (veda-upanisad). (Radhakrishnan and Moore 1957, 57–58)

What is there for civil servants to learn from this (much abbreviated) account of the orthodox systems of the Vedic religions? It is important to recall that, within the four stages of life—student, householder, forest dweller, wandering ascetic—the promises of liberation come to those in the final two stages. Through the period of studentship, teachers lay the seeds of liberation that the householder must continue to nurture as he pursues the first of the four aims of life—artha or wealth. Only after the householder’s family moves onto its own period of artha seeking can he move on to seeking mokṣa. Until that time, the maxims of the Tattirīya Upaniṣad ought to guide his conduct. Yet, even with this background, the householder who takes up the task of state administration may invoke the realism of Kauṭilya’s Arthaśāstra in his conduct. With regard to efficiency, he should keep the need to protect gains for the state in mind. With regard to efficacy, he should bear in mind the importance of the varṇas and the duties each caste has for itself. Efficacy, like equality of treatment, depends upon the prior questions “equal or efficacious

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for which group?” When considering expertise, he ought to bear in mind that he should be an expert in his given duties and not those of another. His duties come from multiple sources, but the strictures of punishment come from the king’s law. If he should be an expert, it should be in abiding by the king’s law in his tasks and the Vedic law in his heart. Equal to all else is his duty as a householder to provide, to ensure economic stability for his family, sons, daughters, wife, and mother. The task of the householder is to ensure that he fully attends to increasing the background conditions of wealth necessary for his own success (in the realm of Prakṛti and in the arena of understanding the Self) and that of his family, group, and state. Bearing in mind that all acts accrue dharma, this does not give him a license to steal or accept bribes to better his family’s status as clear prohibitions cover these actions. Yet, it does allow for the triumph of his family’s interests over interests in the abstract if selecting in such a way helps him to fulfill his primary duty in life at that time.

Ethics in the Epic Texts and Kauṭilya’s Arthaśāstra Written in verse, like epic texts in the Western tradition, the Rāmāyaṇa and the Mahābhārata are poetic tales of love, war, trial, and triumph that continue to captivate readers to this day. Both the Rāmāyaṇa and the Mahābhārata contain explicit instances elaborating on right conduct for civil servants, referred to as ministers. One has to stray only to canto (chapter) III of the first book in the Rāmāyaṇa to find a compelling and artful discussion of the conduct of great ministers. Two sages, holy saints had he [king], His ministers and priests to be: Vasishtha, faithful to advise. And Vámadeva, Scripture-wise. Eight other lords around him stood, All skilled to counsel, wise and good; . . . Siddhárth and Athasádhak true Watched o’er expense and revenue, And Dharmapál and wise Aœok Of right and law and justice spoke. . . . All these in knowledge duly trained Each passion and each sense restrained:

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With modest manners, nobly bred Each plan, and nod, and look they read Upon their neighbours’ good intent, Most active and benevolent: . . . They ne’er in virtue’s loftier pride Another’s lowly gifts decried. In fair and seemly garb arrayed, No weak uncertain plans they made. Well skilled in business, fair and just, They gained the people’s love and trust, And thus without oppression stored The swelling treasury of their lord, Bound in sweet friendship each to each, They spoke kind thoughts in gentle speech. They looked alike with equal eye On every caste, on low and high. . . . Never for anger, lust, or gain Would they their lips with falsehood stain. . . . These lords in council bore their part With ready brain and faithful heart, With skill and knowledge, sense and tact, Good to advise and bold to act. And high and endless fame he [king] won, With these to guide his schemes, As, risen in his might, the sun Wins glory with his beams. (Rāmāyaṇa, “The Ministers,” [1870–1874] 2003)

From this brief excerpt from the lengthy Rāmāyaṇa, we can distill a few maxims of civil service ethics that reappear constantly throughout the epic texts. Chiefly, ministers ought to be honest, faithful, intelligent, and well versed in secular and sacred law, cognizant of the limitations of caste duties, willing to offer advice, bold, free of jealousies toward each other, and tied (as sunbeams to the sun) to their political masters (i.e., king). Of particular importance, if we are to understand the notions of efficacy, authority, and expertise in civil service conduct in this tradition, is the tie that binds the minister to his king. From various later parts of the Rāmāyaṇa, the Mahābhārata, and Kauṭilya’s

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Arthaśāstra, come instructions on the efficacious and correct conduct of messengers, spies, and servants. To be correct in their actions, ministers must implement policies and convey messages without any embellishment or departure from the king’s instructions (Rāmāyaṇa, canto XX, book VI, “The Spies”). Further, though, on the parts of kings and generals, an envoy (spy or not) could not be hurt (Rāmāyaṇa, canto XXV, book VI, “Rávan’s Spies”). To ensure the efficacy of action, a minister must attend carefully to the law and rules set down by the king (secular law) and the Brāhmin priests (sacred law) (Bhagavad-Gītā, chap. 16, stanzas 23 and 24). In this system, the attachment of a minister to his king is a tightly coupled principal-agent model. Fortunately, for the ministers of the premodern and modern India courts, the standards of moral conduct include exhortations to both moral rigor and moral realism. For example, truthfulness is a near universal ideal for public officials, but in the starkly realist ethics of the Mahābhārata, we find that even the exhortation to truthfulness is flexible, depending on the context. [It is said]: “To tell the truth is consistent with righteousness. There is nothing higher than truth.” I shall now, O Sharata, say unto thee that which is not generally known to men. There where falsehood would assume the aspect of truth, truth should not be said. There, again, where truth would assume the aspect of falsehood, even falsehood should be said. . . . (Śāntiparva, 109.4–5) . . . In seasons of distress, a person by even speaking an untruth acquires the merit of speaking the truth, even as a person who accomplishes an unrighteous act acquires by that very means the merit of having done a righteous act. Conduct is the refuge of righteousness. Thou shouldst know what righteousness is, aided by conduct. (Śāntiparva, 329.13; Radhakrishnan and Moore 1957, 165–66)

It is essential to understanding ethics in the Indian tradition not to understate the importance of action. Only action demonstrates one’s true devotion, intelligence, and quality. “Verily, the renunciation of any duty that ought to be done is not right. The abandonment of it through ignorance is declared to be the nature of ‘dullness’ ”

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(Bhagavad-Gītā, chap. 18, stanza 7). The Bhagavad-Gītā includes a number of exhortations on the power of action as well as expositions challenging the idea of renunciation (of self-interests broadly construed) as the idea that one ought not to work at all. A summary of the ethics of action in the Bhagavad-Gītā includes the following—performance of all actions requires right intention, without prejudice to the good consequences (i.e., fame, wealth, accumulation of positive karma) that come from those actions. Actions, in short, are the product of work altruistically motivated by duty. He whose undertakings are all free from the will of desire, whose works are burned up in the fire of wisdom—him the wise call the man of learning. Having abandoned attachment to the fruit of works, ever content, without any kind of dependence, he does nothing though he is ever engaged in work. Having no desires, with his heart and self under control, giving up all possessions, performing action by the body alone, he commits no wrong. (Bhagavad-Gītā, chap. 4, stanzas 19–21; Radhakrishnan and Moore 1957, 117)

The preference for actions independent of desires for “worldly” benefits has important implications for the concepts of efficiency and efficacy. As with other traditions espousing a deontological (duty-based) ethical perspective, the proper judgment of actions does not come from instrumentally valuable ends. The act is good as it arises from good intentions schooled by duty. For members of the Kṣatriya varṇa (householder life stage), the ultimate duty is to “protect this whole (world)” and to implement government (daṇḍa, or punishment) (Laws of Manu, chap. 7). If the kind did not, without tiring, inflict punishment on those worthy to be punished, the stronger would roast the weaker, like fish on a spit. The whole world is kept in order by punishment, for a guiltless man is hard to find; through fear of punishment the whole world yields the enjoyments (which it owes). (stanzas 22 and 24; Radhakrishnan and Moore 1957, 186)

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Punishment—generally, regulation and implementation of law—has the end of enforcing the Vedic laws and secular laws necessary to ensure the proper functioning of the Vedic laws, such as laws of the marketplace. However, in the classical Indian tradition, the king was not the sole authority for punishment; the extensive system of ministers ensured that punishments were appropriately implemented and social order maintained. In broad strokes, the organization of the ministry for maintaining social order is the subject of Kauṭilya’s Arthaśāstra, in which we find the greatest direct elaborations on civil service ethics.

Kauṭilya’s Arthaśāstra Often compared to Machiavelli’s The Prince for its stark realist take on domestic and international politics, Kauṭilya’s Arthaśāstra is more like the “mirrors for princes” texts of the European middle ages than it is the text of a shrewd political player. Although Kauṭilya, the minister of the first emperor of the Mauryan Empire, was undeniably a political player, his motivation for writing the text seems to align more strongly with the moral and practical pedagogical techniques of writers like Christine de Pizan, John of Salisbury, and other “mirrors” authors. In a twist reminiscent of Aristotle in Politics, Kauṭilya reemphasizes the importance of politics (daṇḍati, or the art and science of punishment), its conduct, and study for the full human life (Kauṭilya, 1.4; Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 1.2). Kauṭilya works to synthesize the knowledge of the arthaśāstra texts of his time into a coherent guidebook for his king. As a guidebook, this Arthaśāstra is a comprehensive one, reviewing the ideal policies and practices for governing the marketplace, taxation, economic and political development, the internal court, war, and even political composition. Most important though, and again echoing what Aristotle was to write around this same time,16 the purpose of the political leader was to preserve the polity through the giving of laws (Politics 4.1; Kauṭilya, 1.4.3–4). Through this Arthaśāstra we get a clear picture of the complexity of court life and troubled times of the Magadha Empire (Radhakrishnan and Moore 1957, 193). We also find a description of the political and administrative complexity as well as ethics of the time (Shah 2003).

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Efficacy Creating the efficacious state is the purpose of the extensive elaboration on government orders, offices, fines, punishments, and so on in the Arthaśāstra. The purpose of the state itself, and thus the end toward which all actions should be oriented, was the acquisition of wealth. Thus the idea of efficacy was simple: do what is necessary to increase the wealth of the state.

Economy Scholars often define artha as wealth, but it is more than just economic gain. Artha is the accumulation of power through material wealth and leadership; artha is financial management and political economy. We find that economic arrangements and economic regulations take a primary place in the text of the Arthaśāstra. Notably, in book 2, “The Duties of Government Superintendents,” we find extensive elaborations on the role of officials in managing weights, measures, exports, imports, duties, levies, and even personnel management. For example, the responsibilities of the chancellor (a high official near the king, but still under two additional layers of ministry)17 included a) the collection of revenue from the fortified towns, the countryside, the mines, the irrigation works, forests and trade routes; and b) the preparation of the budget and maintenance of detailed accounts of revenue and expenditure as prescribed. A wise Chancellor is one who collects revenue so as to increase income and reduce expenditure. He shall take remedial measures if income diminishes and expenditure increases. (2.6.1–28; Rangarajan 1992, 218, 220)

This same chancellor also had extensive duties to protect the sanctity of the economy by “employ[ing] the appropriate secret agents to ensure that servants of the State perform their duties,” “Eliminating anti-social persons” of the “13 types of undesirable persons who amass wealth secretly by causing injury to the population,” and overseeing the conduct of the provincial officials and heads of departments and their subordinates (Rangarajan 1992, 221). As compensation for his vast duties, the chancellor could expect a

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high level of compensation—what Rangarajan translates as “enough to make them efficient in their work”—or half of the “princely sum . . . enough to prevent them from succumbing to the temptations of the enemy or rising up in revolt” of the highest officials, the king’s councilors (Rangarajan 1992, 289). The economy this chancellor was to govern was one so complex as to resemble the economy of many modern states. There were departments and ministers charged with managing agriculture (to include management of seeds, planting, preparation for the marketplace, and storage), irrigation, weather forecasting, textiles, mining, imports and exports, a system of price controls and supports, and “consumer protection” (Rangarajan 1992, 228–52). Samples of the regulations the various heads of departments oversaw (of which there are many catalogued in part 7 of Rangarajan’s translation) demonstrate quickly the extent of regulatory implementation. (For washermen and tailors) Washermen and tailors shall not wear, sell, hire out, mortgage, lose or change a customer’s garment. They shall return the garments within the time prescribed. Disputes about dyeing shall be adjudicated by experts. Loss due to washing [shrinkage, loss of colour, etc.] shall be allowed at the rates of one-fourth of the value for the first wash and one-fifth for the second and subsequent washes. Washermen shall wash the garments only on wooden boards or smooth stone slabs [so as not to damage them]. If they damage the clothes by washing them on rough surfaces, they shall pay compensation and a fine. (Rangarajan 1992, 245–46)

Compare these regulations to those imposed upon laundries and dry cleaners today, and the relevance of Kauṭilya’s extensive discussion of the regulations implemented by heads of departments for the various industries does not seem so unusual.

Efficiency Evidence of the modern administrative character of the Arthaśāstra comes most through Kauṭilya’s expressions of efficiency. Described

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in a unique imagery of corrupt officials improperly eating the wealth of the state (2.7.41; 2.9.10–18; Rangarajan 1992, 283), efficiency is a paramount virtue in modern administration and the administration of Kauṭilya’s ideal state. Roughly corresponding to the modern notion of inputs-outputs efficiency and instrumental rationality, Kauṭilya’s concept of efficiency depends on an extensive elaboration of efficiency-guaranteeing techniques. Indeed, there is extensive foreshadowing of the modern techniques of public budgeting, accounting, and auditing in multiple sections of the Arthaśāstra. Kauṭilya makes quite clear the link between civil service malfeasance and a reduction in wealth: The following are the means of increasing the wealth of the State: • • • • • • • • •

ensuring the prosperity of state activities [and enterprises]; continuing well tried [and successful] policies; eliminating theft; keeping strict control over government employees; increasing agricultural production; promoting trade; avoiding troubles and calamities; reducing [tax] exemptions and remissions and increasing cash income.

Obstruction, misuse of government property and false accounting by government servants lead to a reduction of wealth. (2.8.3– 4; Rangarajan 1992, 255)

Such sentiments echo throughout the second book, sections 6, 7, and 8. Frequent statements of the cost of financial misbehavior appear, often with the associated punishment of repayment, payment of fines, or worse reiterated. Divisions of the officers charged with accountancy included multiple departmental and regional designations, not unlike that of a regional office of a modern federal or international agency. These officials had personal liability for accounting mistakes that led to a net loss for the state. Conversely, though, if their mistakes reflected a net gain for the state, the difference was theirs to keep (2.7.19–21; Rangarajan 1992, 278–79). Kauṭilya also included extensive lists of punishments for other, less financially damaging actions associated with budgeting and finance. Failure to write legibly, failure to produce books and accounts during

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times specified, or being unprepared for audit were also subject to punishments (Rangarajan 1992, 279–80). Contravening the standards of efficiency was among the highest of the ills that a civil servant could commit in Kauṭilya’s state. Of the “Forty Ways of Stealing” elaborated upon in the Arthaśāstra (2.8.20–21; Rangarajan 1992, 296–97) many include elaborations on an official’s failure to rectify inputs and outputs. Modern readers interested in personnel management and efficiency will find Kauṭilya’s description of official malfeasance (in this instance pertaining to audit and taxation officials) quite complementary to arguments made in the contemporary literature. From section 2.7.10 (Rangarajan 1992, 286) we learn, The following are the causes of loss to the Treasury due to officials failing to collect the revenue required from them: • ignorance of the work to be done or of the rules, regulations and customs; • laziness and disinclination to work hard; • neglect of duty due to indulgence in sensual pleasures; • timidity due to fear of public discontent or uproar, [reactions from] evil persons or of untoward results; • corruption, [particularly] showing favors to selfish persons with whom the official has had dealings; • short temper and the tendency to violence [alienating those from whom he has to collect revenue]; • arrogance about his learning, his wealth or the support he gets from highly placed persons or • greed which prompts him to use false balances, weights or measures or to make false assessments and calculations.

Also foreshadowing modern personnel management techniques, one finds in Kauṭilya’s extensive descriptions of officials, their responsibilities, and salaries additional elaborations on rewards for good service. Measuring up to the expectations of efficiency, and thus ensuring the efficacy of the wealth-generating state, generated handsome rewards for the good official. For example, whistleblowers (informers and inspectors) whose accusations were validated were rewarded with up to one-sixth the amount recovered (2.8.26– 30; Rangarajan 1992, 298). Surprisingly, those whose stories were

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unproven were subject to the same punishment as the accused, which could, if it involved misuse of government gems or jewelry, mean death (Rangarajan 1992, 295)!

Expertise The extensive Mauryan state described by Kauṭilya could not have existed, much less prospered, without an extensive division of state departments and, correspondingly, expertise. Within the Arthaśāstra, particularly the lengthy book 2, we find descriptions of thirty-four departments and the qualifications and responsibilities expected of their heads (Rangarajan 1992, 304). Some departments seem foreign to modern readers, such as the Chief Elephant Forester and Chief Commander of the Chariot Corps, but others have a familiar modern equivalent, such as Chief Master of the Mint, Chief Controller of State Trading, and Chief Controller of Alcoholic Beverages. Incidentally, the obligations and expertise expected of some of these offices were not different from what we might expect from public servants today. The elaboration on the obligations of heads of departments within the Arthaśāstra served the theoretical purpose of describing the ideal state but also the pedagogical purpose of teaching these department heads their responsibilities and categorizing standards of knowledge necessary for ideal officials in the wealth-generating state (Rangarajan 1992, 307). While some position descriptions do not contain indications of qualifications necessary, learning in the Vedas and compliance with the laws of dharma, artha, and kāma were standard expectations for all ministry officials in the state. To elaborate, “In verse [1.10.15], Kauṭilya says that one who fails all four tests (dharma, artha, kāma, and fear) shall be sent to different posts such as forests, mines or factories” (Rangarajan 1992, 308). In addition to extensive knowledge of the Brahmanic laws and scriptures, extensive expertise was required for some posts, particularly for those elementary to the wealth generation or military protection of the state. For example, the Chief Superintendent of the Treasury needed the following qualifications: The Chief Superintendent shall be the officer in charge of the Treasury for gems, jewelry and precious metals, the storehouses for products of high value, the warehouses of products of low

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value and the warehouse for forest produce. He shall be conversant with the qualities of all the items described in detail as well as other precious articles not specifically listed therein. He shall be knowledgeable about the quality of differences in each of the products and where they come from and shall also be conversant with identification of adulterated goods. He shall know how to store each item, any losses that may occur during storage and the means of preventing deterioration during storage. (2.11.16–17; Rangarajan 1992, 309)

Other offices, such as the Chief Controller of Mining and Metallurgy, have a less “omni-competent” list of qualifications but must still be expert in various aspects of their job. “The Chief Controller in charge of mining operations shall be conversant with the geology of metal-bearing ores, the techniques of smelting [different metals] and with the identification of gems” (2.12.1; Rangarajan 1992, 325). In sum, expertise in the Mauryan state was similar to the standards of expertise in the modern state. Even the acquisition of expertise was similar to the way in which one becomes an expert today (though the ways in which one could become a civil servant were quite different in some respects; see below on the ethics of secret services). As recorded in multiple travel narratives and reiterated in Sen (2006), ancient India was one of the major centers of learning, argumentation, and philosophy, boasting multiple large universities by 1000 B.C.E. Through innumerous small “schools” run by Brāhmins teaching the Vedas and other tasks, education became widespread among the higher castes. Learning gained in these schools did not end at the door of the Brāhmins’ home; libraries and centers of higher education proliferated in ancient India. The universities of Taxila and Nananda (also Nalanda), the former being a temporary home to Kauṭilya, were large and prosperous centers of higher education in the ancient world (SarDesai 2008, 112). In addition, the history of India is one of extensive literacy; major works on professional tasks and philosophical treatises were readily available in centers of advanced education throughout India (SarDesai 2008, 113–15). With an extensive range of professional treatises and teachings available, the paths to learned expertise followed by Mauryan civil servants followed a similar trajectory to those of civil servants round the world today.

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Equality Due to the laws of dharma and the caste system elaborated upon earlier, equality is a complicated concept to capture in the Arthaśāstra. Among civil servants, there was equality within rank, as measured by pay, access to the king, or degree of subordination to a higher official, and expectations of expertise and merit are evident. Further, it seems that individuals could advance within their divisions or transfer (laterally or outside of their original rank) to other departments. Demotion as punishment was rare within the schedule of punishments listed; punishment was corporal or financial, not employment related. Between civil servants and their clients, expectations were that civil servants would treat their clients in a way commensurate with the way that the good king would treat his subjects. The civil servant being an extension of the king and his power (in a manner reminiscent of the modern principal-agent relationship), the good civil servant treats clients with the magnanimity of a king whose purpose is to maintain the laws of dharma and increase the wealth of the state. Note the following passages from the first book (“Of Discipline”) from the Arthaśāstra. Hence the king shall never allow people to swerve from their duties; for whoever upholds his duty, ever adhering to the customs of the Aryans, and following the rules of caste and divisions of religious life, will surely be happy both here and hereafter. For the world, when maintained in accordance with the injunctions of the three Vedas, will surely progress, but never perish. (1.3; Radhakrishnan and Moore 1957, 198) . . . [W]ealth and wealth alone, is important, inasmuch as charity and desire depend upon wealth for their realization. . . . Sovereignty is possible only with assistance. A single wheel can never move. Hence he shall employ ministers and hear their opinion. (1.5; Radhakrishnan and Moore 1957, 199)

We can find reflection of these expectations among civil servants in Kauṭilya’s elaboration of responsibilities. The Chief Controller of Entertainers (courtesans, brothels, prostitutes, and other entertainers) and the Chief Controller of Gambling and Betting, for a unique

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example, also had to ensure that the state’s regulations and recommendations for training and thus efficiency of expenditure on entertainment were maximized.18 These officials were also responsible for hearing disputes lodged by prostitutes, johns, gamblers, and madams to ensure adherence to the regulations and peace. Among all members of the state, the civil servant was to treat each according to the qualities assigned to his role.

The Ethics of Mahatma Gandhi and Modern India Like other traditions, the tradition of philosophy in India underwent various transformations, all the while maintaining particular aspects from its vibrant past. The elaboration of the philosophy and ethics of the past took a dramatic hold during the move for Indian independence in the early twentieth century. Moves toward hind swaraj or Indian self-determination, as motivated by Gandhi, Tikal, Radhakrishnan, Aurobindo, and others, employed the philosophies of the Vedic, Jain, and Buddhist past to emphasize the value and importance of a genuine, Indian future. The revivification of Indian thought was both a theoretical and practical move, leading to a greater understanding of India within the nation and the remainder of the world. In the outside world, the face and philosophy of Mohandas—Mahatma—Gandhi became the lasting symbol of this period.19 While some modern critics, such as George Orwell (1981), question the preeminence of Gandhi’s ethics of nonviolence (ahiṃsā), truth (satya), and self-rule (hind swaraj), others laud Gandhi as the most important non-Western political thinker and political influence of the twentieth century (Parel, Hind Swaraj and Other Writings, 2003). Some, like Rabindrath Tagore, Gopal Gokhale, and Jawaharlal Nehru, questioned (though rarely in an open forum) Gandhi’s nationalism (D. Brown 1961; Sen 2006, 98–100), while others laud Gandhi as the inspiration for the nonviolent ethic of the civil rights movement in the United States. Gandhi is a figure variously interpreted, but his figure and associated ethics are so widely known as to be an essential part of any perusal of Indian philosophy and ethics. In sum, Gandhi’s ethical principles are the ethics of nonviolence, humility, truth, responsibility for self, and a principled rejection of the distracting ills of modernity. Sometimes attributed, falsely,

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to the exclusive hand of Gandhi or to Hinduism, ahiṃsā or nonviolence is the foundation of the ethical system of the Jaina faith (Radhakrishnan and Moore 1957, 250–52; Zimmer [1951] 1989, 250–52, 278–79). Yet, Gandhi’s deployment of ahiṃsā as the key phrase for his practice of nonviolent engagement with the British Raj popularized the term extensively. As the first of the five Jaina virtues (Radhakrishnan and Moore 1957, 252), ahiṃsā means absolute noninjury, nonviolence. As Zimmer makes clear, “Ahiṃsā, or ‘non injury’ is the primary Jaina rule of virtue. This clean cut principle is based on the belief that all lifemonads are fundamentally fellow creatures—and by ‘all’ is meant not only human beings, but also animals and plants and even the indwelling molecules or atoms of matter” (Zimmer [1951] 1989, 250). Upon realizing the importance of nonviolence for his pursuit of truth while in South Africa, Gandhi later expressed nonviolence politically through submission to a virtuous life led by the pursuit of truth. Nonviolence, Gandhi reminds us, was not about fomenting revolution directly, but was about obeying the rule of law, through virtue-led practical action that expressed a principled disagreement with its implementation or certain content. “A non-violent revolution is not a programme of seizure of power. It is a programme of transformation of relationships, ending in a peaceful transfer of power” (Burgess 1984, 16). As a doctrine of peaceable resistance, the practice of ahiṃsā meant politely accepting responsibility for transgressing the law while also stating cogently one’s reasons for disagreement. For example, in his appeal before the court on charges of violating an order to leave Champaran and desist with his inquiry into the ill treatment of indigo planters there, we find one of Gandhi’s earliest, eloquent presentations of the idea and practice of ahiṃsā. Quoted at some length here, With the permission of the Court I would like to make a brief statement showing why I have taken the very serious step of seemingly disobeying the order [to leave Champaran]. In my humble opinion it is a question of difference of opinion between the Local Administration and myself. I have entered the country with motives of rendering humanitarian and national service. I have done so in response to a pressing invitation to come and help the ryots [peasants], who urge they are not being fairly treated by

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the indigo planters. I could not render any help without studying the problem. I have, therefore, come to study it with the assistance, if possible, of the Administration and the planters. I have no other motive and cannot believe that my coming can in any way disturb public peace and cause loss of life. . . . I am fully conscious of the fact that a person, holding, in the public life of India, a position [lawyer] such as I do, has to be most careful in setting an example. It is my firm belief that in the complex constitution under which we are living, the only safe and honorable course for a self-respecting man is, in the circumstances such as face me, to do what I have decided to do, that is, to submit without protest to the penalty of disobedience. I venture to make this statement not in any way in extenuation of the penalty to be awarded against me, but to show that I have disregarded the order served upon me not for want of respect for lawful authority, but in obedience to the higher law of our being, the voice of conscience. (Gandhi 1917, in D. Brown 1961, 115–17)

In this passage, Gandhi’s expression of humility in the face of the law, willingness to accept responsibility for his actions, and polite and nonviolent repulsion of the law’s decision are readily apparent. Nonviolence was also part of one’s overall life. For example, Gandhi cautions against violent thoughts even—“mental violence has no potency and injures only the person whose thoughts are violent. It is otherwise with mental nonviolence. It has a potency, which the world does not yet know” (Burgess 1984, 17). As an ethical principle applied to public life, nonviolence means avoiding all thoughts or actions that do violence, even mental violence, against any other living thing. Echoing the austerity required of the life of Gandhi (and Hindu saints [arhats] or Bodhisattvas [Buddhists near Buddhahood]) maintaining the ahiṃsā position requires constant supervision of one’s thoughts and actions. Supervising one’s thoughts and actions requires the virtues related to ahiṃsā, namely pursuit of truth, humility, and responsibility, or satyagraha. Satyagraha is gentle, it never wounds. It must not be the result of anger or malice. It is never fussy, never impatient, never vociferous. It is the direct opposite of compulsion. It was conceived as a complete substitute for truth.

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A satyagrahi [one who practices satyagraha] obeys the laws of society intelligently and of his own free will, because he considers it to be his sacred duty to do so. It is only when a person has thus obeyed the laws of society scrupulously that he is in a position to judge as to which particular rules are good and just and which unjust and iniquitous. Only then does the right accrue to him of the civil disobedience of certain laws in well defined circumstances. (Burgess 1984, 71–72)

Whether in the face of the courts or the needs of the people, a humble, virtuous life was important to Gandhi’s overall mission. As insisted upon many times throughout his life, Gandhi’s virtuosity was principled and public; he insisted upon a complete demonstration of this as exemplified in the well-known austerity of his own life (e.g., his vow of brahmacarya, or chastity). Gandhi’s philosophy, as Parel notes in contradiction to multiple arguments for a principled disengagement or even anarchy, was one of direct, virtuous, political engagement with the state and the economy, or purus çārtha (Parel 2006, 64–67). Engagement with the economy though was engagement with a “right” economy or one in which moral progress kept pace with material progress and in which technology did not replace human beings, but instead made their labor and suffering less (Parel 2006, 68–82). Gandhi captured this notion in the concept of swadeshi (“what pertains to one’s own country”; Parel 2006, 68) or improving one’s own lot in order to improve the lot of one’s neighbors and even the world. One could own private property, but one could not steal. One could pursue wealth (artha) as part of the four aims of life but could not do so with selfish intentions. As pertains to the nation, selfish behavior—particularly corruption or economizing without regard to the material and moral needs of the people—was immoral in Gandhi’s eyes. Yet, the complete nature of Gandhi’s devotion to public service and virtue entailed some acts that modern public servants would find impossible. For example, Gandhi offers that “it became my conviction that procreation and the consequent care of children were inconsistent with public service” (Burgess 1984, 8). Being virtuous required a complete devotion to the political as the realm of action within which the virtuous person could realize the importance of truth. Further, wrapped into Gandhi’s rejection of the material

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attachments of modernity was a romantic revitalization of a longgone time, in which people lived according to an individual ethic of responsibility to self and community (Parel 2006, 62–71). If one was to be a good person, and certainly a good public servant, one had to embody virtue constantly in one’s private and public life. Virtue, without a community in which to practice it, was insufficient for the good life. Modern public administrators, whether working in a national or international context, can learn much from a more thorough exploration of Gandhi’s life and thought than presented here. The sum of Gandhi’s system of ethics as applied to public service is devotion to nonviolence, thoroughgoing public service to nation and world, humility, engagement, and ceaseless responsibility for one’s actions.

Coda: Ethics for the Secret Services from Kauṭilya’s Arthaśāstra One of the (in)famous aspects of Kauṭilya’s Arthaśāstra is the description of espionage, assassination, poisoning or drugging, and other “dark arts” of politics. The inclusion of such topics was not mere icing or window dressing to make the text more interesting. One needs to spend only a few moments with the Mahābhārata or the Rāmāyaṇa to find tales of spying and royal deceit. This is not to suggest that the Mauryan court or any other ancient Indian court was more or less intent on using illicit methods for political ends than any other throughout history. Yet, the frank discussion of these matters in the Arthaśāstra makes it unique among the many texts of politics and political advice. Kauṭilya recommended the use of spies, typically in the guise of a wandering ascetic, for many tasks ranging from the selection of individuals to serve the court, to the prevention of regicide by errant queens, to the ferreting out of official malfeasance. Essential for all acts of spying was the intention of the spy to serve faithfully his king and the end of artha for the nation. Within book 1, chapter 11, Kauṭilya says the following of “The Institution of Spies”: Assisted by the council of his ministers tried under espionage, the king shall proceed to create spies: spies under the guise of a fraudulent disciple, a recluse, a householder, a merchant, an ascetic practicing austerities, a classmate or a colleague, a fire-brand,

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a poisoner, and a mendicant woman. . . . Honored by the king with awards of money and titles, these five institutes of espionage shall ascertain the purity of character of the king’s servants. (Radhakrishnan and Moore 1957, 200)

So long as actions were in the service of the king’s interests, roughly the preservation and accumulation of state wealth, varieties of insidious means enjoyed the sanction of the king and his advisor. In book 14, chapter 1, Kauṭilya suggests some of these means: “. . . [O]ther manifold poison should be administered in the diet and other physical enjoyments of the wicked,” “may make use of weapons on occasions of royal sports or musical and other entertainments,” or “may set fire to the houses of the wicked . . .” (Radhakrishnan and Moore 1957, 223). Prostitutes, courtesans, and other entertainers, under the auspices of orders from the king or his Chief Controller of Entertainers, might also become spies and perpetrators of other sundry acts. As far as ethics for these spies, Kauṭilya is careful to insist that the spies must conform to the laws of dharma and the will of the king. For example, one could not be a householder spy while still in his studentship; similarly, a Śūdra (lowest caste member) should not have accepted the role of an ascetic practicing austerity, as his caste would not permit him to study the Vedas to begin with. Though spying would contradict most other standards of ethics discussed above, particularly satya (truth) and ahiṃsā (nonviolence), even spies could not contradict the laws inherent in the four ways of life. Moreover, under all circumstances, spying and other dark arts were to be practiced only on behalf of the king and his state, never for the benefit of an individual seeking selfish gain that does not benefit the state.

Recommended Readings Creel, Austin B. 1977. Dharma in Hindu Ethics. Colombia, Mo.: South Asia Books. Johnson, Gordon, C. A. Bayly, and John F. Richard (eds.). 1988–. The New Cambridge History of India. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Klostermaier, Klaus K. 2007. A Survey of Hinduism. 3rd ed. Albany: State University of New York Press. Krishna, Daya. 1992. Indian Philosophy: A Counter Perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Pantham, Thomas. 1995. Political Theories and Social Reconstruction: A Critical Survey of the Literature of India. Newbury Park, Calif.: Sage. Parekh, Bikhu. 1989. Gandhi’s Political Philosophy. Notre Dame, Ind.: Notre Dame University Press. Parel, Anthony J. (ed.). 2003. Hind Swaraj and Other Writings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Radhakrisnan, Sarvepalli. 1953. History of Philosophy, Eastern and Western. 2 vols. London: Allen and Unwin. Raghhramaraju, A. 2007. Debates in Indian Philosophy: Classical, Colonial and Contemporary. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Chapter 4

Ethical Traditions of Daoism

Chinese civilization and the Chinese character would have been utterly different if the book Lao Tzu had never been written. In fact, even Confucianism, the dominant system in Chinese history and thought, would not have been the same, for like [Chinese] Buddhism, it has not escaped Daoist influence. No one can hope to understand Chinese philosophy, religion, government, art, medicine—or even cooking—without a real appreciation of the profound philosophy taught in this [Lǎo zǐ] little book. —W. T. Chan (1969, 136)

D

aoism,1 a strain of Chinese philosophy representative of naturalistic and quietist thought, is a dominant, yet dormant, tradition in modern China. As Chan makes clear, the strains of Daoism advocated by Lǎo zǐ 2 and later Zhuāng zǐ 3 are significant for the modern-day tradition of political and social thought in China.4 A critical question in an analysis of the Chinese philosophical tradition of today is where the Daoist tradition starts (stops) and the Confucian tradition begins (ends). In the early history of the two traditions, they were quite distinct. As time marched on and, importantly, as Buddhism came to China from India, the relationship among Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism became less distinct. During this time, Daoism also transformed from a philosophy strictly to a religion and a philosophy. When we speak of Daoism today, we may speak of Daoist philosophy or the religious Daoism. 83

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In this chapter, we are concerned with the philosophical strain of Daoism, or the early origins of Daoism. The modern amalgamation of the three streams (Daoism, Buddhism, and Confucianism) suggests that separating a distinct Daoist tradition would be difficult, and perhaps less practically useful than the purpose here allows. By examining the earlier works of the Daoist tradition, we believe we may be able to say something definitive about a Daoist tradition of ethics and a Daoist direction for public service ethics. By examining the origins of this stream of thought, we believe we can better explicate the types of ethics that developed later in conjunction with the other streams mentioned. Daoism was originally a philosophical system with no religious connotations. As Fung (1976, 3) suggests, Daoism as a religion erupted as a reaction to the introduction of Buddhism from India.5 Daoism as a philosophical system (our concern here) emerged as a system of counter-Confucian thought emphasizing a quietist, naturalistic, and purist life set apart from the intricate rites, rules, and attainment of right social relationships advocated by Confucius and his later followers. Associated historically with the philosophical system of the “recluses,” such as Yàng Zhū,6 Daoism is a philosophy of nonsociety. However, we must emphasize that Daoism is not a philosophy to justify antisocial behavior. It is a philosophical system that runs counter to the highly sociable Confucian system by insisting that each person should aim at “[p]reserving life and maintaining what is genuine in it, not allowing things to entangle one’s person: this is what Yàng Zhū established” (from chap. 13 of the Huái-nán zǐ,7 quoted in Fung 1976, 61). A life outside of entanglement spent in pursuit of quiet wisdom and simplicity is the life of the Daoist sage. For the Daoist philosopher, what is genuine in life is the pursuit of the Dao; all other things are the fictive creation of man separated from the full knowledge of all things and are therefore worth less than the pursuit of the Dao as the fullness of infinity. The Daoist sage does not aim for possessions, nor does he aim for explicitly “other worldly goods” (as in Buddhist or Christian philosophy); rather, the true Daoist sage appreciates his symmetry with the fullness of all existence. Practically, this means that one should not aim for the benefits of titles or the acquisition of things from one’s own material and social ambitions, as this is temporary, is limited, and does not represent the true and full Dao. The genuine man seeks to establish

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himself within the universal and the eternal rather than the present, fixed, and material. The Daoists, particularly Zhuāng zǐ and later neo-Daoists such as Guō Xiàng8 and Wang Bi,9 emphasized the importance of “rising above all distinctions and contradictions” (W. T. Chan 1969, 317). The true sage does not attempt even to make distinctions between himself and the material and eternal in the world—to do so would be false as the Dao is representative of all things both within and outside of the world. According to Zhuāng zǐ, to make a distinction (to give an object a name) is to designate it as part of something limited and small, when all things have an unassailable, universal essence, the Dao.10 However, how one achieves the genuineness of human life—how one comes to be synonymous with the eternal Dao—is what differentiates the philosophy of each of the early Daoists included in this chapter. For Yàng Zhū, the first and most hedonistic of the Daoists, whom we only know of through relations of other thinkers such as Mèng zǐ11 (Mencius),12 seclusion and rejection of the social were the way that one could individually pursue the Dao. According to Yàng Zhū’s system of thought, stepping into the realm of human affairs is to step away from pursuit of the Dao. Lǎo zǐ, whom we know through a collection of works, the Dào dé jīng,13 and others bearing his name, suggests that we aim for the unnamable Dao by noting the present state of the world and participating in the world through the reversal of all things away from their limited worldly state to the eternal state of the Dao. That is, we come to know what it is to be sociable and to be part of the world by exploring its opposite or removing ourselves from society and the exploration of nonbeing or notworld. Zhuāng zǐ, the third of the classical Daoists to be included here, suggests that we come to identify with the Dao by identifying the infinity of all things, or going beyond “this” or “that.” We must reach to the higher point of view where distinctions as distinctions fail to have any purchase—the realm of extreme unity in the Dao. Daoism may strike a modern audience as abstract, overly concerned with the infinite and nonexistence, in short, “metaphysical.” It is a philosophy that includes strongly metaphysical elements within it and arrives at a point that is metaphysical—that the Dao and the Dé (the power that the Dao commands within all things) are universal, infinite, and decidedly beyond, but also within, all that

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is physical. The exploration of the metaphysical aspects of the Dao does not mean abstraction from society into the realm of metaphysical or otherworldly meditation for classical Daoists. Rather, we must adopt a position for ourselves outside of the limitations of the physical (and the distinctions within the physical) while being intensely concerned with the existence and manipulation of the physical world itself. The infinite viewpoint of the Daoists is universal in its external and internal perspective—we know the universal from looking outside of society at the whole (the God’s-eye view in Western philosophy) but also from looking from deep within the individual parts that make the whole. By utilizing the perspective of what is above all and within all, the true sage can arrive at the synonymous union of himself as part of the Dao and within the Dao. Some interpretations of Daoism suggest that Daoism is a philosophy of anarchism (Hall 1978). Though the Daoists are quietists and advocate a preservation of the purity of self through removal of oneself from society, they do not advocate the return to a state of nature where all men act individually and self-interestedly. Even Yàng Zhū and Lǎo zǐ advocate for the importance of maintaining society and social relations; the social is natural. The Daoists advocate a form of government where the sage king does little in the way of direct governing and does little to interfere with the conduct of everyday life of the people. In this regard, Daoists show significant differences from modern anarchism, in particular that found in the Russian tradition (founded by Bakunin): as discussed in a another chapter, anarchism in this sense requires a proactive form of communal self-governance from the population that requires not merely little direct governing but the elimination of all forms of institutions (political, religious, etc.) themselves. Far from anarchism, classical Daoists advocate a philosophically justified version of laissez-faire governing. The best government, a Daoist may say, following Zhuāng zǐ in particular, is the government of nondoing or the undoing government. Even in those highly social aspects of life, such as government and administration of the rites (regulations), one does best by following the path of reversal and adherence to the mean between any extreme. We ought not be too concerned with our material wealth and status for now, nor ought we remove ourselves from this world

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to pursue what we could not possibly fully know to be the “next.” The Daoist sage is one who rules by allowing everything to embody its essential Dao and operate according to its essential Te. An admonition for those concerned with the interaction of Daoism and the social politics comes poignantly from Zhuāng zǐ: Don’t be a medium possessed by your name, Don’t be a stock room for schemes. Don’t take the weight of affairs on your shoulders, Don’t be the man-in-charge of wisdom. (Graham 2001, 98)

Applications of the Tradition to Public Service Ethics We have described Daoist philosophy as a philosophy of naturalism, universalism, and quietism. What might this mean for public administration ethics? What does a Daoist do in office? Ethics for public service in the Daoist tradition is an ethics of administrative quietism. New readers of Daoist material may find Daoism difficult to understand as a philosophical system, much less a series of ethical standards for administrative behavior. Yet, probing the Daoist philosophy further one comes to understand the significance of a Daoist position for the resolution of “wicked” administrative problems. For most ethical traditions, a five-pronged summary would be insufficient. For the elegant philosophy of Daoism, five key selections make a sufficient starting point for the examination of Daoist ethics in public administration. Reversing is the movement of the Dao. (Fung 1976, 100) The more prohibitions and rules, the poorer the people become. The sharper people’s weapons, the more they riot. The more skilled their techniques, the more grotesque their works. The more elaborate the laws, the more they commit crimes. (Lǎo zǐ 1993, 57) Do nothing, and there is nothing that is not done. (Fung 1976, 103) Heaven’s Dao has no favorites. (Lǎo zǐ 1993, 79) The meaning is not the meaning. (Zhuāng zǐ 2001, 53)

Summarized by these five phrases, Daoism seems to be antithetical to the practice of public service. Certainly, public service involves action and “doing”! Certainly, it is how government is done. In addition, meaning and distinction has its place. Such (Confucian)

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sentiments of the importance of action, distinction, and meaning are the sentiments that the Daoists hoped to contradict. What is ethically defensible is not doing more, but doing less, not bending to all forces, but holding steady in the preservation of the Way, not striving to a predetermined goal, but meandering with the spontaneity of the world as it is.14 Much of this seems anathema to public administration as we now know it: indeed it is. Daoism is contrary to a fundamental principle of contemporary, particularly orthodox, public administration—instrumental rationality.

Daoism and Rationality The primary starting point for grasping the role of a Daoist philosophy of ethics for public service lies with a deeper understanding of Daoist rationality. As described in the first chapter of the book, orthodox views of administration are supported by a highly instrumental notion of rationality (see D. Stone 2002 for an accessible, extended critique of rationality in policy and public administration). Instrumental (economic) rationality is anathema to the Daoist position; the Daoist sage does not do anything for the purpose of attaining an end other than the Dao. Even if the sage endeavors to reach the Dao through instrumental action, he is not likely to reach it as the Dao is constitutive of all things and unattainable as part of a means-ends rationality. Daoist rationality, though something of a misnomer to begin with, starts from a different metaphysical system than present notions of noninstrumental rationality. An approximate comparison between Daoist rationality and forms of rationality popular in the current public administration literature suggests that Daoist rationality has much in common with Cook’s (1996) notion of constitutive rationality or Stone’s (2002) critique of instrumental rationality. Again, it is important to remember that the metaphysics of Daoism—that the universe is a purposefully ordered place, though not necessarily ordered by any god—are not the metaphysics of the late modern liberal democracy that Cook bases his system on. The comparison is important in its practical value for public administrators seeking to understand what a Daoist “rationality” demands for ethical behavior, but not for a theorist seeking a more nuanced comparison on points of metaphysics and ontology.15

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To start, let us first review the general structure and dynamic of instrumental rationality: Consider a common household tool—the claw hammer. It may be used to drive a nail but also to prop open a window or smash open a piggy bank. In every one of these cases, nevertheless, the hammer is merely the means to an end designated by the user. Another way of stating this is to say that the hammer has no intrinsic significance. It has no “essential nature” because its identity is determined by its use. All tools or instruments— the power drill, the automobile, the computer— are similar means, simple or complex, for achieving some purpose defined externally to them by some human user. They do not define ends and are not ends themselves. This way of speaking and thinking about the world and its objects is instrumental, or means-end, rationality. It is also called economic rationality, or economizing, because it is the epistemological foundation of economics and of the social institution called the market economy, in which everything in society is conceived of as the means to an ultimate end: human want satisfaction. (Cook 1996, 4, emphasis in original)

Clearly, from the investigation of Daoist philosophy given above, an instrumentally rational worldview does not fit with the Daoist worldview. Consider Cook’s notion of constitutive rationality: In contrast to instrumental rationality, constitutive rationality is reasoning about forms and purposes. Constitutive rationality refers to individuals, or even societies, making sense of the composition of something, reason about how to make something into what they wish it to be, or even deciding what it is they desire in the first place. The effects of a public policy and the institutions that undergird it, for instance, can be judged not only on the basis of whether specifically designated objectives are achieved but also against broader standards that members of a society hold for the form or composition of the social fabric. (1996, 5)

In comparison with modern administrative rationality, Daoist philosophy calls on a broader and provisional use of understanding the world (the Dao) than even Cook’s or Stone’s notions of constitutive rationality. For the Daoists, since the Dao is what gives all things

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their order and purpose, to act in concert with the meaning of any thing, or to draw reasons from any one action, is to draw meaning and purpose away from the Dao itself. Those (instrumental) actions that seek to make a purpose from anything or any action are contrary to the mission of the Daoist sage from the beginning as instrumental actions imply that we can know and achieve the Dao. If the true Daoist sage must work with the natural achievements of the Dao, and if doing so involves “not doing” above doing, and embracing “not knowing” above knowing, what is left to draw from Daoist philosophy for public administration? Starting from such an alternative rationality scheme, what can the Daoist-inspired public servant do? Are the concepts central to the orthodox position done away with completely?

Efficacy As the Daoist’s concept of the world does not value instrumentally rational actions, it is difficult to say what could be “efficacious.” Since the judgment of some program or another as efficacious requires some means-ends calculations, the concept of efficacy does not easily fit into the Daoist’s notion of doing what is right. In the thought of the early reclusive Daoist Yàng Zhū, though, we find some indications of why engaging in even the most efficacious-sounding acts may be, in the end, unworthy.16 Two maxims for public service that we may draw from Daoism (specifically through Lǎo zǐ) are (1) “Act without Acting” and (2) “Sincere words are not pretty. Pretty words are not sincere” (Lǎo zǐ 1993, 63 and 81). The reasons we ought to follow the first statement come from two elements of Daoist philosophy. First, we cannot comprehend the Dao; the Dao may not even be named definitively. Even the most capable of the sages is not able to “know” the Dao as it is the inexpressible element that entails the not-being, the beginning of being, and the perpetuation of being. That we may “name” the Dao means that we have not fully comprehended it (Lǎo zǐ 1993, 1). Thus, even if we think we are following the Way—are doing well and are following the common good—that we are definitive in our knowledge suggests a priori that we are incomplete in our assessment of the situation. We should not follow the Dao as one follows a leader or a diet; we must be part of the Dao in all ways.

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The first point of emphasis—nonaction—suggests that, by following (living with) the way of the Dao, we ought not to find ourselves in situations where wicked problems threaten to overwhelm us. Each of the above-mentioned Daoist philosophers cautions us against any moves of ambition and self-aggrandizement. Yàng Zhū, who suggests the preservation of one’s life for oneself, cautions against any moves of ambition or self-service that ostensibly could be for the preservation of the world itself even. Reflecting on the “Story of the Single Hair” (“Yàng Zhū,” recorded in the Leih-Tzu), we learn that the Daoist sage refuses to take out even one of his hairs in order to either gain the world or save the world. Yàng Zhū’s reply is illustrative of the ideal of quietism in the face of ambition; that we should all pluck our hairs to save the world would be to put the world into disarray by working against the natural order of the world determined by the Dao. Yàng Zhū said, “Po-ch’eng Tzu-kao refused to pluck one hair to benefit things. He gave up his kingdom and became a hermit farmer. Great Yü refused to benefit himself [but instead devoted his energies to diverting floods to rivers and the sea], and his body was half paralyzed. Men of antiquity did not prefer to sacrifice one single hair to benefit the world. Nor did they choose to have the world support them. If everyone refrained from benefiting the world, the world will be in order.” (W. T. Chan 1969, 311)

The story of the single hair is cautionary for a number of administrative problems (some further ones related below), including prizing economizing and efficiency above the consideration of the purpose and consequences of any action. Certainly under any notion of economic rationality (inputs-outputs), the costs of one hair are infinitesimally small compared to the pain or gain of the entire world. The unlikely scenario of saving the world through a hair is a tale that cautions modern actors against desires to find comfort in the drastic reduction of costs for a drastic increase in overall gains. Though the phrase “there is no such thing as a free lunch” may ring with similar truth with many contemporary students, Yàng Zhū’s admonitions implore us always to consider the costs or consequences for the full realm of even seemingly minor actions. The Yàng Zhū chapter of the Leih-Tzu is significant as a caution against three additional administrative problems: bribery,

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“shirking,” and partisanship. We know from the tradition of ethical thought in public administration that such things are ethical violations under virtually all circumstances. Yàng Zhū’s Daoist position, one where we do not seek the aggrandizement of our own reputation, our friends, or our own wallets, only the pleasure of living our brief lives, advocates the continued realization of the enormity of the performance of and consequences of all actions. If we are either acting or not acting, we must be appreciating the smallness of our own selves by taking pleasure in what is temporarily ours from nature. Accepting a small bribe or offering a position to an unqualified friend may have far-reaching consequences, the likes of which we cannot know. Try as we might to manipulate the names of things in order to obscure their nature—calling a bribe a gift, massaging one’s credentials, overlooking partisan affiliations—these things are against the nature of the full Dao. In the end, despite the hedonistic and sensationalist tendencies of Yàng Zhū, he admonishes us to remember that there are things bigger than us (Dao) that flow through us (Dé) which we cannot harness to our own advantage. We all perish, even if we are under the impression that our actions will save the world. “The one who lives for ten years dies. The one who lives for a hundred years also dies. The man of virtue and the sage both die; the wicked and the stupid also die. . . . Let us hasten to enjoy our present life” (W. T. Chan 1969, 311). Following Zhuāng zǐ, what fosters happiness is allowing the progression of things and people according to their own abilities and natures. Attempting to postulate gradations of people and things— to make distinctions between this and that—is to set up distinctions that are not necessarily “there” and conducive to understanding the totality of things. When we name something and give it meaning, we must realize that by doing so we are also defining what we do not mean by the name. Drawing upon the suggestion that Zhuāng zǐ makes that “meaning is not the meaning,” when we determine what it is for someone to be eligible for a service, we are also determining what it means for her to be ineligible. Likewise, to suggest that a particular program is highly efficacious for the reduction of any one problem, we must recall the critical question, “efficacious for whom?” Our sword of definition always cuts both ways, toward the client and the provider.

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Starting from the Daoist perspective of equality (discussed below) we may also view the idea of efficacy. Attempting to change the state of someone’s abilities (to include giving him privileges his abilities do not yet command or never shall command) will not bring happiness to him or to ourselves; to go against the natural order of things is to cause pain. Zhuāng zǐ summarizes this position as such: The duck’s legs are short, but if we try to lengthen them, the duck will feel pain. The crane’s legs are long, but if we try to cut off a portion of them, the crane will feel grief. We are not to amputate what is by nature long, nor to lengthen what is by nature short. (chap. 8, quoted in Fung 1964, 9)

Such an admonition is vital to ethics in the human services. We ought not, even if we feel we know what is best for someone, cut or mold her to fit a category that is beyond her own nature. Why we ought not to do such things is that our expertise and our knowledge are always limited. As we cannot fully comprehend the natural order of things, the natural order instructs us to allow things to follow their own course without impediment. Yet, if we ought ethically to leave things to their own natural course, what then is the role of administration in the human services? Likewise, if we leave things to a purportedly natural order, what is the role of regulation? Daoism directs us to reconsider our actions in the context of a knowable and an unknowable world. We ought not think of the consequences of our actions in the immediate sense but must think of them as part of a larger, interconnected whole that moves spontaneously and that is beyond the realm of human control. Our decisions and our actions are made in the context of “knowledge which is not knowledge” or the Dao of man. Truly then our actions are provisional and never final. To treat as final any decision or distinction is to contribute further to the disintegration of the whole of the universe and disregard the true and universal Dao according to which the universe moves itself. This is both damning and encouraging for administrative action. We ought to consider the broader implications—indeed the universal implications—of our actions as having the potential to change the world in drastically good or drastically bad ways. This is a heavy charge for considering a course of action. But, the Daoist philosophy instructs that we may

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either take a “wait-and-see approach” or our actions may have consequences that (while they may seem fortuitous or disastrous at the moment) may yet undo themselves. The consistent (Zhuāng zǐ) Daoist preference in the face of decision making is to “not do.” What we must “not do” Zhuāng zǐ leaves open to the reader’s consideration. The whole and universal Dao, while being external to us and internal to us, we inevitably pollute. This pollution is not only ignoring the abilities of others and ourselves but also acting in extreme ways and following the knowledge that we “learn” from our always faulty experience of the world. The application of our incomplete knowledge, which we do not “know” with certainty, hinders the movement of the infinite Dao. We may mistakenly follow charismatic leaders, forceful leaders, or leaders who claim a mandate of heaven (an unassailable higher power). Yet, the leader who claims to know the true Dao (the true Way) is likely to be the one furthest from it. The leader (politician, administrative department head) who suggests she knows which policy program will be more efficacious is likely to be furthest from the truth. The efficacious policy is one in line with the (spontaneous) movement of the Dao of the people the policy should govern. The leader of the policy should not be one who seeks to overawe either those in the department or those on the street with her knowledge of what is “best” for them. Rather, the good leader is one who allows the people the benefit of following the Dao on their own, through the use of their own Dé. To go against the will of the people is not efficacious for the people or the governors. When the people of the world all know beauty as beauty, There arises the recognition of ugliness. When they all know the good as good, there arises the recognition of evil. Therefore: Being and non-being produce each other; Difficult and easy complete each other; Long and short contrast each other; High and low distinguish each other; Sound and voice harmonize with each other; Front and back follow each other. Therefore the sage manages affairs without action

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And spreads doctrines without words. All things rise, and he does not turn away from them. He produces them, but does not take possession of them. He acts, but does not rely on his own ability. He accomplishes his task, but does not claim credit for it. It is precisely because he does not claim credit that his accomplishment remains with him. (Lǎo zǐ, chap. 2; W. T. Chan 1969, 140) In ancient times those who practiced Tao well Did not seek to enlighten people but to make them ignorant. People are difficult to govern because they have too much knowledge. Therefore, he who rules the state though knowledge is a robber of the state. He who rules a state not through knowledge is a blessing to the state. (Lǎo zǐ, Dào dé jīng, chap. 65; W. T. Chan 1969, 170)

Public servants then should be on guard against the guiles of a leader who claims knowledge of all things for himself. Public servants ought also to avoid this trap themselves. Adapted to reflect a modern ethical stance, Daoism advocates nonpaternalism among leaders and the administrators of a leader’s policies. Even under conditions of leadership by one who claims (false) knowledge, the ideal Daoist administrator should take the path of the true sage, quietly pursuing a path of reversal and nonaction, allowing others to follow their true natures. Likewise, following Zhuāng zǐ’s more deliberative strain of Daoism, the true sage must endeavor to gather the way of the Dao from multiple sources—notably the people. This does not mean that a Daoist ethics is a democratic one as we understand it but that the true Daoist must persevere in the path of the true Dao be examining varying circumstances, including people. Such is the philosophy of the later neo-Daoists, particularly Wang Bi: Taking the position of the superior and contending with the subordinate are things that can be changed. Therefore they are not great faults. If one can return to obey the fundamental principle and alter the command [to violate moral principles], rest with the firm and correct, refrain from drifting away from the Way, and practice humanity beginning with oneself, good fortune with follow him.

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If one is agreeable but does not follow indiscriminately and is joyful without deviating from the Mean, one will be able to associate with superiors without flattery and with subordinates without disrespect. As he understands the causes of fortune and misfortune, he will not speak carelessly, and as he understands the necessity of principles, he will not change his conduct. [A superior man sees] similarity in general principles but diversity in functions and facts. (W. T. Chan 1969, 320)

Expertise This brings us to another important point to be illustrated from Daoist ethics, which we may draw from Zhuāng zǐ: “what ever it is that we know, we only think we know.” Zhuāng zǐ chastens us in our efforts to name, to classify, and to make distinctions between people and objects. Further, following the Daoist sentiment of nonaction, he instructs us to avoid acting on those things we even think we may know. The act of making distinctions is critical for many aspects of public service: determining measures of input and output (efficiency), supply and demand (economy), resources put in per amount of problem solved (efficacy), whose knowledge is superior and why (expertise), and graduations of welfare and resources (equality). Yet, Zhuāng zǐ’s cautionary notes ask us to question our categories for determining eligibility for human services or establishing cutoff points and critical markers for industry regulation. These important values and actions in public service, Zhuāng zǐ reminds us, are never finally set and cannot be finally agreed upon as our knowledge is limited through the infinity of the unknowable. Everything is “that” (another thing’s other); everything is “this” (its own self). Things do not know they are another’s “that”; they only know that they are “this.” The “that” and the “this” produce each other. Nevertheless, when there is life, there is death. When there is impossibility, there is possibility. Because of the right, there is the wrong. Because of the wrong, there is the right. On account of this fact, the sages do not take this way, but see things from the point of view of nature. The “this” is also “that.” The “that” also “this.” According to “that,” there is a system of right and wrong. According to “this” there is also a system of right and

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wrong. Is there really a distinction between “that” and “this”? Is there really no distinction between “that” and “this”? Not to discriminate “that” and “this” as opposites is the very essence of Dao. Only the essence, an axis as it were, is the center of the circle responding to the endless changes. The right is an endless change. The wrong is also an endless change. Therefore, it is said that there is nothing better than to use the light of reason. (Fung 1964, 48–49; see also W. T. Chan 1969, 182–83)

Though all things (objects, animals, and people) have their own Dao and Dé, they are only part of the larger Dao and Dé that is universal to all things. By making distinctions, we separate the Dao and the Dé from one another, possibly mistakenly. When making decisions then, the Daoist argues that we should be cautious to remember what we do not know more than that which we do know. Despite our overwhelming expertise on any given topic or set of requirements, or even our overwhelming experience with the implementation of a particular program, the vastness of that which we do not know eclipses what we do know. Therefore, we should treat all categories as contingent and changeable and all clients as individuals with individually valid opinions. Everything considers itself to be right and others to be wrong, itself to be beautiful and others to be ugly. Everything is what it is. The opinions of the one and the other are different; that they both have opinions is the same. (Fung 1964, 43) The possible is possible; the impossible is impossible. Dao evolves and sequences follow. Things have names and are what they are. What are they? They are what they are. What are they not? They are not what they are not. Everything is what it is, and does what it can do. There is nothing that is not something. There is nothing that cannot do something. . . . To wear out one’s spirit and intelligence in order to unify things without knowing that they are already in agreement, this is called “three in the morning.” What is “three in the morning”? A keeper of monkeys once ordered concerning the monkey’s rations of acorns that each monkey was to have three in the morning and four at night. But at this the monkeys were very angry. So the keeper said that they might have four in the morning, but three at night. With this arrangement,

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all monkeys were well pleased. The actual number of acorns remained the same, but there was a difference as to the monkey’s feeling of pleasure and anger. So the keeper acted accordingly. Therefore, the sages harmonise the systems of right and wrong, and rest in the evolution of nature. This is called following two courses at once. (Fung 1964, 52–53)

A Daoist’s expertise, we find, comes from his knowledge of the duality—rightness and wrongness, completeness and incompleteness— of all things. One cannot be an expert in one thing without being an expert in its opposite. But as soon as one declares an expert in a field, one has declared one’s limitations and cannot be considered a sage. Knowledge, as it is derived from the act of making distinctions between this and that, is necessarily limited. To be a truly expert public servant in the Daoist tradition, one must eschew expertise in one field and endeavor to gain knowledge of all things and their opposites.

Equality With respect to the essential and important qualities decided for them by the Way of Heaven, all people and things are equally blessed. Dwelling in all people is the Te or the power that all people have innately through their relationship with the Dao. This power is naturally good as it flows into us from the Dao that orders all things, existent and nonexistent, earthly and heavenly. To accept a bribe, to favor an unqualified person for a job, to deny services (or even overprovide services) on the basis of preconceptions is to allow yourself to be complicit in the development of a person’s inabilities—the pollution of her own innate power—rather than her abilities. Therefore, it is essential that the public servant who seeks to promote the value of equality treat all persons (and things) as if they are unique and individual. Equality does not mean that all things are equal in welfare or resources but that they are equal in their opportunity to be “this” or” that” as they see fit. While such insistences may seem anathema to the matter of making necessary distinctions between clients and customers, the words of Zhuāng zǐ point us toward more deliberative forms of public administration. Indeed, the Daoists, long before scholars of

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deliberative democracy, offer us instruction for methods to blend decision making, quietism, and deliberation among many people. Zhuāng zǐ is instructive for the proper course of action in deliberative public administration. Suppose that you argue with me. If you beat me, instead of my beating you, are you necessarily right and am I necessarily wrong? Or, if I beat you, and not you me, am I necessarily right and are you necessarily wrong? Is one of us right and the other wrong? Or both of us right or both of us wrong? Neither you nor I can know, and others are all the more in the dark. Whom shall we ask to produce the right decision? We may ask someone who agrees with you; ask someone who agrees with me; but since he agrees with me, how can he make the decision? We may ask someone who agrees with both you and me; but since he agrees with both you and me, how can he make the decision? We may ask someone who differs from both you and me; but since he differs from both you and me, how can he make the decision? (Chí Wu Lun; translated and quoted in Fung 1976, 111)

We may take two things away from this passage. First is an admonition that chastises the contemporary preference for deliberative policy making and deliberative models of public administration. We must be cautious in our selection of individuals brought to the discussion table as, if they are single-minded, there will never be a resolution. Particularly, it is unlikely that they will be able to see beyond their own preferences to the good of all. Similarly, we ourselves, particularly as we must take a universal and quietist stance against the extremity of others, must be participants who are willing to appreciate the inherent goodness of all others and their opinions. Only by doing so may we arrive at a decision that is closer to the position of the true Dao. Secondly, we ought to reframe our conversations away from the clash of perspectives toward reconciling our perspectives toward a higher end. Accessing the higher good (Dao) in Daoist philosophy is as difficult as knowing the common good or public interest in contemporary societies. Nevertheless, Daoist ethics require that our behavior, whether in discussions or in our daily decision making, be oriented toward a good that, while not universally accessible, is universally applicable. It is only through allowing deliberations

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between people who are permitted to express their innate natures freely that the higher good will come (virtually spontaneously) to rule. Through the truly deliberative exercise it is understood that all will come to accept the importance of not governing one another for the establishment of a peaceful government close to the Way of Heaven. That is why Chuang Tzu [Zhuāng zǐ] violently opposes the idea of governing through the formal machinery of government, and maintains instead that the best way of governing is through nongovernment. He says: “I have heard of letting mankind alone, but not of governing mankind. Letting alone springs from the fear that people will pollute their innate nature and set aside their Te. When people do not pollute their innate nature and set aside their Te, then is there need for the government of mankind?” (chap. 11 of Zhuāng zǐ, quoted in Fung 1976, 106)

Efficiency The problem of efficiency, despite the difficulty posed by the alternative, noneconomic rationality scheme, must be addressed for the importance of Daoism for public service ethics to come fully to light. For the Daoist sage, what is efficient is what is most like the Dao, the path between being and nonbeing. The Dao (Way) that can be told of is not the eternal Dao; The name that can be named is not the eternal name. The Nameless is the origin of Heaven and Earth; The Named is the mother of all things. Therefore let there always be non-being so we may see their subtlety, And let there always be being so we may see their outcome. The two are the same, But after they are produced, they have different names. They both may be called deep and profound. Deeper and more profound, The door of all subtleties. (W. T. Chan 1969, 139)

Movements away from the Dao are inefficient and lead us toward destructive extremes. Like Zhuāng zǐ, Lǎo zǐ, the most well-known

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Daoist, does not offer a definitive set of examples to describe extreme behavior. Rather, he advises a more stoic position that suggests that moderate action is apparent through the circumstances in which we find ourselves. Knowing the limits of extremity, Lǎo zǐ suggests, is to know the “invariables” or limits—the nonboundaries of a spontaneous nature—that we impose through our restricted appreciation of the Way. Yet, the true sage, the one who should be the leader, is one who should be able to see beyond extremity and limit to unity and universality. The Sage has no fixed (personal) ideas. He regards the people’s ideas as his own. I treat those who are good with goodness, And I also treat those who are not good with goodness. Thus goodness is attained. I am honest to those who are honest, And I am honest to those who are not honest. Thus honesty is attained. The Sage, in the government of his empire has no subjective view point. His mind form a harmonious whole with that of his people. They all lend their eyes and ears, and he treats them all as infants.17 (Lǎo zǐ, Dào dé jīng, chap. 49; W. T. Chan 1969, 163)

Lǎo zǐ’s recommendation to think of our actions in the context of the unity of all actions in the knowable and unknowable, mean and extreme is suggestive for administrative leadership and decision making. As a philosophy of reversal and behavior at the mean, Daoism recommends not only patience in decision making but also the act of not making decisions and foregoing extended argument on possible decisions, as the situation dictates.18 Such a notion is also indicative for the very important choice of which instruments to use in the course of designing or analyzing a policy. The honest choice of instruments, particularly for policy analysis, is critical to the long-term stability and legitimacy of the administrative office and even the state. When given an unclear mandate or when issued a request for performance analysis, the temptation can be to act to increase the reputation or appreciation of the agency (or, in public choice theory terms, rent seek). Such temptations must be avoided as

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a matter of moral goodness based upon the values of public administration. Yet, such temptations must also be avoided so that the full will of the people shines through.

Summary and Some Additional Considerations on Daoism As was suggested in our discussion of the orthodox position, the values of efficiency, efficacy, equality, economy, and expertise all sufficiently overlap to make rendering a single definition of any problematic. As they are difficult to define, to draw exclusive ethical maxims from the concepts themselves can be problematic. In the Daoist philosophy, we find that any one person’s lack of knowledge of the Dao militates against her claims for expertise. The true Daoist sage is no closer to knowledge of the Dao than is any other individual; therefore deliberations on the way of the Dao can, and must, be between more than “experts.” The lack of knowledge of one person suggests the need for deliberation. In addition, lacking definitive knowledge of the Dao, a leader cannot claim to implement policies that will effect something closer to the heavenly way of the Dao. Certainly, this could not be done with any notion of instrumental values such as efficiency or efficacy in mind. The leader who does seek to implement efficient or efficacious policies to reach for the Dao is, to reprise the concern of Zhuāng zǐ, only going to inflict pain upon his subjects. All told then, the most ethical behavior that one can engage in as a Daoist is to avoid harm by avoiding action at any extreme. The ethical Daoist administrator should be like the water of a stream—flowing over the landscape and changing through gentle pressure. Daoism as a philosophy to found an ethical position for public administrators has some practical problems. Specifically, can we accept Daoism as a philosophical system to justify leaving the public service or at least extensive shirking? One may question whether a proper Daoist would even enter the public service. The Daoist maxim of “nondoing” is not an admonition to reject action but a warning to avoid forcing a course of action against the spontaneous changes of the natural world. In the Daoist philosophy (Lǎo zǐ’s in particular), there is a persistent respect for water as the softest yet most powerful force. Our respect for water suggests that we should act according to the compulsion to abide by the flow of nature and the natural

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spontaneity of the world. To be as water is to adapt to the shape of the environment while winding one’s way to the greater body. In the context of public service, while the environment of institutions and leaders, economics and society must change, the sage-like public servant carefully weaves herself through the changes, seemingly shaped by them but slowly working to shape them, all the while heading toward the higher goal (Dao), not as an end (similar to Christian salvation) but as a guide to the means and ends. One does not rebel, shirk, or reject outright but rather shifts with the spontaneous eruptions of the world in pursuit of the greater way. In other words, we must be like the great bird and great fish that Zhuāng zǐ tells of in “The Happy Excursion”—so limitless in mind and broad in form and spirit that our tireless actions stabilize the changing of the world through imperceptible, natural motions.

Coda: Administrative Ethics between Daoism and Confucianism—The Legalists Just as Confucianism is not the limit of Chinese thought and Buddhism is not the limit of “Eastern” religion, the Daoisms of Yàng Zhū, Lǎo zǐ, and Zhuāng zǐ are not the limits of Daoism. Like the consequences of a “balance of power” arrangement in modern governments, the traditions of one school of philosophy flow readily into another, reinforcing at one point, limiting at another. In the spaces between the Confucian and Daoist schools, there is another school of thought known as the Legalists and represented primarily by the work the Hán Fēi zǐ.19 This work, as highlighted by scholars such as Wang and Chang (1986), has important implications for political philosophy, despite not “fitting” into either of the dominant schools widely discussed today. To be brief, the Legalist scholars were advocates of strict government according to oftentimes rigid and stable codes of rites, regulation, and law similar to some Confucian scholars while simultaneously advocating a hands-off approach to leadership that acknowledged the spontaneous power of the Dao as similar to the Daoists (Lǎo zǐ in particular). In the Hán Fēi zǐ, we find arguments for the strengthening of categories, rules, and definitions so that the truly sage ruler may rule through the philosophy of nonaction while knowing fully well that all will proceed according to acceptable law.

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The Legalists were legal maximalists—the law was supreme and determined rigidly the bounds of reward and punishment according to which the ruler could expect all persons to behave in predetermined ways. By carefully crafting the laws and entrusting the care of the law to persons of merit (those men worthy of the name of official), carefully, yet widely, enforcing the law so that all persons in the state understood clearly the validity of the law, and safeguarding the stability of the law itself, the ruler could count on the proper administration of the state without interference.20 Indeed, for the Legalists, once laws are established and names (categories) properly assigned, the ideal sage ruler is able to rule completely according to the principle of nonintervention. Because of the complexity of government affair, the ruler, even granted that he has the requisite energy, will inevitably be neglecting one thing or another, if he has to administer all himself. The energy and time of any one man are limited whereas the affairs of the empire are unlimited. Hence if he insists on acting, he will “himself be used by the empire, and yet be insufficient”; therefore the wise ruler makes “non-activity his constant way.” But if he delegates all things to others to be administered, everyone will be active and nothing will be neglected, so that “by nonactivity he can administer the empire and yet have energy to spare.” (Fung 1952, 333)

The ideal Legalist public servant will be one who takes his duties— his name as a public servant—quite seriously. He will not fail to embody the spirit and letter of the law in all decisions; indeed, he will safeguard the law as if it were his own. This happens with the full knowledge that the power delegated by the leader is that of the highest force, the Dao. This system minimizes administrative discretion but maximizes administrative merit and honor. The embodiment of these things will return in the later discussion of Confucianism.

Recommended Readings Ames, Roger T. 1983. The Art of Rulership: A Study in Ancient Chinese Political Thought. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press.

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Balazs, Etienne. 1964. Chinese Civilization and Bureaucracy: Variations on a Theme. Arthur F. Wright (ed.), H. M. Wright (trans.). Hew Haven: Yale University Press. Boltz, Judith. 1987. A Survey of Taoist Literature: Tenth to Seventeenth Centuries. Berkeley, Calif.: Institute for East Asian Studies. Clark, John James. 2000. The Tao of the West. New York: Routledge. Creel, Herrlee G. 1970. What Is Taoism? Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Hansen, Chad D. 2000. A Daoist Theory of Chinese Thought: A Philosophical Interpretation. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kohn, Livia, and Harold David Roth (eds.). 2002. Daoist Identity, History Lineage, and Ritual. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press. Lai, Karyn. 2006. Learning from Chinese Philosophies: Ethics of Interdependent and Contextualised Self. Burlington, Vt.: Ashgate. Li, Chenyang. 1999. The Tao Encounters the West: Explorations in Comparative Philosophy. Albany: State University of New York Press. Moeller, Hans-George. 2004. Daoism Explained: From the Dream of the Butterfly to the Fishnet Allegory. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press.

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Chapter 5

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cholars of ethics around the world are paying an increasing level of attention to the ethics of Buddhism. With interesting parallels to Christian ethics (Ratzinger 2004), an expansive view of humanity (Keown 2000; Perera quoted in Keown 2000), a practical, virtuebased approach to ethics and the good life (Keown 1992; Whitehill 2000), investment in engagement (Eppsteiner 1988), and an aesthetically pleasing elaboration in verse and art, Buddhist ethics attract an ever-expanding group of adherents and expositors. Likewise, as the interconnectedness between “East” and “West” increases, the exploration of Buddhist ethics offers a powerful insight into the virtues and morality held dear by various peoples in the “Eastern” hemisphere.1 Recognized predominantly through popular symbols such as saffron robes, the Dalai Lama, Thich Nhat Hanh, the self-immolation of Thich Quang Duc, nonviolence, and vegetarianism, Buddhism is a complex religious and ethical tradition with a 2,500-year history. The lengthy history of Buddhism, which began as a “heterodox” tradition in India, encompasses a tradition of vibrant debate, discussion, schism, and renewals. The varied Buddhist historical traditions of monastic scriptural exegesis, early patterns of schism, and accommodation of particular cultural and preexisting religions suggest to the modern, uninitiated reader that, like contemporary Christianity, there is no singular “Buddhism” to speak of. This impression of 107

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the “nonexistence” of a definitive category of Buddhism is empirically valid. Although the Mahāyāna and Tibetan sects are well known to outside observers, like Christianity and Islam, Buddhism does not have a singular denomination as its sole representative. The lack of a definitive “Buddhism” is also theologically valid. There is, as is explained in various sutras, no “Buddhism”; it is merely a “raft” to the other side of the sea of enlightenment. Thus, to explain Buddhist ethics, it is necessary to realize, apropos of the major tenet of Buddhist nonexistence, that there is no “Buddhism” to be reified as the singular one.2 With this in mind, in the context of this chapter, when we refer to Buddhism, we hope that readers can appreciate that it is not a reified category but merely a “placeholder” for a rich and varied tradition of thinking and practice. Like the followers of the Abrahamic faiths and the faiths based upon the Vedas, Buddhist followers are exhorted to follow a range of ethical precepts on their way to attain Nirvāṇa. However, unlike the more law-governed Abrahamic faiths and the Vedic faiths, Buddhism exhorts followers to behave ethically not as a way to gain the approval of a deity but rather as a way to improve one’s own lot by improving that of others, all being trapped, interconnected, in the realm of karma. Acting in an ethical way is not “enough”—one must intend ethical behavior. This requires, first, knowing why one should behave ethically and, second, reflecting critically on those reasons and one’s actions. As Harvey suggests, From the perspective of the Four Noble Truths, ethics is not for its own sake, but is an essential ingredient on the path to the final goal [Nirvāṇa]. . . . [T]he Path can be seen to develop as follows. Influenced and inspired by good examples, a person’s first commitment will be to develop virtue, a generous and self-controlled way of life for the benefit of self and others. To motivate this, he or she will have some degree of preliminary wisdom, in the form of some acquaintance with the Buddhist outlook and an aspiration to apply it, expressed as saddhā, trust or confidence of faith. With virtue as the indispensable basis for further progress, some meditation may be attempted. With appropriate application, this will lead to the mind becoming calmer, stronger and clearer. This will allow experiential understanding of the Dhamma (dharma) to develop, so that deeper wisdom arises. From this, virtue is

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strengthened, becoming a basis for further progress in meditation and wisdom. Accordingly, it is said that wisdom and virtue support each other like two hands washing each other. (2000, 40–41)

A believer does not “wash his hands” alone, though, and there are “steps” that one must take if one wishes to follow the true path. The steps to take on the path to Nirvāṇa are spelled out, in a curiously Buddhist way, in a number of sets of maxims, such as the “Four Noble Truths” and the “Eightfold Path.” These sets of maxims, though rooted in a highly sophisticated cosmology, epistemology, and ontology, made the practice of being a good Buddhist a less daunting, more open, and less academic task than, say, learning the Vedas. The practical nature of the Buddha’s teachings includes, and even mandates, a deep consideration of social practices, including government and its importance for the enlightenment of Buddhist followers. As in so many of the other traditions surveyed here, Buddhist teachings include tales and exhortations on the qualities of a good king, a good government minister, and good citizens. These begin with the “seven teachings that lead a country to prosperity” found in the well-known Digha-nikaya text. There are seven teachings which lead a country to prosperity: First people should assemble often to discuss political affairs and to provide for national defense. Second, the people of all social classes should meet together in unity to discuss their national affairs. Third, people should respect old customs and not change them unreasonably, and they should also observe the rules of ceremony and maintain justice. Fourth, they should recognize the differences of sex and seniority, and maintain the purity of families and communities. Fifth, they should be filial to their parents and faithful to their teachers and elders. Sixth, they should honor the ancestors’ shrines and keep up the annual rites.

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Seventh, they should esteem public morality, honor virtuous conduct, listen to virtuous teachers and make offerings to them. If a country follows these teachings well, it will surely prosper and will be held in respect by all other countries. (The Teaching of Buddha 1975, 230–31)

These seven teachings have their basis in the Eightfold Path, the precepts, and the three right ways.3 Without attention to right mindfulness, right conduct, and right view, a believer, importantly to include any king or high-ranking minister, could not properly address the people as they themselves could not demonstrate the model of good public morality. Without the ability to listen, create unity, and act with moderation and reverence, any leader will surely fail to keep the faithful attention of the people. Likewise, without these qualities, leaders will find that their ministers fail to follow their policies and will instead follow their own self-interest. If an important minister of state neglects his duties, works for his own profit, or accepts bribes, it will cause a rapid decay of public morals. People will cheat one another, a strong man will attack a weaker one, a noble will mistreat a commoner or a wealthy man will take advantage of the poor, and there will be no justice for anyone; mischief will abound and troubles multiply. Under such circumstances, faithful ministers will retire from public service, wise men will keep silent from fear of complications, and only flatterers will hold government positions, and they will use their political power to enrich themselves with no thought for the people. Under such conditions the power of the government becomes ineffective and its righteous policies fall into ruins. Such unjust officials are the thieves of people’s happiness, yet are worse than thieves because they defraud both ruler and people and are the cause of the nation’s troubles. The king should root out such ministers and punish them. (The Teaching of Buddha 1975, 236–37)

To more fully understand the range of beliefs that inspire the above quotes, it is necessary first to delve into the life of the Buddha and, then, into the intricacies and applications of his thought.

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The Buddha To explain the complexity of Buddhism it is necessary to realize that Buddhism begins with the arguments that Shakyamuni or Gautama Buddha (563–483 B.C.E.) put forth against the already complicated Brahmanical (Vedic) faith.4 In quite simplified terms, we can view Buddhism as a rejection and then clarification of the orthodoxies and orthopraxies of Brahmanism. While retaining some of the key ethical tenets, such as the roles of dharma and karma, Buddha rejected the religious foundations of the caste system, the preeminence of the Brāhmins, the practice of severe austerity or complex ritual as a path to enlightenment,5 and the path of ascetic disengagement. Having grown to adulthood as a prince, married a princess, and begun a family, Shakyamuni (Buddha) was shielded from the pains of ordinary life. When confronted with the possibility of sickness and death, he found he could not shake the sense that his purpose was to find a path for the alleviation of constant human suffering. Thus, he left his wife, child, and home and sought a path of severe austerity in southern India. The Buddha’s enlightenment, as told through the large literature on the life (and lives)6 of the Buddha, came when he realized the contradiction inherent in the practice of severe austerity as the path to enlightenment. Instead of following the austere practices of his five ascetic companions, later disciples, he rejected the attachment to austerity as a struggle with the suffering of desire for enlightenment and pursued “the Middle Way.”7 An Abbreviated Story of the Buddha’s Enlightenment The Prince first visited the hermit Bhagava and watched his ascetic practices; then he went to Arada Kalama and Udraka Ramaputra to learn their methods of attainment, but after practicing them for a time he became convinced that they would not lead him to Enlightenment. Finally he went to the land of Magadha and practiced asceticism in the forest of Uruvilva on the banks of the Nairanjana River which flows by the Gaya Castle. The methods of his practice were unbelievably intense. He spurred himself on with the thought that “no ascetic in the past, none in the present, and none in the future, ever has practiced or ever will practice more earnestly than I do.”

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Still, the Prince could not realize his goal. After six years in the forest, he gave up the practice of asceticism. He bathed in the river and accepted a bowl of milk from the hand of Sujata, a maiden, who lived in the neighboring village. The five companions who had lived with the Prince during the six years of his ascetic practice looked on with amazement that he should receive milk from the hand of a maiden; they thought him degraded thereby and left him. The Prince, thus was left alone. He was still weak but at the risk of losing his life he attempted yet another period of meditation, saying to himself, “Blood may become exhausted, flesh may decay, bones may fall apart, but I will never leave this place until I find the way to Enlightenment.” It was an intense and incomparable struggle! His mind was desperate and filled with confusing thoughts, dark shadows overhung his spirit, he was beleaguered by all the lures of the devils. But carefully and patiently he examined them one by one and rejected them all. It indeed was a hard struggle that made his blood run thin, his flesh fall away, and his bones crack. But when the morning star appeared in the eastern sky, the struggle was over and the Prince’s mind was as clear and bright as the breaking day. He had, at last, found the path to Enlightenment. (The Teaching of Buddha 1975, 7–8) Shakyamuni Buddha, born a Prince among his Shakya kinsmen, left the comforts of his home to live the life of asceticism. Through the practice of silent meditation, he realized Enlightenment. He preached the Dharma among his fellow men and finally manifested it by his earthly death. (The Teaching of Buddha 1975, 16)

Within this abbreviated tale of the Buddha’s enlightenment we find the basis for his later teachings, principally the importance of the “Four Noble Truths,” the substance of the Buddha’s first sermon following enlightenment, and the foundation of Buddhist ethics and practice. The “Four Noble Truths” are that “life is suffering, that ignorance is the cause of suffering, that suffering can be eliminated, and that the Eightfold Path is the way to eliminate suffering” (Mizuno [1987] 1996, 106). Eliminating suffering by following the Eightfold Path is the pathway to enlightenment, perhaps not

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in this lifetime but within an accumulation of lifetimes spent following the Eightfold Path to the best of one’s abilities, given one’s circumstances.8 The Four Noble Truths, a kind of simplified law of causation, are perhaps the best known of all the Buddha’s teachings: all existence is suffering, the cause of suffering is craving and illusion, suffering can be eliminated, and the way to eliminate suffering is to follow the Eightfold Path consisting of right views, right thought, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right meditation. (Mizuno [1987] 1996, 42)

Within the tale of the Buddha’s enlightenment, we find that he himself follows the Eightfold Path out of “ignorance” into enlightenment. For example, his craving for enlightenment provokes further suffering because it is rooted in his craving. It was by casting off the incorrect beliefs that severe ascetic practices could lead to enlightenment, followed by his right action in approaching the maiden who was not a forbidden contact after all, right mindfulness and effort to return to the path to enlightenment with ardor, and right meditation that he could achieve enlightenment. The Buddha himself followed, far before he clearly espoused, the Eightfold Path in order to find his own enlightenment and thus the path to enlightening the world. The Eightfold Path 1. Right view 2. Right aim 3. Right speech 4. Right action 5. Right living 6. Right effort 7. Right mindfulness 8. Right concentration (From “The First Sermon: Vinaya, Māhavagga,” 258)

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Much more can be said about the basis of Buddhism within the Buddha’s own life, but much of this elaboration can be distilled to one central point: it was for the salvation from eternal suffering of the remainder of the world that the Buddha himself suffered and then shared his suffering and enlightenment. As a theological point, the tale of the Buddha is also important; the teachings of the Buddha were revealed through storytelling and aphorisms.9 Throughout the Buddha’s life, he elaborated on the primary principles and thoughts of his path to enlightenment using tales and teachings designed to reach audiences of various levels of literacy and sophistication, employing the doctrine of “skill-in-means,” which we discuss further below (The Teaching of Buddha 1975, 19–22). As the student progressed in his understanding of the basic concepts and learned to appreciate their practices, the Buddha gradually increased the level of his teachings until such point as the student attained full understanding—the “eye of the law”—and the status of a Buddhist saint (arhat). In teaching the five ascetics immediately after his own Enlightenment, Shayamuni adopted a gradual approach. First he exhorted them to follow the Middle way between the extremes of asceticism and hedonism and taught that training must be based on a rational understanding of cause and effect. Next he led them to a logical understanding of the correct Buddhist interpretation of the world by explaining the Four Noble Truths. At this stage, his listeners attained the Eye of the Law, enabling them to see all in their true form. Next the Buddha taught that the five aggregates are impermanent, suffering, and without an abiding self. Directing the ascetics to meditate on the nature of the five aggregates, he made their earlier intellectual understanding an experiential one; with this melding of idea and action their practice was complete, and they all became arhats. (Mizuno [1987] 1996, 123–24)

The notion of gradual teaching and gradual learning is important as an ethic for pedagogy, training, and general “public relations” in Buddhism. That is, we must be patient and adaptable, recalling, “Just as the ocean slopes gradually, falls away gradually, shelves gradually, with no sudden drop, so in this teaching the training, the practice, the path, are gradual, with no sudden penetration of knowledge (“Angutara nikaya,” book IV, 200–201, quoted in Carrithers 1996, 48).

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Basic Buddhist Concepts To grasp Buddhist ethics, it is necessary to grasp some of the basic concepts such as dharma (dhamma), karma, generosity (dāna), nonviolence (ahiṃsā), benevolence (advesa), and understanding (amoha) (Keown 2005, 13). In addition, we must be familiar with some tenets of Buddhist philosophy, such as existence/being and nonbeing, time, causation, law, intention, action, and salvation. The Buddhist concepts of dharma and karma follow closely the definitions posited in the Brahmanical or Vedic tradition. Dharma means a system of law or rule given by nature and applicable to all beings and states of being. Karma means action in its strictest sense, but ought to be translated as the effects (bad or good) of thoughts and actions, such as giving gifts. Dāna is generosity, particularly generosity toward the Buddhist Order (Saṇga). Lay persons, to gain merit for generosity, do best by giving to the Order, the third of the Three Treasures—the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Saṇga (order or community). For Bodhisattvas, or supremely ethical persons near Buddhahood, generosity is the first of the perfections on the ten stages to becoming a Bodhisattva.10 These perfections, corresponding to the stages, are (1) perfection of generosity (dāna), (2) perfection of moral virtue (śīla), (3) perfection of patience (kṣānti), (4) perfection of vigor or strength (vīrya), (5) perfection of meditation (dhyāna), (6) perfection of wisdom (prajñā-pāramitā), (7) perfection of “skillin-means” (upāya-kauśalya), (8) perfection of the vows (pranidhānapāramitā), (9) perfection of power of insight (bala), and (10) perfection of knowledge ( jñāna). Ahiṃsā, as in the Jain and Hindu traditions,11 is nonviolence. Buddhists express ahiṃsā through their deep respect and sympathy for all living creatures. Though the Buddhist injunction against meat and killing has been interpreted as having roots in the notion of reincarnation of members of one’s family as meat animals, this is a thin interpretation challenged extensively by Buddhist scholars. Whether one is potentially consuming an ancestor spirit matters little; to do violence against any living creature is to do violence to that creature’s inherent Buddhahood (potential for attaining Buddha status at some point in its pre-Nirvāṇa existence) and is thus wrong. Benevolence and compassion ought to be extended to all living creatures, and in the Mahāyāna tradition it is compassion

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that the true Bodhisattva shows to the remainder of the world (Williams 1994). Finally, knowledge means an understanding of the Four Noble Truths and the importance of following the precepts of conduct. The Five Precepts of Mahāyāna Buddhism,12 accepted as commitments to the Buddhist faith, reflect these concepts and reinforce elements of the Four Noble Truths. The Five Precepts 1. I undertake the precept to refrain from harming living things. 2. I undertake the precept to refrain from taking what has not been given. 3. I undertake the precept to refrain from sexual immorality. 4. I undertake the precept to refrain from speaking falsely. 5. I undertake the precept to refrain from taking intoxicants. (Keown 2005, 9)

Without delving in significant depth into the multiple elaborations on the concepts of being and nonbeing, also described as “Self” and “not-Self” given in the various Buddhist sutras, we can say that the Buddhist concept of existence includes, meaningfully, the idea of nonexistence. This is not to suggest that Buddhism is, as some have suggested, a nihilistic doctrine, which suggests that either enlightenment or the existence of things as such is actually a representation of an inherent nothingness of all things. Rather, the essence of Buddhist nonexistence suggests describing “this” or “that” as existent means fixing a name to a thing within a particular point in time and space. Both time and space are themselves fleeting categories made up of our fallible sensation. Names, then, as signifiers of impermanent existence create a false sense of the world, one that leads us to form attachments to those things, such as our own name, which are arbitrary in the full scheme of the encompassing universe.13 In practice, this ontology of nonbeing or not-Self suggests that it is not that things do not exist but that the designation of a thing’s or person’s existence is temporary, fleeting, and an indication that it is separated from the truth of universal nonbeing. This rather difficult notion, of the being of nonbeing, is captured best in the idea of contingency—things “are” only fleetingly, that

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is, “they” are “this” now, “that” then, and may return to a state of “this”-ness later. This notion of contingency comes forth in the idea of conditioned or dependent arising—all states of being or nonbeing relate, contingently to the state of being or nonbeing that inheres in all things. To know (or, precisely to know that one does not know definitively) this contingency and this dependent arising is to have wisdom. As Harvey makes clear, The Mahāyāna view of wisdom builds on this idea of all things as being “not-Self” or “empty” of Self. It emphasizes not only that no permanent, substantial Self can be found to exist, but that the changing mental and physical processes—dharmas—that make up the world and persona are devoid of any inherent nature or separate essence. (2000, 124)

As elaborated in the well-known “Sutra of King Malinda (Milindapañha),” all indications of the existence of a self also follow this rule of nonexistence. Milinda the king spoke to the venerable Nāgasena as follows: “How is your reverence called? Bhante [Lord], what is your name?” “Your majesty, I am called Nāgasena; my fellow priests, your majesty, address me as Nāgasena; but whether parents give one the name Nāgasena, or Surasena, or Virasena, or Sihasena, it is, nevertheless, your majesty, but a way of counting, a term, an appellation, a convenient designation, a mere name, this Nāgasena, for there is no ego here to be found.” “Bhante Nāgasena, if there is no ego to be found, who is it, then furnishes you priests with the priestly requisites,—robes, food, bedding, and medicine, the reliance of the sick? Who is it makes use of the same? Who is it keeps the precepts? Who is it applies himself to meditation? Who is it realizes the Paths, the Fruits, and Nirvāṇa? Who is it destroys life? Who is it takes what is not given him? Who is it commits immorality? Who is it tells lies? Who is it drinks intoxicating liquors? Who is it commits the five crimes that constitute ‘proximate karma’? In that case, there is no merit, there is no demerit; there is no one who does or causes to be done meritorious or demeritorious deeds; neither good nor evil deeds can have any fruit or result. Bhante Nāgasena, neither is he a

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murderer who kills a priest, nor can you priests, bhante Nāgasena, have any teacher, preceptor, or ordination. When you say, ‘My fellow priests, your majesty, address me as Nāgasena,’ what then is this Nāgasena?” . . . “. . . [Y]our majesty, in respect of me, Nāgasena is but a way of counting, a term, appellation, convenient designation, mere name for the hair of my head, hair of my body . . . brain of the head, form sensation, perception, the predisposition, and consciousness. But in the absolute sense there is no ego here to be found.” (Radhakrishnan and Moore 1957, 283–84)

The Buddhist doctrine of nonexistence supposes that there are no things or selves—names—as such. The idea of nonexistence, as suggested in the above sutra, has important implications for related ideas of time, space, intention, and causation. To be brief, time in Buddhist cosmology is an external and infinite category, coterminous with nonbeing. We cannot say that there was a “before” nonbeing, nor will there be an “after” nonbeing.14 Instead, time is part of the undercurrent of all existence that is ephemeral, nonreal, and without substance. Given this, and unlike a number of Western religions, there is no notion of a moment of divine creation or apocalypse in Buddhism. Correspondingly, there is no notion of an angry god or gods who act in the world, or from whom human acts provoke retribution. Instead, human right conduct (according to the Eightfold Path) can “cause” the enlightenment of oneself and/or the enlightenment and salvation of others. Causation, however, is a difficult concept in Buddhist cosmology. Underpinning the Buddhist scriptures and exhortations is a system of causation known as “dependent origination,” which we rehearse below. The Twelve-Link Theory of Dependent Origination On ignorance depends karma;15 On karma depends consciousness;16 On consciousness depends name and form;17 On name and form depend the six organs of sense;18 On the six organs of sense depends contact;19 On contact depends sensation;20 On sensation depends desire;21 On desire depends attachment;22 On attachment depends existence;23

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On existence depends birth;24 On birth depend old age and death, sorrow, lamentation, misery, grief and despair. Thus does this entire aggregation of misery arise.25 But, on the complete fading out and cessation of ignorance ceases karma; On the cessation of karma ceases consciousness; On the cessation of consciousness cease name and form; On the cessation of name and form cease the six organs of sense; On the cessation of the six organs of sense ceases contact; On the cessation of contact ceases sensation; On the cessation of sensation ceases desire; On the cessation of desire ceases attachment; On the cessation of attachment ceases existence; On the cessation of existence ceases birth; On the cessation of birth, cease old age and death, sorry, lamentation, misery, grief, and despair. Thus does this entire aggregation of misery cease. (“Saṁyutta-nikāya”; Radhakrishnan and Moore 1957, 278–79)

This idea that all elements, all “being,” are linked dependently upon each other has profound implications for practical Buddhist ethics. For example, if we are all linked in the universe of dharma, then causing pain or doing violence to others must reflect back upon us. We are, then, not ever fully free from the consequences of the actions and thoughts that we bring forth in the world.

Applications of Buddhist Ethics for Public Service In the Buddhist system, there is an ethical end point that all should strive for—the attainment of their universal Buddha nature. Some may do this through special attention to the salvation of others, such as the Bodhisattvas, monks, and nuns, while others (lay persons) do this through practice of compassion and generosity in their own lives. In the words of Keown, the Bodhisattvas, “the new moral heroes of the Mahāyāna” (2005, 19), were to work compassionately for the salvation of the remainder of mankind, even if this involved transgressing the fundamental precepts on occasion (see also Prebish 2000, 46–47). A bodhisattva takes a vow to save all beings, and there is evidence in many texts of impatience with rules and regulations, which seem to get in the way of a bodhisattva going about his salvific mission. . . . The pressure to bend or suspend the rules in the interests of compassion results in certain texts establishing new

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codes of conduct for bodhisattvas, which sometimes allow the precepts to be broken. In some of these . . . even killing is said to be justified to prevent someone committing a heinous crime and suffering karmic retribution in hell. . . . It is not always clear whether such behavior is held up by the texts as normative and a model for imitation by others, or to make a point about the great compassion of bodhisattvas, who willingly accept the karmic consequences of breaking the precepts as the price of helping others. (Keown 2005, 19)

For elaborating on a Buddhist ethics of public administration, the parallels between the expectations of the Bodhisattva and the good public administrator are illuminating. Like the ethics for the ideal public administrator, those of the Bodhisattva include moral and material knowledge and expertise, sacrifice, judgment on the value of following rules in particular cases, and a willingness to adopt compassionate service as his model, not simply wait for the world to go by.26 Buddhist ethics for the lay life are captured in the Three Ways of Practice, culminating in the Eightfold Path, the Four Viewpoints, the Four Right Procedures, the Five Faculties of Power, and the Perfection of Six Practices. Buddhist Ethical Principles for Enlightened Public Servants For those who seek enlightenment, there are Three Ways of Practice that must be understood and followed: First, disciplines for practical behavior; second, right concentration of mind; and third, wisdom. 1. Every man, whether he is a common man or a way-seeker, should follow the precepts for good behavior. He should control both his mind and his body, and guard the gates of his five senses. He should be afraid of even a trifling evil and, from moment to moment, should endeavor to practice only good deeds. 2. What is meant by the concentration of mind? It means to get quickly away from greedy and evil desires as they arise and to hold the mind pure and tranquil. 3. What is wisdom? It is the wisdom to perfectly understand and to patiently accept the Fourfold Noble Truth—to know the fact of suffering and its nature; to know the source of suffering; to know what constitutes the end of suffering; and to know the Noble [Eightfold] Path that leads to the end of suffering.

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If the Three Ways of Practice are analyzed, they will reveal the Eightfold Noble Path, the Four View-points to be considered, the Four Right Procedures, the Five Faculties of Power to be employed, and the Perfection of Six Practices. The Eightfold Noble Path refers to right view, right thought, right speech, right behavior, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration. 1. Right View includes to understand thoroughly the Fourfold Truth, to believe in the law of cause and effect, and not to be deceived by appearances and desires. 2. Right Thought means the resolution not to cherish desires, not to be greedy, not to be angry, and not to do any harmful deed. 3. Right Speech means the avoidance of lying words, idle words, abusive words, and double-tongues. 4. Right Behavior means not to destroy any life, not to steal, or not to commit adultery. 5. Right Livelihood means to avoid any life that would bring shame to a man. 6. Right Effort means to try to do one’s best diligently and in the right direction. 7. Right Mindfulness means to maintain a pure and thoughtful mind. 8. Right Concentration means to keep the mind right and tranquil for its concentration, seeking to realize the mind’s pure essence. The Four View-points to be considered are: First, to consider the body impure, seeking to remove all attachments to it. Second, to consider the sense as a source of suffering, whatever their feelings of pain or pleasure may be. Third, to consider the mind to be in a constant state of flux. Fourth, to consider everything in the world as being a consequence of causes and conditions and that nothing remains unchanged forever. The Four Right Procedures are: First, to prevent any evil from starting. Second, to remove any evil as soon as it starts. Third, to induce the doing of good deeds. Fourth, to encourage the growth and continuance of good deeds that have already started. One must endeavor to keep these four procedures. The Five Faculties of Power are: First, the faith to believe. Second, the will to make the endeavor. Third, the faculty of reliable memory. Fourth, the ability to concentrate one’s mind. Fifth, the ability to maintain clear wisdom. These Five Faculties are necessary powers to attain enlightenment. The Perfection of Six Practices for reaching the other shore of enlightenment are: The path of offering, the path of keeping precepts, the path of endurance, the path of endeavor, the path of concentration of mind, and the path of wisdom. By following these paths, one can surely pass from the shore of delusion over to the shore of enlightenment. (The Teaching of Buddha 1975, 163–69; emphasis added)

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Although these standards were originally intended for the highest followers (i.e., monks and nuns) of Buddhism, following the Buddha as an exemplar of conduct and enlightenment is an option open to all. Here, we can adapt these elegant precepts for a number of different ethical conundrums in modern life, including civil service ethics.

Equality It is common for those outside of the Buddhist tradition to view it as profoundly egalitarian, even more so than other religious, political, or philosophical traditions. This is true in some ways, but not in others. Without delving deeply into elaboration on ontology and epistemology again, we can say that different strains of Buddhist theology espouses equality under different conditions.27 Under the (Mahāyāna) notion of universal Buddha nature, we expect that all have a similar “substance” or nature. But, under the Hīnyāna (southern Buddhist) tradition, there is acknowledgment of an inequality in the ability of all to reach enlightenment the same way, or in a similar time and through the same path.28 One of the first principles necessary for understanding Buddhist equality is the idea that distinctions are fictions. Discrimination between a “you” and a “me,” “us” and “them” is an assertion of a mind that holds too tightly immaterial reality. As all things and all “selves” (which are mere things of the mind and ego) are impermanent, distinctions of peership, rank, or inequality are also impermanent. In the big picture, all are equally impermanent and equally subject to changes through the accumulation of karma. According to conventional Mahāyāna traditions, all men and things have dwelling within them the possibility of attaining Buddhahood. Some men and things are merely in different stages of the process of enlightenment; we may only suggest that each are equally “on their way,” but we may never identify which “stage” any person or being is at. Since all men and objects have an immutable nature, so the Zen subsidiary of the larger Mahāyāna tradition suggests, all may achieve enlightenment equally and as suddenly as the rest. Attempting to determine whether one is a fool or a wise man cannot be done with any sense of finality, as the fullness of Buddha nature is unknown to anyone who has not achieved enlightenment.

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Even those who have achieved enlightenment would not make distinctions between the potential for enlightenment for anyone. And, once one reaches the “other shore,” distinctions fail to have any meaning and the view of the “other shore” appears fundamentally different. Any attempt to discriminate among people, acts, or things is liable to error on an ontological level or an epistemic level. Discrimination between, or construction of, general types of people must be done according only to the ability of each to control himself in the face of his attachments to external things (including identity). On an ontological level, every person is equally part of the universal “notself.” Those who have attained enlightenment no longer “exist” in a way that can be described or categorized; they have transcended the plane of transcendent existence that is “nonexistence.” On an epistemic level, as all things are interrelated, all things are impermanent—all variables vary and are correlated. As all selves are subject to error when making distinctions, no designation of equality or inequality exists. Thus, descriptions of inequality are always false, and acting according to inequality is an indication of delusional attachments. Thus, public administrators ought not make any distinction between people at risk of ignorance or denial of the impermanence of men. Likewise, though, we should not attempt to treat all as if they were one and the same (see Whitehill 2000, 20n12).29 How can we cope with this notion of equality, though? To start, the Buddha’s manner of gradual teaching according to the everincreasing abilities of the audience suggests that a fundamental element of equality in Buddhism relates to the respect for people’s skills as they come to the teachings. While all people have a Buddha nature within them, some need extra tutelage in order to realize their full potential; some may not realize this potential within this lifetime. Yet, as the Buddha himself demonstrated, and as those employed in the social service professions know practically to heed, we must accept people as they are, not as we wish they would be. To respect people as they are, given their universal nature, but their imperfect attachments, is fundamental to the practice of Buddhist humanitarian equality.

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Expertise The problems of epistemology as applied to the equality of people and things also point to issues of defining expert knowledge. The category of expertise most important in Buddhist theology is certainly knowledge of the “other shore” or enlightenment, to be gained by living with the knowledge contained in the Buddha’s elaborations on dharma. Yet, knowledge of the “other shore” is reserved for those who, lacking karmic stain and having achieved enlightenment while in their last body, transcend the final plane. For the Bodhisattva, however, knowledge means knowing deeply the problems of impermanent things and the troubles that attachment to these can bring. Material knowledge, in particular, is suspect for its fallibility, and knowledge of the “other shore,” or the realm of the transcendent, is limited. That is, any one thing may be misrepresented by the lens of ignorance or attachment, leading to a misapprehension of the characteristics or importance of any datum. Similarly, our senses, being bodily situated and fallible, will fail us as guides to the “other shore.” Given that we cannot “know” definitively, our efforts to gather empirical evidence or data will be circumscribed and our analyses viewed through similarly tainted lenses. However, the true Bodhisattvas embody a superior form of knowledge, more important for human happiness and the relief of suffering—knowledge of the precepts, the Buddha nature inherent in the smallest things, the truth of “not-self” and impermanence, and the paths to enlightenment. That is, Bodhisattvas, as those who defer their own enlightened transcendence for the salvation of the rest, “know” more about existence beyond suffering than do all others and, as a consequence, live as though they are familiar with this other realm. To live according to the knowledge of transcendence means to accept the mandate to teach those who seek knowledge of the “other shore”—to teach the dharma. Although the Bodhisattva is “more expert” (though the gradation of expertise in enlightenment is a specious category for Buddhism) than other lay people, he must not disseminate his knowledge as if he were the sole proprietor of a shop of knowledge. The Bodhisattva does not “charge” for his knowledge—knowledge is imparted through teaching qua teaching, but also through the daily actions of the Buddhist man of compassion. In fact, it would be a violation

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of the Eightfold Path for a Bodhisattva to claim expertise as this would indicate some attachment, a craving or desire for status with respect to himself and the others he should teach. Even presenting oneself as a Bodhisattva would be to make a potentially false categorization of oneself and would, if viewed from the proper perspective (right mindfulness), be construed as one of the three obstructions: greed, anger, or foolishness. To represent oneself as an expert would likely come from a greedy desire for fees or prestige, or an angry desire to achieve an enlightened status due to the frustration of not achieving enlightenment yet, or a foolish lack of understanding of the Four Noble Truths, Eightfold Path, “not-self,” and so on. To be quick about it, if one represents oneself without humility, without a sincerely respectful apprehension of one’s own infallibility, in short as an “expert,” one is falling into the trap of craving and ignorance that will always inhibit enlightenment. Applying this standard of nonexpertise to public administration ethics seems to set up a paradox. Clients, politicians, and collaborators count on the knowledge that public administrators bring to the table and are likely to find arguments for nonexpertise based on the contingency of existing things to be a frustrating put off. Fortunately, following the Bodhisattva ideal does not mean that one cannot impart what one knows. It does mean that an individual cannot claim knowledge of an absolute or claim to be a definitive expert (“the last word”) on the matter. It also means that when delivering one’s knowledge, it must be done without the pretence of “expert” versus “nonexpert” language since even the least “knowledgeable” partner in a conversation still has some expertise in a realm that is connected to the matter at hand. In sum, one maintains an “expert” position by, first, being open to the interconnections of knowledge in the world around them and, second, being an available partner to mutually productive conversations on issues relevant to all speakers and listeners.

Efficiency For a Buddhist thinker, the important question on efficiency might be, “What is the end sought through ‘efficiency’?” Throughout the Buddhist scriptures, the imperative to detach oneself from material things and their representations comes up again and again.

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Attachment, born of ignorance, anger, and greed, is the root cause of all suffering. But what is an efficient end other than an attachment? It is difficult to talk about the concept of efficiency, particularly inputs-outputs efficiency or even efficient causes in the context of the philosophy and theology of Buddhism. First, there is a problem with assessing causation, which is elementary in inputs-outputs calculations. Second, and related to the problem of assessing causation, there are problems with knowing that an input is not an output and vice versa. Third, the question of attachment arises in the context of attaching significance to levels of types of outputs. Fourth, issues of karmic rewards or punishment arise. If we assume the karmic rewards or punishments from our thoughts and actions, then ought we view karma as an end to seek efficiently? Fifth, Buddhist sutras contain numerous exhortations against wasting, but we should not interpret these as a system of metaphysical reasons for vaunting the value of efficiency. According to the Twelve Link Chain of Dependent Causation, the causes for the actions undertaken by a person have origins in the karmic debts or benefits accrued in previous existences. Irrespective of the difficulty of defining action origins in karma, the concept of dependent origination also suggests that all events— causes, effects, inputs, or outcomes—interrelate. This is elaborated well in the “Treatise on the [Buddha’s] Middle Doctrine.” The Perfect Buddha, The foremost of all Teachers I salute. He has proclaimed The principle of [universal] relativity, ‘Tis like blissful [Nirvāṇa], Quiescence of plurality. There nothing disappears, Nor anything appears; Nothing has an end, Nor is there anything eternal; Nothing is identical [with itself], Nor is there anything differentiated; Nothing moves, Neither hither nor thither.

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There absolutely are no things, Nowhere and none, that arise [anew], Neither out of themselves, nor out of not-self, Nor out of both, nor at random. . . . Let those facts be causes With whom coordinated other facts arise. Non-causes will they be So far the other facts have not arisen. (Radhakrishnan and Moore 1957, 341)

The interrelationship of all things, causes, and effects confounds an analysis of the efficiency ramifications of a particular action or policy by limiting the range of evaluative statements we can make about the “goodness” of efficiency. In Buddhist economics, which we discuss below, there is an imperative to reduce economic hardship, but no similar imperative to do so “efficiently.” We must give or redistribute our own wealth to others without consideration to the use that the beneficiary makes of our gift. To concern ourselves with the use of a gift is to demonstrate continued attachment to our gift, which negates its gift-like status. In the context of policies, we might be able to quantify the inputs and outputs of a program in terms of dollars and cents, but to determine if the program is good or bad, in terms of efficiency or inefficiency, is beyond the realm of quantifiable measures. Similarly, to describe a program as “more beneficial to the users” in quantified terms of user outputs per dollar inputs is to reassert our own attachment to the inputs, not the “big picture” benefits to the users. In the context of contemporary public administration, the declaration “this is a most efficient means” or “that is an efficient company” or even “she is such an efficient worker” indicates some attachment the speaker has to an end. In the first two cases, this attachment is to the ends of a process, to outputs that are not “real” in the sense that they could be perfectly, purely, or reliably measured. In the latter case, the categorization of an employee as efficient is an impermanent indication that the speaker is describing qualities that do not inhere permanently in a person, thus making the ratio of her efficiency to his a highly abstract description. Declaring “she is such an efficient worker” not only creates a false distinction between her and others, which does not exist per se, but

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also entails instrumentalizing the values she has inherent within her and attaching one’s praise to that quality, not her inherent value or Buddha nature. Further, declaring a process or a person as having the quality “efficient” indicates there is some end to be attained, even temporarily, that is greater than the dharma, or greater than the path to enlightenment. Whether speaking of a company or a person, process, or thing, declaring it efficient is suggesting it is a means that has a “self” for use as an instrument, which violates the basic notion of the nature of things and beings. Fourth, issues of karmic rewards or punishment arise. We perform an efficient action, do an efficient job, because at least in the normal model of public administration it is good to do so. Under the logic of this model, we act for good as an independently laudable state or end and from the starting point that each person is an independent author of goodness for her own life and in her own actions. In the context of Buddhism, actions are conditioned by the karmic debt that one has carried forward into another existence, and actions gather karmic debts in this existence for the next. All acts gather karma, good or bad. Good acts are those that show compassion and are done for the alleviation of suffering in other beings. Bad acts are those that begin with an intention borne of ignorance or attachment to self or to things. As suggested above, efficiency requires an attachment to an end—praise, quick satisfaction of material wants without expending much labor or resources, or simply pleasing one’s boss—but these ends represent attachments to states or events that have, ultimately, no self. So long as we do not seek to laud efficiency for more than it is—a temporary approbation attached to an impermanent state of material existences—there is no mandate in the Buddhist literature that we cannot use the concept to describe to others a standard of action that they can understand in the context of their own right livelihoods. As an ideal, efficiency may be good (or indifferent). But, lauding efficiency is likely to generate bad karma, particularly if we apply the standard to giving or accumulating karma. For example, as Keown describes, One of the best ways for a layman to earn merit is by supporting the sangha or order of monks. This can be done by placing food in

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the bowls of monks as they pass on their daily alms round, by providing robes for the monks, by listening to sermons and attending religious services, and by donating funds for the upkeep of monasteries and temples. Merit can even be made by congratulating other donors and rejoicing in their generosity. Some Buddhists make the accumulation of merit an end in itself, and go to the extreme of carrying a notebook to keep a tally of their karmic “balance.” This is to lose sight of the fact that merit is earned as a by-product of doing what is right. To do good deeds simply to obtain good karma would be to do so from a selfish motive, and would not earn much merit. (2005, 8–9)

Nevertheless, if acts are “accidentally” efficient, then this is likely to be meritorious, karmic and otherwise. One area in the Buddhist literature where efficiency plays a significant role is in the practical teachings of the Buddha, where we find tales that caution against waste. If we view a lack of efficiency as a pattern of waste, then the teachings of the Buddha have much to teach us. The story of Ananda and the five hundred garments is illustrative: When Syamavati, the queen consort of King Udayana, offered Ananda five hundred garments, Ananda received them with great satisfaction. The King, hearing of it, suspected Ananda of dishonesty, so he went to Ananda and asked what he was going to do with these five hundred garments. Ananda replied: “Oh, King, many of the brothers are in rage; I am going to distribute the garments among the brothers.” “What will you do with the old garments?” “We will make bedcovers out of them.” “What will you do with the old bed-covers?” “We will make pillow-cases.” “What will you do with the old pillow-cases?” “We will make floor-covers out of them.” “What will you do with the old floor-covers?” “We will use them for foot-towels.”

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“What will you do with the old foot-towels?” “We will use them for floor mops.” “What will you do with the old mops?” “Your Highness, we will tear them into pieces, mix them with mud and use the mud to plaster the house-walls.” Every article entrusted to us must be used with good care in some useful way, because it is not “ours” but is only entrusted to us temporarily. (The Teaching of Buddha 1975, 221–22)

Yet, if efficiency as not waste is valued for incorrect reasons or entails the instrumentalization of people, karmic rewards, or denial of the Four Noble Truths, then it is still not compatible with Buddhist values. We revisit some of these points below.

Efficacy The same problems that confound interpretations of efficiency in Buddhism also make efficacy a problematic value to discuss. Yet, there is a realm of action reserved for Bodhisattvas and practiced, in small part, by the Buddha with implications for a concept of efficacy. These are the ideas of “gradual teaching” and “skillful means.” As discussed in the above section concerning equality, a faithful Buddhist respects the inherent Buddha nature in all people and values people endowed with a range of qualities as equally worthy of the Buddha’s teachings and the expansive compassion of the Bodhisattva. To respect the variability in people’s skill sets means that various techniques must be employed to teach them, whether that teaching concerns the Buddhist virtues or some other mundane matter. These “skill-in-means” techniques employed by a Bodhisattva to teach the dharma may already be familiar to practicing public administrators. Those skills include, for example, excellence in communication and teaching to reach others, skill for demonstration of the ethical life, and still for others, the skills required to teach others the ethics of action. An excellent example of this comes from the teachings about the life of the Buddha himself (contained in various versions of the Jātaka literature). According to the tale, after his enlightenment, the Buddha traveled about, slowly reaching his home in time for his half brother’s (Nanda) wedding. Being compassionately interested in the salvation of all, the Buddha preached to and

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converted many members of his family, including his half brother on the eve of his wedding. But, Nanda turned out to be a bad monk, constantly pining for his lost bride and wishing openly for a return to the life of the layman householder. The Buddha, it is said, took Nanda on two supernatural journeys—one to the heavenly realm of the gods and the other to hell.30 Following his visit to the heavenly realm, Nanda followed the letter of the path correctly, but lacked the spirit. Following his visit to the realm of hell, Nanda followed the spirit and the letter of the path (Mizuno [1987] 1996, 95–96). Though few have the supernatural powers to convey difficult followers or clients to heavenly or hellish realms, what we might learn from this story is that various means may need to be used in order to convince some people of the path to righteousness. Skill, however, must be interdependent with wisdom to be truly effective. That is, one must have not only the skill to reach an audience but also the wisdom to know the texts and the audience well enough to deploy those skills effectively. “When ‘skill in means’ is united with wisdom, the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas are at the peak of their salvific potential and use any means necessary to liberate sentient beings, even if this means breaking monastic vows or going against established doctrine” (Schroeder 2000, 562). What we can learn from this notion of “skill-in-means” is that if the end is pure—if it is firmly divorced from material gains, anger, greed, lust, or foolishness—then actions leading to the ultimate end of salvation from suffering are justified by their efficacy. Reflecting specifically on the oft-deployed metaphor of Buddhism as “therapeutic” or “medicine for the suffering of the world,” we can view the Bodhisattva who deploys skillful means for salvation as being parallel to the honest and good physician who may go beyond conventional, accepted, or even comfortable practices to cure us of our diseases.31 Some may argue that the notions of “skill-in-means” and “gradual teaching” are reminiscent of a paternalism that violates the independence of individuals to seek their own path. This would be only a partial reading of the notions. In order to understand the value of the “skill-in-means,” we must revisit the idea of the Bodhisattva and the Buddha. While it is true that the teachings of the Buddha and later expositions on these original teachings include imagery of “father and children,” the idea of a paternalistic Buddhism is inconsistent with the ideals of the tradition. To the extent that a Buddhist

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does act in a way that is paternalistic—making decisions for people without approaching them as equally valuable or approaching them without wise consideration of their needs and skills—then we may judge that particular person as acting from impure motives, possibly attachment to status. Although in the Hīnyāna tradition (in which the notion of skillful means does not appear) the value of the precepts and the teachings of the Buddha lies in the possibility of individual salvation and enlightenment, in the Mahāyāna tradition the salvation of all people is the key goal. By deferring their final transcendence, Bodhisattvas make an ultimate sacrifice for the rest of mankind. Only if we view compassion as paternalistic will the idea of skillful means carry that connotation. As applied to public service ethics, the standards of Buddhist engaged service ought to school the application of our actions within a client’s or community’s life. The purpose of action is salvation from suffering. Motives that are impure—aggrandizement, praise, wealth—cannot be consonant with the aim of alleviation. Thus, if we wish to act in a way that is efficacious for community salvation, we must start with pure motives. Additionally, following the tradition of Buddha’s expansive teachings to all people as well as some further elaborations on the Buddha’s actions, we are exhorted to act with the hearts of the community as our guide. Huanglong said: Essential to leadership is winning the community. Essential to winning the community is seeing into the hearts of the people. An ancient Buddha said, “Human hearts are fields of blessings for the world, since this is where the path of reason comes from.” Therefore, whether or not a time is safe or prohibitive, whether something is deleterious or beneficial, always depends on human hearts. What is in people’s hearts may be communicated or blocked—thence do safety and prohibition arise. Things are done with more or less care—thence do harm and benefit come. . . . How could the winning or losing of hearts be easy? Ancient sages liken the human being to a boat, heart being the water—the water can carry the boat, and it can also overturn the boat. When the water goes with it, the boat floats, and when the water goes against it, the boat sinks.

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Therefore, when a leader wins people’s hearts, there is flourishing, and a leader that loses people’s hearts is abandoned. Winning them completely means complete flourishing, losing them completely means complete rejection. (Cleary 1989, 27–28)

By acting with the heart of the community, the precepts, and the teachings of the Buddha as our guide, we might free ourselves from the charge of paternalism when deploying skillful means to achieve policies efficaciously.

Economy What do Buddhist scriptures tell us about the economy? Quite a bit. To be brief, we find exhortations on the right conduct and right aims of economic activity throughout the many Buddhist sutras. The economy, just as with other realms of activity—from the intimacy of the household to the expanse of the globe—was a moral realm for Buddhists. From the conduct of household affairs to the regulation of investments to critiques of planned and market economies, Buddhist thinkers have said much on the matter of economics (see Harvey 2000, 187–237). Particular livelihoods violate the Eightfold Path maxim of “right livelihood.” These include making or selling alcohol and drugs, those livelihoods that include engaging in illicit sexual activity (primarily adultery), and those livelihoods that include tasks that will harm other living beings. Similarly, those livelihoods that may increase the suffering of other beings—even indirectly through increasing the likelihood of grief, greed, anger, and attachment—while not forbidden to laypersons, are discouraged for those seeking enlightenment. For example, employment in advertising may be considered demeritorious as it tends to promote attachment to things and status (Bubna-Litic 2000). Attachment or promoting attachment is not conducive to final enlightenment of either party as attachment and craving lead to reification of nonreal things and the exploitation of self and the world. A popular strain of applied religious ethics right now is the use of Buddhist ethics to elaborate on environmental ethics. Following the notion of the universal Buddhahood of all things, some applied ethicists suggest that Buddhism prescribes a deeper investment in sustainability and respect for animals and the natural environment.32

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The argument is that, on behalf of all other living beings, animals, plants, and humans, we ought to abide by the tenets of nonviolence and temper our patterns of consumption for their protection and ours (Chapple 1993). Following the elaborations of Buddhist environmental ethicists, the imperative to reduce income inequalities for the purposes of maintaining equality and quality of environmental access for all becomes clear. Yet, the standards the Buddha has set out do not include prescriptions of income equality. In fact, the accumulation of wealth, so long as it is acquired consistent with the standards of the precepts and the Eightfold Path and is not horded for the sake of one’s own comfort, is acceptable under the original teachings. It is preferable, however, for extremes of wealth to be avoided in any community as this would lead only to covetousness and attachment among those who have and those who have not.

Summary and Conclusion Like other religious faiths, Buddhist theology imparts a set of moral maxims for its followers. Chief among these is the Eightfold Path— right view, right thought, right speech, right behavior, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration. Through meditative and mindful practice of these things, followers who have earlier “sought refuge in the Buddha” may achieve enlightenment. Unlike some other religious faiths, however, Buddhism and Buddhist ethics are also easily excerpted and applied to the ethics of daily life for even nonbelievers. Based on the Four Noble Truths, particularly the expansive definitions of humanity as ever suffering and ever deluded, Buddhists do not espouse a notion of “chosen” people in this life or postapocalypse. Thus, faithful persons of all faiths and walks of life can take refuge in the morality of Buddhism as a solid moral basis for daily living. In the context of public service ethics, Buddhist theology and moral philosophy provide a basis for an engaged and compassionate practice that includes respect for the equality of all people and acknowledgment of the variable human capacities and needs. We can envision such compassionate Buddhist leadership through the well-known historical example of the great Buddhist king Aśoka.33 Renowned for his conversion to Buddhism after witnessing the

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frightening effects of his conquest of a recalcitrant region, Aśoka went on to become a great advocate and exporter of Buddhism throughout Asia. Aśoka was not only a king-evangelist but also the architect of a Buddhist state that promoted the dharma through a network of Buddhist public administrators. Aśoka’s devotion to the cause of Buddhism is revealed through sections of the “Seven Pillar Edicts”: Beloved of the Gods speaks thus: This Dharma edict was written twenty-six years after my coronation. My Rajjukas [Mauryanera administrators] are working among the people, among many hundreds of thousands of people. The hearing of petitions and the administration of justice has been left to them so that they can do their duties confidently and fearlessly and so they can work for the welfare, happiness and benefit of the people in the country. But they should remember what causes happiness and sorrow, and being themselves devoted to Dharma, they should encourage the people in the country (to do the same), that they may attain happiness in this world and the next. These Rajjukas are eager to serve me. They also obey other officers who know my desires, who instruct the Rajjukas so that they can please me. Just as a person feels confidence having entrusted his child to an expert nurse thinking: “The nurse will keep my child well,” even so, the Rajjukas have been appointed by me for the welfare and happiness of the people in the country. (Dhammika [1993] 1994)

Like other communitarian and East Asian philosophies, Buddhism advocates seemingly hierarchical patterns of role division and conservation of traditions and values. Yet, the Buddhist tradition cautions against becoming too attached to any one role or tradition as all things are impermanent and changing. Representing a set of epistemic and ontological beliefs that derive from a fluid and holistic metaphysical system, Buddhist philosophy trends away from reification and discrimination, or the vaunting of temporary values and topics, and toward an eternal, organic state of universal oneness. In this system, public administrators, their clients, and those whose lives no policy pronouncement will ever scathe are all part of an interdependent whole in which the lives of each are as valuable to the lives of others as are their own.

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Recommended Readings Brooks, Douglas Renfrew. 1991. “Indian, Tibetan, and Southeast Asian Buddhist Ethics,” in A Bibliographic Guide to the Comparative Study of Ethics, John Carman and Mark Juergensmeyer (eds.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 70–101. Conze, Edward. 1993. Perfect Wisdom: The Short Prajnaparamita Texts. Totnes, UK: Buddhist Publishing. de Silva, Padmasiri. 1998. Environmental Philosophy and Ethics in Buddhism. New York: St. Martin’s. Deal, William. 1991. “Ethics in the Japanese Religious Tradition,” in A Bibliographic Guide to the Comparative Study of Ethics, John Carman and Mark Juergensmeyer (eds.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 195–227. Digha-nikaya. 1965. Dialogues of the Buddha, Part 1. T. W. Rhys-Davids (trans.). London: Luzac. Gethin, Rupert. 1998. The Foundations of Buddhism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hindery, R. 1978. Comparative Ethics in Hindu and Buddhist Traditions. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidas. Keown, Damien. 2001. Buddhism and Bioethics. London: Palgrave. Pye, Michael. 1978. Skilful Means: A Concept in Mahayana Buddhism. London: Duckworth. Queen, Christopher. 2000. Engaged Buddhism in the West. Boston: Wisdom. Sizemore, Russell F., and Donald K. Swearer. 1990. Ethics, Wealth, and Salvation: A Study in Buddhist Social Ethics. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press. Tachibana, S. 1992. The Ethics of Buddhism. Richmond, UK: Curzon. Thich, Hanh Nhat. 1993. Love in Action: Writings in Nonviolent Social Change. Berkeley, Calif.: Parallax Press.

Chapter 6

Traditions of Confucian Ethics

F

irst, a few caveats: Kǒng fū zǐ (Confucius1)2 is a thinker whose legacy has been both used and abused in attempts to situate and legitimate various philosophical and ideological strains, within China, the remainder of East Asia, and the global “West” (Jensen 1997). Though we will speak of the tradition of Confucian thought in this chapter, we self-consciously attempt to avoid reification of Kǒng fū zǐ as either the sole representative of “Chinese” thought or the “most important” thinker of the vast tradition of ethical speculation in historic and contemporary East Asia. Kǒng fū zǐ and the Confucians are but one bright spot in the galaxy of thought to emerge from the geographical China.3 Second, as with many historical thinkers, Kǒng fū zǐ began a legacy that—at times—strayed from his original doctrines. As with major Western thinkers and other thinkers in the “East,” Kǒng fū zǐ’s thought is not always synonymous with Confucianism. When reading secondary works on Confucianism, one must be cautious to note whether this is Japanese, Korean, Chinese, continental, or a more eclectic variety of Confucianism. In this manner, the legacy of Kǒng fū zǐ is similar to the Athenian Academy in the West: the initial thinker’s works spawned many interpretive directions. Confucianism as the purposeful adaptation of Kǒng fū zǐ’s thought for a national or political context we avoid here in favor of an applied discussion of Kǒng fū zǐ’s own writings and those of well-known and 137

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recognized followers of Kǒng fū zǐ, such as Mencius (Mèng zǐ4), Xún zǐ,5 and Wáng Yáng Míng zǐ.6 We shall also point to recent English language scholarship on Kǒng fū zǐ doctrines, such as that offered by Nivison, Ivanhoe, Bell, Loewe, and Csikszentmihalyi. To do so, as Lai suggests, we read Kǒng fū zǐ with his historical context in mind, with a chastened notion of Kǒng fū zǐ as “category” and with the critical idea that “it does not follow that [another] philosophy, in order to be philosophy, must cover the same problems [as the one/s in the tradition in which the philosopher has been trained]” (Lai 1995, 250). That is, we do not need to read Kǒng fū zǐ through a previous philosophical frame (e.g., virtue ethics) in order to understand his meaning. In this regard, we follow the general method of this work in the attempt to understand and apply the traditions as they might understand themselves. To the extent that such a separated rendition of Confucian ethics is possible, we attempt to do this here. This does mean that we have not included substantial analysis of the vast secondary literature on Kǒng fū zǐ or Confucianism, though many of these works are included in the bibliography.

A Biography of Kǒng fū zǐ and Confucianism A picture of the historical Kǒng fū zǐ must be cobbled together from a number of texts that suggest Kǒng fū zǐ to be a prophet, an erudite scholar, an imperial advocate, a wrong-headed professor of unsavory opinions, or the mouthpiece for one’s own ideas. Locating the historical Kǒng fū zǐ can be as daunting a task as locating the historical Jesus Christ. Fortunately there are a number of useful introductions to Kǒng fū zǐ’s thought that include a reasonably sanitized biography that paints the reader a sufficient picture to understand Kǒng fū zǐ as man and historical thinker. What is essential to know of Kǒng fū zǐ the person is that he was of relatively humble origins, was a public servant, a teacher, a government critic, and an advisor, and is now revered as a religious thinker and philosopher. As a historical figure, he is known to have served in minor posts (minister of stores, a record-keeping post) in the government of his home state, was engaged in government service and advising, was employed as police commissioner, then traveled extensively through surrounding states engaged in teaching and advising, and finally returned to teaching and offering

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advice to the state’s governors. Though we know him primarily as a teacher, Kǒng fū zǐ was a public servant in the lower orders and an advisor to the higher offices of local government. As such, we can describe Kǒng fū zǐ as a man actively engaged in politics, working in both policy advice and administrative roles. Though his writings do not include personal reflections on these capacities in any distinct or extensive form, some related reflections come to us from Mèng zǐ and later (possibly apocryphal) tales of Kǒng fū zǐ’s government service. Although Confucianism starts with Kǒng fū zǐ himself, all indications suggest that he certainly did not intend to create an “ism” as we understand it today. However, his innovative patterns of teaching, learning, and engagement with the world around him created the framework for the rise of an “ism” well before his physical demise. What made (and presently makes) Kǒng fū zǐ ripe for the development of an ideology or an “ism” is the malleability one finds in the adoption of his values, ideas, and patterns of thought by various students and “disciples” and their subsequent use of the same method with pupils of their own. Kǒng fū zǐ was unusual in his time for both his engagement in private teaching and his willingness to accept persons of various social standing for the opportunity to learn from him (Fung 1976, 38–40; Confucius 1979, 9–10, 161–95; W. T. Chan 1969, 17). As is often quoted as an example of the more egalitarian elements of Kǒng fū zǐ’s thought, he would accept a pupil for the tuition of mere dried meat (Confucius 1979, 86 [7:7]). This egalitarian teaching style contributed to the development of a Confucian style of thought and learning in two critical ways: Firstly, through the egalitarian pupil load, Kǒng fū zǐ encountered more arguments for or against his own positions, thus strengthening these positions. Secondly, by accepting a socioeconomically plural student body, his ideas were diversified to explain or resolve problems held in common by more people, thus creating a larger field of persons who heard, accepted, and transmitted his ideas. By not penning a philosophy solely for the aristocracy, Kǒng fū zǐ created a sufficient base of further teaching and interpretive support that could lead to the creation of a “school” sufficiently Confucian to become an “ism” within a limited amount of time.

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Likewise, Kǒng fū zǐ’s thought is usable in two definitive social patterns—religion and education. The debate over the historical Kǒng fū zǐ as religious leader or intellectual and the subsequent selective deployment of his doctrines in either the religious or “secular” realm is both protracted and heated (R. Taylor and Arbuckle 1995). Reflecting on the central ethical tenets of Kǒng fū zǐ, namely ritual propriety (lǐ)7 and righteousness (yì),8 it is understandable that our readings of Kǒng fū zǐ’s words can reveal a double, religious and secular, meaning. What this has meant for the study of Kǒng fū zǐ and the development of Confucianism in the modern (Western and Eastern) world has been that scholars of religion and scholars of other philosophical and social scientific disciplines often study Kǒng fū zǐ’s writings separate from one another, leading to some conflicting and some complementary conclusions. The discussion of the political role of heaven (ti’en)9 reveals this pattern. R. Taylor (1990) suggests that the performance of the required rituals that guide daily practice and the adherence to the necessary virtues are parts of a system of practices that reinforces the absolutism of heaven. Alternatively, for Hahm (2003, 42–53), the role of the rituals is to harness the leader in a way that is similar to the development of a civic education; no absolute heaven is necessary for there to be a political function of rituals. Given the interpretive leeway between descriptions of a religious and a secular Kǒng fū zǐ, it is understandable that an extensive secondary study of Kǒng fū zǐ would arise. Characteristics of Kǒng fū zǐ’s teaching allowed for the explosion of possibilities for transmission; his thought itself was ripe for use in the development of an extended network of related scholarship. An additionally useful trait of Kǒng fū zǐ was his role as traditionalist. His thought was not naïvely traditional, and he did not pine for the return of some forgotten days of imperial glory. Rather, his traditionalism was schooled and studied; he advocated a principled return to a bygone time of moral constancy and ethical unity (Ivanhoe 2002b, 4–6). Though he encouraged students to recall the vibrant moral climate of the great sage emperors, his advocacy of the morals of the great emperors Yao and Shun was not similarly an advocacy of bygone institutions. Within Kǒng fū zǐ’s own time, it was possible to return to the state of traditional excellence both intellectually and institutionally. In later Confucian scholars’ writings, at least until 1919, the institutional framework for a morally

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inspired (and inspiring) ruler was still in place. Later interpreters of Kǒng fū zǐ faced with the degeneration of the empire could also rely on Kǒng fū zǐ’s teachings to provide fodder for a less locally and institutionally limited political teaching. Specifically, as has been shown in recent work on Confucian doctrines, the notion of the traditional morally laudable leader and the institutions of moral education that lead to such leadership are exported easily without significant contortions of the original purpose of Kǒng fū zǐ’s own writings (Bell and Hahm 2003). By basing his teachings on a tradition of moral excellence rather than excellence based on the recreation of particular institutional systems, Kǒng fū zǐ, as opposed to perhaps a Burke or a Calvin, founded a timeless philosophy (note the position expressed in Boston Confucianism as an example; Neville 2000 and 2003; Van Norden 2003). The timelessness of Kǒng fū zǐ’s position also meant it could be utilized by various modern governments in pursuit of various policy programs and articulations of national values and nationalism. For example, in the well-publicized debate over the conflicts between “Western” and “Asian” values, Kǒng fū zǐ’s thought was vastly deployed in defense of “Asian” values. As Bell (2000, 2003, 2006) implies, it is Kǒng fū zǐ and later Confucians—Mèng zǐ and Xún zǐ—who form the philosophical basis for modern-day Asian values. Whether in discussions of human rights or when dispelling the myths of “Oriental despotism” opined by Weber and Hegel, Kǒng fū zǐ and Confucianism are called up as philosophical defendants of the Asian perspective. The necessity of Confucianism for Asian values may be questionable, yet the implications are clear: discussions of Asian politics include and confirm Confucianism as a politically relevant philosophy with multiple uses. For present-day students and scholars, the role of Kǒng fū zǐ and Confucianism can be perplexing and complicated. Parsing the historical Kǒng fū zǐ from Confucianism can be a challenging task requiring extensive knowledge not only of Confucian doctrines but also of history in China and other East Asian nations (notably Korea). For the purposes of the following analysis of Confucian ethics in public service, we attempt to render as accurate and neutral an account of these doctrines as possible. Readers ought to be apprised that their own experience with Confucian or Confucianist scholarship may suggest alternative conclusions.

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Applications of the Tradition to Public Service Ethics Kǒng fū zǐ is often, and perhaps incorrectly, compared to Aristotle in both his thoughts on morality, government, and human nature and his role in the tradition of ethics in China (Ivanhoe 2002b, 8–9). The comparability of Kǒng fū zǐ’s writings to the writers of ancient Greece aside, the volume and preeminence of Kǒng fū zǐ for the remainder of the tradition of ethics in China and East Asia broadly make the task of narrowing a specific notion of Confucian public service ethics as difficult as doing so for Aristotle, Plato, or Socrates. However, scholars and students interested in Kǒng fū zǐ as thinker of political and administrative ethics will find Kǒng fū zǐ a congenial companion for these inquiries. The roots of this suggestion unfold in the examination of Kǒng fū zǐ’s thoughts on government and administration itself. In The Case for Bureaucracy, Goodsell (1994) points to a ménage of disparaging attitudes, both philosophically informed and flippantly opinionated, against bureaucracy. Such, one may say, is the tradition of the Anglo-American corridor. Not so in the tradition of government in China where magistrates, court officials, and lower ranking and regional officials enjoyed an appreciably better, well recognized status in the society (Bell 2006, 152–54). Participation in government and notably, participation in the public service, was a highly esteemed vocation, reserved for the best educated in the society. This tradition is well rooted in the thought of Kǒng fū zǐ and his followers (Aufrecht and Bun 1995; Frederickson 2002). The major virtues of Confucian ethics—humanity or human heartedness (rén),10 propriety (lǐ), righteousness (yì), reverence (jìng),11 loyalty (zhōng),12 wisdom (zhì),13 filial piety (xiào),14 and forgiveness (shù)15—were practical virtues necessary for the proper ordering of society. The man who possessed each of these virtues and possessed them to the maximum that he could could be the sage king. Sage kings, notably Yü, Yao, and Shun, were revered in Kǒng fū zǐ’s and Mèng zǐ’ writings as the exemplars of dedicated virtuousness for right governing. Being a sage king was certainly the highest capacity that one could exercise in government and was a position that, in the history of Confucianism, even took on religious implications (R. Taylor 1990). Even if one could not receive the mandate of heaven (ti’en mìng)16 to become the ruler of the state, the virtuous

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man still had a necessary and vital place in governing the society. Being a public servant was certainly the highest capacity in which a gentleman ( jūn zǐ)17 could serve his state.18 Mencius said, “There are honours bestowed by Heaven, and there are honours bestowed by man. Benevolence, dutifulness, conscientiousness, truthfulness to one’s word, unflagging delight in what is good, —these are honours bestowed by Heaven. The position of a Ducal Minister, a Minister, or a Counsellor, is an honour bestowed by man.” (Mencius 1970, 168–69 [book 6, part A, no. 16])

What we learn about public service ethics from Kǒng fū zǐ are the expectations of the ideal public servant in both an ideal and a less than ideal state. Whichever type of state one finds oneself in, the finest goal of the great man is to exercise benevolence (rén). If we find ourselves in a state that lacks virtues, and in the presence of a leader who is nonresponsive to the compelling evidence of the virtuous life, we ought, like Kǒng fū zǐ, to move on to another state where the virtues are better received and practiced. Thus, we might say (and this is consonant with many later interpretations of Kǒng fū zǐ) that the notion of benevolence (rén) is the central virtue for the Confucian gentleman, though ideally the gentleman would have each of the five major virtues necessary for sagely kingship. In the Confucian writings, the highest or superior man has each of the virtues, with benevolence dominating in the ideal situation. The ideal public servant is one who possesses these virtues and employs them in all situations. If a man does not embody the fine virtues and hold benevolence as the highest, we cannot consider him to be a great man (see W. T. Chan 1955). This is most concisely expressed by Han Yü, a medieval (neo-)Confucian scholar. There are three grades of human nature. . . . What are these? I say: “the three grades of nature are: superior, the medium and the inferior. The superior is good, and good only. The medium may be led to either superior or inferior. The inferior is evil, and evil only. Human nature consists in five virtues, namely, humanity (rén), propriety (lǐ), faithfulness, righteousness (yì), and wisdom. In the superior grade, one of these five is the ruling factor while the other four also are practiced. In the medium grade, there is more or less of one of the five while the other four are not pure. In the

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inferior grade, one rebels against one of these and is out of accord with the other four.” (Han Yü, from W. T. Chan 1969, 451–52)

How, though, does a man come to possess these virtues, and what does deployment of such virtues “look like” in a public service setting? The first part of this question speaks to the many views on human nature developed in the Confucian tradition. Indeed, as Fung Yu-lan (1976, 69) and Csikszentmihalyi (2006, 1–5) point out, key differences between Kǒng fū zǐ and his followers can be traced to the views of human nature developed by each. Notably, Kǒng fū zǐ suggests that man can be instructed to be good, while Mèng zǐ suggests that men are born good and Xún zǐ suggests that man is by nature evil (Fung 1952, 286–89). Later, Yáng Xióng (Csikszentmihalyi 2006, 16–18)19 would suggest a mix of evil and good in man, while Hán Yù (W. T. Chan 1969, 451–53)20 would suggest that one’s nature (whether good or evil) is set at birth. Cast over a period of approximately eight hundred years, each of these views of human nature, though at its root Confucian, suggests a different path for the acquisition of virtue. Each, however, holds that virtue is the salvation of individual men, man, and empire.

Confucian Rationality Kǒng fū zǐ, as both scholar and man, sought to instruct men of all states and ranks in the virtues. The Master said, “I have never denied instruction to anyone who, of his own accord, has given me so much as a bundle of dried meat as a present.” (Analects 7:7) The Master said, “I never enlighten anyone who has not been driven to distraction by trying to understand a difficulty or who has not got into a frenzy trying to put his ideas into words.” (Analects 7:8)

Curiosity and a desire to inquire of one’s own will were all that Kǒng fū zǐ required of students; virtue and virtuosity was a natural human trait dwelling in all persons and could be drawn out of any. What make the ideal student of virtuosity are training and education and not a predetermined inclination toward “this or that.” What makes an excellent Confucian gentleman is not a predisposition to

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“this way or that.” Nominally, the Confucian gentleman does use an instrumental form of rationality to achieve an appointed (moral) end but uses the power of the virtuous mind to inquire about the ends to begin with. Kǒng fū zǐ is not silent about the use of reasoning to achieve virtuous ends, but the development of Confucian reasoning is embodied in the works of Mèng zǐ more than Kǒng fū zǐ. As scholars such as Graham (2002), Hutton (2002), Nivison (1980), Shun (1989), Van Norden (1991), and Wong (2002) argue, there is a pattern of reasoning that Mèng zĭ uses in order to realize the appropriateness of a particular moral end to the situation. In short, this is an elaboration of Mèng zǐ’s doctrine of “extension”: “Mengzian extension seems to involve starting from the particular judgments and feelings that are manifestations of the four sprouts [of virtue], and then extending them, i.e., judging and feeling in the relevant ways in new situations where we do not do so naturally” (Wong 2002, 190). Mèng zĭ, like Kǒng fū zǐ, believed in the possibility of all persons to be moral, like the sage kings before them. Mèng zĭ, however, makes the argument that the virtues of the sage kings reside in us naturally and, though we must be educated to their correct use (we must develop “moral connoisseurship”; Hutton 2002), we can arrive at the ability to use the sage kings’ virtues by reasoning by analogy (analogical resonance; Ivanhoe 2002b) of our situations of virtuous conduct and theirs. Mèng zĭ captures the idea of innate moral intuitions in his idea of the four sprouts of virtue: Mencius said, “No man is devoid of a heart sensitive to the suffering of others. Such a sensitive heart was possessed by the Former Kings and this manifested itself in compassionate government. With such a sensitive heart behind compassionate government, it was as easy to rule the Empire as rolling it on you palm. “My reason for saying that no man is devoid of a heart sensitive to the suffering of others is this. . . . Whoever is devoid of the heart of compassion is not human, whoever is devoid of the heart of shame is not human, whoever is devoid of the heart of courtesy and modesty is not human, and whoever is devoid of the heart of right and wrong is not human. The heart of compassion is the germ [sprout] of benevolence; the heart of shame, of dutifulness; the heart of courtesy and modesty, of observance of the rites; the

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heart of right and wrong, of wisdom. Man has these four germs [sprouts] just as he has four limbs.” (Mencius 1970, book 2, part A, no. 6)

The man of virtue is able to reason—to judge the merit of his actions—based on the relationship between the act itself and its possible fulfillment of the virtues. To stray from reasoning on the virtuosity of an act to its expedience or its satisfactory fulfillment of externally imposed standards—such as economic efficiency—was to stray from the way of the gentleman to that of the lesser man. In fact, as Liu (1959, 214–15) makes clear, it was when Confucian administrators began to consider the virtuosity inherent in their posts in an instrumentally rational way that the excellence of the post was (temporarily) lost. One’s virtuous education and right conduct was not an instrumental value for the achievement of individual needs—personal advancement, for example: [T]he most important thing for an official is to remain pure at heart and vigilantly careful, without expecting others to know of his merits. If his merits are made known, many unscrupulous colleagues would invariably attack him behind his back. It usually happens that his superiors would not see through such attacks and misfortune would then fall upon him. Hence, one should always appear to be leisurely and calm among official circles, get things done quietly, and be satisfied with his own conscience. (Tu Yen, quoted in Liu 1959)

Just as the Confucian gentleman does not use his virtues as a way to seek lower (material) ends, the Confucian student does not learn for an instrumental reason. Indeed, as exemplified in the life of Kǒng fū zǐ, one ought to engage in learning over a lifetime (Analects 2:4). A powerful Confucian critique against instrumental rationality is found in the criticism of learning for instrumental reasons. In passages from Kǒng fū zǐ’s own writings, as well as from later Confucians and yet later neo-Confucians, the role of learning is to create the virtuous and excellent gentleman, not to create experts in a modern sense.21 For Kǒng fū zǐ, the knowledge that was most critical to the learned person was the love of knowledge of the six primary moral characteristics (lǐ, yì, rén, xiào, zhōng, shù), but importantly the virtue of ritual propriety and righteousness (lǐ and yì).

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Confucius said, “Yu (Tzu-lu), have you heard about the six virtues and the six obscurations?” Tzu-lu replied, “I have not.” Confucius said, “Sit down, then. I will tell you. One who loves humanity but not learning will be obscured by ignorance. One who loves wisdom but not learning will be obscured by lack of principle. One who loves faithfulness but not learning will be obscured by heartlessness. One who loves uprightness but not learning will be obscured by violence. One who loves strength of character but not learning will be obscured by recklessness.” (W. T. Chan 1969, 47)22

Without the love of learning that underpins the understanding and application of the virtues, one cannot fully live up to the virtues themselves. In other words, without an appropriate love for knowing the place and reason for the virtue, one can perform the necessary actions in only an instrumental way. An example of treating a virtue as instrumental is given by Kǒng fū zǐ: “Tzu-yu asked about filial piety. Kǒng fū zǐ said, ‘Filial piety nowadays means to be able to support one’s parents. But we support even dogs and horses. If there is no feeling of reverence, wherein lies the difference?’ ” (W. T. Chan 1969, 23). Following the neo-Confucian Yáng Míng zǐ, we see that the knowledge that is gained for instrumental purposes cannot be true or innate knowledge. Rather, learned knowledge is perverted knowledge; without the informative and guiding experience of virtuous knowledge that necessarily leads to right conduct, a person may not act without wickedness. “Wang . . . means by true knowledge an understanding that embraces, in addition to a cognitive awareness of a situation, a corresponding and an appropriate emotional and motivational response” (Ivanhoe 2002b, 79).

Expertise Closely related to the notion of rationality that is predicated on a full, perhaps pragmatic (Ames 2003), and experiential understanding of the virtues is the notion that the Confucian expert is one who is fully versed in the virtues and their correct application. Not only ought the ideal Confucian gentleman understand the virtues, but he ought to deploy them correctly, as he would attend to the correct performance of the rites. The ideal Confucian administrator—and

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indeed the actual public administrator in historical China—was one thoroughly schooled in the virtues. As is well documented in the extant literature on bureaucracy in China, civil service examinations (which relied heavily on the [interpretations of] key Confucian texts) were instrumental in the establishment of the stable administration of such large and diverse territories. It was of importance that the civil service examinations center on the moral teachings of the dominant schools of philosophy accepted by the leadership at the time.23 Notably, in an empire with such challenging demographic and geographic characteristics, the most reliable method of securing administrative symmetry and compliance was the “internal check” of similar moral, rather than technical, education (Liu 1959, 213). The ideal administrators were not technical experts but rather were experts on moral standards. The ideal administrator was not merely a technician, expert, or government agent, but rather he was a morally sophisticated and educated gentleman ( jūn zǐ).24 In the body of literature that is identified as Confucian, references to expertise are scant, while references to the “gentleman” abound. The concept of the Confucian gentleman ( jūn zǐ) is essential to forming a Confucian concept of expertise. According to the primary thinkers of the Confucian school, but importantly Mèng zǐ, the status of gentleman is something that everyone could potentially attain. As Kǒng fū zǐ suggested that human nature is possibly good, Mèng zǐ outright stated that it is good (W. T. Chan 1969, 49–50). This critical difference in understanding the nature of man did not result in a strong difference in the two philosophers’ interpretation of the potential for the categorical greatness of the gentleman; all people, with the appropriate education and inculcation with the love of knowledge and the virtues, could rise to the status of a gentleman. Sagehood, though remote, was the developed and refined expression of human nature. Each and every person possessed the power to work toward sagehood, and the lower though still lofty, goal of becoming a gentleman was within the reach of anyone who exerted enough concerted effort of the right kind. Even the status of a gentleman represented a considerable achievement and could be attained only after long and arduous application. (Ivanhoe 2002b, 134)

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The education of the gentleman was necessary but insufficient for his achievement—the continuous application and self-reassertion of his moral education was required for the gentleman to rise to and maintain his status. Both Mèng zǐ and Kǒng fū zǐ provide insightful illustrations of this. From Mèng zǐ, we learn, Kung-tu Tzu asked, “Though equally human, why are some men greater than others?” “He who is guided by the interests of the parts of his person that are of greater importance is a great man; he who is guided by the interests of the parts of his person that are of smaller importance is a small man.” “Though equally human, why are some men guided one way and others guided another way?” “The organs of hearing and sight are unable to think and can be misled by external things. When one thing acts on another, all it does is to attract it. The organ of the heart can think. But it will find the answer only if it does think; otherwise, it will not find the answer. This is what Heaven has given me. If one makes one’s stand on what is of greater importance in the first instance, what is of smaller importance cannot displace it. In this way, one cannot be but a great man.” (Mencius, 1970, 168 [book 6, part A, no. 15])

From Kǒng fū zǐ we learn, Kǒng fū zǐ said, “The superior man is not an implement.” (Analects 2:12) Kǒng fū zǐ said, “The superior man is broadminded but not partisan, the inferior man is partisan but not broadminded.” (Analects 2:14) Kǒng fū zǐ said, “He who learns but does not think is lost; he who thinks but does not learn is in danger.” (Analects 2:15) Kǒng fū zǐ said, “Wealth and honor are what every man desires. But if they have been obtained in violation of moral principles, then must not be kept. Poverty and humble station are what every man dislikes. But if they can be avoided only in violation of moral principles, they must not be avoided. If a superior man departs from humanity, how can he fulfill that name? A superior man

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never abandons humanity even for the lapse of a single meal. In moments of haste, he acts according to it. In times of difficulty or confusion, he acts according to it.” (Analects 4:5) Kǒng fū zǐ said, “A superior man in dealing with the world is not for anything or against anything. He follows righteousness (yì) as his standard.” (Analects 4:10) Kǒng fū zǐ said, “The superior man thinks of virtue; the inferior man thinks of possessions. The superior man thinks of sanctions; the inferior man thinks of personal favors.” (Analects 4:11)

The gentleman is not indignant in the application of his morality to the task of participating in the world; rather, he is known as a gentleman only through his steady participation in the world itself. Notably, the gentleman can be known as such only through his virtuous participation in government. His expertise in the morality enshrined in the investigation of the Way must be applied to the practice of cultivating morality in others. As we have learned from the life of Kǒng fū zǐ itself, if the morally great gentleman cannot instruct the ruler of his government to alter his ways to reflect the Way (Dao) and Virtue (Dé), then the virtuous man must move on in order to seek a ruler who is amenable to hearing the teachings of the gentleman. Similarly, the gentleman must make it his task to bring the virtues to the practices of government, or he has failed to fully realize the purpose of his own virtuosity. The application of the gentleman’s learned virtues is not exclusively for the others involved in the act of governing. Instead, following Mèng zǐ, we learn that the application of virtuous expertise is for the people. To the extent that the people deny that the virtues are present in those representing the government, the ruler must respond. In short, though the gentleman-administrator ought to possess a higher level of moral faculty than the people; the people’s innate knowledge of the virtues and virtuous acts must override that of the ranking gentleman. When there is no choice, the ruler of a state, in advancing good and wise men, may have to promote those of low position over the heads of those of exalted rank and distant relatives over near ones. Hence such a decision should not be taken lightly. When your close attendants all say of a man that he is good and wise,

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that is not enough; when the Counsellors all say the same, that is not enough; when everyone says so, then have the case investigated. If the man turns out to be good and wise, then and only then should he be given office. When your close attendants all say of a man that he is unsuitable, do not listen to them; when the Counsellors all say the same, do not listen to them; when everyone says so, then have the case investigated. If the man turns out to be unsuitable, then and only then should he be removed from office. . . . Only in by acting in this manner can one be father and mother to the people. (Mencius 1970, 67–68 [book 1, part B, no. 7]; see also W. T. Chan 1969, 61)

Even in the highly regimented system of government in the days of Mèng zǐ, issues of moral expertise, rank, and association must be neglected in cases where the people’s own moral sense causes them to reject the goodness of government ministers. Though this is hardly a “democratic” system, in Mèng zǐ we find the notion of strong citizen participation prefigured.

Equality Mèng zǐ said, “It is the nature of things to be unequal. Some are twice, some five times, some ten times. Some a hundred times, and some one thousand or ten thousand times as valuable as others. If you equalize them all, you will throw the world into confusion” (Mencius 1970, book 3, part A, no. 4). In the above section on expertise, we have already seen that the people are not considered to be lesser persons than the gentleman administrator, though they are consigned to a different role in the society. In a Confucian society, one’s responsibilities are determined by one’s role, each role owing and being owed degrees of deference to another. According to this system, markedly similar to the notion of role equality in Plato’s Republic, what it means to treat all equally is to treat all equal according to their roles. One would violate the virtue of filial piety, for example, if one engaged in rites to the spirits of another person’s ancestors as this would be a violation of the expected role that one has vis-à-vis one’s own parents and their companions. The inequality of roles is not founded on any prior assumptions of the inequality of human nature. Not until later in the history of interpretations of Kǒng fū zǐ’s and competitor doctrines

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was a notion of inequality of women even expounded. As Wang (2003, xi–xiv) makes clear, the role of women was complementary to that of men through the yin-yang distinction. The social roles proper to men and women are yet another expression, on the human level, of the dynamic complementarity of yang and yin. As complementary archetypes, yin and yang give cosmic meaning to the range of social interactions possible for human beings. Each has its distinctive role to play without which the other ceases to exist, indeed, without which the whole cosmos ceases to exist. Each of the social roles laid out for Chinese women—daughter, wife, and mother—is suffused with this cosmological identity. In Chinese tradition, the family is the model for the Empire, and the most necessary part of the social structure. Women’s role in the family, therefore, is essential to their role in public life. It also serves as a model for the King, whose success depends on responding to the needs of the people in much the same way that a woman must respond to the needs of her family. (Wang 2003, xii–xiii)

In later periods of Chinese imperial history the role of women was forcefully circumscribed to one of obedience and household work, though this is not consonant with the positions advocated by the Confucian masters Kǒng fū zǐ, Mèng zǐ, and Xún zǐ.25 Consider passages from Mèng zǐ and Xún zǐ: A gentleman losing his position [office] is like a feudal lord losing his state. The Rites say, “A feudal lord takes part in the ploughing to supply the grain for sacrificial offerings. His wife takes part in sericulture to provide the material for sacrificial dresses. When the sacrificial animals are not fat, the grain not clean and the items of dress not ready, he dare not perform the sacrifice.” (Mencius 1970, 108 [book 3, part B, no. 2]) What is that by which humans are human? I say: it is because they have distinctions. . . . They [birds and beasts] have the male sex and the female sex but no proper differentiation between male and female. And so among human ways, none is without distinctions. Of distinctions, none are greater than social divisions, and of social divisions, none are greater than rituals, and of rituals,

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none are greater than those of the sage kings. (Wang 2003, 114; see also Fung 1952, 147)

Whether between men and women or between friends and colleagues, the importance of social distinctions cannot be underestimated in the right ordering of society. That we must make distinctions between different social roles does not mean that we may argue for the lesser being or even lesser social importance of any one person. As all people have a unique and necessary role to play in the articulation of the Way (Dao), which orders all social distinctions from the emperor to the peasant, to treat any one person as unimportant is to treat the Way of Heaven as unimportant. Such things would be tantamount to abandoning society and social orders for the sake of one’s own self-interests. Abandoning social roles and social strictures revealed through the Way of Heaven deserves moral and social condemnation (see Mencius 1970, book 3, part B, no. 3). In the construct of Mèng zǐ, the inequality of social roles would not lead to any inequalities of social goods. As will be discussed in the section on economics, each person must have basic necessities in order to participate in society as a moral being. Such a notion is similar to that of Michael Walzer’s complex equality: In formal terms, complex equality means that no citizen’s standing in one sphere or with regard to one social good can be undercut by his standing in some other sphere, with regard to some other good. Thus, citizen X may be chosen over citizen Y for political office, and then the two of them will be unequal in the sphere of politics. But they will not be unequal generally so long as X’s office gives him no advantage over Y in any other sphere— superior medical care, access to better schools for his children, entrepreneurial opportunities, and so on. (1983, 19)

Social distinctions of role must not indicate social distinctions of worth, necessity, importance, or humanity, according to a Confucian system. With respect to the uses of Confucian ethics in public service, one should be careful to acknowledge the role of political principals and clients as of equal and compelling worth for the preservation of the state. Likewise, one ought to bear in mind the importance of the social role of public servant when repelling criticisms of the expense and difficulty of public services in a modern state.

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It is essential to remember that in the Confucian doctrines, people straying from the roles designated by their place in society cannot be corrected by legal means. It is only through the inculcation of virtues that the society can be rightly ordered: Kǒng fū zǐ said, “Lead the people with governmental measures and regulate them by law and punishment, and they will avoid wrong-doing but will have no sense of honor and shame. Lead them with virtue and regulate them by the rules of propriety (li) and they will have a sense of shame and, moreover, set themselves right.” (Analects 2:3)

If the social roles are distorted, people will demand or withdraw from the equalities that are granted by their role, or if the people are not equally educated in the virtues, there will be disorder. The disorder of socially justified inequalities will also lead to the inefficacy of any governmental means of correction.

Efficacy One of the key requirements for any Confucian government to make and implement policies efficaciously is the prior “rectification of names.” The rectification of names we can understand in more contemporary terms as conceptual clarification, which Kǒng fū zǐ considered to a significant step for the establishment of any rightly ordered state. Tzu-lu said: “The prince of Wei is awaiting you, Sir, to take control of his administration. What will you undertake first, Sir?” The Master replied: “the one thing needed is the rectification of names.” When Duke Ching of Ch’i inquired of Confucius the principles of government, Confucius answered saying: “Let the ruler be ruler, the minister minister; the father be father and the son be son.” Every name possess its own definition, which designates that which makes the thing to which the name is applied be that thing and no other. In other words, the name is that thing’s essence or concept. What is pointed out by the definition of the name “ruler,” for example, is that essence which makes a ruler a ruler. (Fung 1952, 59–60)

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The rectification of names was necessary in a Confucian system to understand which social roles correspond with social obligations. As would be further developed in the Confucian thought of Xún zǐ, the “rectification of names” (zhèng míng)26 was a task to be undertaken and maintained by the government of the state, chiefly for the purpose of efficacious action. When sage kings instituted names, the names were fixed and actualities distinguished. The sage-kings’ principles were carried out and their wills understood. Then the people were carefully led and unified. Therefore, the practice of splitting terms and arbitrarily creating names to confuse correct names, thus causing much doubt in people’s minds and bringing about much litigation was called great wickedness. It was a crime, like private manufacturing of credentials and measurements, and therefore the people dared not rely on strange terms created to confuse correct names. Hence the people were honest. Being honest, there were easily employed. Being easily employed, the achieved results. Since the people dared not rely on strange terms created to confuse correct names, they single-mindedly followed the law and carefully obeyed orders. In this way, the traces of their accomplishments spread. The spreading of traces and the achievement of results are the highest point of good government. This is the result of careful abiding by the conventional meaning of names. (W. T. Chan 1969, 124; see also Fung 1952, 305–8)

But, it is not solely for expeditious reasons that Xún zǐ argued for the importance of the rectification of names earlier established by Kǒng fū zǐ. The proper categorization of things was ethically necessary as well. Not only must we have a clear understanding of the roles of the individual in the social whole, but we must have a proper understanding of the categories of action that are encompassed in the virtuous term lǐ before we can begin to act on this virtue so necessary to the social order (Rosemont 2000, 9–10). If we are to act effectively in the world, our first task is to understand the terms. The importance of the rectification of names for Kǒng fū zǐ and Xún zǐ should not be underestimated as an ethical commitment for present-day public administrators. As seen repeatedly, the manipulation of critical terms of engagement can have devastating effects of the conduct of justice and public policy in general. As is

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well known and well documented in the literature of legislativeexecutive interactions, a popular tool of legislative shirking is the misspecification or underspecification of policy terms. By doing so, policy makers shift their social responsibility of being in the role of legislator to the alternative level of administrator, thus undermining the distinction of roles and the eclipse of efficacy in policy implementation.

Efficiency Secondary to the proper ordering of society through the description of roles and the rectification of names, we can expect that the policies given by the imperial authorities will be efficiently carried out. What contributed strongly to the efficiency of the system of administration in historical China was the elimination of what is now known as the principal-agent problem. Through role delineation, the lines between principals and agents become clear, reducing the transaction costs of policing and specification. Through the morally based system of civil service examinations, the possibility of goal conflict was reduced. Functionally, the system of historical Chinese bureaucracy effectively implemented a politics-administration dichotomy. On the political side, the efficacy of leadership is seen in the ability of the leader to serve as “father and mother to the people” according to the idea of the mandate of heaven (also translated as heaven’s destiny or heaven’s fate). In states where peace, prosperity, and stability were the norm for all people, the mandate of heaven was being fulfilled. In those states in decline, it was determined that the mandate of heaven was being or had been revoked, often leading to the argument that the state had entered a cyclical period of moral decline. The cyclical nature of history and the continued fulfillment of the mandate of heaven were considered efficient predictors of when a regime may prosper or might fail. For the moral gentlemanadministrator, in periods of obvious decline, the efficient thing to do would be to pursue the moral education of the ruler. Mencius said, “It is not enough to remonstrate the government officials, nor is it enough to criticize the governmental measures. It is only the great man who can rectify what is wrong in the

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ruler’s mind. Let the ruler be humane, and all his people will be humane. Let the ruler be righteous, and all his people will be righteous. Let the ruler be correct and al his people will be correct. Once the ruler is rectified, the whole kingdom will be at peace.” (Mencius 1970, book 4, part A, no. 20; W. T. Chan 1969, 75)

The virtuosity of the ruler, as the principal of the state, determined the degree to which his similarly virtuous agents could follow him. In times when the ruler was decidedly out of order with the mandate of heaven, the state would naturally fall into a state of waste, corruption, and inefficiency. So certain was Mèng zǐ that the immorality of the ruler would lead to the decline of the state that he proposed that the virtuous gentleman-administrator may be permitted to kill the ruler.27 The primary reason why one would be allowed to assassinate a ruler was that he had ceased to serve the functions— to bear the name—of ruler properly. If a ruler lacks the ethical qualities that make a good leader, the people have the moral right of revolution. In that case, even the killing of the ruler is no longer a crime of regicide. This is because, according to Mencius, if a sovereign does not act as he ideally ought to do, he morally ceases to be a sovereign, and following Kǒng fū zǐ’s theory of the rectification of names, is a “mere fellow” as Mencius says. (Mencius 1970, book 2, part B, no. 8; Fung 1976, 74)

Without the moral mandate of heaven, the leader cannot secure the allegiance of his officials, thus inciting chaos and disorder in the conduct of government affairs. The Confucian notion of efficiency is concerned with the symmetry of virtuous ends, but concerns for means are little discussed in the major Confucian works. There seems to be no corresponding notion of inputs-outputs efficiency for a Confucian system, thus making modern efficiency a value that does not have a strongly Confucian root.

Economy For Confucians, notably Mèng zǐ, there is a notion of a just economy, and maximizing the good of all is a Confucian economic virtue as scholars such as Chan and Bell have rightly argued (J. Chan 2005 and Bell 2006). As an institution, economy is of value to a Confucian

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philosophy. As a value that should determine one’s actions, economizing rationality has no place in the vocabulary of the gentleman public administrator. The shape of the Confucian economy is that of the well-field system where in a larger square is divided into nine equal (as boundaries allow) parts to be cultivated by eight families. Each family is given one square and must obligate themselves to the other eight families for the cultivation of the communal plot, upon which tax crops are produced (Mencius 1970, book 3, part A, no. 3). This rather egalitarian system is contrary to the more aristocratic or feudal system of Kǒng fū zǐ’s time. Yet, based upon Mèng zǐ’s notion of an equally good human nature, we can deduce that the economic consequences will reflect this equalitarian tendency. The purpose of the economics system and the purpose of the moral system of equality fold into one another. Only a gentleman can have a constant heart in spite of a lack of constant means of support. The people, on the other hand, will not have constant hearts if they are without constant means. Lacking constant hearts, they will go astray and fall into excesses, stopping at nothing. To punish them after they have fallen foul of the law is to set a trap for the people. How can a benevolent man in authority allow himself to set a trap for the people? Hence when determining what means of support the people should have, a clear-sighted ruler ensures that these are sufficient, on the one hand, for the care of parents, and, on the other, for the support of wife and children, so that the people always have sufficient food in good years and escape starvation in bad; only then does he drive them towards goodness; in this way the people find it easy to follow him. (Mencius 1970, 58–59 [book 1, part A, no. 7])

Without a sufficiently egalitarian system for the production and distribution of goods, the state shall decline into immorality propelled by the hunger of the people. In the Confucian economy, the highest state is that where the needs of the people are in equilibrium with the provisions of the state. The way that such an economy can be realized is through the conscious practice of the virtuous sage king. If the king does not care for his people’s needs as a mother would attend to the needs of her child, the state will inevitably fall into disrepair.

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Economy, as an ethical value in Confucianism, is subsumed under the heading of equality of one’s due, which is known from the natural dictates of the Way. In this system, those in higher roles are not exempted from laboring alongside the people in order to produce basic social goods; their labor is merely of a different variety. It is not that the king ought to devote his time exclusively to laboring in the fields, but that he ought to feel that his cultivation of a benevolent government is of similar necessity and importance as the cultivation of grain, for the cultivation of good government is his role as appointed by the Way of Heaven. If the patterns of nature are observed, if the Way is followed, then a naturally orderly government and naturally equal economy shall result. Note the following from Xún zǐ: Nature (T’ien, Heaven) operates with constant regularity. It does not exist for the sake of (sage emperor) Yao nor does it exist because of (wicked king) Chieh. Respond to it with peace and order, and good fortune will result. Respond to it with disorder, and disaster will follow. If the foundations of living (i.e., agriculture and sericulture) are strengthened and are economically used, then Nature cannot bring impoverishment. If people’s nourishment is sufficient and their labor in keeping with the seasons, then Nature cannot inflict sickness. If the way is cultivated without deviation, then Nature cannot cause misfortune. . . . One who understands the distinctive functions of Heaven and man may be called a perfect man. (Xún zǐ, chap. 17; excerpted in W. T. Chan 1959, 116–17)

The role of the gentleman leader then is to see to it that the natural social roles of man are adhered to, as this is required for the ideal economy. In terms of an ethic for modern public administrators, we may draw two important conclusions from the Confucian notion of economy. Firstly, the economy is not ordered through external laws and regulations, but it is not a modern “free market” either; it is a product of natural phenomena. If the economy is disordered, then the dominant concern should be to “rectify the names” and align the positions of the people with their proper productive patterns. That is, teachers should teach, bakers should bake, and public administrators should concern themselves with governing according to

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the principle of benevolence. Secondly, during times of economic crisis, the ideal public administrator should attend to the provision of people’s most basic needs as readily as is possible due to resources. These basic needs, we also learn from Xún zǐ, are nourishment, labor opportunities, protection against the elements, medical care, and moral cultivation. The administrator should be imminently practical in her application of resources, being quite realistic about the possibilities afforded by heaven (Nature) and earth (nature): “Heaven has its seasons, earth has its wealth, and man has his government. This is how they are able to form a triad. To neglect (human activities) which constitute man’s part in the triad and put one’s hope in those with which he forms a triad is indeed a mistake” (Xún zǐ, chap. 17; W. T. Chan 1959, 117). In other words, attend to benevolence in governing the people and let heaven and earth rectify the marketplace.

Conclusion to Confucian Ethics Judging from the revival of discussions and debates over the thought of Kǒng fū zǐ and later Confucians for modern government, there is a present imperative for students and scholars of public administration to address questions of public administration ethics from a Confucian point of view. The imperative is not limited to the force of intellectual novelty and argument alone. The rise of China and (South) Korea as global powers, economically, militarily, and culturally, compels people in the West and other regions to seek a greater understanding of their new and forceful partners. For example, while a deeper understanding of Chinese languages and history is necessary, they are not sufficient for a full understanding of the Chinese context. One must also study the diverse systems of ethical thought that inform the Chinese culture (in this book Confucianism, Daoism, Buddhism, and Maoism are discussed). Beyond the practical imperatives of realpolitik concerns, a secondary obligation ought to encourage further study of Confucian ethics. As the Chinese, Japanese, and Korean diasporas become more powerful forces in the world labor market (particularly for intellectual goods), a review of the systems of norms and mores of historical and present-day East Asia are necessary to ensure smooth relations between employees of ethnically/religiously plural firms.

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Considering the academy as one example, the increase in the numbers of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean scholars will shape the conduct of education in the West. If we are to be fully appreciative and cognizant of our fellow students’ and faculty members’ needs and standards, we must engage in an investigation of Confucian ethics. Finally, as civil servants are increasingly confronted by the needs of ethnically plural clientele, a more nuanced understanding of ethical norms must become part of the education and practice of civil service. Indeed, given the turn toward more deliberative forms of public policy making and public administration, there is a practical imperative to understand the worldview of one’s partners in dialogue. In order for a pattern of culturally appreciative inquiry to occur, we must understand Kǒng fū zǐ outside of the context of the canned quotes in “fortune cookies.”

Recommended Readings Armstrong, Robert Cornell. 1914. Light from the East: Studies in Japanese Confucianism. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Bodde, Derk. 1991. Chinese Thought, Society, and Science: The Intellectual and Social Background of Science and Technology in Pre-modern China. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press. Chan, Alan K. L. (ed.). 2002. Mencius: Contexts and Interpretations. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press. Chen, Huan-Chang. 1911. The Economic Principles of Confucius and His School. 2 vols. New York: Columbia University Press. Creel, Herrlee G. 1960. Confucius and the Chinese Way. New York: Harper and Row. de Bary, William Theodore. 1991. The Trouble with Confucianism. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. de Bary, William Theodore, and JaHyun Kim Haboush (eds.). 1985. The Rise of Neo-Confucianism in Korea. New York: Columbia University Press. Fairbank, John K., and Ssu-Yu Teng. 1960. Ch’ing Administration: Three Studies. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Hahm, Chaibong. 2002. Confucianism, Capitalism and Democracy. Seoul: Hyundai. Hall, David L., and Roger T. Ames. 1987. Thinking Through Confucius. Albany: State University of New York Press. Ivanhoe, Philip, and Bryan W. Van Norden. 2001. Readings in Classical Chinese Philosophy. 2nd ed. Indianapolis: Hackett. Legge, James. 1885. Sacred Books of the East, vols. 1–28. Oxford: Clarendon.

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Loewe, Michael, and E. L. Shaughnessy (eds.). 1999. The Cambridge History of Ancient China: From the Origins of Civilization to 221BC. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Nivison, David S., and Arthur F. Wright. 1960. Confucianism in Action. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press. Shun, Kwong-loi, and David Wong (eds.). 2004. Confucian Ethics: A Comparative Study of the Self, Autonomy and Community. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Tamney, Joseph B., and Linda Hsuek-Ling Chiang. 2002. Modernization, Globalization and Confucianism in Chinese Societies. New York: Praeger.

Chapter 7

Ethics in the Judaic Tradition

J

udaism is among the oldest monotheistic traditions in the world and one that has been most concerned with the importance of political community to the tradition itself. As a result of dynamics within Judaism itself, as well as the diverse responses by the Jewish community to the loss of its state and its time in exile, Judaism has long concerned itself with the relation of the community to the government (whichever government that happened to be at the time). In this chapter, we will discuss the guidance that the legal discourse of Judaism (halakah) provides to public administrators. However, this concern does not necessarily reveal itself in a concerted focus on ethics for civil servants. As Daniel J. Elazar writes, the Jewish tradition of political thought “. . . is less concerned with determining the best form of government (in Aristotelian terms, the best constitution) than with establishing the proper relationship between the governors and the governed, power and justice, God and man” (1983a, 4). Three factors explain this situation. First, the specific structure of government in the early history of the Jews focused more on kingship, emphasizing the situation of war and generalship, and not as much on institutions and their officers. Second, the specific history of the Jewish people in the time of exile, where non-Jewish rulers were in control, limited the applicability of public administration ethics, although there are some indications of such an ethic in Jewish communal life during the medieval 163

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period, discussed below. Finally, the structure of halakah in Judaism addresses moral quandaries through the language and principles of law and obligation rather than through abstract theoretical models and institutional examinations, and thus ethical/moral arguments have a specific religious/legal element to them. We will address the elements below.1

Government in Judaism The cornerstone for ethics in Judaism is divine law, specifically the Torah and the Talmud. Through the covenant at Mount Sinai (Exod 19:7–20:18; 24:1-18), God gave to the Jews and all of their descendents the revealed law and, according to the rabbinical tradition, the rules for interpreting the laws throughout the ages, in such things as the Talmud and beyond. Unlike the founding of a modern secular state, where the law sets down the institutions and structures of the state apparatus, the laws brought down by Moses did not set up any particular system of government, or indeed any real set of governing institutions at all with the exceptions of the institution of the Levite priesthood and the possible creation of a kingship. Rather, the law sets down the obligations and rituals by which the community will live and remain under the rulership of God, effectively under God’s sovereignty as his chosen people, a “kingdom of priests, and an holy nation” (Exod 19:6).2 In the period after Moses died, the Jewish nation lacked the institutions associated with governance. Instead, there was the rule of the “judges” (shoftim) or individuals chosen by God to protect his people when the need would arise (such as Joshua, Gideon, Deborah, Samson, and others). Generally speaking, these judges would appear when the threat of invasion or other military conflicts would arise, making the judges more like spontaneous generals who would form an army and prevent the destruction or enslavement of the Jewish community. In times of peace, when no exceptional threat arose, no government per se existed in the Jewish community, but “every man did that which was right in his own eyes” (Judg 21:25, emphasis removed). As God was the only king of the Jewish nation, so the idea went, no other government or officials were needed except in times of major emergency (cf. Buber 2000, 119–20). Or, as Gideon responded when the Jews offered to make him king, “I will not rule over you,

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neither shall my son rule over you: the Lord shall rule over you” (Judg 8:23). This type of theo-anarchism ended with the final judge, the prophet Samuel. At that time, the elders asked Samuel to anoint a king, so that the Jews could have one “like all other nations” (1 Sam 8:20). It remains a major debate whether this request represented a fulfillment of God’s orders in the time of Moses or instead indicated a rejection of God’s kingship over the nation. God instructed Samuel to grant the people’s request (along with a warning regarding what the kings will do), leading to the anointing of Saul, and later David, as king. The monarchy eventually split in two, resulting in the Northern Kingdom of Israel (and its first king, Jeroboam) and the Southern Kingdom of Judah (ruled by kings of the Davidic line), with the scriptures arguing that the Southern Kingdom generally followed halakah obligations and the covenant while the Northern Kingdom would often descend into paganism. It is at this time that the prophets became more important, as critics of the kings. The Assyrians destroyed the Northern Kingdom approximately 200 years after the kingdoms split, with the Southern Kingdom (and the First Temple) shattered about 150 years later, referred to as the Babylonian exile. This exile ended approximately 70 years later as Jews began to return and recreate Jerusalem. Cyrus the Great permitted the return of the Jews to Palestine (and to create the Second Temple) but would not grant autonomous political rule (i.e., the return of the monarchy), keeping the community under the rule of the Persian Empire. The Jewish community remained under outside control from this point forward, ruled by the Persians, Alexander the Great, various Greek factions, then finally the Romans in 63 B.C.E. The future Roman emperor, Titus Flavius, led the Roman siege on Jerusalem in 70 C.E. during “the Great Revolt,” finally succeeding in overcoming the formidable resistance of the people of Jerusalem, destroying the Second Temple and scattering the Jewish people. With the final destruction of the Temple in 70 C.E., selfgovernance of most types ceased for the Jewish people. While some leaders did provide the Jewish community more leeway with gentile leaders (in particular, Judah the Prince, circa second to third century C.E.), the community spent almost two millennia without a state of its own. It was during the extended period of exile (from 70

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C.E. to the establishment of Israel in 1948) that much of the rabbinical tradition came into existence. Politically, the Jewish population was under the control of non-Jewish rulers of one type or another, experiencing varying degrees of autonomy and persecution (cf. Glick 1999; Chazan 1996; Stow 1992; Edwards 1988; J. Cohen 1982). Also, during the medieval period, we see the development of the kehillot (sing., kahal), or “lay representative associations that legislated for the public good” that “had the right to tax and to subject individuals within their geographic jurisdiction to their authority, subject to rabbinical review” (S. L. Stone 2006, 21).3 The kahal is unique in that it is not easily situated as either a public or private institution: although the Jewish authorities could impose the herem (the “ban,” a type of punishment where all members of the Jewish community shun the “excommunicated” individual), these authorities were under some level of control from non-Jewish kingdoms and government agencies. Moreover, various associations within the kehillot undertook many of the obligations we would normally consider the duty of the welfare state (although, in this regard, the associations are similar to some of the guilds in the medieval period in general; cf. Black 1984). It is in these kehillot that we see individuals holding an occupational position that is similar to that of civil servants, namely, the berurim. Berurim means “appointees” or “selectmen,” and these individuals were selected in order to enforce certain types of norms and regulations, as the kahal saw fit. The responsibilities of these individuals are explicated in the words of Solomon b. Abraham Adret of the thirteenth century: Therefore, the appointees who acted thus, if they saw it to be the need of the hour to impose penalties, whether fiscal or corporal, for the perfection of the polity [tikkun ha-medinah] and for the needs of the hour, have acted lawfully. How much more so where they have royal authorization [by the non-Jewish king]. . . . The appointees [berurim] must [however] carefully consider the matter and act [only] after taking counsel, and their intentions should at all times be for the sake of heaven. (2000, 403)

In the selection we see that the berurim were in a unique position: laymen assigned to serve certain functions in Jewish society who at the same time might have authorization from the non-Jewish rulers.

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Adret’s advice on their intentions provides the first step toward a civil service ethic. Making the situation more complex is the relationship between the townspeople, the “good men” and the hakham (“prominent scholar”) or adam hashuv (“prominent person,” sage, or rabbi). Specifically, some rabbis (such as Maimonides and Duran) argued that traders and other townspeople must consult an adam hashuv or hakham (if he was available in the town) before making certain types of decisions (cf. Maimonides 2000b; Duran 2000), which would greatly expand the rabbinical power over the lay population. Others, however, relegate the hakham to a subservient, or at least employee, role to that of the town itself (Meiri 2000). Regardless, the reason for the community’s legitimate coercive power during the exilic period is theoretically unclear, as the justification for power could be naturalistic, based on the Torah, or post hoc rationalizations, depending upon which scholars are conferred (cf. Zohar 2000). It is when we reach the period of the Reform movement in the nineteenth century that the various writers attempt to dissociate Judaism from its halakah origins, instead moving to a more “religious” notion of Judaism (with a subsequent decrease to elimination of rabbinical political power) (cf. Holdheim 2000): the situation becomes even more complex in the state of Israel itself. The relationship between religion and politics in Judaism takes a shape dissimilar to that of both Christianity and Islam. The relationship between the king and the high priest in biblical times, including their respective powers against one another (if any), remain obscure. More to the point, by the end of the Second Temple, there were already disputes within the religious community itself regarding which individuals had the most authority, the priests who gained their position via heredity or the rabbis who held their positions by right of learning and knowledge. At the same time, the Jewish nation was under the rule of the Roman Empire, which limited the amount of influence the religious authorities could have against the highest political authority. The destruction of the Temple greatly weakened the strength of the priests, while also ushering in the end of Jewish self-rule (be it so circumscribed), leaving the rabbinical authorities as the main voice of the Torah and Jewish tradition.4 Although the rabbis could exert a great deal of influence, the type of relationship they had with the community did not have the same institutional complexities as that between the church and state in the medieval

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period and thus also lacked the same types of tensions that resulted from ecclesiastical disputes in Christianity. As legal commentary is the heart of halakah, we will turn to this topic now.

Structures of Argument in Judaism Legalistic argumentation is a dominant element in Jewish tradition. As Judaism is based upon the law and the sundry commentaries that flow from it, this focus on legalism is understandable. As a result, many of the discussions concerning governmental power and the ethical perspective of officials take place within a legal framework. The cornerstone of this discourse is the notion of mitzvah. Mitzvah means commandment, or more particularly, the obligations upon an individual. The laws themselves are an extended combination of covenantal obligations that the chosen people are to follow. It is through these obligations that one reaches excellence and holiness (learning the law is also important in this regard). Individuals will not avoid these obligations, since “[i]n Jewish law, an entitlement without an obligation is a sad, almost pathetic thing” (Cover 2006, 5). Obligation, therefore, is the cornerstone upon which community and perfection are based. The importance of the law does not solely reside within the text, however. Interpretation by the rabbis is also paramount in this exercise. The story of “Akhnai’s oven” from BT Bava Metzia is perhaps the most well known. In this story, a rabbi named Eli’ezer stands alone on a point of law among the rabbis. Eli’ezer presents various signs/miracles to support his interpretation, but each of these the rabbis reject. Then Rabbi Eli’ezer said: “If the law is as I say, it shall be proven from heaven.” A bat kol pronounced:5 “What have you against Rabbi Eli’ezer? The law is always as he says.” Rabbi Yehoshua then stood up and said: “It is not in heaven” (Deut. 30:12). What does this mean? Rabbi Yirmiyah said: “As the Torah has been given from Mount Sinai, we take no heed of a bat kol–for at Mount Sinai You have already written in the Torah [that we should] ‘follow the majority.’” (BT Bava Metzia 59b 2000, 264, brackets in original)

The law, therefore, cannot be understood as a static and dead text that does not allow for interpretation (the error of the Karaites) but rather is intimately connected to interpretation throughout the ages by human beings, rather than via signs and miracles.

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The rabbis discuss not only the Torah but also those moral rules that apply to humanity in general (called the Noahide law), which involves “seven basic human obligations: to refrain from idolatry, blasphemy, homicide, incest and adultery, robbery, and eating the flesh of a live creature, and to establish a system of justice” (S. L. Stone 2006, 15–16). These laws themselves come from the Talmud and, while not the same as some notion of natural law (as these Noahide laws are still covenantal in the sense that they were agreed to by Noah and his descendents after the great flood), still indicate a level of universal law that all human beings must follow (cf. BT Sanhedrin 56a-59a 2003). The Noahide laws are of particular importance when dealing with non-Jewish governments and regulations, in that these help define whether an outside group has, in fact, fulfilled its necessary obligations under God to create a system of justice, which also involves discussions of dina de-malkhuta dina (“the law of the kingdom is law”), discussed below (although cf. Bildstein 1973).

Applications of the Tradition to Public Service As mentioned above, the discussion of politics in the Jewish tradition has not tended to focus strongly upon the ethics of civil servants or indeed to discuss the role of public administration much at all. While we can extrapolate some likely ethical requirements for civil servants with Judaism, some elements of public administration ethics are left in silence. Further, the system seems not to stand alone historically; two elements in the rabbinical tradition tend toward accommodation with the governing systems that are present in the non-Jewish state. First is the notion that rulership in some ways is separated from law. The situation of the kings is unique: . . . [The kingship] comes into existence when a people, facing problems of succession and military threat, suddenly demand a form of political rule consistent with God’s sovereignty but not originally part of God’s plan. Acquiescing, God places kingship within the terms of the Sinaitic covenant. Insisting on a new domain of politics, a new political space, the story does not open the way for kingly despotism, because the powers it ascribes to the king, though new in Israel, are not unbounded or arbitrary; nor for democracy, because the people do not rule; nor for popular consent, because the people’s creative role, though seminal, is

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momentary. It does, however, open the way for secular political rule. (Silver 2000, 126)

It is in this “secular” realm for politics that the kingship presents difficulties. While the monarchy is authorized (or perhaps accepted) by God, it still operates in some ways outside of the typical moral law, especially when the “needs of the hour” require action of a questionable type (cf. Gerondi 2000). As the Judaic tradition recognizes the importance of time and place in practical affairs (under the term “needs of the hour”), political leaders (and potentially their officers) have comparatively greater leeway in making decisions than others. However, the limits to this leeway remain unclear. Second, the aforementioned dina de-malkhuta dina tends to acknowledge the acceptability of non-Jewish legal systems, as long as these systems do not require idolatry or other major violations of Torah law. By granting a level of legitimacy to the powers over the Jewish community, the idea of dina de-malkhuta dina allows a member of the halakah-following community to follow the laws of the kingdom (Landman 1968). Likewise, if an official of the kingdom is Jewish, presumably she would be permitted to follow the legal/ethical requirements of the government itself, again with the proviso that these regulations and ethics not cause the official to violate fundamental divine laws against idolatry and others. Certainly, Judaism has a strongly developed and diverse tradition in terms of social ethics and communal ethics. However, given the conditions of the exile and Diaspora, these systems of social control and cohesion occurred within a nonstate framework and thus present problems in attempting to translate these guides to the realm of public administration. While the berurim present a potential case of public officials following halakah traditions, the connection is somewhat tenuous. Yet even beyond the historical contingencies that make comparison difficult, a more fundamental difference between the modern civil servant ethics and Judaic ethics exists. One of the major differences between the Jewish ethical tradition and the typical liberal tradition in public administration revolves around the relationship between rights and obligations. From the liberal perspective, a civil servant provides goods and services to an individual who has a right and/or statutory entitlement to those goods. Moreover, the client has the right to expect that the

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officer of the state will provide those goods while respecting equality, autonomy, and other such things. In Judaism, the emphasis is not on the rights of the client but on the obligation (mitzvah) of others toward that individual. Education provides a useful example. While in liberalism a child has a right to an education, in Judaism others have an obligation to provide a child education. As Cover explains, . . . [I]t is striking that the Jewish legal materials never speak of the right or entitlement of the child to an education. Rather, they speak of the obligation incumbent upon various providers to make the education available. It is a mitzvah for a father to educate his son, or grandson. It is a mitzvah for a teacher under certain circumstances to teach even without remuneration. It is a mitzvah for the community to make certain provisions for education and its institutions. It is a mitzvah for householders to board poor scholars and support them, and so forth. (2006, 9)

Under this perspective, the starting point for public administrators is not the rights of the client but rather the obligations and responsibilities of the civil servant herself. In order to understand the ethical requirements on administrators, then, we must start not with the client but with the civil servant, carefully noting what obligations are upon her.

Equality Equality is a complicated matter in this tradition. As with other religious traditions, there is the question of equality/inequality between believers and nonbelievers. Even within the faith itself, there are various hierarchies of greater and lesser importance. It should be noted, however, that “equality” in the Jewish tradition does not have the same connotation as the term denotes in liberalism. As Cover explains, “[I]n a jurisprudence of mitzvoth, one must first create an argument for equality of obligation and only as a result of that come to equality of participation” (2006, 11). As is usual in the halakah tradition, it is the question of who is obligated to whom in what that will define levels of equality and inequality, with equality measured by equal mitzvoth.6 Many of these obligations attach to a specific role (father, householder, etc.). One role of special importance results from education and holiness.

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A major hierarchal difference that appeared over time is that between those educated in the law and those who are not. The other major authority figures tended to lose their place as time passed: the judges were no longer called from the people in times of crisis, the hereditary kingship was destroyed, and the hereditary priesthood had lost its power. Even the prophets ceased to appear, and in any case the rabbis determined that only a person who was hakham could actually be a prophet (Maimonides 2000a)—in effect, only one from rabbinical circles, leading to the idea that the rabbinical power had itself taken on the spirit that had once belonged to the prophets (cf. Nahmanides 2000). The inequality that flows from this difference in knowledge is reflected in the distinction between the hakham and the am ha-aretz, or “people of the land” (usually indicating those ignorant of the Torah) (cf. BT Pesahim 49a-b 2003). The rabbinical view of the am ha-aretz is a negative one, arguing that these people are incapable of understanding what is truly expected morally and legally. As a result, they require the guidance, indeed leadership, of a hakham to order their lives and society correctly. As a result, the expertise of the rabbis themselves elevated their position.

Expertise As discussed above, expertise presents a central and interesting aspect of Jewish ethics. The importance of legal expertise is hard to overstate, especially during the rabbinical period. However, when considering expertise as a matter of political or governmental ethics, the situation is less than clear. In a sense, the rabbinical authorities are the true political/legal experts, in the sense that the Torah covers all aspects of human life (presumably including Jewish state officials). However, as the legal authorities are comparatively silent on administrative issues, this expertise may be of little practical importance. In this way, the berurim might serve as the comparative experts in some areas of government. But as the extent of the power of the berurim is never made clear, and as the potential rivalry between such “secular” experts and rabbinical expertise might lead rabbis away from granting too much influence to the berurim, there is little information that could provide a berurim-model civil service ethic. One might say that, in terms of the initial setting down of obligations on public administrators, the expertise of the rabbinical

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scholars is of exceptional importance. However, from that time forward (except in problematic cases), the rabbinical authority subsides. Especially in the context of the modern state, this minimization becomes even more pronounced. In terms of expertise as a matter for public administration itself, the tradition says little of interest in this regard.

Efficacy, Efficiency, and Economy Within the Jewish tradition itself, there is little specific commentary on the ethical value of efficacy, efficiency, and/or economy. There is little discussion of note concerning the positive or negative aspects of these values, except where these values touch on certain types of obligations.

Conclusion Judaism, like the other monotheistic religions, presents an interesting case of a particularistic, yet universalistic, ethic. Although this tradition can trace its law to the time of Moses and regards its law as part of a particularistic covenant with God, these legal restrictions do not regard merely one community or time.7 As with Christianity and Islam, Judaism presents an interesting counterpoint to the typical liberal position on public administrative ethics. Starting from a historically contingent point, these traditions provide universalistic rules and obligations. Liberalism, on the other hand, begins from universalistic premises and yet seems unable to escape falling under the sway of the present time and place, locked within the framework of the West. The ethical tradition of Judaism helps illustrate the importance of context and contingency in the development of public administrative ethics. As a result of the loss of the Temple and the state of the Jewish nation, the ethical tradition of the Diaspora did not focus as strongly upon the duties of governmental officials as other traditions, instead placing greater emphasis upon the role of the community and of the “sages” for interaction and welfare among their own population. As debates have raged in Israel over the proper role, if any, of Jewish law in a democratic state, it is unclear whether any similar debate will occur regarding civil servant ethics. While public administrators may simply follow the notion of dina de-malkhuta dina

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(even within a Jewish yet secular state), perhaps rabbinical scholars and/or religious ethicists will find resources within the halakah tradition itself to give civil servants advice.

Recommended Readings Dorff, Elliot N., and Louis E. Newman (eds.). 1995. Contemporary Jewish Ethics and Morality: A Reader. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hartman, David. 1985. A Living Covenant: The Innovative Spirit in Traditional Judaism. New York: Free Press. Novak, David. 1992. Jewish Social Ethics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Priest, James E. 1980. Governmental and Judicial Ethics in the Bible and Rabbinic Literature. New York: Ktav. Walzer, Michael. 1985. Exodus and Revolution. New York: Basic Books.

Chapter 8

Ethics in the Constitutionalist and Republican Traditions

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onstitutionalism, as an explicitly thought-out tradition of ethics, is comparatively new, although various thinkers have written in a constitutionalist style since at least the Renaissance. This ethical tradition presents an interesting perspective, as it is not primarily concerned with “pure” or universalistic ethics. Rather, constitutionalism takes as its starting point for civil service ethics the specific norms and legal standards within a given society and, in particular, constitutional order. Through a careful study of the guiding principles, historical movements, and ideational preconceptions of a given community, constitutionalism aims to provide a coherent set of regulatory norms for public administrators applicable within their own states. Likewise, republicanism directs civil servants to focus upon the ethics of their own society but hold these values as good in themselves, in contrast to the constitutionalist tradition, which requires the reiteration of such values as background conditions of the constitution, not as value statements as such. There are two main elements to the constitutionalist ethical system. First, constitutionalism is comparatively simple in its form. Constitutionalism begins from the particular circumstances of a specific society and explicates what these societal elements mean for civil service norms in that society. More to the point, it also avoids the type of errors seen in nonfoundational systems that attempt a type of universalism while also eschewing any “thick” 175

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ontology, including some forms of communitarianism (discussed below) and certain forms of liberalism (such as Rawls’ “justice as fairness”). By taking the constitutional form as given, while not presuming that the regime type is static or unchanging, constitutionalism does not mistake its contingent ethical standards for universal ones. Second, constitutionalism as an ethical system can be used within multiple different types of regimes and societies without the types of “imperialist” criticisms that can accrue to liberalism and utilitarianism, among others. By taking into account the particularistic history and context of any given regime, constitutionalism can avoid the appearance of attempted hegemony over the ethical plane in a given society. Before discussing the relevance of constitutionalism to the various elements of public administration ethics, we must clarify what constitutionalism means. First, we will discuss the views of constitutionalism “proper,” in particular its emphasis on “regime values” and the importance of the contingencies of history. Then, we will also compare constitutionalism to the longer “republican” tradition in the West. Finally, we will distinguish constitutionalism and republicanism from the broad school of thought called communitarianism. At the conclusion of this chapter, we will present a coda on ethics in administrative law.

Constitutionalism Constitutionalism is a relatively new school of ethical thought for public administration, although predecessors to this school of thought include antecedent thinkers such as Aristotle and Cicero, Burke, and Montesquieu.1 The main proponents of constitutionalist ethics in public administration are Herbert Storing and his student, John Rohr. Storing, best known for his work on the American AntiFederalists (1981), argued vociferously throughout his short career for the return of an ideal of statesmanship in (American) politics. Statesmanship, Storing suggested, was a set of skills (scientific management) and values (democracy, not populism) that made a constitutional democracy work best for the people, the civil servants in the state, and the perpetuation of the state as moral actor. In his wellknown piece “American Statesmanship: Old and New,” he makes the

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case for the continuation of the political theory and, importantly, morality of the American founders in the guise of administrative statesmanship: Perhaps the most striking omission in scientific management is any concern with the moral side of decision making, especially of political decision making. There is some current renewed interest in the ethics of administration or decision making, but it tends to result either in (fringe) codes-of-ethics thinking, the assumption of which is that ethics surround practical decision making but do not really enter into it; or in (sterile) case studies of the confrontation of (arbitrary) public policies and (arbitrary) personal preferences. What we can roughly but usefully call the moral side of public decision making was for the American founders the major concern, today the intellectual side has occupied almost the whole ground. Yet, in any kind of practical situation the question of the fidelity of the decision maker is crucial. The question that Frederick Taylor could not answer (or could answer only by assuming a simplistic harmony)—Why will the scientific manager not try to exploit his workers?—was for the founders the vital issue of statesmanship. (1995, 426)

For Storing, the repository of statesman-like values was with the constitution, both in its current form and the debates that made it. Thus, the good, ethical, public administrator for Storing was a person that was educated in not only the vocabulary of political institutions and professional expertise but also the tenets and history of constitutional standards and values. As Storing’s student and most similar descendent, Rohr takes up a number of threads in Storing’s work and weaves a substantive, constitutions-based theory of administrative ethics from them. Rohr discusses the importance of “regime values” (Rohr 1986, 1989) for shaping the ethical behavior of civil servants. Rather than presenting an ethical system that is universalist in its ontology and its extent, constitutionalist ethics takes its starting point from the contingent history, culture, and laws of the society in which the bureaucrat resides. As a result, civil servants following a constitutionalist ethic in different states will have substantive differences

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between themselves. In the case of America, “The first [task] is to identify American values and the second is to look for meaningful statements about them” (Rohr 1989, 75). However, the very idea of a constitutionalist ethic, which is universal to states with a codified common legal structure, suggests that the ethical thrust of constitutionalism is consistent across these states. That is, each state has a set of guiding “regime values.” Rohr defines the method for using regime values in the following way: The method of regime values rests on three considerations: 1. That ethical norms should be derived from the salient values of the regime 2. That these values are normative for bureaucrats because they have taken an oath to uphold the regime 3. That these values can be discovered in the public law of the regime (1989, 68, footnotes removed)

In other words, the ethical values of the civil servant are defined through the regime that he has sworn an oath (or otherwise affirmed) to serve. In the case of a country like the United States, “regime values” are embodied in documents such as the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution and its amendments, but also those values generally held by the American people, such as “freedom, property, and equality” (Rohr 1989, 75). Constitutionalism, therefore, bases its ethics on a substantive and contingent idea of the common good, at least insofar as civil servants are concerned. Inherently particularistic, constitutionalism does not aim at being universal (or only in a “metaethical” sense of directing civil servants to understand their own regime’s values). It should be noted that this focus on regime values is not limited to democratic states. Following the example of Aristotle (1996), Rohr explains that regime values are specific to the state/society in question and need not be of a Western, liberal type. For instance, a constitutionalist civil servant in Iran should not focus on “equality, freedom, and property” (as an American constitutionalist civil servant should) but should rather focus upon the importance of Islamic law, social hierarchy, and other elements of her own regime’s values. Moreover, Rohr insists that administrators must find their place

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within their own constitutional order, lest they be subsumed under some other element of the state: An administrative theory resting on such principles [i.e., balancing among branches of the government to preserve the ends of the Constitution] would have the advantage of preserving a certain professional autonomy within the framework of the Constitution and would thereby capture the professionalism that was at the heart of the reforms Wilson and Goodnow had in mind. Without some sort of principled autonomy, professionalism in Public Administration can never be taken seriously. A purely instrumental profession is no profession at all. (1986, 89, emphasis added)

Under the constitutionalist view, not only should the regime values shape the civil servant’s actions, but the preservation of the regime values, up to and including the proper place of the administrative apparatus within the state, should be of marked concern for public servants, whether they are elected, appointed, or hired. The main difficulty in constitutionalism is its comparative agnosticism about the ethics of the regime itself rather than only the justice internal to the system. As in Aristotle’s analysis of constitutional types (Aristotle 1996, 71–76), constitutionalism’s concern with the regime values means that broader issues of what actions a “good person” or moral individual should take, in general, must be left to the side. Rohr indicates this problem when discussing the education of civil servants: The price, then, that the professional study of ethics for bureaucrats exacts from the curriculum is that questions of political philosophy (“Is the regime just?”) must yield to less fundamental questions such as “How can I promote the values of the regime?” The method of regime values eschews metaphysics and addresses the students in the existential situation in which it finds them– persons who have taken or are about to take an oath to uphold the values of a particular regime. (1989, 70–71, footnotes removed)

To rephrase this issue in Aristotelian terms, constitutionalism must ignore the question of whether being a good citizen in a certain regime precludes being a good human being objectively (Aristotle 1996, 65–68, 102, 106).

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As an operational matter, then, constitutionalist ethics does not analyze whether the regime itself is just or unjust, prone to efficiency, or alien to equality but instead helps civil servants judge whether a certain action is just under the values of the regime. While certain forms of liberalism also involve a separation between the “right” and the “good,” the claims of constitutionalism are not nearly as broad: liberalism’s claims about the priority of “right” over the “good” tend to make the “right” a new overarching “good.” Constitutionalism, on the other hand, puts the question of good to the side without thereby necessitating that the “right” (regime values) must therefore be inherently superior.2

Republicanism Related to constitutionalism is the broad tradition usually called republicanism. Both constitutionalism and republicanism place special emphasis on the regime values of the society in which a civil servant operates. However, while constitutionalism views regime values in the limited circumstances of norms for public administrators, republicanism tends to emphasize the good of following regime values broadly throughout a society. While one could trace the origins of the republican tradition to the days of the Roman Republic, contemporary discussions of republicanism usually focus upon the period of the Renaissance and its own imaginative revision of the Roman era. Major thinkers of the republican tradition include Niccolò Machiavelli (1970; cf. Viroli 1998; Pocock 1975) and could include Francesco Guicciardini (1969, 1994), Montesquieu ([1748] 1989), and James Harrington (1992). Indeed one could include various important figures in the early or founding decades of the United States, such as Alexander Hamilton (2001), Thomas Jefferson (1999), and Daniel Webster (2001), as republican thinkers. In recent times, Hannah Arendt (in some of her works; cf. Arendt 1958, 1972) and Richard Dagger (1997) present arguments in favor of republicanism. A key element of republicanism is the goodness of political life itself. Rather than viewing political interaction as merely a means to an end, as in, for instance, liberalism, or as a necessary evil in order to combat the natural evil in human beings, as in the work of Hobbes or some portions of the Christian tradition, republicans argue that an active political life is necessary for a fully human existence.

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Politics, therefore, is an essential part of the good life and leads the individual toward a form of immortality. As Arendt explains, It is the publicity of the public realm which can absorb and make shine through the centuries whatever men may want to save from the natural ruin of time. Through many ages before us—but now not any more—men entered the public realm because they wanted something of their own or something they had in common with others to be more permanent than their earthly lives. (1958, 55)

The public, political life provides human beings with the opportunity to “leave a mark” on their society long after they are gone, 3 and thus also provides a sense of meaning that would otherwise be lost in the bustle of daily life. More to the point, republicanism advocates a strong identification between individual citizen and republic, and thus an even stronger sense of identity for those actually serving the state. Aligning one’s own moral system to that of the state, then, is not merely a professional exercise but a duty of all citizens and civil servants. The type of dedication to the state that republicanism can inspire is best exemplified in the well-known axiom of Horace, Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori (“it is beautiful and proper to die for one’s country”).4 In relation to constitutionalism, republican thinkers focus specifically on the values of the regime. However, republicans are much more likely to emphasize ambiguous notions of the state’s “way of being” than the more basic law-minded constitutionalists. In other words, while constitutionalists mostly focus on the written constitution, legislation, and regulations of a given society, republicans will also stress the “native” attributes of their society. Examples of these types of “native” attributes could include “rugged individualism” (in the American case), “stiff upper-lip stoicism” (for the British). For republicans, relevant normative features are not limited to the laws of the state but rather to the “nature” of the nation’s culture itself. Machiavelli’s discussion of corruption helps us see this connection: . . . [J]ust as for the maintenance of good customs laws are required, so if laws are to be observed, there is a need of good customs. Furthermore, institutions and laws made in the early days of a republic when men were good, no longer serve their purpose

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when men have become bad. And, if by any chance the laws of the state are changed, there will never, or but rarely, be a change in its institutions. The result is that new laws are ineffectual, because the institutions, which remain constant, corrupt them. (Machiavelli 1970, 160–61 [I.18])

While one could see his emphasis on corruption and distinction between “good” and “bad” as a connection to a universal ethic, Machiavelli instead reveals one of the implicit elements within the republican tradition. Specifically, republican ethics often blur into a form of state-maintaining prudence. As Machiavelli also mentions, “But the worst thing about weak republics is that they are irresolute, so that all the choices they make, they are forced to make: and, if they should happen to do the right thing, it is force, not their own good sense, that makes them do it” (Machiavelli 1970, 206 [I.38]). Prudence, in this sense, is state preservation, in that a good action is the one that maintains or strengthens the state, while a bad action is one that harms it. While few republican thinkers take this instrumental ethic to the extent of Machiavelli5—instead emphasizing the elements of freedom and equality that republican citizenship brings—most put special emphasis on the necessity of statesmen and, presumably, civil servants (administrative statesmen in Storing’s terms) to maintain the state. In working to maintain the state, under the republican view, citizens can become virtuous, and thereby live the fullest human life possible. Similar to the constitutionalist tradition, the ethics of republicanism are specific to the regime type of the state. One major difference between them, however, is the relation of regime ethics to universal ethics: while the constitutionalists argue that regime values are contingent, and thus may or may not be in line with broader notions of universal ethics, republicans are much more willing to unite regime values with values in and of themselves.6 As mentioned above, republican writers attach great significance to the political life as a means toward individual fulfillment, and that membership in the republic grants a type of equality and freedom not found outside this political framework. Defending the republic, therefore, becomes necessary in order to protect a truly free and, as a result, virtuous life. It is not surprising, therefore, that linkages appear between republicanism and forms of political realism

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(or even realpolitik) in its understanding of foreign affairs (cf. Meinecke 1998). There are three reasons why constitutionalist ethics would find a following among republican-minded thinkers. First, republican thinkers tend to link the type of regime itself with a substantive notion of human good. As a result, the interest in regime values naturally follows. Second, many of the republican authors can trace their earlier influences to several of the Roman orators, most especially Cicero. Given that Cicero’s discussions of duty and honor often focused upon their particular application to the constitution and governance of Rome (Cicero [44 B.C.E.] 1991), later republican thinkers would tend to follow his example of elaborating ethical norms in terms of the regime type under which one lives. Finally, republican and constitutionalist thinkers agree, among themselves and with Aristotle, that a human being’s individual constitution arises (weakly) dependent upon the particular regime type and laws under which she lives. As a result, the norms that shape the society and its citizens should even more shape the ethics of those officials responsible for representing and serving the state.

Constitutionalism versus Communitarianism Although often seen in unison, constitutionalism and communitarianism are two distinct modes of ethical thought. To use the terminology of the well-known communitarian Charles Taylor, . . . [T]he social thesis requires us to abandon liberal neutrality, for a neutral state cannot adequately protect the social environment for self-determination. The social thesis tells us that the capacity to choose a conception of the good can only be exercised in a particular sort of community, and, Taylor argues, this sort of community can only be sustained by a politics of the common good. In other words, some limits on self-determination are required to preserve the social conditions which enable self-determination. (Kymlicka 1990, 216)

Many communitarians agree with the general liberal premise that self-determination is a key good in human life but emphasize that certain limitations to liberal autonomy are necessary in order to preserve the autonomy of the citizen. Specifically, the various forms

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of communitarianism tend to require both more and less of public officials than constitutionalism. Communitarianism requires more in that it emphasizes the importance of governmental action as an extension of the values of the society to the point that the distinctions among the administrative, the political, and the societal spheres tend to blur. But, communitarians also requires less in that some versions, especially those of Michael J. Sandel and Michael Walzer, tend to merely add a “community focus” to already existent ethical theories of liberalism and social democracy, respectively.7 A comparison of constitutionalism and communitarianism will help clarify the differences. In Sandel’s political system of ethics (1996), communitarianism serves as a type of addition to liberalism rather than a unique system itself (in this way, similar to Kymlicka 1995). Distinguishing between liberalism and his own views,8 Sandel writes, Instead of defining rights according to principles that are neutral among conceptions of the good, republican theory interprets rights in the light of a particular conception of the good society— the self-governing republic. . . . On the republican view, liberty is understood as a consequence of self-government. I am free insofar as I am a member of a political community that controls its own fate, and a participant in the decisions that governs its affairs. (1996, 25, 26)

While similar in some regards to the republican tradition, Sandel’s communitarianism exhibits some major differences, in particular that Sandel appears to want a more “civic-minded liberalism” rather than necessarily something completely different. For Sandel, the liberal ends of autonomy and equality remain the primary measures, with the limitations brought about by the community’s customs merely serving as a constraining element to liberalism, not a replacement ethic. Yet, Sandel’s notion of “community” tends to be so elusive as to make the constraints arbitrary. Rather than replacing the ethical norms of autonomy and equality with some form of regime values, Sandel instead uses communitarianism as a constraint on universalist liberalism. An example is the enforcement of community norms of decency: Sandel’s communitarianism effectively becomes an addition to liberalism, where the community’s norms can act as a “break” on autonomy (say, of pornographers)

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rather than presenting these community norms as something theoretically separate from, or superior to, liberalism. Walzer’s system, on the other hand, thrives on its lack of foundation. As he states at the beginning of his Just and Unjust Wars, I am not going to expound morality from the ground up. Were I to begin with the foundations, I would probably never get beyond them; in any case, I am by no means sure what the foundations are. The substructure of the ethical world is a matter of deep and apparently unending controversy. Meanwhile, however, we are living in the superstructure. . . . For the moment, at least, practical morality is detached from its foundations, and we must act as if that separation were a possible (since it is an actual) condition of moral life. (1977, xv)

In unison with constitutionalism, Walzer’s communitarianism does not require a thick philosophical foundation. However, while constitutionalism requires a strong understanding of the underlying norms of a particular regime, Walzer instead focuses upon the more amorphous ground of “shared meanings” (Walzer 1983). Although Walzer’s ethical arguments are communitarian in name, in practice the “shared meanings” he identifies tend always to reflect a social democratic notion of society, regardless of the society in question. Specifically, he states, To argue against dominance and its accompanying inequalities, it is only necessary to attend to the goods at stake and to the shared understandings of these goods. When philosophers do this, when they write out of a respect for the understandings they share with their fellow citizens, they pursue justice justly, and they reinforce the common pursuit. (1983, 320)

As Walzer discusses his form of communitarianism, it appears that he means “community” as a generic type, theoretically capable of requiring the same (social democratic) norms regardless of the specific regime, history, or context of any given society. Obviously, this notion of community differs strongly from the more context-based system of norms found in constitutionalism. Finally, we will briefly discuss the type of discursive communitarianism exemplified by Alasdair MacIntyre. Unlike the views of Sandel or Walzer, MacIntyre’s argument is a foundational assault

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on liberalism and indeed much of modernity itself. Specifically, MacIntyre contends against the rise of “intuitionism” in modern philosophy—political and otherwise—believing that contemporary intuitionist moral discourse lacks any real basis upon which to make ethical judgments. What is lacking, according to MacIntyre, is a continuity of moral language that would give “good” and “bad” any moral sense. As modern philosophy lost its moral language, instead relying on “intuitions” or thought experiments, the West decayed into a comparative moral “dark age.” Rather than calling for a focus on regime values or republican virtue, MacIntyre’s argument requires a moral reawakening or, perhaps, the creation of moral discursive enclaves separated from contemporary society itself. Although history and customs may have a place in MacIntyre’s philosophy, most important are the continuity and meaning of community narratives. As MacIntyre writes, If the narrative of our individual and social lives is to continue intelligibly—and either type of narrative may lapse into unintelligibility—it is always both the case that there are constraints on how the story can continue and that within those constraints there are indefinitely many ways that it can continue. (1984, 216, emphasis removed)

When attempting to discover the ethically right choice, therefore, which rationality becomes the main issue (MacIntyre 1988). While MacIntyre’s argument for discursive-based morality is a powerful one, he would not be willing to leave morality merely to “regime values,” nor would he be comfortable with a republican ethic not founded on a strong and coherent moral language.9

Applications of the Tradition to Public Service While discussing the ethical importance of constitutionalism in the broad sense is straightforward, analyzing the specific requirements of a constitutionalist ethic for civil servants is much more difficult. As constitutionalism bases its ethic from the particular legal traditions, history, and morals of a particular culture, the particular ethical actions required of public administrators will depend heavily upon which regime under which they work. Unlike the communitarianism of Sandel and Walzer, where certain a priori ethical

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standards are easily available, constitutionalism requires a context. There cannot be a constitutionalist ethics in a vacuum, but rather a constitutionalist ethics of the United States, or France, or Kenya, and so on.

Equality, Expertise, Efficiency, Efficacy, and Economy As mentioned above, the specific value (or lack thereof) of any of the Five E’s is dependent upon the particular regime values of the state and society in which the civil servant operates. In the most radical cases, ethically good actions in one regime would be ethically repugnant actions in another. The common thread for all of the regimes, however, is loyalty to the constitution/regime. As an official in the apparatus of public administration, a civil servant aligns herself to the values of the specific constitutional regime, even if not to the particular administration or political party currently in office. Constitutionalism therefore provides a type of “metaethics” that directs government officials to line up their administrative ethics along the lines of their particular constitution rather than offering particular a priori rules for civil servants to follow. Implicit within constitutionalism is a moral directive toward expertise, although this expertise is of a more historical and normative, rather than scientific or technical, type. Specifically, constitutionalism requires administrators to better acquaint themselves with the constitutional norms of their society and state. Such expertise does not require formal intensive training such as extensive postgraduate historical training or some form of legal training, for instance, but does insist upon a greater than average familiarity with constitutional legal principles, history, and ideas. It is by gaining this expertise that civil servants can access the normative resources the constitutional order provides and the regulatory ethics expected of the regime’s officials. For a republican ethics, on the other hand, certain of the Five E’s have specific content. For instance, efficacy is a major concern for public administrators in a republic, at least in terms of ensuring the continued maintenance of the state. However important efficiency may be though, there is one element—equality—that has pride of place in the republican tradition. The central notion of citizenship in republicanism denotes equality among members of the political

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community, and this equality brings with it the requirements of freedom and dignity to the republic’s members. Civil servants in a republic should therefore treat all citizens as equals: this equality extends to the civil servant himself, in that the public administration is as much a citizen as his client, and no more so than the client citizens. It must be stressed that this equality pertains to citizens (however defined), not to residents, of the republic. There is a strict distinction between citizen and noncitizen within the republican framework: equality among citizens, inequality between citizen and others. As a result, civil servants should not treat noncitizens in the same way as they would citizens, as administrators would thereby be treating nonequals equally. In a republic, therefore, one must be clear about who counts as a citizen and who does not.10 In terms of global governance, the distinction between constitutionalism and republicanism is of particular importance. While constitutionalist ethics for civil servants could vary according to the regime values of a globalized civil society, it is much more difficult to envision a similar process with republican-inspired ethics, short of the development of a full-blown world government. However, even in such a situation, it is unlikely that republicans would easily separate themselves from the regime values of their particular societies, and traditionally republicanism has often intermingled with a realist view of international affairs.

Coda: Ethics and Administrative Law A reasonably competent public official should know the rules governing his conduct. —Harlow v. Fitzgerald (1982, 819, in Rosenbloom 2003, 54)

With the notable exception of some nations of the Far East,11 many nations have an administrative law tradition that augments the constitution and supervises administrative practice. Within the texts of “Administrative Procedures Act[s],” within the powers of the office of the ombudsman, or deriving from the decisions of administrative law or “redress of grievance” courts, the actions of public agencies are schooled by external (often legislative or judiciary) bodies. Certainly, oversight of public administrators is a necessary component of all constitutional, democratic, or republican governments, just as certain as is the need for oversight of legislators or judges. Yet,

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with the multitude of administrative oversight committees, administrative laws and administrative law courts all seeking to harness the power of administration, the question arises, oversight to what ends? In this brief section, we discuss the general ethical principles that administrative laws seek to uphold in the context of constitutional regimes. As described earlier in the chapter, the ethics of a constitutional republic are those values enshrined in the living constitution itself. Further, constitutions being those documents enumerating the rights and obligations of citizens, we can say that administrative laws and procedures that augment constitutional statements and rules similarly protect and enforce the rights and obligations of citizens. Many scholars draw parallels between constitutions and machines, organisms, or (civic) religions (Kammen 2007, 56–58). The ethics of the constitution, like an ethic borne of a religious movement, have a quasi-natural and quasi-scriptural basis. They appear natural due to the simplicity of the autonomic checks and balances between the branches. And, in a way also similar to a text-based religion, the ethics of a constitution are the subject of considerable later elaborations and further documentation, in this case administrative law. Though perhaps only obliquely in some national contexts, we can view administrative law as like a secondary exegesis upon the constitution, similar to an evolving catechism, decided upon by the preeminent, faithful scholars and judges of the time. What this catechism teaches civil servants, at least in the modal tradition of constitutions in Western nations, is the preservation of equality, efficiency, and efficacy.12

Equality Within representative polities, ensuring the equality of voice is a key matter of procedural and substantive import, whether in the case of executive selection or judicial decision making. This is little different in the case of administrative law. All members of the polity ought to enjoy substantive and procedural equality before the court of administrative practice. In order to protect procedural and substantive equality, administrative law and its institutional expression (e.g., administrative law courts, ombudspersons, and administrative counsels) ought to preserve individual rights of due

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process and equal protection, two clauses common to many national constitutions. Following the constitutional premise of equal protection, all must have the same opportunity to have their rights protected, whether in the legislative arena or the administrative office. Preserving the equal status of individual clients or customers seeking administrative services is a difficult matter of both interpretation and implementation. As public administration scholars and constitutional lawyers point out, legislators often abjure their responsibility of drafting extensive legislation in favor of allowing administrators to “fill in the gaps.” This delegation of legislative interpretive authority to administrators constitutes, in the opinion of some, a dereliction of legislative duty. To others, this is merely a matter of prudence emanating from the complexity of administration in a modern state; overspecifying rules and procedures leads to inequalities not foreseen in the legislative chambers. Beyond interpretation, though, public administrators must also implement vaguely specified laws. Thus, questions of the extent of due process and equal protection arise: How equal is equal? Where do processes end? Although administrators may do their utmost to ensure equal provision of goods and services to all customers based upon the broadly liberal principle of individual moral equality, in recent history particular policy programs have dictated that resources and services be unequally applied, often in order to rectify historical injustices. In this way, administrators must take the full reigns harnessing the value of equality and equal protection. Through interpretation of authorizing legislation and interpretation of resource allocations, administrators’ choices make the constitutional imperative to equality an action plan that emboldens equality or foments inequality. Most importantly though, upholding the value of equal protection for all citizens is a primary business for those officials charged with administrative rule-making and administrative law interpretation. As Rosenbloom describes it, Contemporary equal protection interpretation constrains administrative behavior with respect to clients and customers in a range of circumstances. Most obviously, it prohibits racial and ethnic discrimination in public education, housing, welfare,

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health, recreation, occupational licensing, and other programs, except where the government can meet the compelling governmental interest and narrow tailoring tests under strict judicial scrutiny. Invidious discrimination is likely to be justified, if ever, under only the most extraordinary of circumstances. Benign or remedial racial and ethnic classifications, as in affirmative action and minority business set-asides, face the same test, but it is plausible that some may serve a compelling governmental interest in a narrowly tailored fashion. (2003, 41)

Augmenting the equal protection standard is the procedural due process requirement. (We need to reflect only on the arbitrariness of application of equal protections in contemporary or historical police states to understand that such protections mean little if the procedures to uphold them are delivered capriciously.) Administrative or procedural due process requirements demand that those who are eligible for government benefits or services receive adequate notification of their (in)eligibility, the space and time necessary to appeal the decision, a hearing by an impartial adjudicator, adequate representation in proceedings related to the termination or resumption of eligibility, and a clearly worded articulation of the final decision (Rosenbloom 2003, 98). Combined with the equal protection clause, standards of administrative due process ensure the equality of possibility for citizens to gain an audience and service from the state, something required under the auspices of the constitution. In the United States (and Australia, Germany, Sweden, Argentina, Georgia, and Korea, to name a few) the Administrative Procedures Act (or its equivalent) ensures the achievement of due process in ex ante administrative rule-making (Bertelli 2005, 151n7). Though administrative law courts check the application of administrative power in the ex post context of agency rules and practices,13 administrative rule-making procedures ensure equal protection in an ex ante fashion. The intention of administrative rule-making procedures is to ensure equality of access to the bodies that make laws potentially impinging upon the freedoms of interested or potentially interested individuals. In the course of administrative rule-making, the constitutional rights to equal protection, due process, and the historical-philosophical value of equality are preserved. Under the aegis of administrative procedures acts, regulations ensure that

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all who wish to challenge the rules or policy of an administrative agency have an equal opportunity to do so. In some cases, citizens may challenge the procedures before they go into practice. Following an idealized model of legislation the administrative rulemaking procedures allows citizens to challenge the articulations of administrators on the grounds that they are unfair, unreasonable, incorrect, incomprehensible, inflexible, risky, or irrelevant (see U.S. Executive Order 12866; Rosenbloom 2003, 63). The expansiveness of the grounds upon which administrative rules can be challenged is eclipsed only by the scope available to interested citizens for redress in rule-making. Rosenbloom (2003, 65–71) summarizes the various methods that are used in administrative rule-making, including limited, informal, formal, hybrid, and negotiated. Emphasizing most elegantly the ethics of administrative procedure, informal or “notice-and-comment” rule making requires that administrative agencies give significant space to citizens whose interests may be contravened by a particular rule. The space available to interested citizens is created by the following requirements: (1) formal publication and dissemination of the proposed rule itself and information on hearings, terms, and laws pertinent to the rule, (2) opportunity for comment on the proposed rules using various media, (3) considered answers to the citizen comments, (4) minimum period of time for compliance with the rules, and (5) opportunity to petition for modification or repeal of the rule (Rosenbloom 2003, 66). The important ethical requirements embodied in administrative rule-making procedures include transparency and equality of access to the rule-making process. Particularly concerning the requirement that citizens’ comments upon the published rules be accepted by the agency and commented upon, the opportunity for multiple media (written or oral presentations) gives citizens direct access to the quasi-legislative process of administrative rulemaking. Though citizens’ connections with a particular agency can have an inside track in the rule-making process, the formal requirements of rule-making also offer citizens without these connections opportunities to be heard as well. Specifically, all citizens, regardless of their position in relation to agency personnel, can make reasonable requests for agency documents or records and may, providing the cost is reasonable, receive those documents within a statutory period. Information, one of the most critical resources available to

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citizens seeking government services, is available on a relatively egalitarian basis.

Efficiency Equality of access and opportunity, though, come at a cost to efficiency. “Notice-and-comment” (informal) rule-making and formal (public hearing) rule-making involve high costs to both administrative agencies and interested citizens. Specifically, research, contest, and adjudication carry high transaction costs for both sides. Efforts to reduce these costs, such as with the adoption of negotiated rulemaking (regulatory negotiation or reg-neg) or the increased reliance on federal advisory committees, do seemingly reduce the costs to either side of rule-making, but this is not always evident, particularly if the costs are aggregated over policy areas. Securing efficient compliance with laws and administrative rules is a matter of some controversy in the public administration literature. Beginning with the question “what is efficient compliance?” we might ask what values are enforced by the rulemaking process. Efforts to create efficient notice-and-comment procedures, whether through e-government or abbreviated noticeand-comment periods, are hampered by the requirements for increased transparency and the complexity of administrative rules to begin with. As Rosenbloom points out, efforts to engage in adjudication of challenges to employee benefits and complaints of federal employees on matters of discrimination may take years to settle. The challenge of efficiency in administrative law, it seems, is how to negotiate the trade-offs among transparency of information, openness (but security of privacy rights) of input channels, constitutionality and perceived fairness of outputs, and costs to agencies, litigants, and the supporting taxpayers. Yet, in terms of the overall, Pareto efficiency of the system, it seems that few other arrangements could benefit all without making any one member of the policy worse off.

Efficacy The imperative to create an equalitarian administration that abides by the principles of equality and seeks to achieve efficiency is, in some ways, subservient to the grander end of creating a governmental

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system that is efficacious in the eyes of its citizen observers. In earlier chapters, we described efficacy as taking four forms—clientside, provider-side, political, and administrative. Administrative law and procedure seeks to create a set of principles whereby the problems solved by administrators are those specifically desired by the clients. Administrative rule-making procedures and administrative law courts are designed to ensure that administrators do not overstep their claim to resources needed to solve problems, create problems where clients perceive there are none, or articulate rules that undermine the ability of citizens to perform their duties and fulfill their responsibilities to themselves, their family, or the state. The high costs to efficiency of rule-making may be recouped if viewed over the long duration or as part of the continued project of increasing efficacy and legitimacy in constitutional governments. One consequence of procedures encouraging dissemination of information and participation within administrative rule-making is that difficulties that may inhibit citizen compliance are aired prior to the issuance of final rules. Further, given the opportunity to amend rules prior to implementation, citizens may (though this is an empirical point on which systematic data seem not to be available) limit challenges to procedures in the court system.

Recommended Readings Anderson, Benedict. 1991. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and the Spread of Nationalism. Rev. ed. London: Verso. Bellah, Robert N., R. Madsen, W. R. Sullivan, A. Swidler, and S. M. Tipton. 1985. Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life. New York: Harper and Row. Pocock, J. G. A. 1989. Politics, Language, and Time: Essays on Political Thought and History. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Rohr, John A. 1998. Public Service, Ethics, and Constitutional Practice. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas. Sandel, Michael J. 1998. Liberalism and the Limits of Justice. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Chapter 9

Ethics in the Christian Tradition

P

erhaps one of the most difficult traditions to assess is one that is most familiar to so many in the West: the Christian tradition. Indeed, one cannot understand fully Western history without some knowledge of the Christian theological and ecclesiological controversies that span over 1900 years.1 The tradition is one of constant contestation—even though the main categories of Christians (Catholics, Protestants, and the Orthodox) agree on the basic books of the New Testament, what the words of Jesus Christ, Paul, or others signify has been debated since Christianity began in the ancient Roman Empire. These disputes are not only limited to the theological,2 liturgical,3 or ecclesiastical elements of the tradition, but also touch on issues of ethics and politics. Indeed, few lines have influenced political arrangements in the West as much as has Matthew 22:21: “[R]ender therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s; and unto God the things that are God’s.”4 Whether looking at the Christian tradition at the beginning of the second century or the beginning of the twenty-first century, the questions of Christian ethics in relation to the political sphere remain highly relevant. Since the legalization and then practical establishment of Christianity by the Roman Emperor Constantine in 312 to 337 C.E., the interaction between the obligations of state and the requirements of religion have been an ongoing source of tension and creativity for 195

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Western political ethics. Yet, we ask here, what does it mean ethically speaking to be a Christian in the modern world? Compared to the pantheistic civic religions of Greece and Rome, Christianity has proven itself more difficult to reconcile politically. Specifically, the scriptural recommendation for separation between the religious and the political, rather than a strict unity of the two, forces the problems of hierarchy and reconciliation to the forefront of political debate.5 How to reconcile the duality indicated in Matthew 22:21 (and other passages, such as John 17:16 and Romans 13:1-7) to ensure that both the political and the religious receive their due is a primary problem of Western political ethics. Throughout the centuries, multiple answers to this question have come forth, some resolving the issue for God, others for Caesar. The resolution of this duality bleeds into the definition and conduct of responsibilities of both ordinary citizens and Christian state officers. There is no shortage of answers provided by the Christian tradition. Often, these answers reflect the duality of the problem: Augustine’s “Two Cities” in the early fifth century, the “Two Swords” of Pope Gelasius in the late fifth century, and Martin Luther’s “Two Kingdoms”6 in the early sixteenth century all answer this question through recourse to a binary view of the two spheres. Other perspectives in Christianity make use of other traditions in the quest to formulate answers. Examples include the integration of Aristotelianism by Thomas Aquinas and later Scholastics, the mixing of Catholic doctrine and Marxism in liberation theology, and the assimilation of “narrative ethics” by Methodist theologian Stanley Hauerwas. In many and varied forms, thinkers in the Christian tradition have blended the heavenly and the earthly in order to establish a workable system of individual and group conduct for its earth-bound members. The development of such systems constitutes the core of the Christian ethical tradition. In this chapter, we will focus on contemporary discussions in the Christian tradition, especially of the last one hundred years. We do so for three reasons. First, an extended application of Christian ethics to modern public administration, starting from the first century C.E. until the present, requires more extended analysis than can be given here.7 Moreover, such an overview would require discussing issues of historical importance, but little contemporary

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interest (e.g., the relation of Christian civil servants within officially pagan Rome).8 Second, a full consideration of the relevant traditions (Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox) would entail an involved explanation of church history, covering the Roman Empire, medieval Europe, the Byzantine Empire, tsarist Russia, and various other locations and times, which would again take this chapter beyond its space and focus. Third, the increased secularization of the state itself has made some of the earlier arguments in the Christian tradition less practicable today. In earlier centuries, the Christian ethical tradition focused upon the requirements that applied to Christian rulers or officials within a Christian empire, republic, or state. While the state was not the church, many writers (such as John of Paris, Thomas Aquinas, and Dante) began from the assumption that the leaders in question operated within a Christian context and culture. Especially since the French Revolution and the various changes in the relation between religion and politics in the ensuing centuries, this assumption is no longer broadly applicable. Rather, the Christian tradition faces new situations of plurality, such as in post-Christian France, the secular state of America that also has a religious population, or Christian/Muslim tensions in the public square (e.g., found in Nigeria). As such, the Christian tradition as it applies today becomes clearer if we look at authors who are more contemporary. Since the Christian tradition is broad, some branches of this tradition will be considered in other chapters, or must be left to the side. Some other branches of Christianity, such as the official and samizdat positions of Russian Orthodox writers on administrative ethics during the existence of the Soviet Union, are left to the side for now in favor of further discussion in later chapters. Finally, this chapter will not attempt to assess which branch of the Christian tradition is the most authentic. Such a concern is a proper issue for theological research but not for our text. However, we will tend to focus upon those writers and schools of thought that are generally admitted to being “Christian,” be it so broadly. As such, recent writers focusing upon “Gnostic” Christianity, including Elaine Pagels and others, will not be included in our discussion. Similarly, given the relative youth and controversial position of Mormonism among Christian commentators, we will leave consideration of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to the side as well.

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Christian Religion and Politics Especially in the global West, a major contemporary concern is how the Christian ethical tradition interacts with secular ethics. Or, in other words, at what point can a political or civil service officer allow his religious ethics to influence his secular duties?9 This issue becomes more complicated in the West because of the long influence of Christianity on the political sphere. While the “political theology” in the West need not resemble that discussed by Carl Schmitt ([1934] 1985),10 it is reasonable to acknowledge that theological concepts and traditions influenced the development of Western political ethics and institutions (cf. Kantorowicz [1957] 1997). Working within these institutions, various thinkers have argued that religiously informed ethical considerations do have a place in the explicitly political sphere of governance (Wallis 2000; Neuhaus 1984). But within the civil service itself, the place of Christian ethics becomes more problematic. Some Christian thinkers attempted to align the imperatives of Christian ethics with other traditions not based on religious revelation, though their success has come in various degrees. As a comparison, consider the views of Walter Rauschenbusch, the major thinker of the Social Gospel movement, and Reinhold Niebuhr, the Christian realist and ardent critic of the Social Gospel movement. Both of these Christian ethicists believed the main issue of their time was the “social crisis,” specifically the inequalities of wealth between rich and poor. For Rauschenbusch, the argument to change radically the economic conditions of the world came from emphatically religious sources and was found within the Gospels themselves. As such, he explicates how the ministry of Jesus was primarily focused on social and collective change rather than on individualist salvation (Rauschenbusch [1907] 1967, 533–37). While Niebuhr also believed that an economic crisis requiring a more “rational” system was coming, he did not focus as explicitly on the religious element. Indeed, three chapters of his popular Moral Man and Immoral Society are dedicated to a more Marxian-style class analysis, rarely referencing religion or Christian ethics at all (Niebuhr [1932] 1960, 113–99). Other Christian ethicists attempted to find a middle ground between revelatory and secular reason through the natural law tradition. Perhaps the best example of such a thinker is Fr. John

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Courtney Murray (1960). Under this view, usually broadly associated with St. Thomas Aquinas (cf. Aquinas 1948), faith and reason are not in conflict, but rather both come from God and lend themselves toward the same ends. However, our knowledge gained through both is limited (cf. John Paul II 1998). One of the results of this view is that, in aiming for the good, revelation and “natural reason” can reach similar conclusions on practical matters, such as administrative ethics. As Murray explains, while Christian and secular ethics can work together, there must be some caution. The church can give guidance in ethics, but not the same type of certainty with which the church preaches doctrine: True religion and profound humaneness, [the Church] says, are not rivals but sisters, who have nothing to fear from each other but everything to gain. This is a very firm assertion. On the other hand, the Church is prudent, even cautious, in the area of practice. Her concrete counsels to her children have not the same confidence as her doctrinal statements; they are touched with an accent of warning, even fear. She boldly urges the truth; she carefully guides action. (1960, 195)

For Murray, the Christian tradition and its natural law understanding provide access to the public square without necessarily requiring a religious state. Another Christian ethicist focusing on the natural law, but in a decidedly more neo-Thomist style, is Jacques Maritain. For Maritain, not only would a religiously informed natural law provide guidance in ethics, it would also help clarify our secular political concepts. In his Man and the State (1951), Maritain emphasizes the importance of natural law for understanding “nation,” “state,” “people,” and other political terms. Indeed, he goes on to argue that if one understands political concepts correctly, “sovereignty” has no place in the political lexicon.11 Maritain also emphasizes the importance of natural law to right action on the part of political officers. While he believed natural law could be known by unaided (i.e., nonrevelatory) reason alone, he also emphasized the importance of Christianity to right action. This view is foundationally different from recent “deontological” natural law theory, best explicated by John Finnis (1980) and Robert P. George (1999), which argues that explicit revelation is not necessary for understanding or following natural law.

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Maritain argues that individuals must live together in a political body in order to be fully actualized, in an Aristotelian sense. As the political sphere focuses on the common good, politics is a good both for the individual and for the social grouping as a whole. As such, for a civil servant, as for any other citizen, loyalty to one’s political community is not only reasonable, it is natural. Yet this loyalty should primarily be aimed at the political community itself. Specifically, Maritain argues that we should not equate the political realm with the state simpliciter. Rather, the state apparatus is merely a decision-making and enforcing body concerned with the common good; the state is not the whole of the society formed on the basis of the common good itself.12 Indeed, by putting too great an emphasis on the state as the sole political entity, Maritain argues that oppression and corruption will follow. Finally, some Christian ethicists have reached the conclusion that religious ethics must and should influence our decisions. An archetypal exemplar of this view would be that advocated by Stanley Hauerwas. By focusing on a narrative theory of ethics,13 borrowed from the work of Alasdair MacIntyre (1984), Hauerwas argues that Christian ethics cannot be subsumed into something broader. Indeed, ethics itself cannot be neutral in Hauerwas’ perspective: “[E]thics always requires an adjective or qualifier—such as, Jewish, Christian, Hindu, existentialist, pragmatic, utilitarian, humanist, medieval, modern . . .” (1983, 1). This qualifier is necessary because ethics occurs within a historical/social context. Because ethics must always be some type of ethics, a neutralized ethical universalism is both impossible and undesirable. For Hauerwas, abstract universalisms aiming at neutrality, such as the Kantian categorical imperative, are erroneous in that “pure reason” is also a narrative construction, though “pure reason” lacks this self-realization. Moreover, abstract universalism does not truly provide neutrality but merely hides the biases within the system of ethics itself. Instead, Hauerwas argues for explicitly non-neutral interactions: a Christian must witness to the state as a Christian, and the state, regardless of its claims to neutral action, will act toward its citizens according to the religious or cultural specific imperatives of its own system. As the above indicates, the arguments for the use of Christian ethics in the public sphere are diverse.14 But are there some consistencies among these thinkers on what Christian ethics requires,

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especially for the context of public administration? Rather than uniform agreement on ethical results, there is some commonality in terms of aims, categories, and major ethical quandaries. We will consider these areas below, beginning with the issue of equality.

Applications of the Tradition to Public Service Equality Nearly all branches of the Christian tradition acknowledge basic equality between persons. Specifically, each acknowledges that all human beings are sinners before God and in need of divine salvation. However, there is also a distinction between the saved and the damned.15 Most Christian ethical thought agrees that all who are Christians are equal before God, pointing out the words of Galatians 3:28: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.” But, while these two types of spiritual equality (all as sinners and among the saved) have general assent in the tradition, there has been considerable debate as to whether political, social, and/or economic types of equality are required. Does this equality require democracy, economic leveling, the creation of a world state with all humans as citizens, and so on? The problem of worldly equality presents two major issues for the Christian tradition: (1) in the saeculum (the period between the first and second comings of Christ), how much equality can be expected/demanded from an imperfect and fractured world? and (2) by what means (political and/or within the administrative apparatus, through the civil society, or through “witnessing”) can a Christian legitimately influence the public sector? For both of these issues, a key resource for many Christian ethicists is caritas, variously translated as “love” or “(Christian) charity.”16 Caritas is not sentimentality but rather a right ordering of one’s soul toward others and toward God. This right ordering is exemplified by the “Golden Rule” from Luke 6:31, “And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise,” as well as by the Sermon on the Mount, or the “Beatitudes,” in the fifth chapter of Matthew. For some Christian thinkers, caritas may require coercion or even death, such as in the just war tradition or for political officers17—for instance, Augustine would argue that a Christian emperor has not

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only the right but the duty to fight a just war should it be necessary, while also having caritas as his motivation. Since caritas is a matter of intention primarily, the good or bad of an act depends upon whether the intention of the act was caritas or cupiditas (worldly, or wrong, love). For the Christian civil servant, her guiding motivation should be caritas. While this focus on caritas is directed against more utilitarian or consequentialist arguments, it does not permit a complete absence of consideration of consequences, at least insofar as these actions touch on others. A civil servant who would not use her technical knowledge when directing a client, even if she was filled with caritas, will have acted at least partially wrongly. For instance, while a parole officer may have compassion for the parolee’s ardent and heartfelt wish to see his old friends (and gang members) again, the parole officer would be acting badly if she did not consider the likely negative results of letting the former felon go back to his old ways. During the last century, the main difficulty has been whether caritas should guide a public administrator in the individual case or more broadly, such as when drafting or amending public regulations. Thinkers such as Murray, Maritain, and perhaps Reinhold Niebuhr would emphasize the individual level, whereby one would treat clients individually and in an equal manner, thus “doing unto others” on a case-by-case basis. Others, specifically Rauschenbusch, John Howard Yoder, and Hauerwas, would focus on “doing unto others” on a collective, social level, usually through attempts to equalize classes or groups of individuals. For both types, caritas requires equal treatment, but they differ in the “level of analysis” used—individual or societal. Indeed, a civil servant wishing to follow Christian ethics will first have to determine which level of analysis for equality is more important before moving forward. Throughout the history of the Christian tradition, both levels have been present. So also in the contemporary era. Many of the issues of equality that divided earlier thinkers were no longer as relevant in the twentieth century (the acceptance of slavery, the position of hereditary nobles, or other “natural” types of social stratification), but new concerns came forward. In particular, social equality became a significant issue in the twentieth century. With the rise of socialism and Marxism (and later Marxism– Leninism), class-based controversies rose to prominence. So too arose issues of racial and sexual equality, followed by other

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movements toward equality based on socially constructed identities of some type. In terms of major movements, one could view the civil rights movement under the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in the United States and the Solidarity movement in Poland as examples of agitations for Christian notions of equality at the societal level, although these movements were heavily tempered by the individualist view as well. As such, much of Christian ethics today stands at a halfway point between equality as a societal issue and equality as an individual’s right to action. This is a position (presumably) shared by Christian public administrators, who must consider both levels in order to use a “balanced” notion of equality when interacting with clients. In this way, the contemporary Christian tradition represents a matter of balance and prudence between two types of equality, that of the individual soul and that of the society. For Christian public administrators, equality is a qualitative, not merely quantitative, ethical issue. A quantitative ethical view of equality would solely concentrate on either one level of analysis or another. For instance, a quantitative ethical view of equality would focus only on how as a class some socioeconomic group relates to some other class. A public administrator viewing equality only in this quantitative manner would indubitably make many unethical decisions by not considering the individual case, and vice versa. A Christian civil servant cannot treat an individual in a truly equal way unless she considers the socioeconomic class the individual inhabits, but likewise this civil servant cannot truly treat an individual with equality if she treats the client only as a mere extension of a socioeconomic class. Currently, the major division in terms of equality within the Christian tradition focuses upon when equality is required. Or, in other words, is a claim to equality valid or invalid in some case? While these conflicts often focus on the ends of life (e.g., abortion, euthanasia), a debate of more interest in public administration (in addition to explicitly legislative or legal contexts) focuses on categorization of minorities and/or other groups. The current appeals to gay rights, indigenous peoples’ rights, women’s rights, racial/ethnic group rights, and so forth usually have as their basis a notion of equality—the right to equal consideration and treatment. Whether this “equality” is a true equality, and required by caritas, has caused large debates within the Christian community. Is equality based on

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some type of identity, other than Christian identification itself, a valid measure for the Christian tradition? Of course, certain types of identity characteristics have long held a special place in terms of Christian equality, for instance the status of the poor, widows, and so forth. However, what of other identities, in particular those that are at odds with traditional understandings of Christian morality? The primary example here would be gay rights—what is the proper action of a Christian civil servant in terms of pressing and/or preserving equality for homosexual clients?18 Especially on these types of issues, where the churches themselves are in disagreement, the Christian public administrator is in some difficulty. Naturally, a primary source of information for such an official would be his own denomination (a Catholic civil servant would probably receive different advice than a Methodist one, for instance). But in terms of the broader Christian tradition, there are some guides to equality the civil servant can use. Under the natural law tradition in Christian ethics, it is not proper for civil servants (or other officers of the state) to abuse their positions: if the official is under legitimate orders to follow a certain notion of equality, under usual conditions, she should use that type of equality in official business. Acting against it would in fact be a violation of Christian ethics, in that one has gone against the system one has agreed (or even sworn) to uphold.19 Such a requirement of the natural law could lead to quietism, were it not for a second element. Under the Christian tradition, certain acts are barred and cannot be supported. The typical example is idolatry: a Christian may not give sacrifices to an idol, nor can he support such activities. In the case of the Roman army in the days before Constantine, soldiers had to do such a sacrifice. For Christians in the service, they had two choices: to refuse to do so, and suffer the consequences of this decision (martyrdom), or quit the service. For Christian civil servants today, the choice remains effectively the same: one must follow the dictates of Christianity and therefore either remove oneself from the position that requires immoral acts or refuse to commit the acts and suffer the consequences (e.g., firing, formal reprimand) without resistance. A legal/administrative issue that arises here is that while there may be a moral requirement to conscientiously object to some command, does this therefore require that the state, in its laws, allow for a conscientious objector exemption in its laws?20 For our purposes, we will

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not consider that here (but see Ramsey [1983] 2002). For most public servants, such dire situations do not arise; indeed, the technical issues faced by most civil servants do not present these types of issues. As commonly understood, what is required is expert technical knowledge that is value free. But do some notions of expertise violate the ethic of equality within the Christian tradition?

Expertise There are two types of expertise that could concern Christians employed as public servants: spiritual expertise and technical expertise. Spiritual expertise, especially as reflected in the priesthood and/or in monastic orders, is a long-standing area of dispute within Christianity, as reflected in the debates between Catholicism and various forms of Protestantism. Whether the issue is apostolic succession, the place of the papacy and/or of bishops, the powers of priests, or the adequacy of the monastic life, ecclesiastical arguments on these areas of spiritual expertise have occurred for centuries. But the situation is different when considering technical expertise. Except insofar as technical expertise is used as a rationalization for superseding moral or religious injunctions, the Christian tradition has been comparatively silent regarding skill. Indeed, generally there has been little discussion of expertise explicitly, rather than, as in the example of John of Salisbury’s twelfth-century work Policraticus, an argument against superfluous (and thus not actually expert) courtiers and the like (cf. John of Salisbury 1990). The ends to which expertise is used are of importance to many Christian ethicists. Maritain offers the distinction between the “technical rationalization” for politics and the “moral rationalization” as an expression of this difference. The “technical rationalization” is the position Maritain associates with Machiavelli: primarily concerned with maintaining or increasing state power, the focus is on those techniques that will further the aims of state power separate from any concern with the common good. In Maritain’s view, such a notion of politics must necessarily lead to corruption. As soon as state power is separated from concern for the common good/ moral consideration, the state and its agents grasp for ever more influence and illicit benefits. In terms of public administration, if civil servants lose themselves to the technical elements of their

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occupations while ignoring the needed moral considerations, abuses large and small will follow. Under this view, expertise is not immoral or problematic per se, but rather it is a matter of the intentions and ends upon which the expert acts. Caritas, once again, is necessary. For Maritain, a way to prevent corruption and the misuse of expertise is through the “moral rationalization” of politics. By focusing on the common good, as well as on the inherent dignity of the human person (usually associated with human rights), moral rationalization provides limits to the grasp of the state and of its agents. Certainly, the Christian tradition has much more to say on the topics of equality and expertise, but this overview gives, in broad strokes, the important points for public administration ethics. While the Christian tradition exhibits a great deal of diversity internally on what equality in practice means, these are of more interest in broadly social and political ethics. Now, however, we will discuss some other ethical issues for civil servants, some of which are underdeveloped (at least explicitly) in the Christian tradition.

Efficiency, Efficacy, and Economy While equality (and, in an indirect manner, expertise) has been a major concern of Christian ethicists from the beginning of Christianity to the present day, issues of efficiency, efficacy, and economy have been more muted. There are various reasons for this comparative lack of discussion. First, the focus of much of Christianity is on the individual’s soul, especially in the life after death. Moral action, and the motivation of caritas, therefore usually emphasized the individual qua individual acting rightly in day-to-day activities, without as much focus upon structural and collective changes in society itself.21 Second, as mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, there is a long-standing distinction within Christianity between the believer and “the world,” perhaps best summed up in words of Jesus: “They [the believers] do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to it” (John 17:16). So, for instance, St. Augustine would say that Christians are like pilgrims, walking through this life like wanderers (in the city of man), looking finally toward their home after death, the city of God. While such pilgrims do need to have some concern for the world and in some ways might make it better, there is a strong element of antiperfectionism within the Christian

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tradition: the earthly city can be improved, but it can never come close to the heavenly city.22 Third, the analytic separation of the believer from “the world,” combined with the explicitly proselytizing nature of Christianity, led to churches and theologians giving a sizeable amount of leeway to political authorities on issues not directly touching upon religious scruples. Therefore, Christian ethicists tended to ignore the style, structure, or main processes of the political sphere, except to extol public officials to follow the general moral principles (based in caritas) of generosity, mercy, and so forth. Certainly, Christian thinkers addressed the issues of politics and even of the best regime type (for instance, Thomas Aquinas’ defense of monarchy), but practical ethical rules on administrative issues not related directly to warfare were few. Some recent thinkers in the Christian tradition have attempted to address these issues, such as Hauerwas and Gustavo Gutiérrez, although such practical rules are still provisional at this point. In some ways, efficiency can be looked at as an extension of the “work ethic” in the manner described by Max Weber. An efficient worker would provide goods and services more quickly and cheaply than others. As an extension of the work ethic, the Christian tradition would have no real problem with efficiency per se. Indeed, there has been a long-standing debate regarding how the work ethic (and its later derivations) of some of the Protestant denominations helped bring about the development of capitalism in the West (Weber [1930] 1992). During the industrial revolution, and the latter expansion of capitalism throughout the West, there was no shortage of debate among Christian preachers, theologians, and others on the positive and negative elements of efficiency and the new style of economy (cf. Stackhouse 1991). William Jennings Bryan, Rauschenbusch, perhaps H. Richard Niebuhr (2001), and other Christian thinkers would question (indirectly) the benefits of “efficiency” in their attacks on the current economic and state systems. When efficiency is considered a value in itself, especially a highly ranked value rather than merely an instrumental one, contemporary Christian ethicists tend to be more skeptical. Perhaps one of the best contemporary examples of this concern comes from the Catholic Church’s focus on “subsidiarity,” defined in the Catechism of the Catholic Church as follows:

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A community of a higher order should not interfere in the internal life of a lower order, depriving the latter of its functions, but rather should support it in case of need and help to co-ordinate its activity with the activities of the rest of society, always with a view to the common good. (1994, 460 [1883])23

Under this view, certain types of government activity are barred. Indeed, subsidiarity so defined seems to indicate some type of devolution of centralized state power to smaller units. So, for instance, the Catechism uses the principle of subsidiarity to protect the “prerogatives” of family life against other social institutions (Catechism 1994, 533 [2209]). While not explicitly mentioning the virtue of efficiency, the principle of subsidiarity is implicitly critical of efficiency as a centralizing tendency. In terms of public administration, civil servants could not simply consider whether or not their department could more efficiently provide some type of service than a more localized or “lower order” of the state. Rather, the public administrators would first have to determine whether this service falls within the “internal life” of the more local (perhaps private) institution. For instance, consider the notion of “police powers” held (theoretically, at least) by the states in the United States of America.24 While a national criminal code (as an example) might be more efficient, the individual states themselves, as a matter of their “internal lives,” can create criminal codes generally as they see fit. A centralized version of the criminal code may be more efficient, but under the principle of subsidiarity, efficiency is not reason enough for a “higher” public institution to take on powers and/or responsibilities that can be handled (even if less efficiently) by lower, more localized bodies. Therefore, increased efficiency cannot itself serve as a moral reason for a more central public agency, or perhaps even any public agency at all, from taking on services by itself. Closely related to efficiency is efficacy. The Christian tradition contains some strong tensions as regards efficacy. On the one hand, the Christian tradition tends to be nonconsequentialist: that good intention, or oftentimes “love” or “charity,” is the primary concern over and above the concern for good outcomes (cf. Jeffreys 2004). Consider the focus on Christian character by Hauerwas, for instance. While focusing on divine power through human action, there is an

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expectation that “efficacy” in the usual sense does not apply in the true Christian context, especially in its nonviolent, pacifistic branch: It is not, therefore a blind or unwarranted faith that everything will work out in the end. On the contrary, it is a strong rational claim that our existence is bounded by a truth that will have its way with us as truth must—that is, by defeating the violent with the power of unrelenting love. God’s story cannot be defeated by our attempts to become the authors of this world’s narrative by employing violent means. . . . For there is a sense in which [Christians] must act faithful to the story regardless of the consequences. Let justice be done, let truth be told, do the right regardless of who is hurt or the tragedies caused, for that is what our God requires. But such an emphasis can become merely a formula for moral callousness and self-righteousness if it is divorced from the narrative context that makes it intelligible. For it is not simply a matter of “let justice be done” but the kind of justice and by whom and how it is done. It is not just a matter of “let the truth be told” but what truth is and how it is told in love. Yes, dying persons should know they are dying, but they should also be given assurance that they will not be abandoned by us in that truth. (Hauerwas 1983, 128)

In the very terms used by Hauerwas, “efficacy” focuses more on what and how justice/love/truth is communicated, but not necessarily in terms of quantitatively measurable outputs. The substantive intention involved in caritas is more important than specific outcomes, especially those that would be important to “the world.” Christian ethicists like Hauerwas would deny coercive measures, even if highly efficient or efficacious, as a way to achieve justice: “For true justice never comes through violence, nor can it be based on violence. It can only be based on truth, which has no need to resort to violence to secure its own existence” (1983, 114–15). This view presents various problems to civil servants. First, it is unlikely that a government agency could function without some analysis of its efficacy, regardless of its intentions. Second, as a branch of the state, it would seem that public administrators are by necessity implicated in the use of violence and coercion by their position. As such, under

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this interpretation, it would be impossible for a Christian to also be a civil servant (at least in any position that may explicitly or implicitly require violence or coercion). As J. H. Yoder posits, “Can a person simultaneously pull out the sword and ‘turn the other cheek’? The New Testament explicitly reckons with the incompatibility of these two functions” (2003, 27). But this radically nonconsequentialist perspective is not the only one in the Christian tradition. On the other hand, certain actions are demanded (such as the care of widows and orphans) that presumably cannot merely be left to consequentialism or recourse to good intention. Another Methodist ethicist, Paul Ramsey, argues that the Christian civil officer (or even just Christian citizen) must rather envision the world in its complicated nature: Protestantism has a more complicated understanding of God and man, and of man and man, at “cross-purposes.” The one meaning of the word sharpens our apprehension of the other. The political life of mankind goes under the sign of the cross in both senses. Our political responsibilities must be examined in the light of Christ, but also in the shadows revealed and cast by that light. For this reason, Christian vocation in politics cannot be reduced to “suffering as an alternative opponent of injustice.” ([1983] 2002, 260, emphasis in original)

In this way, Ramsey is suggesting the need to consider the results (at least to some degree) of one’s actions, in that the “political life of mankind” entails responsibilities to the perfect God but also our imperfect fellows. A disregard for these consequences, especially as seen in Yoder and Hauerwas, would be the height of political irresponsibility in this view. So, for instance, in critiquing pacifist thinker James Douglass (1968), Ramsey mockingly writes, Still it may be true that Christians should specialize in making justice, stopping proliferation [of nuclear weapons], etc., through suffering non-violence and by no type of resorts to armed force. Then we should stop advising citizens and statesmen concerning what they should do in their offices. Let everyone who believes as Douglass does call upon every son of the church to come out of the nation-state (and out of any future world political authority with enforcing power). Let them inform the consciences of statesmen

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in a position to do something politically about stopping nuclear proliferation that for Christ’s sake they ought not to do that, since this would involve them further in immoral deterrence, and in security arrangements that promise resort to war in a nuclear age. Let them call upon our fellow Christians to have nothing to do, or as little as possible to do, with any actual use of armed force or with the constant threat of it for the purpose of preventing or deterring war in any form—no matter what may be the calculable consequences of such a policy. Let every son of the Church, in fact, have nothing to do with any means of resisting evil (violently or non-violently), not even “suffering resistance” to injustice; let them rather specialize in overcoming evil with good and enemies with reconciliation, while other men to the end of history must needs do otherwise. ([1983] 2002, 263–64, emphasis in original)

If Christian ethics truly required a complete disregard for the “calculable consequences” of an act, Ramsey here maintains, it must also remove its political relevance. As statecraft must involve prudence and an understanding of costs, a simple renunciation of violence must make Christian ethics silent on issues of war, coercion, and indeed even the political response to evil itself.25 For Ramsey, this is an unnecessary, and unchristian, position. Rather, a Christian ethicist must consider what consequences will occur along with intention, and where intention and consequence (or Christian morality and state policy) might conflict (cf. Ramsey 1978 for issues in bioethics). As the dispute between Hauerwas and Ramsey shows, even those Christian ethicists working within the same denominational tradition can come to radically opposed views on the importance of efficacy (in its secular, political consequences). Given the diversity of the Christian tradition itself, these types of debates are typical of continuous conflicts between Christian thinkers on the interpretation and importance of various facets of moral life as it relates to the state. While there is no shortage of these divisions, at times this leads to lacunae within the tradition itself. In this regard, there is little uniquely Christian that the tradition offers in terms of the civil service virtue of economy (as we have defined it in this work). Certainly, given the repeated references to the condition of the poor,

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the Christian tradition and the imperative to economy may sit in a tense relation to one another. However, this issue usually focuses instead on types of economic systems, and their relation to equality (as mentioned above), and therefore is more a matter of whether a free-market system, a socialist system, or some other economic model is the most moral or Christian. On the issue of economy as an attempt to reach equilibrium, Christian commentary is more subdued, to the point of near nonexistence. It is not that Christian thinkers have no thoughts on economy per se. Rather, the discussion of theologians and ethicists on equilibrium primarily derives from earlier arguments involving other elements, equality primarily. As such, there is little in the Christian tradition that deals with economy in itself, rather than views on economy following from earlier conclusions on economic type, equality, and so forth.

Conclusion The Christian ethical tradition is a broad one, with the diversity of interpretations leading to a multiplicity of ethical requirements and guides, some of which are in tension, if not in opposition, to one another. This being the case, what does the Christian tradition add to our understanding of public administration ethics? Perhaps the primary addition is the focus on equality. While the various branches of the Christian tradition dispute what “equality” fully means, its importance is paramount in the vast majority of them. Moreover, the debates themselves over the concept help us to understand the complexity of equality as a concept itself and as an imperative for a public official. Also, the Christian tradition has shown itself malleable enough to engage in other forms of discourse than merely scriptural exegesis, be it by focusing on natural law, narrative ethics, phenomenology, or other religious traditions. As such, we can anticipate that future discussions of civil service ethics, regardless of whether the dominant discourse is liberal, republican, or some other system, will still have a decidedly Christian perspective waiting to make itself heard. Finally, the Christian tradition requires us to face the issue of conscience in public administration: what should one do when moral action and state policy collide? A famous example comes from England in the time of the Protestant Reformation. Thomas More,

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serving under Henry VIII, refused to submit to the laws establishing the Church of England (and also thereby legitimizing Henry’s divorce). The end result of More’s actions was his death by beheading. Before his execution, More supposedly said, “I die the King’s good servant . . . but God’s first.” The Christian tradition serves as a constant reminder of the importance of conscience, as well as its potential costs for the believer. In a globalized context, is it unthinkable that a Nigerian Thomas More, or Chinese Thomas More, might arise in the civil service? As Christianity increases in the global “South” (cf. Jenkins 2006), we can expect that public administrators will continue to grapple with the commands of Caesar and God.

Coda: Liberation Theology and Public Service One contemporary tradition of Christian ethics requires specific mention: liberation theology (Gutiérrez 1988). A mixture of Christian activist theology, Marxism, and policy preferences formed within the context of Latin America and the underdeveloped world, liberation theology presents a unique set of values for public administrators. Liberation theology is of particular importance because of its influence in “peripheral” regions such as Latin America, Africa, and (to a lesser degree) Asia. While there are many variations on what liberation theology entails, dependent upon which thinker and/or region one examines, there are some general traits of liberation theology that can be examined. First and foremost, liberation theology concerns itself with system-wide, social inequalities and forms of oppression within any given society. In particular, liberation theology emphasizes the “preferential option for the poor” (cf. Gutiérrez 1988, xxv–xxviii). This view, which is not limited to liberation theology, argues that the poor hold a unique and vitally important place in Christianity and that Christians—and their ethicists—must give a certain “pride of place” to considerations on poverty. In this regard, liberation theology and the theology of Hauerwas have striking similarities. However, while Hauerwas’ ethics begin from his central emphasis on pacifism (cf. Gray 2008), liberation theology begins from the consideration of the poor primarily. Moreover, liberation theology tends to use tools and methods that make it unique compared to other forms of Christian ethics.

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While other forms of Christian ethics also focus on these inequalities, liberation theology uses different methods to address these problems: specifically, it analyzes inequalities using the methodologies of Marxism and dependency theory. While recognizing the atheistic overtones of Marxist theory, liberation theologians argue that the methods of class analysis and examination of capitalism via Marxist lines do not require coming to a nontheistic conclusion. Using Marxist theory, under this view, need not be any more problematic for a Christian ethicist than using the tools of modern physical science or organizational theory, for instance: . . . [L]iberation theology uses Marxism purely as an instrument. It does not venerate it as it venerates the gospel. And it feels no need to account to social scientists for any use it may make—correct or otherwise—of Marxist terminology and ideas, though it does feel obligated to account to the poor, to their faith and hope, and to the ecclesial community, for such use. (Boff and Boff 1987, 28, emphasis in original)

Distancing themselves from the Marxism of “social scientists,” liberation theologians use Marxist methodology in potentially unorthodox ways. However, as Boff and Boff indicate, the action (praxis) orientation of liberation theology means that they are not necessarily concerned about the niceties of form as much as results in action. A particular point of interest to liberation theologians is how Marxist theory and dependency theory can help explain conditions and inequalities in the underdeveloped regions of the world, or the “peripheral” regions of the worldwide capitalistic order. In a manner similar to Marxists such as Rosa Luxemburg, V. I. Lenin, and Immanuel Wallerstein, liberation theologians argue that “peripheral” countries—specifically, places like Latin America, Africa, and Asia—are systematically disadvantaged by global capitalism, which keeps these regions in a constant state of poverty and oppression. But this systematic oppression does move the populations of these areas to question the reigning modes of thought and economics, leading them to a liberation that is not only individual but primarily economic and social. The major difference between the liberation theologians and the Marxists is that liberation theology emphasizes the role of religion, particularly lay movements and “street-level”

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religious activity, in bringing change. Moreover, liberation theologians believe that movements against capitalist oppression are not the result of mere calculation of economic movements,26 but rather that the “kingdom of God,” found in the poor and the helpless, emerges through actions leading to justice. Liberation theology can present some difficulties for the civil servant who wants to act ethically. As liberation theology aims toward system-wide change, the institutions that employ public administrators may be viewed as part of the problem itself. However, by directing one’s actions with a “preferential option for the poor,” a civil servant could act in ways that would be ethical under this view. Such a “preferential option” would include shifting administrative rationality away from instrumentalist manners of reasoning by downgrading the importance of merely cost-benefit analyses to also consider the “human” costs of a decision on those who are poor. Also, in their role as public administrators, civil servants could act to increase the “space” available for lay organizations to organize and direct popular activities to aid the poor in systematic ways— for instance, by helping to set up and maintain economic collectives among the poor and near poor that would allow for self-sufficiency. But again, as liberation theology desires systematic change, public servants should not act in manners that merely “reform” the current system but rather should actively move toward the destruction of this system.27 Liberation theology remains a controversial form of Christian ethics. Its use of Marxist methodology, its emphasis on social/systematic change over individual piety or moral actions, its regional (over a more global) emphasis, and its understanding of community—particularly when related to forms of ecclesiastical hierarchy— have led to heated disputes within various Christian denominations on the orthodoxy of liberation theology within Christianity. Within Catholicism, liberation theology has come under scrutiny from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, with Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI) particularly concerned about some of its tenets.28 On the other hand, various secular philosophers—perhaps most importantly, Jürgen Habermas—have noted that liberation theology might provide some means for communication across the religious/secular divide (cf. Habermas 2002; see also

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Habermas and Ratzinger 2006; Dillon 1999). The role of liberation theology in Christianity, and the world at large, is still in development. What that role will be, however, remains uncertain.

Recommended Readings Barth, Karl. 1993. The Holy Spirit and the Christian Life: The Theological Basis for Ethics. R. Birch Hoyle (trans.). Louisville: Westminster John Knox. Douglass, James W. 1968. The Non-Violent Cross: A Theology of Revolution and Peace. New York: Macmillan. Küng, Hans. 1984. On Being a Christian. Edward Quinn (trans.). New York: Image. Marty, Martin. 2000. Politics, Religion, and the Common Good. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. O’Donovan, Oliver, and Joan Lockwood O’Donovan. 2004. Bonds of Imperfection: Christian Politics, Past and Present. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans. Ramsey, Paul. 1967. Deeds and Rules in Christian Ethics. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. Tanner, Kathryn. 1992. The Politics of God: Christian Theologies and Social Justice. Minneapolis: Fortress Press.

Chapter 10

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toked by the exaggeration of the “clash of civilizations” hypothesis,1 on the one hand, and fueled by a desire to reverse the past of “orientalism,”2 the study of Islam has reemerged as a major force in the study of sociology, religion, economics, and politics in the past decade. Historically, there were significant interconnections between the study of philosophy, cultures, and sciences in the Islamic world and the Christian, Jewish, or Hindu and even animistic worlds.3 The polemical tone of the recent growth overshadows the extent of the earlier interconnections between the two spheres of influence in the Islamic world—dar al Islam (house of peace/Islamic societies) and dar al Harb (house of war/non-Islamic societies). As a consequence, attempts to champion the cause of one side or another lead to overblown descriptions of the differences, which are significant, to the detriment of the similarities. Those outside of the life or study of Islam may find the broad category Islam to be confusing and the more nuanced categories of Ismail’i, Imami, Shī’a, Sunni, Wahhābī, Ibāḍī, Mu’tazilite, or Khārijite Islam to be dazzling in their complexity. To these same outsiders, the bloody, centuries-long fights between these sects seem as inconceivable as part of the rational, moderate life prescribed by Islam, as were the wars of religion in the global West. Further, skewed elaborations on Islam as prescribing a religious-fundamental life of jihad, or “holy war,” Shari’a, and retaliatory justice (qisas) serve only to 217

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further confuse and confound. Historical and contemporary partisan exaggerations of the righteousness of one sect or jurisprudential school or another give these same outsiders (and some insiders alike) an impression of a contest of obscurities and raging tempests in teapots. The problematic portrayal of contemporary Islam by insiders and outsiders obfuscate the promise of the religion as a lifeencompassing program of pious, peaceable, and moderate living.

Basics of Islamic Faith Recalling their early courses in comparative religion, many nonMuslims can recite the Five Pillars of the (Sunni) Islamic faith quite handily. These are the profession of faith (Shahadah or Shahada), prayer (Salah), almsgiving (Zakah or Zakat), fasting during the month of Ramadan (Sawm), and pilgrimage to Mecca (Hajj). These Five Pillars are expanded upon in the context of Ismail’i Shi’ism, Imami (Twelver) Shi’ism, and Khārijite Islam. The Ismail’i denomination subscribes to Seven Pillars: guardianship (Walayah), purity (Taharah), prayer, almsgiving, fasting during Ramadan, pilgrimage to Mecca, and religious struggle. The Imami add to the Sunni Five Pillars religious struggle or jihad, living as a virtuous example (also “instructing or enforcing the good” [amr-bil-ma’ruf]), and refraining and counseling others away from vices, or nahi-an-il-munkar. The Khārijites add religious struggle or jihad to the Sunni Five Pillars. The pillars of the faith, whatever their number, derive their strength from the Qur’an and the Hadith, and form the basis of the encompassing Muslim faith. Islam is a monotheistic faith with roots in the same texts and traditions as Judaism and Christianity, but it is unlike the others to which it is typically compared. While some suggest that it is an orthopraxic faith (one concerned with right practice rather than right doctrine), it is also an intensely orthodox faith (based upon correct doctrines and beliefs). The convergence of orthodoxy and orthopraxy in Islam gives it both its intensity and power in the lives of adherents. A commonly cited example of the intensity of Islamic faith is the requirement surrounding prayer. While most on the outside of the faith understand that Muslims must pray five times a day, “facing east,” the misconceptions about Muslim prayer are litany. Firstly, the Qur’an does not enjoin believers to pray to the east as an

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arbitrary direction but rather enjoins them to pray toward Mecca (“Whichever way you depart, face towards the Holy Mosque. This is surely the truth from your Lord. God is never heedless of what you do”; 2:149). Second, prayer in Islam is unlike prayer in the other Abrahamic faiths. Even before alighting one’s prayer mat, there are multiple steps that the faithful Muslim must take in order to ready oneself for prayer (5:6). The state of one’s mind and the state of one’s body always being in the eyes of God, care with bodily preparations and mental control is necessary to all followers at all times, but particularly when addressing God.4 The bodily preparations and mental exercises that the individual must face are not mere matters of practice or preference. These preparations and the textual basis for them emanate from the law-like pronouncements of the faith. Cleanliness, purity, segregation of the sexes, provisions for prayer, and pilgrimage are all matters of law and, in the context of Islam, matters of government by the righteous caliph.5 On the dimension of the law-like institutions of the faiths, comparisons between Islam and Judaism are apt. The Qur’an does not merely set out words that can be interpreted according to one’s own opinion; it spells out laws according to which the believer can gain possibility of salvation. This law-like aspect of the Muslim faith is of significant importance for the study of administrative ethics under Islam. That is, in order to understand what an ethical civil servant must do, we must also understand the laws under which she lives and works as part of a greater divine unity wherein the power that any one person possesses emanates from the original power of Allah. As Gibb summarizes based upon ibn Khaldun, For the good Muslim . . . the Law of God, or Shari’a, is the foundation from which all discussion of government must start. The Law is logically prior both to the Community and to the State. The Community exists to bear witness to God amid the darkness of this world, and the function of its government is essentially to act as the executive of the Law. (1970, 11)

In the context of Islam, the purpose of government and community—the purpose of organized life—is creation of the ideal space for citizens to realize salvation through the faith. And, this salvation comes foremost through living according to the law-like will of God

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as spelled out in the holy text and the life of the prophet gifted with reciting the holy text.

Basics of Islamic History The history of the Islamic Middle East is one of separation, convergence, conflict, and integration (Gibb 1970, 7). While, today, we associate the entirety of coastal North Africa, the Sahel, the desert Sinai Peninsula, the desert mountains in Asia Minor, lands from the Persian Gulf to the Caspian and Aral Sea, the Central Asian steppes, tropical South Asia, and increasingly the islands of the equatorial Indian and Pacific Oceans as the realm of Islam, the heart of historical Islam is Arabia (Sinai Peninsula). Like the other Abrahamic faiths to emerge from the Middle East, Islam is a revealed religion whose scriptural basis was captured (“recited” based upon extended revelatory intervention into the prophet’s life by the Angel Gabriel) by the Prophet Muhammad, who would become the spearhead of the faith and the exemplar of piety for times to come.6 Like many other prophets, the prophet of Islam was forced from his home, in this case from Mecca to Medina, following rejection of his message by those in his home city. Fleeing persecution in Mecca, the prophet and some of his early followers wandered about Arabia and into the then kingdom of Ethiopia, seeking a place to practice freely and establish the ideal Islamic state. Returning to Arabia, the prophet and his followers established themselves in Medina in 622 A.D., or what would become year 1 A.H. (after Hijra) in the Islamic calendar.7 For ten years, the prophet spread his message to the people of Medina, who would in turn spread this same message quite far and quite quickly. At the end of his decade in Medina, the prophet died, leaving a legacy of fervent faith and expanding power, but no clear successor to his reign.8 The choice of a successor to the prophet would be the start of the period of intense struggle for the new faith.9 The prophet himself was not, as is the case in the Christian notion of Jesus Christ, an incarnation of the divinity itself. The Islamic prophet was a messenger and deputy of God, instructed on the truths of faith. His place was not, again in contradistinction to some appellations that Christ would have among his followers, the king of kings. Indeed, the designation “king of kings” for

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a human, even a prophet, was blasphemy in the early days (here reflecting a similar idea found within early and Diaspora Judaism). The proper appellation for the leader of the Islamic faithful was “caliph” (deputy) or “imam” (religious leader). Following the death of the original messenger and deputy, the leadership of the faithful was hotly contested. Who ought the faithful to follow except for someone whose piousness and whose admonitions to the faithful were assuredly true? Unlike in the Jewish tradition, there was not a separate priesthood (nor those called the “judges”) that could serve to select political leaders, nor a kingship that could assess true from false religious leaders. In the immediate aftermath of the prophet’s death, care of the faithful went to close adherents to the prophet’s teachings and members of his tribe, the Quraysh Abu Bakr, then Umar, then Uthman. The method of successor selection is notable as the installation of Abu Bakr is the first example of the use of shura, or deliberating counsel. The purpose of the shura in early Islam was to decide, in a protodemocratic fashion, the imam or steward of the faithful. This method of selection would not be consistently employed as Abu Bakr designated Umar, who commanded the remaining Qurayshi faithful to conduct another shura, which led to the designation of Uthman. Under Umar, the Islamicization of the Near East exploded, inspired by religious fervor and broad caliphal support. Umar’s rule did not consistently win the faithfulness of the tribes in the hinterland. Following Umar came Uthman, whose rule did not help to alleviate tribal unrest outside of Medina, and upon the death of Uthman came the first civil war and the early cleavage of the empire.10 Today we associate the split between the two major Islamic denominations, the Sunni and the Shi’a, with political distinctions, such as in the case of Iraq and Iran (respectively). But, the origin of the Sunni and Shi’a split begins with the matter of succession following the death of Uthman (656 C.E., 34 A.H.). Uthman did not perish from natural causes (few caliphs did) but was put to death by tribal representatives contesting his rule. This provoked multiple questions: Did any of Uthman’s actions in governing the newly converted tribes constitute acts against the maxims of the prophet? Were those who sought to undo Uthman’s rule and life in the right or were they usurpers? In a related vein, was the caliph installed—Ali—also a usurper? The groups of faithful cleaved off, forming parties faithful

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to Uthman or Ali. Those faithful to Ali would become the shi`at`Ali (Shi’a), and those faithful to Uthman would form other sects, importantly the Khārijites, the Sunnis or al ahl sunna, and the Mu’tazilites. Out of the Khārijites would come the first Islamic dynasty, the Umayyads (661–750 C.E.), who would rule over the early expansion of the empire. The Umayyads, accepted, though sometimes brutal, rulers, were followed by the Abbasids (750–945 C.E.), who would lord over much of the Islamic Empire in ways not fully compatible with early Islamic doctrines of power and justice. The Abbasids would be the last rulers of the complete dynasty, as the expanding empire would come to need multiple centers of power and authority, namely Baghdad, Basra, and Damascus. Though the Abbasid power in religious matters would extend into the middle thirteenth century, political power would devolve from their central hands to the Buyids, Fatimids, Saljuks, Ayyubids, Ottomans, Safavids, Mughals, Qajars, and recently the house of Sa’ud. These empires would be challenged by the encroachments of the Crusaders and the Mongols, the ever-present threat of “innovation” (bid’a) within the faith,11 and, recently, colonialism and neo-colonialism.

Philosophy and Ethics in Islam The religious history of Islam is certainly important if we are to understand the politics and ethics of Islam. However, philosophy and the interaction between philosophy and Islam are also of key concern to the evolution of ethics in Islam.12 Islam, like Christianity, Buddhism, and Hinduism, was not immediately reconcilable with the philosophical doctrines extant in the area or at the time. Likewise, the philosophies of the Greeks, Romans, Persians, and Central Asians did not have a clear place for the fervent faith of the Muslims within their theories of cosmology and human nature. Seeking to resolve the incompatibilities with the perspectives of those people they sought to convert, Islamic scholarship developed a vibrant culture of philosophical exegesis and translation whose major task was to reconcile revelation with reason and philosophy. The factors accounting for the interest of Muslim scholars in the philosophical treatises of non-Muslims relate closely to the prerogative of expansion for the religion. As is often pointed out by scholars of early and even contemporary Islam, there is an expansionist

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imperative implicit in the faith, an imperative in various ways similar to the proselytizing mission in Christianity. Not only does the scripture and historical analysis of the faith support notions of a world Islamic caliphate, under which all people live in religious harmony as they seek the next world, but the texts and traditions also support the drive to conversion of fellow monotheists and polytheists alike. However, expansion requires prudent efforts toward assimilation of the culture and philosophy of outside groups, lest it devolve into attempts to “convert by the sword,” which are prohibited in Islam (e.g., Qur’an 2:190). This lead to a pluralist philosophy of politics where elements of Sasanid, Byzantine, Arabian, Persian, and Greek political philosophy and practice were incorporated into the general Islamic strains of political theorizing. The interaction between philosophy and faith was a matter of some contention in the history of Islamic thought. While the Qur’an, Sunnah, and tracts from the various schools of jurisprudence (madh’hab) emphasize the importance of independent critical reasoning (ijtihad), consensus (ijma’), reason by analogy (qiyas), custom (‘urf), and juristic discretion (istihsan), the interaction between faith and reason could turn contentious. It was not unheard of, as Crone (2004, 315) recounts, for philosophers, theologians, reciters or interpreters of the Qur’an, and teachers in general to spend some time in prison and/or to meet an untimely end for their expositions. Speaking specifically of political philosophy, the Islamic tradition includes wide variations of types of political theorizing. Importantly for this volume, the tradition of political advising attempted to offer religious and/or purely philosophical justifications for the necessity of the state, and elaborations on Qur’anic ethics in this literature were litany (for lengthy expositions on some of these, see Black 2001; Corbin [1964] 2006; and Crone 2004). Yet, beyond political philosophy as such, early Islam (and even Islamic scholarship today) was deeply concerned with legal theory and jurisprudence (‘usul al-fiqh). A summary of the extensive and nuanced history of Islamic jurisprudence is beyond the scope of this volume,13 yet it is important for civil servants embedded in interactions with their Islamic counterparts to know something of the major schools and traditions of jurisprudence as these continue to play a role in the articulation of laws and policies even today.14 The four major Sunni schools, the

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Shi’a school, and the Ibadi school of jurisprudence all contributed to the state of present Islamic law, and adherents to a particular school can be grouped according to present nation-states.15 Although civil servants from outside of the Islamic world who have extensive interaction with Muslim partners would be well served to investigate Islamic jurisprudence and the jurisprudential schools at greater length in order to appreciate their colleagues’ positions better, the outline of the schools, their origins, and beliefs about the sources of law offered in the coda to this chapter can provide only a minimal introduction to the topic.

Applications of the Tradition to Public Service Of the religious and regional traditions surveyed in this book, few match the volume, fervor, and historical reach of the Islamic tradition of government advice (Crone 2004). Owing a great deal to the belief that government, particularly the moral leadership of the caliph, provides the backdrop for achieving salvation, the Islamic tradition of political advice giving was and still is unparalleled in its extensive treatment of all manners of governance. For example, if we consider the writings of Sayyid Qutb ([1953] 2000) and Syed Abul a’la Maududi (1980) as emblematic of the contemporary practice of this kind, the tradition of Islamic advice to leaders extends the length of the faith. Importantly for the present project, the content of political advice in Islam was not subject to the same strains as those in Christian or Jewish thought. To elaborate, pace St. Augustine, there was little pretense that the city of man was the province of the fallen, that subjects (and leaders) were “in, but not of” the present world. Likewise, there was no pretense that politics and the administration of the sovereign political will should be separate from the implementation of the faith. And, unlike the Jewish tradition, there is not the same history of forced separation in the Diaspora that prevented full integration into other political communities. In the context of Islam, politics, due to its integral relationship with the encompassing religion of God’s recited law, was treated as wholly religious throughout most of the advice tradition.16 Thus, even in the context of the modern world, we must treat Islamic political and civil service ethics as wholly dependent upon the Islamic faith.

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Rationality The suppositions of liberalism and postmodernism include a strong prejudice against religious arguments. Some, such as Gutmann and Thompson (1996, 2004), go far enough to suggest that religion cannot be argumentative in any reasoned fashion and must always be the assertions of the blind and banal. This prejudice is often rehearsed in discussions about “Islamic fundamentalism.” Fundamentalists, some say, do not reason but merely follow revealed scriptures uncritically.17 Yet, throughout the history of Islamic scholarship and jurisprudence, reason and rationality, particularly as exercised at the individual level, play a central role in the realization of a good polity based on Shari’a law. Ijtihad, a common term found in primary and secondary Islamic philosophy, is often translated as “critical reasoning” or “independent reasoning” (Black 2001, 355; Crone 2004). Reasoning, ijtihad, but also ra’y (opinion) and ‘aql (intellect), is a fundamental part of the Islamic value system (Nanji 2007, 335). Abu Hanafi, the leader of the Hanafi school of jurisprudence (see the coda), beautifully summarizes the position on reason in Islam: Ignorance and illiteracy are against the function of reason. Maleducation, misinformation through commercial or government propaganda, and blind imitation are all forms of anti-reason. Through reason man can prove that God exists, the world is created, and the soul is immortal. Reason is the very foundation of faith. Reason is not only deductive but also inductive. It deduces the causes of human behavior from the textual sources as it induces them from human actions. Reason is also the glue that binds individuals into a whole. If reason is not the common understanding between human beings in communicating and understanding, the will to power takes over. . . . Islam opens all avenues towards the promotion of reason and blocks all paths toward anti-reason. Open and scientific spiritual inquiry is one of the hallmarks of classical Islamic civilization. The consumption of alcohol, on the other hand, is prohibited because drunkenness is against reason. (2002, 66–67)18

Reasoning though is not unmitigated opinion. Learning, reason, and the intellect should be supporting parts of the life of the faithful

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mind and should not be deployed as a method to undo the accumulation of faith or refute those truths that both philosophy and faith ought to arrive at without fail. Two of the major exponents of reason in the context of faith—alFarabi and Qutb—both argue that reason and philosophy come in the service of faith. For al-Farabi, the problem of philosophy (reasoning about truth) and faith was not a matter of incommensurability, for both religion and philosophy were two paths to the same truthful resting place, the existence of, and necessary obedience to, God. Rather, the problem of faith and philosophy was the inability of men to reach the truth using the same means. For al-Farabi, the pure philosopher (sage, philosopher-prophet-imam) is able to reason to the truth, through intelligence, imagination, illumination, and intuition. The pure prophet is able to reach the same truths through imagination and illumination from the divine spirit. “Philosopher and Prophet are united with the same Intelligence-Holy Spirit” (Corbin [1964] 2006, 164). This mirrors al-Farabi’s view of the capacities for attaining truth. Some were capable of uniting philosophy, imagination, and prophetic skills of preaching (true imams), others were capable of philosophy and imagination reaching the same prophetic truths, and some were merely capable of following the lead of the imams (Crone 2004, 179). Reason, even the reason to differentiate between prophets expounding different paths to salvation, was always available to man as an unalienable gift from God (which man would always reason back to realizing).19 Qutb offers a different elaboration on reason that, like that of al-Farabi, leads to the same truths of faith. But, while al-Farabi was intent to use the logic of Greek philosophy (Plato mostly) to support his own contentions, Qutb is adamant that the true Muslim not do anything of the sort. Instead, the truly faithful Muslim must use his gift of reason within the confines, and in the service, of the God who granted him the gift. Emphasizing the necessary and complete independence of Islam from other systems of reason, faith, or political thought, Qutb suggests, Thus, it is not the task of the Islamic enquirer who embarks on a study of the Muslim political system to look for similarities to, or agreements with, any other system, ancient or modern. Nor do such similarities and agreements add anything to the strength

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of the Islamic position, as some Muslims believe. . . . The true method is to turn to the fundamentals of the religion itself in the firm belief that in them lie the complete bases of the system. It makes no difference whether all other political systems agree or disagree entirely. The sole reason for seeking to strengthen Islam through its similarities and agreements with other systems is the conviction of inferiority, as we have said; no Muslim scholar should venture on such a course, but rather should know his own faith with a true knowledge and study it with a true zeal. ([1953] 2000, 114–15)

In Qutb’s view, efforts to reconcile, through ijtihad or wholesale assimilation and adoption, those methods of politics, philosophy, and life practiced by those outside of the Muslim faith (and presumably outside of the strict Sunnism Qutb adhered to), are an invalid use of God’s gift of reason.20 The views of these two thinkers represent two of the three positions on the use of reason in Islam—an inclusive use of all forms of philosophical reasoning (al-Farabi), an exclusive use of individual reasoning within the pretext of faith alone (Qutb), and a literalist view of faith as settling any and all matters of doubt (the “fundamentalist” position). But, the problematic of this simplistic rendering of the fundamentalist position is challenged by the position of reasoning in scholarship in the history of Islam. Over the span of Islamic philosophy, the extent of reasoning expanded and contracted, often within the lifetimes of a few philosophers. Some viewed the realm of knowledge to include four roots—the Qur’an, the Hadith, Consensus, and Analogy—while others restricted this to two or three (Black 2001, 34–35). If the Qur’an or the Hadith were silent on an issue, some philosophers, such as al-Shafi’i, offered that a reasoned, analogical analysis based upon the veracity of the Hadith was necessary to demonstrate the correct position one should take. Echoing the strains of inequality in much of Islamic philosophy, the matter of reasoning, whether by analogy or intuition (as would later be a position taken by the Sufis; Black 2001, 128), was almost exclusively the province of religious scholars and judges. Though ordinary people were endowed with gifts of practical reasoning that allowed them to not only get through their days but also see the reasonableness or unreasonableness of a

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caliph’s moral rulership, they were not (except in limited cases like the Mu’tazilites) granted the capability of independent religious reasoning. This abbreviated analysis of reason in Islamic philosophy is a necessary detour to understand the role of faith in the practices (ethical and otherwise) of life for obedient Muslims. Although one may deploy one’s gift of reason within the context of whatever profession one espouses, given the constraints of rank, delegated power, and official licensing and sanction, one may not exercise independent judgment on matters of religious faith. One of the unique features of contemporary Muslim life is the central role of rulings (fatwas) on matters of religious practice proffered by the imam of one’s mosque or even on the Internet. Consultation with the imam or other knowledgeable members of the Muslim community on matters of faith or the integration of a faithful life in a largely unfaithful world is an important and essential part of Muslim life.21 The implications of the limitations of independent religious reasoning for civil service practice are litany. Certainly the matter of finding the time, space, and provisions necessary for the daily prayers is an issue for Muslim and non-Muslim employers alike. But, questions such as the correctness of working for a particular employer or the acceptability of engaging in particular professional activities are also important. Given the restrictions against usury and against payment of taxes to unjust regimes, can a devout Muslim enroll in a government pension plan? These are reasonable questions about which Muslims must reason independently based on the teachings they have received and also questions where tradition may compel seeking the advice of religious scholars.

Equality Justice may be the single most important political virtue in Islam. Muslim religious scholars and political commentators alike enjoin the people and their rulers to strive after justice. One concept, the Circle of Power, popular in many variations throughout the history of Islam, emphasizes the interdependence of all parts of the polity on the path toward justice. Two variations are quoted here: The foundation of kingship and the basis of rulership consist in making [the world] prosperous; and the world becomes prosperous

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only through justice and equity; and the justice and equity of a ruler are attainable only through efficient governors of good conduct and officials of praiseworthy beliefs and laudable ways of life, and only so does prosperity reach the people of the world. (Cambridge History of Iran, vol. 5, 209–10, quoted in Black 2001, 111) There is no rule except through men, and men do not subsist except through property, and [there is] no property except through cultivation, and no cultivation except through justice and good government. (Horovitz 1930, 193, quoted in Black 2001, 54) Behold! each one of you is a guardian, and each one of you will be asked about subjects. A leader is a guardian over the people and he will be asked about his subjects; a man is a guardian over members of his household and he will be asked about his subjects; a woman is guardian over the members of the household of her husband and of his children, and she will be asked about them; a servant of a man is a guardian over the property of his master, and he will be asked about it. Behold! each one of you is a guardian and each one will be asked about his subjects. (al-Hadis 1963, 581–82, quoted in al-Buraey 1985, 240)

From the various versions of the Circle of Power, we can argue that realization of interdependency and realization of roles are important parts of the Islamic system of justice and equality. Without the fulfillment of each role equally, the Circle of Power will collapse into oblique tyranny, whether of the ruler, the landed, or the mass. The constancy of the position that the virtue of justice is the bedrock of Islam has not changed from the earliest elaborations on the Circle of Power to the most recent tracts. For example, in his work Social Justice in Islam, Sayyid Qutb reemphasizes the unique social nature of justice in Islam and lays down an excellent summary of many of the previous philosophers’ positions on the matter of equality and justice, which we quote at length here. In the Islamic view values are so very composite that justice must include all of them; therefore Islam does not demand a compulsory economic equality in the narrow literal sense of the term. This is against nature and conflicts with the essential fact, which is that of the differing native endowments of individuals. It arrests the development of outstanding ability and makes

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it equal to lesser ability; it prevents those who have great gifts from using their gifts to their own advantage and that of the community, and it deprives the community and the individual from the fruits of those gifts. There can be no profit in disputing the fact that the natural endowments of individuals are not equal. And while we may not be able to see this in the case of mental and spiritual endowments as we can in the sphere of practical life—yet we cannot deny that some individuals are born with endowments of disposition, such as healthiness, or perfection, or stamina; while others are born with a predisposition to sickness, or debility, or weakness. . . . Accordingly, to deny the existence of outstanding endowments of personality, intellect, and spirit, is a piece of nonsense which is not worth discussing. So we must reckon with all these endowments, and to all of them we must give the opportunity to produce their greatest results; then from these results we may take that which appears to be of permanent profit to society. . . . Islam does, of course, acknowledge a fundamental equality of all men and a fundamental justice among all, but over and above that, it leaves the door open for achievement of preeminence through hard work, just as it lays in the balance values other than the economic. “Verily the noblest among you in Allah’s eyes is the most pious” (49:31). ([1953] 2000, 46–48)

Qutb’s view reflects much of the earlier Islamic scholarship on the matter of equality and inequality. While the practical and mental capabilities of people may differ, their ability to attain salvation through Muslim piety is always equal. In the history of Islamic thought, two thinkers stand out for their elaborations on inequality—al-Ghazali and ibn Khaldun. Interestingly, both are also cited as foremost among the philosophers of government and Islam. While al-Ghazali concerned himself with the role of religious knowledge in politics, ibn Khaldun (along with ibnTaymiyya) concerned himself with matters of inequality between states and societies.22 al-Ghazali, like other adherents to the mystic form or Sufi Islam, advocated that knowledge of God came from (intuitive) experience of the divine revelations of right and wrong. Note al-Ghazali’s oftquoted description of knowledge: “True knowledge is the knowledge through which the known object is utterly disclosed (to the spirit),

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in such a manner that no doubt can exist with regard to it, and no error can tarnish it. It is the level at which the heart cannot admit or even conceive of doubt” (quoted in Corbin [1964] 2006, 181). This knowledge was available to only a limited number of people. For Sufis and philosophers (to the extent that these are overlapping categories), such true knowledge was available, but for ordinary people such knowledge was beyond their capability. For them, while salvation was possible, any other vehicles to achieve salvation other than faith were not. Black summarizes al-Ghazali’s position on equality as the following: (1) True inner knowledge through personal experience is accessible only to the very few who have a “natural gift” of “penetrating intelligence and strong insight.” They pass this true inner knowledge on to others, but these others are still a select few. (2) Discursive reasoning is what Philosophers, Jurists, and theologians are capable of; they sometimes use it to stir up trouble and disunity. . . . (3) The common people, absorbed by the crafts and daily work, are capable only of faith (iman) or taqlid (following the authority of others); they should avoid all controversy. (2001, 99)

al-Ghazali’s position is not unusual given the insistences captured in the concept of the Circle of Power and in the functionalist approaches to social organization and government emphasized throughout Islamic thought. The early sociologist ibn Khaldun’s elaborations on the rightly managed economy merge both the functionalist approach to social organization (and thus the complex inequalities arising from functional differentiation) and the justice implications of the Circle of Power. If the ruler acts with justice toward his subjects—evoking peership where it existed and magnanimity when confronted by moral disproportions—then he will gain power over the “group feeling.” Group feeling (translated as such by Rosenthal [2005, xli] from the Arabic asabiyya) is defined as “the affection a man feels for a brother or a neighbor when one of them is treated unjustly or killed” (Black 2001, 173). Without the ability to rule in accordance with the group feeling—the tempers of the people—one could not rule peacefully. Thus, regardless of his status, the caliph was obligated by prudence as well as custom to be familiar with the feeling of his people.23

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The functional equalitarian strains in Islamic philosophy are also important to understand when discussing the issue of the role of women in Islam. Visions of burqa- or abaya-clad women in Islamic states provoke a variety of (mostly negative) reactions from men and women in the West. Further, observations of the application of Shari’a law in its local variants, including prohibitions on individual travel for women of all ages, give only a superficial view of the role of women in Islamic society. Women figure prominently in the Qur’an as valuable members of the society, but members in need of the protection of their faith and the faith of their male relatives. Adapting the functional division of society so common among the pre-Islamic Arab philosophers and early Islamic philosophers, women are described as fulfilling a definitive role in the society—the moral uprightness of the household and the (early) moral education of children. Qutb ([1953] 2000, 73–78) emphasizes the functionalist distinction between men and women while also advancing the Qur’anic argument that the obligations of believing men include caring for, respecting, maintaining, and protecting the rights of their wives, orphan girls, slave girls, former spouses, mothers, and widows. As for the relation between the sexes, Islam has guaranteed to women a complete equality with men regard to their sex; it has permitted no discrimination except in some incidental matters connected with physical capacity, with customary procedure, or with responsibility, in all of which the human status of the two sexes is not in question. Wherever the physical endowments, the customs, and the responsibilities are identical, the sexes are equal; and wherever there is some difference in these respects the discrimination follows that difference. (Qutb [1953] 2000, 73)

The distinction between the sexes likely strikes the Western reader as more than on “incidental” fronts. However, internal to the system of Islam itself, the obligations that men and women have to one another—for example, the obligation to forbid evil acts, such as (in this case) fornication or sexual temptation outside of marriage— are reciprocally bearing on both sexes. Based upon the obligations each gender has to the other, both men and women are enjoined to respect the differences between them as God-given gifts and elementary human nature.

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As far as the application of the Islamic theory of functional equality, the imperative to respect sexual distinctions, occupational distinctions, and (relative and permissible) economic inequality is of the utmost importance for ordinary Muslims and civil servants in a Muslim state. While this may entail not only giving different levels of government (or private) charity to various groups or individuals but also a certain level of paternalism between those deemed by Qur’anic law and exegesis to be higher and lower, such as system is not completely incompatible with forms of equality in the West. For example, Walzer’s complex equality and even the natural state of inequality accepted as the given condition in the elaborations of the luck egalitarians are compatible with the general (though not all specific, national) expressions of equality in Islam.

Efficiency and Economy The concept of efficiency in the administrative orthodoxy has clear Islamic parallels. Firstly, within multiple editions of the Hadith, exhortations can be found against waste of any resources. In fact, within the Qur’an itself, acknowledgments are made that resources (even those needed for prayer preparations) may be limited. In case of limited resources, say water, the Qur’an exhorts followers to find reasonable substitutes. For example, the Qur’an exhorts, Believers, do not approach your prayers when you are drunk, but wait until you can grasp the meaning of your words; nor when you are unclean—unless you are traveling the road—until you have washed yourselves. If you are sick or on a journey or if . . . you can find no water, take some clean sand and rub your faces and your hands with it. (4:43–44)

Certainly the use of water for the prayer preparations (wudu) is preferable to the use of sand, but in areas where resources are limited, the intention behind the cleansing action may matter more. In the arena of government, this exhortation to find reasonable substitutes in times of scarcity is expressed in a number of different ways. Hadith elaborations on the importance of conservation and not wasting the gifts of God are litany, but the elaborations on efficiency in government as such find more nuanced, and in some cases externally inspired, expressions in later philosophical texts.

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The well-known Islamic philosopher al-Farabi expresses the ethics of efficiency through a neo-Aristotelian elaboration on the value of intermediate acts. Following Aristotle’s elaborations on the golden mean and echoing strongly the narrative of the body politic that permeated much political philosophy in the Islamic and Christian middle ages, al-Farabi urges readers to find the intermediate path in all actions. Actions that are good are equilibrated actions intermediate between two extremes, both of which are evil: one being an excess and the other a deficiency. Similarly, virtues are traits of the soul and states intermediate between two traits both of which are vices. . . . Liberality is intermediate between stinginess and wastefulness, and courage is intermediate between rashness and cowardice. (2001, 20)

Echoing earlier elaborations on the importance of functional groupings and offering an Islamicized interpretation of Aristotle,62 in al-Farabi’s ideal polity, the citizens and their rulers organize themselves in functional groupings, with symbolic parallels between themselves and the parts of the ideal human body. As with the preservation of bodily health, al-Farabi suggests, so with the preservation of the health of the polity. Thus, any extremes are to be avoided and any “corruption” to be cured immediately, by drastic actions if necessary. Such sentiments, though expressed in an ideal and easily understood form by al-Farabi, are found in whole or part in many of the “second master’s” less Hellenic-inspired predecessors. One of these is al-Māwardi. In his extensive text of government administration, The Ordinances of Government, al-Māwardi writes at some length on the administration of the multiple forms of taxes that Muslims and nonMuslims alike were obligated to pay. Though the three key chapters on the administration of taxation—“The Administration of Alms,” “On Dividing the War Spoils,” and “On Tribute and Land Tax”—are extensive in their detailed account of the equivalencies between goods and money (e.g., the equivalencies among goats, camels, sheep, and dates and other crops; 128–32), the principles behind the division of such goods are justice and efficiency. The exhortations to the administrator of alms, spoils, or taxes to mind justice for taxpayers include the possible relief from payment of taxes according

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to one’s present wealth and ability to pay during times of scarcity. Regarding the distribution of alms, for example, the administrator is reminded to be mindful of the scriptural categories of needy persons and to ensure that each group is cared for equally according to their relative needs. If possible, the administrator ought to offer enough funds to the poor and the needy to raise them out of dependency and into a state of financial independence, as this would be most efficient for the polity to have as many self-sufficient members as possible (al-Māwardi 1996, 134–36). Schooling all applications of taxation, though, is the everpresent principle of justice. No more should be given than what one deserves and no more should be taken than what one can pay; this is the middle road of a faithful economy. Turning away from the extensive discussion of state offices in al-Māwardi to the more general directions offered by ibn Khaldun, the importance of equity as efficiency in the economy of the Islamic state is clarified. Black summarizes ibn Khaldun’s position well: A flourishing economy and civilization depend upon secure property rights; these depend on the enforcement of justice in economic transactions; there must be no arbitrary confiscation or forced labor. Ibn Khaldun developed this current wisdom somewhat in the direction of modern market beliefs: “the equitable treatment of people with property” will give them “the incentive to start making their capital bear fruit and grow,” which in turn will generate increases in “the ruler’s revenue in taxes.” The ruler’s revenues will be maximized by keeping taxes as low as possible, since confidence in “making a profit” is an incentive to economic activity. Finally, “profit is the value realized from labour.” (Black 2001, 179)

In the fullness of Islamic philosophers’ expressions of the value of efficiency, we find that justice continually overrides even strong insistences on profit (tax) maximization. This raises two important points in the context of an ethic of efficiency in Islam. First, the provision of an equitable distribution of goods leading to a more equal and thus just economy is a matter of religious obligation, not mere secondary duties imposed by ideology. The Qur’an (2:262–84) enjoins believers to almsgiving, contract fulfillment, debt relief, righteous bargaining, and rejection of usury,

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all of which, the text tells us, are part of a faithful follower’s economic life. For individual followers, exhortations to bring about a just economy must be followed as a basic principle; if efforts to accumulate surplus for the state exact too heavy a cost, leading to less beneficence to the poor, the faithful follower may need to rethink her involvement in the execution of such policies. Yet, the state is not prohibited from increasing its wealth. In fact, to the extent that the state can increase its wealth, employees of the state ought to help it do so, but only if the increase in wealth will lead to a more equitable economic arrangement capturing the efficiency of full financial independence for all citizens (believers). It seems then that the philosophy of the economy in Islam is consonant with the orthodox position on efficiency, so long as it is guided by the drive to justice and (it seems) Pareto optimality—”the allocation of public goods so that at least one person is made better off without everyone else being made worse off” (Frederickson and Smith 2003, 86).

Efficacy As suggested earlier, and elaborated throughout the corpus of Islamic political philosophy, religion and politics are interdependent twins whose combined influence is necessary for the salvation of Muslims. The righteous caliph and the rightly guided imam, preferably embodied in the same person, manage the state according to the Qur’an, the Hadith, the Sunnah, and pronouncements (fatwa) of religious scholars in order to give the faithful the best opportunity for achieving salvation possible. While the leadership must do its utmost to fulfill its moral duties of stewardship of the faithful, the integration of the rulers and the ruled is necessary if the state is to be an efficacious vehicle for salvation, the highest purpose of the state. One of the key concepts discussed in contemporary Islamic philosophy is that of the umma or community of the faithful. This community is the entirety of the Muslim world or all who would be united under the leadership of the world caliph when he appears. Throughout the history of Islam, the role of the community has been one of authorization and sanction of the leaders of the community. H. A. R. Gibb summarizes the concept and the promise of the umma in the following passages:

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The key word for everything that has to do with Islamic culture is Umma, Community. . . . Umma is at once a religious and a social term; it implies totality, as opposed to ekklesia. The first political pronouncement of the Prophet Muhammad to the infant Muslim community at Madina [sic] was “Ye are one umma over against mankind,” one single society, that is to say, welded together by community of religious purpose and the resulting social relationships and obligations. (1963, 173) The Community, as an idea, worked; beneath the drastic reconstruction and readjustments that conceal its inner core, the idea is still vigorously alive; and the Islamic Community is indeed the only human organization in our world that is still expanding without the benefit of military power, political backing, or organized propaganda. (1963, 176)

Reflecting on the idea of a single Muslim community and the idea of the community throughout history, a few notable points arise. First, the community has an intrinsic and inalienable value. Those policies that go against the preservation of morals and values in the community are, on their face, inefficacious as there is no acceptable end to which they apply. Secondly, policies that divide the community (to include sectarianism, though this is a point requiring more elaboration) cannot be considered “efficacious” as the end is not the highest that it could be. Third, and most importantly, the community is a moral entity to be ruled by moral leaders for the moral edification of the led. The oft-quoted maxim emphasizing this last point is the Qur’anic exhortation of hisba, “to Command the good and Forbid the bad is the supreme goal of every Public Function” (Laoust 1939, 70, quoted in Black 2001, 156; see also al-Buraey 1985, 262–65). There are two important implications of hisba for civil service ethics. The first is that hisba is intimately related to public administration, whether through the appointment of officials or the exercise of the office of the market supervisor (also supervisor of public morals). The second is that “commanding the good and forbidding the evil” is related to the kingly task of applying hudud, which, in times when the authority of the installed king was in question, could devolve to the hands of the people. ibn-Taymiyya and al-Māwardi offer interesting insights on the application of hisba in the ideal Muslim state.

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No single Muslim, unless he is mentally incapacitated, is released from the obligation of hisba. This applies equally to public figures and private individuals. Thus, underpinning the community is the constant, reciprocal application of this commandment from leader to citizen, citizen to leader, leader to leader, and citizen to citizen. In order to ensure the certain application of this principle, the ruler was “morally and legally obliged to consult others; and all Muslims have the religio-legal duty to give good counsel as part of Commanding good and Forbidding evil. This is because the ruler or official may not possess in himself all the qualities necessary to carry out his functions” (Black 2001, 157). The community must not only police the ruler but also help to police itself. In policing the ruler, the community must assure itself that the ruler not only is a morally upright person to begin with but also discharges his multiple duties justly as well. The duties of the present ruler come down to us from the list of the original duties of the deputy (prophet). Reflecting upon the words of ibn-Taymiyya, Black summarizes these as follows: One can thus say that rulership (sultan, mulk, amir) and the Shari’a are enfolded into one another as Righteous Government (siyasa shar’iyya). The Leadership (Imamate) is a special Function (wilaya), requiring force (shawka), kingship (mulk), and ruling power (sultan). The state is fully incorporated into Religious Thought (fiqh). At the same time, the distinction between Deputy (Caliph) and Sultan disappears for practical purposes. What Ibn Taymiyya meant here was that all good Islamic rulers perform the religious functions formerly ascribed to the Deputy. (2001, 156)

If the ruler was not a good Islamic deputy, then the institution of law devolved to the people (see the work of Ali Shariati for an updated and revolutionary vision on the people’s capacity in this; Akhavi 1988 provides a good summary). al-Buraey (1985, 242–57) summarizes the duties performed by the deputy (and the four pious caliphs) extensively, relying heavily on the recordings of the state management performed by the second caliph Umar. These duties reportedly include delegation of responsibility for the creation of police, prisons, an ombudsman, a land surveyor’s office, treasury commissioner, diplomatic guesthouses, the expansion of the judiciary, fiscal supervision offices, state offices of

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charity, and (importantly) the office of the market supervisor. alBuraey summarizes Umar’s administrative influence as follows: .

Umar was the real founder of the early Islamic State and the forerunner and organizer of its administrative apparatus. His decade of political and administrative development of the Muslims was a golden age in which the bases of Islamic administrative system [sic] were clearly laid down. (1985, 255)

In order to effect the Qur’anic injunction (3:104), “Let there become of you a community that shall call for righteousness, enjoin justice, and forbid evil,” effective organization of state power came together early in the Islamic state. The creation of the office of the market supervisor, also the supervisor of public morals, was the strongest expression of this injunction. al-Māwardi devotes considerable attention to the matter of efficacious implementation of hisba. By efficacious implementation, it seems that al-Māwardi means the full administration of justice in the public realm. That is, the market supervisor or public morals supervisor was to ensure that all public conduct, public transactions, public transit, and private transactions (if private matters are brought to him for appeal) are dealt with in a way consistent with the principles of equity and justice emphasized in the various scriptures and scholarly interpretations. al-Māwardi (1996, 276) (at least in the translation) suggests that this office is charged with rectifying the violations of “sacred human rights” such as transgressions of property and home. This delegated minister has many obligations,25 some of which al-Māwardi suggests may be taken up by volunteers (the umma or community) also, as the hisba injunction applies to all. The capacity of the ruler to delegate an officer for the institution of hisba depended upon the community’s agreement that his was a just rulership. In the case that the community did not believe in the righteousness of the ruler or his delegate, al-Māwardi argues (along with others; see Crone 2004, 294–97), the people themselves could take up the mantle of the market supervisor and ensure the implementation of hisba, and correspondingly, the punishments for infractions (hudud) themselves. al-Māwardi describes succinctly the difference between the officer’s implementation of hisba and that of the volunteers, which we offer at length here:

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Even though it [hisba] is expected of all Muslims, there are nine differences between one volunteering to do it and the public official charged with it: First, it is a function imposed on the market supervisor, muhtasib, by the nature of his office, and is required of others as a collective duty. Second, the market supervisor performs it as part of his duties that he may not neglect, while a volunteer performs it as an addition to his work that he may neglect in favor of other things. Third, he [the official] is appointed to be appealed to in cases of reprehensible conduct, but the volunteer is not appointed for the purpose of appeal. Fourth, the market supervisor has to respond to the person who complains to him, while the volunteer does not have to. Fifth, he has to investigate manifest immoral actions in order to have them reprehended, and to look for the good that has been abandoned in order to have it reestablished, but volunteers other than him neither have to investigate nor look. Sixth, he may use assistants to help him with his corrective measures, for that is work he is appointed to perform and delegated to accomplish, while a volunteer may not take assistants. Seventh, he may penalize for evident violation without reaching the level of legal punishment [hudud], while a volunteer may not penalize for an offence. Eighth, he may get paid out of the treasury for his work, but a volunteer may not get paid for objecting to a moral infraction. Ninth, he has the freedom to exercise his independent judgment in matters of convention, but not the law, such as seating or the layout of pavilions in market places, approving or rejecting such according to what he considers right, but the volunteer does not have this right. Thus, the difference between the market supervisor, who enjoins what is good and discourages what is evil, and volunteers who may promote good and discourage evil, is in accordance with these nine aspects. (al-Māwardi 1996, 260)

In short, in order for this most important of governing tasks to be implemented efficaciously for the benefit of the whole community, the whole community was charged with (and could opt for active) participation. al-Māwardi’s description of this early version of policy coproduction emphasizes the reciprocal nature of the community/ruler relationship.

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Expertise The relationship between the umma and the caliph is one of functional equality where one part of the godly community serves a necessary role for the other. “The virtuous regime is the one through which the leader gains a kind of virtue he cannot possibly gain otherwise, namely, the greatest of the virtues a human being is able to gain. The ruled gain virtues with respect to their this-worldly life and the afterlife that they could not gain except by means of it” (alFarabi 2001, 58). But, each part of the polity was dependent upon one critical, further section—that of the scholars and theologians. As Kelsay describes it, we can view the relationship between the caliphate and the ‘ulama as analogous to the relationship between state and civil society today. Particularly in the classical model of Islamic society, whereby a class of scholars, the ‘ulama, have authority as interpreters of Islamic values; and a corresponding class of rulers, advisers, military, and bureaucrats have authority under the umbrella of khilafat to secure the peace of Islamic society, I have suggested that one might view the ‘ulama/khilafat relation as an analogy to that between civil society and government. (2002, 30)

The accuracy of Kelsay’s analogy to the side, the interdependency among the civil association, the apparatus of power, and the office of the ruler seem clear enough. Unlike Christianity, Islam is not a personalistic religion. The scriptures and the sayings of the prophet (Hadith or reports) require analysis and exposition. In fact, the Hadith required extensive analysis and authentication, leading to a tradition of historical textual analysis of oral reports that is illustrative for the tasks of ethnology and anthropology today (Black 2001, 32–36). The scholarly class (‘ulama), as the seat of religious knowledge, played (and still plays) a critical role in the life of the average Muslim and his leader (see Hashmi 2002a for more on the relationship between knowledge and government). Throughout most of the secondary analyses on Islam, the term “jurist” figures prominently. The concept of jurist must be explained; jurist in the Islamic tradition means an expert in jurisprudence or interpretation of the Shari’a. The historical jurists are often described

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as part of the general class of scholars as well, as many of them were also scriptural exegetes, experts in the Hadith, judges, and/or philosophers. Particularly in the Sunni tradition, these scholars played a critical role in the exposition of the “traditions” of religion and politics. In some cases the scholars’ participation in government was limited to that of observers and analysts, while in others they played a much more central, often bureaucratic, role. In the early history of Islam, the occupation of scholar was not reserved for any one group of people. In fact, many scholars were part of the ‘ulama by virtue of their ability to gain supporters to their positions and interpretations. While some of these early scholars would go on to suggest that the ability to compose quality interpretations was a familial trait and thus would argue that scholarship ran in the family, the possibility to attain scholarly status was not closed. Within some courts, the group of scholars also included Christian thinkers and philosophers, but these were historical exceptions (see Eickelman 2002 for more on scholarship and pluralism). While prominent in early dynasties as well, the application of scholarly expertise in government took its most magnificent expression in the Ottoman Empire. Based upon the strength devolved to them from the sultanate, religious judges (experts in religious law and interpretation) formed the cornerstone of the Ottoman administration of government. Echoing the research of others, Black neatly summarizes the position of these religious judges in the following way: The keystone of this interlocking of state and religion was the kadi (Religious Judge). There were religious magistrates, but they administered both the Shari’a and the “secular” kanun, and they also supervised “the execution of the Sultan’s administrative and financial degrees” (Inalçik 1973, 118). This extension of the kadi’s role into non-religious spheres was “the main innovation of Ottoman public law” (Heyd 1973, 216). In applying the Shari’a itself, they had little discretion, since “the entire body of law was perfectly known to the litigants; there were no secrets and no surprises.” The execution of judges’ decisions was, as before, separate from the process of adjudication, with military governors enforcing court decisions. Recent research indicates that kadis’ decisions did in fact have to be “heeded by governors and

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police officials” (Gerber 1994, 177, 181). The Ottomans underwrote the Shari’a order of society by ensuring that kadis’ decisions were acted upon. This close integration of the ‘ulama into the government brought benefits to both. It gave the ‘ulama power and wealth. It gave the regime a ready-made legal and administrative framework with roots deeply embedded in popular belief, and it was the bedrock of the dynasty’s legitimacy in the eyes of its Muslim subjects. (2001, 201)

This Ottoman innovation on the expert role of the religious judge had earlier elaborations in the context of the Umayyad and Persian dynasties. As Crone (2004, 129) describes it, during the late Umayyad period, the scholars went so far as to explicitly deny the authority of the caliph, except where he was also competent as a religious scholar. While extensive learning in matters of religious law was essential to the ability of individuals to claim expertise, the Ottoman innovations also enhanced the possibility for secular, specialized expertise as well. Relying on their adaptations of the system of slave soldiers and non-Muslim (and therefore nonaffiliated) lower officials adopted during an earlier period in Islamic history, the Ottomans filled the ranks of their (many) administrative offices by merit appointment. They also supported the extension of the traditions of self-governance and professional regulation extant throughout Islamdom for the regulation of individual trades.26 Indeed, the development of the crafts guilds systems under the Ottomans was a major contributing factor to the widely perceived competency of the Ottoman state and value of Ottoman-produced goods (Inalçik 1973, 1993; Black 2001, 208–10). Reflecting the modernity of the early and later Islamic states, the professions and the accumulation of religious teaching were supported by an extensive system of religious and secular training centers. Tutelage in medicine, the sciences, language, and the arts was a common feature for many Muslims throughout history, and the success of many of the empires in their programs of expansion, conversion, and assimilation was assisted by the traditions of learning and scholarship established. Though periodic efforts to reassert a conservative view of Islam often included a rejection of secular education, on the whole the Islamic tradition emphasized extensive learning in all fields for the faithful.

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Reflecting on the traditions of scholarship and religious expertise and their importance for contemporary administrative ethics, two points are important to recall. The first is that religious teaching and learning is a paramount feature of expertise in Islamic communities. Understanding the scriptural and historic basis of one’s religion is an imperative for all Muslims. Considering the injunction to hisba, if the faithful are to ensure that they command the good and forbid the evil with accuracy, knowledge of the standards of good and evil is crucial. Qutb offers an eloquent elaboration on this within Social Justice in Islam: Nor can the Muslim administrator derive his authority from any papacy, or from Heaven; but he derives it solely from the Muslim community. Similarly, he derives his principles of administration from religious law, which is universal in its understanding and application and before which all men come everywhere as equals. So, the man of religion has no right to oppress Muslims; nor has the administrator any power other than that of implementing the law, which derives its authority from the faith. ([1953] 2000, 30)

Second, the importance of religious education does not (not withstanding the exhortations to the contrary by some conservative members of the umma) trump that of education in the secular, practical arts of living. Again, following Qutb, Islam is not hostile to learning, nor in opposition to the learned; on the contrary, it accepts learning as a divine and sacred possession which forms a part of religious duty. “The seeking of knowledge is a duty for every Muslim.” “Seek learning even if it be found as far as China.” “He who treads the path of the search for learning, Allah will facilitate his path to Paradise.” ([1953] 2000, 30)

Learning, the accumulation and application of knowledge, and the stewardship of the faithful through measured use of such expertise were, and continue to be, the hallmarks of expertise in the Islamic tradition.

Conclusion In his book Globalized Islam (2006), Olivier Roy discusses the pitfalls of a politicized Islam based upon propaganda and territory.

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Such programs fail, he suggests, because Islam is not dependent upon either for its normative force. As a religion and community foundation, Islam seeks universalism through the faithfulness of particular people. As a foundation for civil service ethics, Islamic philosophy works in much the same way. Through its elaborations on the importance of justice, Islamic philosophy and individual philosophers reassert the common, expected foundation of all early and modern government—justice. By encouraging the encompassing and just community, Islamic philosophers hypothesize a more equitable and fair, albeit fair within prescribed distinctions of gender and function, future for all.

Coda: Islamic Jurisprudence—Six Major Madh’habs, Their Founders and Their Principles Shafi’i, also referred to as the Medina school, was founded by Muhammad bin Idris al-Shafi’i (d. 820 C.E./198 A.H.). Adherents to this school argue that the law comes from the revealed scriptures, including the prophetic traditions (Sunnah) as a revealed scripture, and therefore law. The Qur’an is eminent among the texts that a scholar should rely on, but confirmed Hadith should also be considered as part of the revealed scripture. If evidence for a ruling does not emanate directly from the scriptures, then the scholar should seek consensus among his fellow jurists; if this fails, attention to the statements of the prophet’s companions and reasoned analogy may fill in. The Shafi’i school is the most exegetic of the traditions owing to the predisposition to examine the highest (scriptural) sources for rulings foremost. Adherents to this school can be found in Southeast Asian nations (Philippines, Brunei) and in the northern parts of the Middle East (Jordan, Syria) as well as Lebanon and Yemen. Hanbali, also known as the Baghdad school, was founded by Ahmad bin Hanbal (d. 855 C.E./233 A.H.). Adherents to this school suggest that law comes from revealed scriptures, including the words of the prophet’s companions (Hadith). This deeply textual tradition requires that the answers to concerns be answered vis-àvis the prophetic texts and traditions before reason; even reason by analogy, is turned to. This madh’hab engages in theological jurisprudence in its strictest form.

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Maliki, also known as the Medina school, was founded by Malik ibn Anas al Assbahi (d. 796 C.E./174 A.H.). Adherents to this school suggest that law comes first from the Qur’an, the Hadith of the prophet or the Sunnah, the prophet’s companions and the rulings of the first four “rightly guided” caliphs, and analogy particularly as it leads to the public interest. Also, the practices of the living community of Medina can be considered to be part of a “living tradition,” suggesting that in cases where texts and tradition do not provide a clear ruling on issues, the lived practice of the Medinans can be considered definitive for the law. Hanafi, also known as the Iraqi school, is the school most closely associated with the work of Abu Hanifah (d. 772 C.E./150 A.H.), Abu Yusuf (d. 798 C.E./176 A.H.), and al-Shaybani (d. 805/183 A.H.). Abu Hanifah (variously Haneefah) is among the most prominent of the scholars of jurisprudence in Islam. Adherents to Abu Hanifah’s school argue that law can be developed according to a pattern that begins with looking to the Qur’an, then the Hadith, then to statements of the prophet’s companions, then to reasoned analogy (qiyas), then to jurisprudential discretion (istihsan), then to the unanimity of scholars (ijmā’), and then to tradition (‘urf). Through the task of investigating the sources and reasons of law, this school advocates a wide use of individual, considered reason. The Hanafi school is well regarded in South Asia, Afghanistan, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, and Turkey. Ja’fari, also known as the major Shi’a school of jurisprudence, was founded by Jafar al-Sadiq (d. 765 C.E./143 A.H.). This school advocates the use of the prophetic texts and reason to establish law but also advocates a much wider degree of legal flexibility than the Sunni schools as it is believed that the truest form of law would lie with the hidden imam and will be implemented at his reappearance. The first source for law is the Qur’an, the second is the Sunnah, the third is consensus among the scholars, and the fourth is human reason. This form of jurisprudence is most found in nations dominated by a Shi’a majority. Ibadi, the form of Islam and Islamic jurisprudence adhered to almost exclusively in Oman, was founded by Abdullah ibn Ibad (d. 708 C.E./86 A.H.). This form of jurisprudence relies primarily on the Qur’an and Hadith, but also emphasizes the rulings of

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the prophet’s companions, whom ibn Ibad may have been among, though there is some contention about this. The Ibadis attach great significance to piety, adherence to the textual sources of law, and active rejection of “tyrannical leaders” who do not adhere to their version of the faith. Adherents to the Ibadi school can be found in parts of Algeria, Libya, and Tunisia.27

Recommended Readings Ayubi, Nazih. 1982. Political Islam: Religion and Politics in the Arab World. New York: Routledge. al-Azmeh, Aziz. 2001. Muslim Kingship: Power and the Sacred in Muslim, Christian and Pagan Polities. London: Tauris. Binder, Leonard. 1988. Islamic Liberalism: A Critique of Development Ideologies. Chicago: Chicago University Press. Crone, Patricia, and Martin Hinds. 1986. God’s Caliph: Religious Authority in the First Centuries of Islam. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Fakhry, Majid. 1987. A History of Islamic Philosophy. New York: Columbia University Press. Gibb, H. A. R. 1962. Studies on the Civilization of Islam. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. ———. 1970. “The Heritage of Islam in the Modern World, Part 2.” International Journal of Middle East Studies 1 (3): 221–37. ———. 1971. “The Heritage of Islam in the Modern World, Part 3.” International Journal of Middle East Studies 2 (2): 129–47. Lambton, Ann. 2002. State and Government in Medieval Islam. Richmond, UK: Curzon. Leaman, Oliver. 2001. Introduction to Classical Islamic Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. McAuliffe, Jane Dammen (ed.). 2006. The Cambridge Companion to the Qu’ran. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Nasr, Seyyed. 2001. History of Islamic Philosophy. New York: Routledge. Rosenthal, Erwin. 1958. Political Thought in Medieval Islam: An Introductory Outline. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rosenthal, Franz. 1970. Knowledge Triumphant: The Concept of Knowledge in Medieval Islam. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill. Watt, W. Montgomery. 1988. Islamic Fundamentalism and Modernity. New York: Routledge. Zubaida, Sami. 1993. Islam, the People and the State: Political Ideas and Movements in the Middle East. London: Tauris. ———. 2005. Law and Power in the Islamic World. London: Tauris.

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Chapter 11

Ethics in the Traditions of Africa

I have listened to your words but can find no reason why I should obey you—I would rather die first. I have no relations with you and cannot bring it to my mind that you have given me so much as a pesa [fraction of a rupee] or the quarter of a pesa or a needle or a thread. I look for some reason why I should obey you and find not the smallest. If it should be friendship that you desire, then I am ready for it, today and always; but to be your subject, that I cannot be . . . if it should be war that you desire, then I am ready, but never to be your subject . . . I do not fall at your feet, for you are God’s creature just as I am. . . . I am sultan here in my land. You are sultan there in yours. Yet listen, I do not say to you that you should obey me; for I know that you are a free man. . . . As for me, I will not come to you, and if you are strong enough, then come and fetch me. . . . —Macemba, chief of the Yao people of Tanganyika to Hermann von Wissman, commanding officer of the German invasion forces (Davidson 1991, 417–18)

I

n a number of books on ethics, philosophy, politics, and civil service surveyed for this book, there is a notable lack of attention paid to Africa and African issues. This is due, we (charitably) surmise, to the complexity associated with treating fairly the history, demography, and philosophical and ethical variation on the continent. In an uncharitable mood, we side with Macemba (above) and suggest that there is no friendship between scholars of applied ethics in the West and the African continent, its intellectual heritage, or, sadly, its 249

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people. African history, however, represents a paradigmatic example of the patterns, processes, and effects of globalization, cosmopolitanism, hybridity of identity, and fluidity of peoples. In short, Africa represents the future, and it is incumbent upon civil servants, in international or domestic arenas, to work against the perpetuation of trends that are in fundamental contradiction to an ethic of recognition and equality for the continent, its nations, and its peoples (see Committee for Academic Freedom in Africa et al. 2002). Yet, saying that we will discuss Africa, in toto, is as problematic as ignoring the continent. Whether we speak of one “Africa” or an “African” way of politics, the continued trend of neglecting the diversity of the continent and its people represents an insidious part of the legacy of slavery, colonialism, and Afro-pessimism. We are cognizant of some of the important limitations of an “African philosophy,” and in order to avoid the essentialist or pessimist trap, we narrow our study of ethical traditions of Africa to the mores expressed by a set of diverse peoples whose territorial home spans only a portion of the vast continent. Roughly, we are concerned here with sub-Saharan Africa. We are clipping away a region of great importance—the North African/African Mediterranean region. Our reasons for doing so are as follows: First, the ethical traditions of North Africa intertwine in deep ways with the traditions of the Abrahamic faiths (i.e., Judaism, Islam, and Christianity) discussed in other chapters. Second, without making further essentialist claims about the region selected representing an “authentic” Africa, we start from the premise that the patterns of historical migration and empire building in this section of ancient Africa led to a radiating pattern of unique, African continental moral narratives. Third, and in a more practical vein, it is in this fertile region that many of the greatest promises and greatest perils for the continent lie. Given the vast mineralogical, agricultural, and demographic promise of the region, it seems that this area will become more strategically important in the future.

Background on African History, Geography, Demography, and Politics Continental Africa is quite diverse in its geography, demography, political systems, languages, and cultures; thus we can expect that

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its ethical traditions are just as diverse. Such diversity confounds the task of constructing a general history or philosophy of Africa; an African summary is a lengthy project as exemplified by the UNESCO General History of Africa series in eight volumes. The societies of this region practice a mix of moral and religious traditions ranging from traditional African (animistic) religions to various versions of Islam, Judaism, mainline Christianity, and independent churches (Shorter 1997). Linguistically, the region is no less diverse. Most of the nations on the continent are multilingual, with citizens speaking colonial languages (English, French, Spanish), regional languages (Berber, Arabic, Hausa, Shona), or even language isolates such as Khoisan click languages (Childs 2003; Greenberg 1966; and Koelle 1854). The area in question is also quite diverse in terms of its history and historical significance to the political and philosophical evolution of the continent. Evidence of state building, internal colonization, empire building, imperial decline, and recolonization abounds in archaeological excavations and ethnographic, linguistic, and historical research of the area (Ellis and Haar 2004). As Davidson (1992) points out, essential to understanding the history of the continent is acknowledging the rise and fall of major kingdoms and empires such as the Egyptian, Mali, Asante, Benin, Yoruba, Luba, and Kuba. Added to this, we should consider the Mali Empire, the Songhay, the Nubians, the Mau Mau, and the Zulu as pivotal people for the evolution of the African history and state. As is consistent elsewhere in the world, the patterns of institution building and maintenance were not entirely similar across all of these empires. Scholars such as Davidson point out that the patterns of politics and social organization in Africa varied with history and geography, just as those in early modern Europe. We find some cultures with high levels of stratification whose values were primarily martial rather than peaceable (e.g., the Zulu), while we find others that were primarily peaceable and seemingly anarchic, given the looseness of their organization (e.g., the Nuer) (Evans-Pritchard 1970). Bearing these examples in mind, however, we can make one broad synthetic statement for almost all surveyed—they are more communitarian than liberal-democratic, more syncretic in worshipping traditions than orthodox, and more consistently operating in an agrarian or pastoral economy than a market-capitalistic one. By communitarian, we mean that the society concerns itself more

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with the preservation and sanctification of the community and its values and less with the sanctification of individual rights vis-à-vis that community (Gbadegesin 1998, 130–32). Unlike the communitarianism of some Asiatic societies as described in the chapters on Confucianism and Buddhism, the African mode of communitarianism is described best as an affective communitarianism.1 Affective communitarianism requires the maintenance of community sentiments through both intellectual and emotive appeals to kinship ties and patron-client relationships, social epistemology, coparticipation in the creation of common histories, and family bonds. Such affective modes of communitarianism do not require the strict, mechanical performance of rituals, as is the case in Brahmanical traditions, but rather affective communitarianism requires appropriate obedience to ancestral and family sentiment. In sum, the analogy between affective versus ritualistic communitarianism is that of brotherhood versus membership. It is, to paraphrase Nyerere (1968), ujamaa or “familyhood,” not political socialism. One last point to consider is that the confluence of religions on the continent is as varied as the confluence of languages. The migrations out of and into Africa for the purposes of trade or settlement brought various sects of Christianity, Islam, and Judaism, which intermingled with or overran local animistic faiths. Anthropologists and ethnologists chronicle these animistic faiths widely, and some of these studies make explicit the leap from religion and religious mores to ethics (see Bourdillon 1979 for an excellent articlelength example of this). However, it is still commonplace that the philosophical traditions of Africa are described in terms of their ties to religious worship. In the modern, primarily agnostic parlance of philosophy in the West, the description of African philosophy as a religiously motivated one is often derogatory. A more generous, and perhaps correct, way to view the spiritual elements of African social and moral philosophy is as a unifying theory that brings together epistemology, ontology, and the grammar of morals and facts. As Horton describes, When traditional thought draws upon people and their social relations as the raw material of its theoretical models, it makes use of some dimensions of human life and neglects others. The definition of a god may omit any reference to his physical appearance,

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his diet, his mode of lodging, his children, his relations with his wives, and so on. Asking questions about such attributes is as inappropriate as asking questions about the color of a molecule or the temperature of an electron. It is this omission of many dimensions of human life from the definition of the gods which gives then that rarefied, attenuated aura which we call “spiritual.” But there is nothing peculiarly religious, mystical, or traditional about this “spirituality.” It is the result of the same process of abstraction as the one we see at work in Western theoretical models: the process whereby features of the prototype phenomena which have explanatory relevance are incorporated into a theoretical schema, while features which lack such relevance are omitted. (1998, 189)

As questions of philosophy invariably include discussions of ethical concepts, it is important for an exploration of ethics in the African tradition to acknowledge the significant debate, still raging, over the very idea of “African philosophy.” Hountondji (1996), Ikuenobe (2006), Wiredu (1980, 1996, 2006b), Appiah (1992), Gyekye (1995), Gbadegesin (1991), Serequerberhan (1991), and others continue to argue over this question. The primary questions they ask include whether the lack of historical written languages prevented the accumulation of a historical body of African philosophy, if the lack of a metaphilosophical or analytic tradition in African philosophical studies indicates that African philosophy is merely a variety of ethnophilosophy,2 if communal traditions of moral tutelage and exploration constitute enough of a morally and ethically reflective exercise to constitute African moral philosophizing, if there is a general African philosophy or merely African particularism masquerading as philosophy, if proverbs and narratives might constitute a philosophical corpus, and so on. Authors such as Wiredu and Omoregbe argue whether the name “African philosophy” denotes the existence of anything that is specifically “African philosophy” (see Omoregbe 1998, 3–8). Yet others, such as Olela (1998) and Hood (1998), argue that the African foundations of the Western philosophical and religious canon make the study of African philosophy and theology a reflexive enterprise between Africa and the rest. Further, issues of language, methodology, cultural sensitivity, colonial legacies, and the impetus of decolonization make the study

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of Africa by those outside of the continent and its diasporas a cautious enterprise (Bello 2006). For example, some scholars, such as Asante (1996), suggest that genuine studies of Africa, those employing an Afrocentric perspective, ought to go by the name “Africaology,” a study reserved only for those with an authentic understanding of the continent: Africaology is defined . . . as the Afrocentric study of phenomena, events, ideas, and personalities related to Africa. The mere study of phenomena of Africa is not Africalogy but some other intellectual enterprise. The scholar who generates research questions based on the centrality of Africa is engaged in a very different research inquiry than the one who imposes Western criteria on the phenomena. (Asante 1996, 259)3

Here, we accept that there is a body of texts called African philosophy, which emerged as a distinctive tradition that was conversant with other modes, such as the Christian and Islamic traditions. Discussions of the moral-ethical terms “good,” “bad,” “corrupt,” “acceptable,” “responsibility,” and “duty” in the corpus of work written by, for, and to African audiences suggest a body of literature, art, and scholarship that includes philosophical and applied ethics. Though the notion of an African philosophy may be problematic or may contradict expectations, we recommend heartily that civil servants, scholars, and other public figures dispense fully with the habit of judging African philosophy as somehow lacking.

Applications of the Tradition to Public Service Equality Equality is a complex concept to dissect, given the range of variation among groups, institutions, and philosophical points of view in the history of African politics. Variations run from an extreme of cosmologically or theologically based equality, as in the case of the ancient Egyptian virtue of maat (Obenga 2006), to Zulu age grades under the famed leader Shaka, the ujamaa work-based equality of Nyerere’s African (rather, Tanganyikan) socialism, and a concept of the moral-ontological progression of persons in west African cultures (e.g., Igbo) (Menkiti 2006). For example, the concept of maat (roughly, “justice in toto”) in early Egypt represented the ordering

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metaphysical and cosmological principle of reality in the natural and human spheres. As Obenga relates, Maat basically means “the real,” “reality,” that is, that which is genuine and authentic as opposed to artificial or spurious. Maat is reality as a whole . . . when in society human beings conduct themselves in the proper way or perform in the correct way, they are manifesting Maat. . . . Maat is the highest conception of physical and moral law known to the ancient Egyptians. Thus it is that the goddess Maat was the personification of law, order, rule, truth, right, righteousness, canon, justice, straightforwardness, integrity, uprightness, conscientiousness, and perfection. (2006, 46)

Under this encompassing principle, the “divinity” of the pharaoh was based upon his participation in this principle. The pharaoh’s purpose on earth was the ordering of the world and the preservation of maat, the law-like ordering of the moral and physical universe according to truth. In practice, this did not mean the granting of individual equality of men with the pharaoh (far from it) but the acknowledgment of the equality of each person’s participatory role in the whole of nature and society. The concept of maat, Obenga points out, persists in the languages of many African peoples today. Likewise, the principle of maat as the equality of moral persons, though not necessarily the equality of temporal possessions, persists. In the African context, we must temper our understanding of equality by recognizing that equality was often equality within, but not across, roles. Roles included one’s productive role in the family and the larger society, but one’s assigned role did not ipso facto indicate degrees of personhood.4 As exemplified in the oft-quoted proverb “I am because we are,” one of the distinct elements of an African philosophy and ethic of equality is the investigation of the concept of personhood (Kaphagawani 2006). As Menkiti (1984, 2006), Gyekye and Wiredu (1992), and others argue, the African person is a product of moral instruction and rearing by highly interdependent African societies. Instead of a basis for personhood being the accumulation of enlightenment rationality and autonomy, or the recognition of personhood by a person with such rational autonomy, as in the Kantian supposition of autonomous enlightenment, the African concept requires the reciprocal donation and accumulation of moral qualities and characteristics in

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the context of a moral- and value-laden community. Only through this process of accumulation does someone become a true member of the community, approvingly recognized as an individual. In other words, personhood is a designation of recognized morality, and that morality is communal. Without the moral tutelage of the community, particularly that of morally upright elders, the continued practice of accepted morality, and undertaking the effort to ensure that all other members of the community are also moral beings, one cannot be a person, properly understood. Gyekye, for one, describes this well: The judgment that a human being is “not a person,” made on the basis of that individual’s consistently morally reprehensible conduct implies that the pursuit of moral virtue is intrinsic to the conception of a person held in African thought. The position here is, thus, that: for any p, if p is a person, then p ought to display in his conduct the norms and ideals of personhood. For this reason, when a human being fails to conform his behavior to the acceptable moral principles or to exhibit the expected moral virtues in his conduct, he is said to be “not a person.” . . . The statement “he is a person,” then, is a clearly moral statement. It is a profound appreciation of the high standards of morality of an individual’s conduct that would draw the judgment “he is truly a person.” (1997, 50; see also Ikuenobe 2006, 59)

Following this line of argument, we find the heart of the notion of complex equality, recently made popular in the West by Michael Walzer (1983), elaborated and exemplified already in African societies. The everyday practice of the acknowledgment of moral equality or parity among persons occurs when each greets and/or offers gifts to the other. As Onwuanibe suggests, “High regard for the human person in terms of [moral personhood] presence is displayed in everyday living in warm greetings. It is offensive not to be greeted” (1984, 185, quoted in Ikuenobe 2006, 129). On the matter of gift giving and receiving, generosity is a virtue treasured among many groups as the paradigm act of solidarity enforcement between equals, and gift giving occurs even between the most impoverished. Importantly though, giving gifts is not a material exchange of goods alone. The act of giving and receiving gifts is fraught with moral implications of recognition of status and inclusion into the groups’ value sphere.

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As recounted by Mssr. d’Abbadie of his time in Abyssinia (presentday Ethiopia), In this feudal country . . . men are united by an infinity of ties which would count for nothing in Europe. They live together in a reciprocal dependence and solidarity which they value highly and consider a matter of pride, and which influences all they do. A man freed from all subjection is in their eyes a stranger. In accepting a mule from Dedjasmatch I had already, by the customs of the country, entered into a moral obligation towards him. But in receiving a war horse I became, in the eyes of his men, the man of their master; I was obliged to follow him, and at least for a certain time to share in his fortunes, bad or good. . . . I was no longer for them a stranger in the old and hostile sense of the word. I became their comrade, their companion. (1868, quoted in Davidson 1991, 360)

Despite the constancies in notions of equality and personhood, these ideas are not monolithic on the continent or even in the limited area surveyed here. As there is not one mode of “African” equality, we must look at the patterns of equality within particular groups. Some peoples, such as the many smaller groups that make up the larger Bantu speakers of Kavirondo (roughly, present-day Uganda; Wagner 1970), lived according to a rather apolitical structure in which clan and family ties or the ties between groups determined hierarchies, which were largely fluid. Although not a radically equalitarian structure, the system was not unlike the communist utopia described by Marx and appropriated by the Marxist independence agitators–turned–national leaders, such as Nkrumah, Nyerere, and Senghor.5 As Wagner reports, there was no institution of a legislature or a judiciary and hardly any administrative structure to count. The major political body was the patrilineal clan and/or the family, and differentiation among family members was done according to proven merit and age (Wagner 1970, 230–36). In contradistinction to Western patrilineal models, some groups, such as the Asante of Ghana, were matrilineal (Ikuenobe 2006, 68). In fact, the notion of female equality allowed some female leaders to thrive and demonstrate themselves as clear continental leaders, such as was exemplified by the reign of Queen Nzinga (Ayittey 1991, 382).6 The story of Queen Nzinga (baptized Dona Anna de Souza,

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reigned over parts of present-day Angola) is paradigmatic for the fight of women and African peoples in the face of colonial inequality and domestic inequality. The well-known tale of her negotiations with Portuguese slave traders, in which the traders sought to place her in a position of inequality (standing at their feet) but were thwarted by her ingenious use of a servant’s knee as a stool to put her on parity with her “deliberators,” demonstrates the moral stalwartness of African female leaders in the face of rank, race, and gender inequality (Heywood and Thornton 2007, 84–102, 124–200). In important other ways, though, women were also fully integrated, interdependent parts of the life and prosperity of a group. For example, as Ayittey (2006) reports on the Kingdom of Dahomey (present-day Benin), they employed a shadow cabinet of women, equal to the appointed men, who reported to the king independently. Female equality among the Dahomey also included equality in the military. As Boahen suggests, During his reign, [King] Gezo increased the number of the fulltime soldiers from about 5000 in 1840 to 12000 by 1845. This army consisted not only of men but also of women, the famous Amazons “devoted to the person of the king and valorous in war.” This unique female section was created and organized by Gezo and consisted of 2500 female soldiers divided into three brigades. Commanders of this army were also top cabinet ministers in charge of the central government thus enhancing the position of the army in decision-making. (1986, 86, quoted in Ayittey 1991, 203)

Further, and perhaps most important, throughout many African societies, from the Ga to the Dahomey, Aku, and Akan (areas of present-day Ghana, Benin, and the Gambia), women were and are still the keepers of the marketplace. The importance of women in the indigenous market economy cannot be overemphasized. The market . . . was the heartbeat of economic activity in many African societies. Food production, processing, and trading were indigenous activities handled by women. These women were free enterprisers who went about their activities on their own initiative, drive and interest the way they saw fit. They were not operating under orders from their chiefs or kings. (Ayittey 1991, 387, emphasis in original)

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Whether in a pastoralist, martial, or agrarian economy, we can say that, in as general a way as is possible given the variety of systems on the continent, African societies espouse a system of complex inequality. By complex inequality, we mean that there is both political and social recognition that groups may be unequal with respect to other groups, but the members of a particular group are equal within the group. In terms of political recognition of inequality or institutional mechanisms to preserve equality, there are various definitions to draw from the history and philosophy of Africa. While some societies practiced slavery (typically indebted labor or prisoners of war) or otherwise enforced strict hierarchies of groups, the extant philosophical literature does not include descriptions of an established, ontological difference between people such as the (in)famous “metal of souls” argument espoused by Plato. Instead, socially significant distinctions, such as role and one’s role-assigned duties, determine one’s good or ill treatment. Reflecting again on the equalitarian consequences of the metaethical principle maat, Obenga suggests, The central concept of Egyptian philosophy is Maat, meaning “levelness, evenness, straightness, correctness” in the sense of regularity and order in the world. Flowing from this is the philosophical use of Maat to mean “uprightness, righteousness, truth and justice.” In conformity with Maat, individual rights were fully recognized in Ancient Egypt. Maat gave each human being an opportunity to realize him or herself in this life and to have hope for a future life hereafter. (2006, 49)

Scholars interested in an African defense of human rights, such as Deng (2006), reiterate the notion of equality of epistemic access to truth. These scholars also point to the importance of each individual in the preservation of the community, which is the foundation for any possibility of equal status and equal protection. Taking Africa as an example of a particular cultural approach [to human rights], it is widely known that communal relationships are very important in African society. . . . This is a system in which the protection of the individual is inherent in the solidarity of the group. No family or group based on family values would allow its members to be tortured or subjected to inhumane treatment

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with impunity. . . . African traditional systems are likely to see individual rights in the context of group solidarity, with mutual support entailing rights and duties. (Deng 2006, 501–2)

This complex, communitarian notion of equality had far-reaching consequences for political organization. One of the most astounding to the Western audience familiar with modern images of despotic “Big Man Rule” is the tradition of deliberative governance within many African groups. Within the political theory literature, we find present discussions of consensus and deliberation as if they are newly rediscovered modes of government applicable only in well-developed liberal democracies (e.g., Bohman and Rehg 1997). Yet, in account after account, we see the pattern of consensus and deliberation as the modal pattern of political decision making in indigenous societies. That is, scholars such as Wamala (2006), Teffo (2006), Wingo (2006), and Carew (2006) suggest that household/kraal/clan leaders came together as equals with village elders, appointed leaders, kings/ chiefs/princes to discuss issues ranging from land use to cattle-raid planning to adjudication of crimes. As Teffo illustrates, Consensus seeking is the hallmark of traditional political decision-making in many African communities. Any system that gives such priority to consensus is quite clearly democratic in a far deeper sense than any system in which decision-making proceeds on the principles that the majority carries the day. In the African communities under discussion, kingship is an integral part of a communalistic social order. The special importance of kingship is seen in the fact that the institution symbolizes, inspires, and facilitates the unity and continuity of the community’s culture and traditions. The system involving the kingship institution might be called a communocracy, insofar as it is a type of governance based on general community involvement and participation. Communocracy, then, might be said to be a form of democracy characteristic of many traditional African societies. On might mention in this connection the Zulu of South Africa, the Bugandas of Uganda, and the Akans of Ghana. (2006, 447)

Consider the system of the Asante, who in 1690 (or so) established an effective constitutional monarchy on the principle of a deliberative

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system. The establishment of the Asante nation-state, as Davidson (1992, 52–75) summarizes, in some ways echoes and some ways foreshadows the solidification of the nation-state, particularly constitutional monarchy, in Europe. Importantly though, the key difference between the nation-state in Europe and the nation-state on the African west coast was the role of the people in its establishment and maintenance. Although the Charter of the Golden Stool (c. 1690, the founding constitution of the Asante state) was overrun by despotic leaders from time to time, [p]ower was exercised by powerful persons, but with constitutional checks and balances tending to prevent abuse of power. Despots certainly arose; they were dethroned (de-stooled) as soon as could be. Between ruler and people—one can say between state and people—there was an acknowledged recognition of ties of mutual obligation and respect. Centralized power, at least within the limits of human frailty, was exercised within structures that were devolutionary in their intention and usually in their effect. Asante had well-policed main roads for foot messengers and a complex network of administrative communications and was altogether a powerful state. Yet its executive power derived from the degree in which its founding principles were observed in the rule of law, in the diffusion of executive power, and in the encasing of that power within political and legal checks upon its use, just as Asante’s blunders and disasters came from failure to maintain those principles. (Davidson 1992, 61–62)

Later, in the struggle for colonial liberation, there was a revival of deliberation and consensus with a socialist, particularly Marxist flavor, as in the elaborations on consciencism by Kwame Nkrumah and ujamaa-based leadership by Julius Nyerere. Within his discussion of the political ethics of consciencism, Nkrumah makes it clear that the way forward (out of colonialism) is through the institutionalization of pluralism based on an egalitarian view of all people (1998, 88–90). Nyerere describes the ideal African socialist polity as one where “leaders are not masters” and leaders accept advice and knowledge from the people, regardless of education (1998, 77–80). Within the context of “African democracy,” Nyerere argues that deliberation is possible, even preferable, within a one-party government. To elaborate,

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Basically democracy is government by discussion as opposed to government by force, and by discussion between the people or their chosen representatives as opposed to a hereditary clique. Under the tribal system whether there was a chief or not, African society was a society of equals, and it conducted its business by discussion. It is true that this “pure” democracy—the totally unorganized “talking until you agree” can no longer be adequate; it is too clumsy a way of conducting the affairs of a large modern state. But the need to organize the “government by discussion” does not necessarily imply the need to organize an opposition group as part of the system. (Nyerere 1996, 555)

Which of these features of equality in Africa matter most for public service practice? Most important for the ethical understanding of the term equality are the notions of personhood and the complex equality this entails. Within engaged practice on the continent, one should not either assume equality for oneself or assume equal status among others one works with. Paying careful attention to the greetings that one receives and the greetings given to partners may offer insight into the structure of inequality among colleagues even. As discussed below under the “expertise” heading, expertise in material matters does not confer “expert” status automatically. Personhood, and thus equality and expertise, entails distinctions of a moral quality as well. Given the tradition of deliberation and consensus-based government, ensuring equal opportunities for voice among colleagues and clients is wise for both historical-cultural and practical reasons. Unfortunately, this tradition fell disgracefully to the wayside, advertised incorrectly as justifying the one-man dictatorships that arose following the colonial demise. Consequently, today, Big Man Rule circumscribes the opportunities for equal engagement among all community participants. As Ayittey suggests, As we have seen, in the indigenous political system it was not the chief or king who acted as “number one” and dictated policy. Consensus was the rule, and all participated in the decision-making process. Because the African chief ruled for life, many other African heads of state conveniently declared themselves “presidents for life” and their countries one-party states. Few recognized that the chief was appointed; he did not appoint himself. Military

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dictators pointed to the warrior tradition in tribal societies to justify their rule, while other African dictators claimed that the people of Africa did not care who ruled them. Most of these claims, of course, betrayed a rather shameful ignorance of African heritage. (1992, 64–65)

To follow the guide of equality and deliberative governance inherent in traditional African thought, ethical practice in civil service suggests that practicing public servants ought to work as much as possible with the people themselves. Circumventing political leadership is hardly advisable, yet in instances where equal inclusion seems unlikely, it is incumbent upon civil servants (particularly if working toward development on the continent) to find opportunities for equal, deliberative engagement when possible.

Expertise The tradition of deliberative government in indigenous political systems is indicative for an African ethics of expertise as well. Within the history of the early Asante Empire (c. 1700), there developed a pattern of deliberative monarchy under which all clan leaders came together in an annual festival to debate issues pertinent to Asante unity. This deliberative pattern of government, complete with systems of law and checks and balances, helped ensure the establishment of a functional empire-state. Though the Asante chief could wield authoritarian decision-making power, the tradition of government among the Asante militated against the usurpation of policy expertise and power by one man. According to an established procedure, including say-so by the legislative assembly of clan representatives and the council of elders, a despotic leader could be destooled (dethroned) if his power grabs exceeded the will of the people to have their own voices heard in government or ran counter to the knowledge held or voiced by the people (Ayittey 1992, 221–24; Davidson 1992, 54–65). To understand fully the concept of expertise in the African ethical tradition, we need to understand which type of expertise we are discussing, material or moral. Material expertise—the knowledge of how to do something or use something, or what we ordinarily think of as practical knowledge—could be gained from a variety of conventional sources. Acquisition of material expertise requires no special

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turns of epistemology away from linear knowledge gathering as the pattern follows expectations of teacher and taught, books imparting knowledge to an audience, and so on. Yet, material knowledge and moral knowledge in traditional African societies were not always clearly distinguished. On the matter of moral expertise, the African tradition is unique. Moral epistemology—how we know what is or is not moral at all, what is good morality or bad morality, what is accepted or not—is gathered through what a number of authors call communal epistemology. Hallen makes the case for communal epistemology among the Yoruba in the following way: Whether a military strategy or an agricultural technique, a tradition only deserves to remain a tradition if it proves effective, if it does what it is supposed to do. Until this has been proven in a direct and personal manner, its empirical status can be no more than hypothetical, something that may possibly be true (or false). . . . The moral underpinnings to this discussion of Yourba epistemology become evident once one realizes that the primary source of propositional or secondhand information in an oral culture is other persons. For, if that is the case, knowledge of those other persons’ moral character—their honesty, reliability as sources of information—becomes a fundamental criterion to evaluating the reliability of the secondhand information obtained from them. Knowledge of another person’s moral character is said to be obtained, most reliably, from observing (first hand) their behavior. . . . On the basis of a number of specific previous occasions when you have had the opportunity, firsthand, to verify the truth of a person’s statements, you are justified in using these firsthand experiences as the basis for a generalization about their moral character. This generalization may then serve as a kind of character reference for evaluating the reliability of future statements made by this same person but, strictly speaking, such evaluations must remain hypothetical or tentative until confirmed in a firsthand manner. (2006, 300)

For reasons of epistemology, then, gathering knowledge must be a reflexive combination of communal acquisition and individual confirmation.

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Wiredu (1980) argues that there are potential problems with communalism in epistemology, with particular regard to authority in moral philosophy. In brief, his argument is that a communal epistemology that depends largely on the tutelage of elders results in the dogma of a tradition overtaking free will, moral reasoning, enlightenment, and creativity in moral problem solving. Lacking the opportunity for regard as moral people until they are fully tutored in the proverbs and aphorisms of the tradition, Wiredu suggests, some African (here, Akan) children are trained for docility in the face of their elders. Ikuenobe counters this argument in two ways. First, he offers that the content and character of African philosophy as a praxis system in which moral teachings are interdependent with practical teaching suggest that, in the process of accumulating expertise in practical tasks (e.g., fishing and farming), children must also acquire the moral teachings of the community. As philosophy cleaves to the processes of life, if one is to be successful in practical tasks, one must also be skilled in one’s understanding of community morals. Second, he argues against the preference for and possibility of complete epistemic individualism. He offers that the preference for epistemic individualism in moral matters is a cultural particular of Western philosophy that may have only a tentative basis outside of metaethics. Following Wiredu, standards of ethics accumulate in the process of socialization even for those who will eventually arrive at an alternative moral code (1998, 176–80). Further, he suggests that epistemic dependence is the more constant companion, particularly in those situations where expertise is necessary. To elaborate, Age [adulthood] per se does imply cognitive or rational sophistication. This point is fully appreciated in African thought. Hence, recognition is given to people who have proven themselves consistently by their actions. . . . Even when an individual understands the evidence and relevant alternatives, he cannot practically pursue epistemic individualism and cognitive autonomy regarding all matters. He would require epistemic dependence on the views of “experts” or other epistemic superiors in order to be able to recognize that some alternatives are “real” or better, while others are not. (Ikuenobe 2006, 196)

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In African societies, knowledge was a community production, dependent on the development of skills and moral maxims through communication. One of the barbs in the study of African philosophy is the matter of proverbs, stories, and oral histories. Based upon a large body of anthropological and ethnographic research, many of these proverbs and stories are available to readers outside of the tradition. Yet, readers of these proverbs cannot help but recognize that something, that je ne sais quoi, is missing. This is the practical teaching accompanying the moral fable or vice versa. Due in part to the interrelationship of moral and material knowledge and the importance attached to morality for personhood, teaching even material knowledge was a task reserved for elders. Governance then, the material and moral control of the state, may be best reserved for those with expertise in both these senses. For the context of civil service ethics in practice on the continent, the importance of moral expertise—moral character—should not be understated. In addition to the accumulation of practical knowledge, a true expert must also know how to express her moral learning in context. In sum, the concept of expertise in African societies is a prudential standard. That is, the ability to apply one’s moral, material, and life experiences to problems, not simply muddle through the rules, is the source of expert status.

Efficiency and Efficacy There are two notions of efficiency at play in African thought, which while seeming incompatible at first glance are compatible for the higher end of preserving social harmony and order. Reflecting on the commensurability of the efficiency of community preservation versus economizing for individual or short-term gain, the conflicting questions arise in decision-making situations: Does it save the society in terms of resources? Or, the question to be asked in the context of some African groups, does it save the society? First, like most other systems of ethics surveyed in this book, the maximin notion of efficiency is not the only concern in African societies. Instead, like with other communitarian societies, many west-central African societies prize the preservation of immaterial values enough to eschew the push toward minimizing the immaterial social goods to save the material monetary goods. In other

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words, for many strong communitarian societies represented here, a technique is useful only if it comports with and maintains longheld values; it is not useful if it undermines the society in which it is used. Second, however, is the notion of maximizing efficiency within the marketplace. As observed in the behavior of women in traditional African markets, efficiency of price and maximization of profit were key values practiced by many. Tardits and Tardits (1962) gave the following description of the planning by a typical woman trader in South Dahomey. . . . “First, she observes the market conditions carefully. She buys akasa [corn porridge] from several women, noticing the quantities and prices. She then buys two or three basins of corn. She discovers rapidly where to find the best quality of corn, the lowest prices in the village or on other markets, and will try to make good bargains. She knows her cost prices and manages to keep steady profits by decreasing the quantities of food sold when corn prices go up so as to avoid any change in the market prices. An experienced woman knows in advance how much gain she will derive from a market day, and if she finds that her trade is tiresome or unprofitable, she gives it up for a more lucrative one.” (quoted in Ayittey 2006, 384)

Emphasis on efficiency in the marketplace was not, if the practice of efficient markets was inspired by acceptable social values of fairness, generosity, and protection of family and group, meant for selfish gain and accumulation. Though being wealthy was a trait respected in most African societies, in lean times being selfish, miserly, or exploitative was an unacceptable breach of communal moral codes. In order to reconcile the importance of community and the drive for efficiency, we must explore the concepts of community (again) and wealth. As discussed in previous sections, it is the community that imparts values and knowledge to individuals. Likewise, it is the communal appreciation of material goods and the achievements of the individual who won those goods through her labor that give wealth meaning. As Ayittey makes plain, A better and more general definition of wealth would be the possession of a property that produces in return “something of value.” This expansion at once embraces what may be regarded as social,

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organic, and even psychic wealth, since “something of value” is determined by cultural as well as economic factors. . . . Much of the wealth in indigenous Africa was of the social type—that is of the nonpecuniary or psychic variety. . . . The Masai in Kenya and the Zulus of South Africa counted their wealth in cattle. Among the Gikuyu, “cows give the owner a prestige in the community.” The owner of a large number of cattle was sentimentally satisfied by praise names conferred upon him by the community in their songs and dances. (Kenyatta 1938, 62, quoted in Ayittey 2006, 53)

Predicating any intention to accumulate wealth is the social importance of amassing goods or properties. One example that may illustrate this inclination toward efficiency as subordinate to the higher value of community is the use of traditional tenured civil servants rather than contract workers. Though the notion of tenured civil service is an introduced concept, the notion of a group of valued advisors and administrators serving the chief based upon demonstrated merit is an indigenous concept. As illustrated in the example offered above, the organization of administration within some groups like the Dahomey was decidedly inefficient. A shadow ministry system would potentially cost the king greater amounts in the short term, but maintaining a dual line of reporting and control within the empire could prevent long-term loss and reflect the value of women in the community. Returning to the present day, although contracting out may be more economically efficient, something we may have expected to be highly desired in societies with tight resources, installing temporary contract workers would undermine the longer standing tradition of loyalty and merit-based employment.

Economy The common portrayal of the historical and current African economy is that it is primarily agrarian and centrally controlled. While the assumption that Africa is a predominantly agriculture- and commodities-based economy is true in many nations, many urban centers are thriving manufacturing and export economies. In the past, major cities such as Khartoum were world-renowned centers of learning. Likewise, prior to the subjugation of Africa in the 1880s and the later liberation of large swaths of the continent in the 1960s

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and 1970s, many of the economies of the continent were not centrally controlled. As Ayittey suggests, the notion of a planned economy in Africa is anathema to the pattern (moral and institutional) that encouraged private profit and wealth gained to augment the wealth of the society. Understanding the concept of economy in Africa requires insight into the patterns of ownership in the indigenous economy. Arguments abound on the nature of communal ownership of property in historical economies. To begin with, in multiple groups, such as the Shona and the Asante, the economic function of the chief was protection of the land. The protection of the chief was not a system of ownership per se but was rather closer to a system of stewardship. For example, In Ashanti [Asante], the object which symbolized the unity of the ancestors and their descendants was the stool which the chief occupied. In any Ashanti village the inquirer was informed, “The land belongs to the stool,” or “The land belongs to the chief.” Further investigation revealed that both expressions mean the same thing: “The land belongs to the ancestors.” (Busia 1951, 44, quoted in Ayittey 2006, 325)

Though the work put into the land yielded gains for the laborer, his family, and his clan, final ownership in the sense of private property that could not be expropriated by another without due payment was not forthcoming. Land, held in trust by the chief or king, was later entrusted to a family leader, who could further entrust it to a son or son-in-law. Even in some social systems in Africa (e.g., Gikuyu) where land was bought and sold, the transaction was supervised by elders and encoded with significant social rituals. Property, and thus profit from property, was not ever finally private in its meaning. An important concept that underpins the ethics of the economy and ethics for public servants in Africa is “the economy of affection.” As described in the above sections, there is a high level of interdependency among the social, economic, moral, and political institutions in many African nations. The interdependencies themselves create informal patterns of behavior that help, or in some cases harm, formal institutions. One of these is the economy of affection, or an informal political economy based upon extensive face-to-face

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contacts reinforced by moral duties and social contracts. Hyden defines the economy affection in the following way: It is constituted by personal investments in reciprocal relations with other individuals as a means of achieving goals that are seen as otherwise impossible to attain. Sought-after goods—whether material or symbolic such as prestige and status—have a scarcity value, that is they may be physically available, but not accessible to all, so people invest in relations with others to obtain them. Many such investments are incidental or may be a form of regularized behavior but not necessarily an institution. An informal institution in the economy of affection arises when a group of people agree voluntarily on doing something together; they let a code of unwritten rules develop to guide their activities and their dealings with those who breach these rules. (2006, 73, 74)

This informal, but rule-governed, economy drives much social and economic interaction, licit and illicit. Hyden (2006, 76–78) provides a number of examples of the economy of affection ranging from urban-rural funds transfers to pull-together (“harambee”) movements in Kenya. In addition, this economy helps to reinforce other informal economic practices such as clientelism, resource pooling, community (self-)defense, charismatic leadership, the “family pot,” and community volunteerism. Having obtained a high social status (through wealth or clientpatron relationships), a powerful member of a clan or community could call upon his fellows to assist with work and reasonably expect that many would show to help. Similarly, a group leader could ensure that adequate capital was available on credit to group members in need of large funds, perhaps for purchasing equipment (i.e., boats, draft animals), by making certain that each member contributed to the “family” or “community” pot. Most lineages in traditional Africa have a “family pot,” a general welfare fund managed by the head of the extended family. Income-earning members are obligated to make contributions to this fund. . . . In some families, contributions may be entirely voluntary for those who no longer live in the village. However, failure to contribute is often interpreted as abandonment of one’s family and considered as a serious transgression. (Ayittey 2006, 51, emphasis in original)

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Understanding the communal economy (but not, pace Nkrumah and Nyerere, communist) offers an explanatory lens through which to view the terrible problem of corruption in Africa. Postcolonial African nations are often portrayed as hotbeds of political, military, and administrative corruption. Although African nations are certainly not singular as sources of extensive corruption, the scale and depravity of corruption on the continent make many African nations paradigmatic examples of corrupt nations (e.g., Mobutu Sese Seko’s Zaïre). Many scholars of the history of slavery in Africa and African postcolonialism and critical observers of the history of the continent’s political history after 1500 (approximately) argue that the endemic nature of African corruption is the result of foreign “tutelage” in the tasks of rape, pillage, and exploitation (see, e.g., Reade’s 1863 assessment of the changes in indigenous traders’ patterns following European exploitation of the Niger Delta; excerpted in Davidson 1991, 409). Others, however, argue that the opportunity to remake the politics of the continent following decolonization was squandered at the hands of a series of corrupt, Machiavellian opportunists masquerading as liberators (Mbembe 2001, particularly chap. 2). The financial consequences of such a history of endemic corruption Ayittey describes as the “garish stain on the continent.” He offers the following scathing indictment: The slate of postcolonial African leaders has been a hideous assortment of military coconut-heads, quack revolutionaries, crocodile liberators, “Swiss bank” socialists, briefcase bandits, semi-literate brutes, and vampire elites. Faithful only to their private bank accounts, kamikaze kleptocracts raid and plunder the treasury with little thought of the ramifications on national development. Billions of dollars in personal fortunes have shamelessly been amassed by African leaders while their people wallow in abject poverty. (2005, 406)

In the West, the definition of civil service corruption is thought to be particularly clear: corruption is accepting bribes, kickbacks, or favors, engaging in nepotism or non-merit-based hiring, or accepting unwarranted social, political, or economic power and status as an exchange for doing one’s designated job. This same definition is deployed to discuss corruption in Africa, though often without recognizing the different moral values of the economy—the

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background conditions of politics and administration—in play. For example, in his discussion of “systemic corruption,” Caiden (2005) points to sub-Saharan African (and Latin American) societies as exemplars of the model. This may be, though, an example of an alternative system. As Mazrui (1992) describes and Achebe (1988, [1961] 1994) poignantly captures, the economic and moral values in play on the continent are a mix of cultures, indigenous, colonial, neocolonial, and, recently, global. Mazrui’s description of the pressures within communal patterns of obligations best highlights the tensions between a Western definition of corruption and African economic communities. Politics in Africa, for example, are sometimes hard to keep clean merely because people are moving from one set of values to another. In no area of life is this better illustrated than in the issue of ethnic solidarity and kinship obligations. Pressures are exerted on an African official or politician to remind him of those who share his social womb. People from his area or from his clan enquire on how best the well-placed African politician, or even academic, might help his kinsmen gain admission to a job or to a scholarship. African vice-chancellors have been known to undergo agonizing pressure to persuade them to help appoint members of their own “tribe” to position of authority and earning power within the universities over which they preside. (1992, 211)

Though echoed almost universally within the literature on African politics, few scholars offer a way out of such patterns of corruption. Instead, authors such as Ikuenobe (2006) suggest that the socially stabilizing and community-reinforcing practice of obligations, which often lead to what outside observers describe as corrupt practices, actually help African communities to retain authentic ties in the face of an artificial, imposed, individualistic modernity. The scholarly debates on the origins and problems of corruption in Africa aside, African nations have not resigned themselves to corruption as endemic on the continent. D. Yoder and Cooper (2005, 311–12) identify three major initiatives against corruption on the continent: the Global Coalition for Africa, the United Nations Charter for the Public Service in Africa, and the African

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Union’s “African Convention on Preventing and Combating Corruption.” Such laudable efforts are part of a constellation of efforts to address corruption in Africa. Yet, the remedy for corruption may first come with acknowledgment of the background philosophical and economic assumptions that promote the continuation of corrupt practices. Further, though, we ought not be too hasty to overdiagnose and overdose corruption in Africa without determining first if these practices have anything to teach us about combating corruption elsewhere.

Conclusion: An African Ethics for Civil Service? Due to the conceptual platform of the book and the authors’ own limitations with the body of ethics and moral philosophy literature within African languages, our analysis here has, in some ways, reflected the ill-informed tendency to compare African concepts to Western ones. Although we have taken to heart Wiredu’s insistence to compare African philosophy with other philosophies only on the terms set by African societies themselves, we recognize that an authentic African civil service ethic would need to be first buttressed by a long-standing continental tradition of civil service practice. Though some societies, such as the Dahomey, the Asante, the Mandinga, and the Zulu (Ayittey 1991), all had modern political administration systems in place even well before Western modernity, the practice was not widespread throughout all groups. With these limitations in mind, however, we argue that a distinct African civil service ethic exists and can inform civil service practice elsewhere. The contours of an African system of civil service ethics include a strong notion of communal ties that are reinforced by deliberation and consensus forging, which are underpinned with a duty-bound (deontological) ethic.

Recommended Readings Asante, Molefi Kete, and Abu S. Abarry (eds.). 1996. African Intellectual Heritage: A Book of Sources. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Bayart, Jean-François. 1993. The State in Africa: The Politics of the Belly. New York: Longman. Bennett, T. W. 1995. Human Rights and African Customary Law. Cape Town: Juta.

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Brown, Lee. M. (ed.). 2004. African Philosophy: New and Traditional Perspectives. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Dia, Mamadou. 1996. Africa’s Management in the 1990’s: Reconciling Indigenous and Transplanted Institutions. Washington, D.C.: World Bank. Diop, Chiek Anta. 1974. The African Origin of Civilization. New York: Lawrence. Evans-Pritchard, E. E., and M. Fortes. 1970. African Political Systems. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Eze, Emmanuel Chukwudi (ed.). 1998. African Philosophy: An Anthology. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell. Harbeson, J. W., D. Rothschild, and N. Chazan (eds.). 1994. Civil Society and the State in Africa. Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner. Heyd, Goran. 2006. African Politics in Comparative Perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hountondji, Paulin. 1996. African Philosophy: Myth and Reality. 2nd ed. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Karp, Ivan, and D. A. Masolo (eds.). 2000. African Philosophy as Cultural Inquiry. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Kopytoff, Igor (ed.). 1987. The African Frontier: The Reproduction of Traditional African Societies. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Mazrui, Ali A. (ed.) and C. Wondji (asst. ed.). 1999. UNESCO General History of Africa. Vol. 8: Africa since 1935. 2nd ed. Berkeley: University of California Press. Mbiti, John. 1969. African Religions and Philosophy. Oxford: Heinemann. Price, Robert. 1975. Society and Bureaucracy in Contemporary Ghana. Berkeley: University of California Press. Serequeberhan, Tsenay (ed.). 1991. African Philosophy: The Essential Readings. New York: Paragon House. van de Walle, Nicolas. 2001. African Economies and the Politics of Permanent Crisis, 1979–1999. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wiredu, Kwasi (ed.). 2006. A Companion to African Philosophy. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell.

Chapter 12

Ethics in the Liberal Tradition

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ithin political theory in general and public administration specifically, liberalism holds pride of place. Indeed, the origins, and continuing discussions, of public administration occur within the broad school of liberal thought. Yet, like most traditions discussed in this work, liberalism is a broad tradition, with various strands in conflict with others. Especially when we consider the ethical aspects of liberalism, these differences among the branches of liberalism highlight the varying emphases on the importance of autonomy, equality, efficiency, progress, and the like. Perhaps the greatest difficulty in a discussion of the liberal tradition is the attempt to define liberalism itself. Most liberal thinkers would agree that autonomy and equality are the two major elements in liberal ethics. However, there is extensive debate regarding the meaning of these two terms. As liberalism has expanded from its origins in thinkers such as John Locke, Immanuel Kant, and the pragmatists (among others), the conflict among these ethical norms has remained contentious. Moreover, while much of the literature discusses liberalism in the context of democracy, as if the two were interchangeable, the relationship between democratic norms and liberal norms also creates difficulties in definition and prioritization. Historically, liberalism developed in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in response to various perceived problems: freedom 275

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of the individual, the proper role of the state, the ownership of property, and the mechanisms of wealth creation, among others. While elements of liberal thought can be seen in different European societies, it has its beginnings in the various maritime nations (e.g., the Netherlands) that came to power at this time, often as a reaction against mercantilism and autocratic state authority on issues of faith and politics. The various liberal movements also argued against forms of monarchy (cf. Ashcraft 1986) and would strongly influence both the American and French Revolutions, although these responses diverged in some key respects. The tradition of liberalism is vast, and although it is often discussed as a specifically political philosophy, liberalism is also often proclaimed as a broader philosophy of life (for instance, in Kant and, at times, Rawls) or a starting point for epistemology (in certain respects, J. S. Mill) and potentially other areas of philosophical study, such as ethical theory. While a full discussion of liberalism would require analyzing these elements of the tradition as well, for our purposes we will only touch on those topics, as they are important for public administration ethics. Before discussing the norms liberalism prescribes for civil servants, we will discuss one of the key elements of liberalism: the notion of autonomy.

Autonomy Autonomy (or, for some authors, liberty) denotes the importance of choice within the liberal view: an agent is truly free only when she can determine her own ends and means as desired. To the extent that an external force or agent curtails another agent’s choice, that agent is no longer free. Taken to its farthest extent, this view of liberalism can lead to various forms of anarchist theory,1 but most liberal theorists focus particular attention on drawing the line among autonomy, freedom, and chaos. Here, we can see two main branches of liberal thought. The first has its origins in the works of John Locke and might be called the “classical liberal” tradition. The second branch originates in the works of Immanuel Kant and is generally associated with “modern” liberalism. While both of these branches of liberalism have similar structures, the bases for their assumptions can appear to be radically different. This is particularly clear when we consider the views of the empiricist Locke and the idealist Kant.

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For Locke, autonomy means the liberty to enjoy the fruits of one’s labor and the freedom to follow one’s own beliefs within the private sphere. Beginning from a “state of nature,” Locke argues that it is “a State of perfect Freedom to order their Actions, and dispose of their Possessions, and Persons as they think fit, within the bounds of the Law of Nature, without asking leave, or depending upon the Will of any other Man” ([1690] 1988, 269, emphasis in original). This notion of freedom is best contained in Locke’s idea of property, which is the basis for the rest of his explanation of freedom. As he explains, . . . [E]very Man has a Property in his own Person. This no Body has any Right to but himself. The Labour of his Body and the Work of his Hands, we may say, are properly his. Whatsoever then he removes out of the State that Nature hath provided, and left in it, he hath mixed his Labour with, and joyned to it something that is his own, and thereby makes it his Property. It being by him removed from the common state Nature placed it in, it hath by this labour something annexed to it, that excludes the common right of other Men. ([1690] 1988, 287–88, emphasis in original)

It is only when the “inconveniences” of the state of nature become too great that these free and equal individuals will form a political society. As no one forces each of these individuals into such an arrangement against his will, a social contract based on free consent becomes the basis for political legitimacy and rule. With its focus on autonomy as a precursor to the right to property, this form of liberalism does not necessarily require certain substantive outcomes. As long as there are no unreasonable limitations to the freedom of choice of the agent, substantive outcomes (such as economic inequality and the like) are irrelevant to legitimacy. Liberal thinkers who fall under the Lockean school would include F. A. Hayek, Robert Nozick, possibly Robert P. George, those generally categorized as “neoliberal” economists (Milton Friedman and Joseph Schumpeter), and others. While these various thinkers start from different assumptions (Hayek from the perspective of Adam Smith, Nozick from an extended version of Lockean ideas of freedom, George from the “new” natural law school), all of them share the same preference for a liberal system of freedom that does not bring equality before autonomy. While the Lockean school of

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thought, like all forms of liberalism, is concerned with equality, it tends to prioritize substantive freedom over substantive equality.2 In Isaiah Berlin’s terminology, the Lockean view of autonomy is one of “negative liberty” or the “freedom from” coercion of one’s own autonomy (Berlin 1969). The starting-point for Kant’s ideas of autonomy is significantly different from that of Locke. One reason for this difference is their respective epistemologies: while Locke begins from an empiricist position (cf. [1706] 1975) and is much more comfortable in invoking God as a guarantor of equality (especially in the first portions of his Second Treatise), Kant shifts to an idealist position in order to circumvent the epistemological difficulties raised by David Hume ([1740] 1985). Further, freedom, for Kant, means “to make public use of one’s reason in all matters” (2006, 18, emphasis in original), while for Locke, liberty means two things: The Natural Liberty of Man is to be free from any Superior Power on Earth, and not to be under the Will or Legislative Authority of Man, but to have only the Law of Nature for his Rule. The Liberty of Man, in Society, is to be under no other Legislative Power, but that established, by consent, in the Common-wealth, nor under the Dominion of any Will, or Restraint of any Law, but what the Legislative shall enact, according to the Trust put in it. (Locke [1690] 1988, 283, emphasis in original)

As human beings are rational (cf. Kant 1996), they have the ability to conceive of and follow universalistic rational laws, including the “categorical imperative” (Kant [1785] 1997). More importantly, the Kantian form of liberalism places a much greater emphasis on rationality as enlightenment as well as placing a stronger weight on substantive equality. The idealist formulations of Kant lead to various differences with the Lockean school of thought. For Kantians, substantive outcomes do matter, equality tends to become a higher priority than autonomy (or, rather, the Kantians would say that autonomy “rightly understood” requires a substantive form of equality), and human progress of a liberal kind aims toward forms of “perpetual peace” domestically and internationally. This almost eschatological hope, perhaps best summarized in the idea of the “Kingdom of Ends,” separates the more limited form of liberalism in Locke from the more expansive type found in Kant’s works.

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Many of the most important modern liberal thinkers of politics and political ethics are in one way or another Kantians or neo-Kantians. This list would include Hans Kelsen, Allen Buchanan, Stephen Macedo, Joseph Raz, Will Kymlicka, Ronald Dworkin, John Tomasi, Michael W. Doyle, possibly Amy Gutmann, and others. However, the most renowned contemporary Kantian is John Rawls, and his “justice as fairness” system is an application of the Kantian idea, but with the elimination of the “Kingdom of Ends” as an aim of progress (Rawls 1999b). Moreover, Rawls believes that his system of liberal political theory is perhaps practically superior to Kant’s, as “justice as fairness” prioritizes the “right over the good”: in other words, his system places its emphasis upon procedural rules and processes that do not necessarily depend on any “comprehensive” worldview or moral system. For Rawls, human beings are “free and equal,” and therefore autonomy is necessarily a part of human activity and fulfillment. Humans have the ability to choose their own goals and duties, while obligations thrust upon others without their consent would be unjust to an extreme. The final major school of liberal thought we will discuss we describe as “skeptical” liberalism. This is a broad categorization, under which many disparate schools of thought coexist. The defining characteristic of this group is their denial of a foundational anthropology (whether focused on a particular theory of being and humanity or on a “thought experiment” in the case of Rawls and Nozick), instead emphasizing the importance of a certain skeptical mode of thought. In one version, skeptical liberalism focuses upon experimentation as a method to reach useable truths for society. This version generally includes the original pragmatists, such as William James and John Dewey, as well as more recent pragmatist thinkers, including Richard Rorty. In this “pragmatic” strand of skeptical liberalism, experimentation in life and society is the preferred method of defining and solving social problems. Only through openness to new modes of being and interacting can a society and its citizens be truly free, and only by disavowing dogmatic adherence to foundational views do we realize this state. Autonomy, for the pragmatic view, is primarily a freedom for creating one’s own way of living, among other things. A second version of skeptical liberalism, perhaps best called conservative liberalism, rejects experimentation in the pragmatist

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sense, rather emphasizing the importance of tradition and historical development. The most important thinker in this school of liberalism is Michael Oakeshott. Under this view, attempts to analyze and shape society based off a priori theorizing (in Oakeshott’s terminology, attempting “rationalism in politics”) is doomed to failure, as human knowledge is insufficient to make such calculations. Because of this epistemological uncertainty, tradition, custom, and “rules of thumb” in politics are prominent in their discussions of a conservative form of liberalism. In contrast to other forms of conservative thought (such as that of Richard Weaver or Russell Kirk) that rely upon natural law or organic notions of culture/society, however, these conservative liberal thinkers do not claim any universal law legitimating tradition and history: rather, these thinkers emphasize the usefulness of these traditions in one’s historical context. Freedom, in this view, relates directly to the customs and traditions in a given culture. One might prefer certain traditions, or consider “civil association” to be a superior form of political organization, but again, the basis of these decisions is historical contingency, not universal necessity.

Democratic Theory and Liberalism Though historically the two do not necessarily coincide, liberalism and democracy are close associates in the jargon of political philosophy and modern political parlance. The project of democratization, spurred on by a wave of democratic theorizing, saw application to various corners of the world—to Asia and Latin America in the 1970s and 1980s, Africa in the 1980s and 1990s, or the Middle East in the 1990s and 2000s. The burgeoning corpus of democratic theory literature had its effect on almost all sections of politics and administration. Notably, concerns for the design of democratic institutions and procedures and the correction of nondemocratic tendencies in philosophy and constitutional law took the fore in major scholarly and practical debates. Corresponding to this rise was a parallel concern for the articulation of an ethical code compatible with these changes. Inspired by the ethics of autonomy, freedom, and enlightenment dwelling within the earlier body of liberal philosophy, the ethics of liberal democracy included broad insistences on the importance of the free

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and equal individual for development toward a transhistoric democratic ideal. This ideal took the form of a reified and enlightened, liberal, Athenian polis in which all citizens were equal participants in an ongoing legislators’ conversation. Though but one of the many variants on the theme of democracy,3 deliberative democracy (and perhaps its sibling discursive democracy) is the enduring adaptation from this wave of democratic theorizing that matters to the practice of public administration on a local or global scale. Inspired by the Rousseauian notion of a common will, the practices of deliberation in the Athenian polis and the Roman forum, and the Hegelian description of democracy as the end of history, deliberative democracy has procedural, substantive, and transcendental properties inherent in most definitions. For example, . . . [D]eliberative democracy refers to the idea that legitimate lawmaking issues from the public deliberation of citizens. As a normative account of legitimacy, deliberative democracy evokes ideals of rational legislation, participatory politics, and civic selfgovernance. In short, it presents an ideal of political autonomy based on the practical reasoning of citizens. (Bohman and Rehg 1997, ix)

Procedurally, deliberative democracy requires an implicit or explicit protocol for the inclusion of participants, the conduct of participants within discussions, and a decision rubric for the solutions generated through adherence to said measures (Warren 2001, 2008). Substantively, deliberative democracy entails a commitment to the plurality of values. Though some authors disagree with the now architectonic formulation by Rawls of “reasonable pluralism,” the elementary idea of pluralism in deliberative democracy is that no viewpoint is a priori excluded from presentation in the conversation. Transcendentally, the program of democratization culminates in a deliberative form that could potentially include any articulate person in the program of public legislation, regardless of origin, race, sex, creed, or ideology. At the moment of the “end of history,” the “last man” will be engaged in an exercise of forging a legislative consensus through open, reasonably plural, communication (cf. Fukuyama 1992). But what ethical code will he adhere to in his deliberations?

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The ethics of deliberative democracy follow closely those of liberalism. Yet, the standards of deliberation articulated by deliberative democratic theorists such as Gutmann and Thompson, Cohen, Knight and Johnson, Estlund, and more include subtle pronouncements of a code of deliberative ethics. In the context of its relation to the Five E’s of the public administration orthodoxy, deliberative democratic theory has much to say about equality and expertise. In terms of efficiency, efficacy, and economy, the relationship to liberalism provides the best articulation of these related elements.

Applications of the Tradition to Public Service As with the other traditions we discuss in this book, liberalism is not a univocal system. Rather, there are multiple currents of liberalism, oftentimes in competition and/or contradiction with others. In one form or another, many elements of liberal ethics are already integrated into broad discussions of public administration ethics. In the following, we will consider some of the more important elements of these discussions. Where differences emerge, in particular between Lockean and Kantian types of liberalism, we will briefly discuss how they apply to civil service ethics. We will also distinguish differences between the liberal tradition and theories of democratization.

Equality Liberals differ on the contested concept of equality. All streams of liberalism begin with some assumption of equality among members of a community, which can mean one’s particular society up to humanity in its entirety, but differ as to whether this communitylevel egalitarianism means legal equality, moral equality, equality of outcome, equality of results, or something else entirely.4 As with the concept of autonomy, Locke and Kant also have different ideas of equality, and this has led later thinkers in these two traditions to take varying positions on what equality entails. For Locke, equality invokes two things: first, that all human beings are equal in terms of self-ownership and, second, that all human beings (once they have reached maturity) have a general equality in rationality, at least insofar as their own interests are concerned.5 This type of equality requires that the state, via the rule of law, recognize all citizens as legal equals, even if not substantive

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equals. As a result, a form of equality of opportunity (within bounds) remains a constant element of Lockean equality. These starting points of Lockean equality also tend against ideas of equality of outcome and similar, substantive forms of equality. As self-ownership is connected with individual choice, individual decisions will result in widely varying results, which would include economic inequality and other types of inequality—however, as long as the initial type of equality is not infringed, then these other differences are an acceptable part of society.6 Under the Lockean view, public administrators must respect the legal (or “formal”) equality of citizens in terms of public goods and services. Legal equality requires a procedures-based interaction between administrator and citizen but does not necessarily require any particular substantive outcome. A civil servant is required only to recognize equality in its legal form and would be acting inequitably to act otherwise. The Lockean perspective would emphasize the importance of procedural due process in the assessment of property tax, for instance, but would probably be more skeptical of identitybased allocations of government resources or benefits. Lockean civil servants, therefore, should aim to treat all clients as equals under law, recognizing no distinctions except those countenanced by the law itself. The Kantian view, on the other hand, tends to view equality in a substantive manner. As mentioned above, substantive equality is closely connected with the idea of true autonomy, and thus the civil servant should be primarily concerned with the furtherance of equality among her clients. In the Kantian tradition of liberalism, the concept of equality has steadily expanded its borders. Starting from the basis that each person, being free and equal, should receive treatment as an end rather than as a means, the possible ramifications for equal treatment are limitless. Even if there is no specific maliciousness in the intent of any given individual, structures in society itself may lead to using human beings instrumentally, and thus denying their equal human status. But by using freed, “enlightened” human reason, the Kantians hope that these types of structural problems, vestiges of a previous and more superstitious time, can be overcome and equality realized. The intertwined nature of substantive equality and autonomy in the Kantian formulation (ensuring equality of access, opportunity, and potentially result)

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means that ensuring this equality becomes a key imperative for civil servants. Indeed, one might say that the central measure for Kantian ethics in public administration is the creation and maintenance of equality of government clients (citizens, residents, and beyond). Since human beings appear unequal empirically, how can their true equality find expression politically? In the Rawlsian version of equality, epitomized in the “original position” under the “veil of ignorance,” we can “hypothesize” a situation where equality is the starting point for all agents in the society. “The original position is specified to embody the appropriate reciprocity and equality between persons so conceived; and given that their fundamental aims and interests are protected by the liberties covered by the first principle, they give this principle priority” (Rawls 1999b, 475). As the rules of society are dependent upon what these equal agents in the “original position” decide, there is a greater reassurance that the procedures in society themselves will respect equality. Moreover, by relying upon the notion of “justice as fairness,” and in particular the “difference principle” (described below), the substantive equality required by modern liberalism, even if it cannot be perfectly attained, may at least come closer to true equality. The most contemporary version (the Rawlsian view) certainly does not neglect the importance of procedure—indeed, it is constructed around a procedurally based system—but uses procedure to create outcomes, rather than simply recognize legal or formal equality. Perhaps the best example of this focus on outcomes is the “difference principle” of Rawls: “According to difference principle, it [an initial inequality] is justifiable only if the difference in expectation is to the advantage of representative man who is worse off” (1999b, 68). While Rawlsian liberalism contends that equality is central to its view, equality has a different meaning in this system. While each citizen is “equal,” part of this equality depends upon structuring the state to help the “least advantaged.” The “difference principle” usually applies to constitutional formation and lawmaking in Rawls’ discussions, but this principle can easily be replicated in the civil service itself. Under this view, regulatory interpretation should make the difference principle one of its chief concerns. When attempting to clarify a legislative act or administrative rule, the Rawlsian civil servant should ensure that the outcome of the act/rule will be

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to the benefit of the “worst off” members of society. For instance, administrators responsible for the clarification of zoning rules should inquire as to whether certain changes in the regulations will result in increased access to services for the worst off: if so, then the interpretation is just, while if not, the civil servant will need to reconsider how the regulations should be modified. Whether Rawls would have envisioned public administrators committing such acts is unclear,7 but we can deduce that his system makes equality the primary concern for civil servants. Moving beyond simple liberalism, equality of participants is probably the most important procedural and substantive quality in theories of democracy. The essence of democratic equality is that all participants meeting minimal, agreed-upon eligibility requirements must have an equal say-so in the outcome of representative selections and (secondarily) legislative discussions. For example, democratic voting procedures stipulate that all votes count equally, drawn from a pool of participants who are equally eligible to vote. In many nations, voter exclusion bases include merely age and citizenship criteria. Other qualifications, such as property ownership, gender, ethnic group, or ideological party membership, are, under a liberal system of individual moral autonomy for those capable of reasoned judgment, presumed arbitrary and therefore impermissible in a true democracy.8 However, certain problems persist with democratic equality such as vote aggregation, access to political power, and capability of exercising one’s equal status in a political arena. As mentioned in chapter 1, aggregation of the preferences of equal individuals presents a series of problems for implementing a belief in the sanctity of equality. Arrow, Sen, and other economists propose a multitude of aggregation procedures whereby an individual’s preference (i.e., vote) counts in a truly equal way, which is with no exogenous factors impinging upon it. The multiplicity of aggregation procedures, Knight and Johnson point out, does not open a pathway to full equality though, particularly in the context of deliberative democracy where the force of the greater argument carries the day. As they rightly point out, seemingly arbitrary accidents, such as mere voting order, might adversely affect the outcome of the exercise. Further, considering the related concerns of equality in access to

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and capability within the deliberative forum in particular, the ability of any one individual to reach the forum physically or emotively will condition the possible outcome of the deliberative exercise. The matter of access to the deliberative forum for the physically and/or mentally compromised individual highlights the complexity of this concern. Could a great orator such as Cicero, if he were a wheelchairbound, speech-impaired woman, make convincing arguments to the Roman senate that we still read today? In more updated terms, which client will command more resources and garner more persuasive capital over a university bureaucracy—a wheelchair-bound student unable to reach the student senate room but gifted in her ability to compose persuasive editorials or a wheelchair-bound student unable to reach the senate room and unable to compose prose in fluent English? Declarations of equality of opportunity and access do not translate readily into equality of impact. Democratic theorists attempt to articulate multiple methods to negotiate the process of equalizing opportunity, impact, and access, many of which entail the redistribution of “primary goods.” Following Rawls, in order to create true democratic equality, all people must have their basic material needs met in order to access the political sphere. Echoing and advancing upon Rawls, luck egalitarians suggest that all people must have their basic material needs met, and efforts to equalize their capability to perform in the political sphere must also be equalized, even if this means imposing unequal sanctions on those who “overperform.” The purpose of doing so is to ensure true and substantive equality of capability, access, and impact. From an administrative perspective, implementation of equality of access, opportunity, and impact is difficult. While statutes such as the Americans with Disabilities Act (and its many cognates overseas) and the implementation of mother-tongue policies in legislative arenas and courts of law (such as in Canada) improve the possibility of true equality, complete equality is unlikely to be realized. Efforts to diversify the bureaucracy and bring in greater opportunities for bureaucratic representation for minorities may help to ensure a more equality-sensitive bureaucracy, but programs to implement preferential hiring or access may be met with contention even in the most liberal and democratic of contexts.

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Expertise It is presumed in the liberal notion of equality that each individual is rational and capable of being her own moral and empirical guide, independent of others’ judgments. The individual autonomy of judgment supposed in liberalism suggests that each participant in a liberal, and similarly, democratic, polity has equality of opportunity, access, and impact upon deliberative proceedings. The presumption of ontological equality among liberal individuals does not, however, dictate that all people are automatically equal in all regards. Liberalism, while prescribing equality, does not proscribe diversity. In doing so, liberal ethics leaves room for an articulation of the ethics of expertise. In a liberal system, experts are not experts by dint of any ontological or substance change; inequality is the product of morally arbitrary “accidents.” But, pace the luck egalitarians who advocate for a radical program of equalization of all “accidents” in order to ensure ontological, epistemic, political, and sometimes cultural equality, this inequality of knowledge and expertise does not have to mean inequality of political authority. As Knight and Johnson, echoing Warren, make clear, [T]he commonplace view of deliberation does not presume that citizens are literally equal in the sense that each has the requisite interest, experience, or expertise to participate in every decision that affects her life. It does not, therefore, preclude authority relations. This is especially important in complex, functionally differentiated societies (Warren 1996, 46–48). What the egalitarian thrust of public argumentation requires is that claims to authority be subject to challenge. Thus, for example, on contested issues those who invoke special expertise can be compelled to provide reasons for a given decision when, in the standard course of events, their claim to authority might well have sufficed (Warren 1996, 58–59). (Knight and Johnson 1997, 289, emphasis in original)

As an ethical value in the framework of deliberative democratic theory, expertise means an advanced ability to reason, argue, and provide universally accessible evidence for one’s position. The standard of universally accessible argumentation required for deliberative expertise, however, means that knowledge must be accessible

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through the language of modern (Western) science. Even though all rational individuals start with the ontological equality necessary for all to be experts in their own lives, experiences, and chosen fields, the standard of deliberative expertise requires fluency with postenlightenment rationality and scientific methodology. To elaborate, under the strictures argued for by deliberative democrats Gutmann and Thompson, when one is asked to produce evidence of one’s expertise, credentials, evidence of certification, or an examination result may be offered, but arguments that one is the recipient of divine revelation are not. One way in which expertise does slip back into these deliberative models is through what Gutmann and Thompson call “relatively reliable methods of inquiry,” which place some restrictions on what type of evidence is acceptable for consideration: The claims need not be completely verifiable, but they should not conflict with claims that have been confirmed by the most reliable of available methods. Even when moral reasoning does not explicitly rely on empirical evidence, its premises should not be implausible. (1996, 56)

While these “reliable methods of inquiry” are meant to prevent biblical exegesis from entering into public discourse, they also provide an avenue for reentering expertise into deliberation, simply by making some of the standards of bureaucratic expertise as the limits of “reliable methods of inquiry.” Even arguments that one is an expert in living the moral life are not permissible as evidence for one’s moral standing; moralizing arguments are circumspect as each individual is expected to be an independent moral adjudicator on his own. According to the articulations of the archetypal deliberative democrats, expertise is scientific rational expertise as already supposed in the administrative orthodoxy. However, following later elaborations, we may add that the deliberative administrator is also, following Fischer and Forester, one who is expert in eliciting, reading, or decoding the narrative experiences of citizens for their substantive or procedural insights into administrative actions. Thus, the deliberative democratic expert is one who is able to negotiate the realms of standard scientific expertise and is able to function as an “expert citizen” among “citizen experts” (Fischer 2003, 222).

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Various liberal thinkers see expertise as a necessary part of a well-functioning society. For instance, in Political Liberalism, Rawls argues for the importance of a class of experts in determining the basic law of a given political community (the Supreme Court), outside of the direct influence from the broader body of citizens (Rawls 2005, 231–40). As he argues, By applying public reason the court is to prevent that [higher] law from being eroded by the legislation of transient majorities, or more likely, by organized and well-situated narrow interests skilled at getting their way. If the court assumes this role and effectively carries it out, it is incorrect to say that it is straightforwardly antidemocratic. It is indeed antimajoritarian with respect to ordinary law, for a court with judicial review can hold such law unconstitutional. Nevertheless, the higher authority of the people supports that. (2005, 233–34)

While this particular argument focuses upon constitutional issues and a constitutional court, one can expand this idea to the ethical importance of expertise in public administration. While civil servants usually enforce the “ordinary law” in their mundane activities, administrators actively shape the structure of regulations and enforcement of the law. These professionals (experts in their particular fields and protected, to a certain extent, from “transient majorities”) can also shape their regulatory norms along the lines of “public reason.” As a result, if public administrators gain training or habituation into shaping or enforcing regulations under the public reason standard, then the civil service itself becomes a major and active player in the liberal well-ordered state. By focusing upon the “well-ordered society,” Rawls indicates that expertise has more than a minor role to play. In order to prevent illiberal forces from instituting their comprehensive worldviews on the society in general, the Rawlsian position seems to require that public administrators (as well as the judiciary) play the role of public reason incarnate: specifically, civil servants (through their training and loyalty to their specific departments) would use their expertise to ensure the continuance of the liberal system even against the wishes of the population. Moreover, public administrators would be in a good position to ensure that political discourse remains within the realm of public reason by simply not acknowledging those types

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of arguments that are not liberal/“reasonable.” Civil servants are better positioned to monitor and guard public reason than even the courts: while judges must be reactive, and thus passive, bureaucrats (depending upon the department) can be proactive. By structuring SOPs and departmental mission statements along the lines of public reason, public administrators could enforce and strengthen the role of public reason as an element of professional expertise and good practice.

Efficiency Traditionally, efficiency has played a conflicted role in liberal ethics. While the Kantian strain of liberalism argues against the use of others as means rather than ends, other forms of liberalism have emphasized a nearly utilitarian concern with efficient governance. As a matter of principle, no major branch of liberalism is against efficiency per se: rather, the differences between liberals tend to be of priority and emphasis rather than fundamental disagreement. As mentioned in the introductory chapter, much of the formulation of the Five E’s comes from liberalism in general, efficiency included, and thus we will not repeat that discussion here.

Efficacy Efficacy is a complicated topic in liberal ethics. Specifically, efficacy often relies upon some notion of consequentialism, which is avoided by more Kantian forms of liberalism while being used by the liberal utilitarian ethical perspectives. Efficacy also presents difficulties in terms of extent of effect: efficacy, in this case, is also strongly tied to the notion of limited government. While most liberals advocate some form of limited government, what these limits are will strongly influence considerations of how efficacious civil servants should be. To illustrate this point, we will compare the views of Hayek (a Lockean liberal) to those of Rawls (a Kantian liberal). For Hayek, the efficacious government agency is one that does not take on duties/responsibilities that it cannot handle. Specifically, Hayek argues that large-scale central planning, as a matter of epistemological capacity, will not work in practice. As public administrators must (like all other human beings) work within a constrained view with finite information, advanced government

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planning (and thus, government efficacy) will always be limited. As government agencies lack the same “automatic” information feedback systems as the market (particularly through the information provided by money circulation), civil servants will not have the ability to gather the information necessary for efficacious government, beyond certain narrow boundaries. While it is an oversimplification, Hayek argues for a government that governs only specific sectors well, while leaving the rest to the private sector. Within public administration itself, some elements of New Public Management (especially those focused on the privatization of certain sectors of government administration) follow along these lines. Hayek is an example of the more Lockean-inspired liberals; public administrators should be efficacious in their work, but the authority of civil servants (and the government itself) should be strictly limited. For some of these thinkers, this limitation is a matter of economic logic (as in Hayek), with the belief that the “spontaneous order” of the free market will be both more efficient and efficacious than government activity (Hayek 1960). For others, the limiting factor is the importance of consent. Taken to the farthest extent, this notion would result in the “night-watchman state” of Nozick. Kantian liberals, on the other hand, see efficacy in the universalization of certain rules and procedures. Narrowing the extent of the state, in this view, actually works against freedom rather than encouraging it. Under this view, state intervention is needed in order to increase/assist freedom. Rather than a night-watchman state, we see instead an activist welfare state that uses its involvement to increase the opportunities for residents to fulfill their goals. Limitation, then, denotes the structural limitation of universalism: specifically, it cannot be efficacious if it cannot be universalized. For Rawls, as a modern Kantian liberal, the efficacious government agency is one that allocates resources well (especially to the “least advantaged”) while not infringing upon certain basic liberties. Similar to the general Kantian form of reasoning, the Rawlsian view does not necessarily put any limits on the scope of government intervention: rather, the “first principle” of “justice as fairness” instead places constraints on some of the means of government action. In practice, this means that the state efficacy involves increasing the integration of the public/political sphere over the

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private/nonpolitical sphere in order to ensure society-wide justice. While Hayek sees limitation as meaning that multiple spheres of life are outside of the state’s purview, Rawls believes the state should have a more activist role, but with restrictions regarding what types of infringements it can commit.

Economy Certainly, many liberal ethicists focus on the importance of economy in public administration. Indeed, given the close connections of liberal thought to free-market forms of economics (particularly in Lockean or “classical” versions), it should not be surprising that this is of importance. For some liberal theorists, privatization is the key requirement for economy. Privatization is important for two reasons. First, following the notion of limited government, Lockean liberals tend to believe that many of the resources provided by the modern welfare state are more cost-efficiently provided via the private sector, even if under contract with the state. Second, various liberals (such as Hayek) would argue that privatization allows the government, through its contracted agents, to enjoy the type of information feedback that the market provides, thereby increasing the cost-efficiency, and indeed the efficiency in general, of resource allocation to government clients. By shifting the actual allocation of resources and services through private groups, under this view the costs of government activity decrease via the use of nonpublic corporations and ventures. For other liberals, however, economy is not as central a concern for civil servant ethics. As with efficiency, economy is a lower priority compared to equity, nondiscrimination, and certain substantive outcomes (such as the betterment of the “worst off”). While cost-efficiency would certainly be an added benefit in the Kantian liberal’s view, it is at best a secondary concern compared to the provision of resources and services themselves. Indeed, for the Kantian liberal, the privatization of government services is viewed skeptically, as it appears the state is transferring its rightful responsibilities to other, less accountable agencies. Under this view, subsuming state responsibilities in the name of cost-efficiency is an abdication of the public administrator’s role: the state is the agent concerned with justice, while the private corporation is focused on profit. For

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the Kantian, privatization shows a misunderstanding of the proper roles of the public and private spheres.

Conclusion The tradition of liberalism is both diverse and broad. However, one should not confuse this variety in liberalism as indicating liberalism’s tolerance for other worldviews. While much is made of the tolerance of liberalism, liberalism’s tendency to ignore, or disparage, the reasonableness of other theories of ethics provides a major reason for this text. Perhaps the best example of this type of thinking comes from Rawls’ distinction between “reasonable” and “unreasonable” comprehensive worldviews. Rawls’ Law of Peoples (1999a) perhaps best illustrates this type of distinction as well as explicates what shape a liberal global order would take. The international order itself would be developed along the lines of the “original position,” but with some deviations. However, one element remains consistent: The parties are subject to the veil of ignorance properly adjusted for the case at hand: they do not know, for example, the size of the territory, or the population, or the relative strength of the people whose fundamental interests they represent. Though they do know that reasonably favorable conditions obtain that make constitutional democracy possible–since they know they represent liberal societies–they do not know the extent of their natural resources, or the level of their economic development, or other such information. (Rawls 1999a, 32–33, emphasis added)

In order for global society to exist, there must be an a priori agreement that societies will be liberal (or at least reasonably accommodating to liberal principles). Rather than attempting to accommodate the differences in ethical systems between societies, then, Rawlsian liberalism simply assumes these differences away. Sadly, this type of perspective is not limited to Rawls. Liberal theorists, in general and in public administrative ethics, tend to look upon other views as either (1) protoliberal views and therefore provisionally acceptable or (2) nonliberal and, thus, also unreasonable and perhaps irrational. By limiting the field of ethics to a binary analysis of liberal/logical and nonliberal/illogical, grasping the complexities of public administrative ethics across cultural boundaries becomes nearly impossible.

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As one friendly critic of contemporary liberalism explains, “Taking one’s stand with reason rather than morality—especially a ‘reason’ into which considerable moral and political content has already been poured—is a convenient way of being partial and judgmental while pretending to stand above the fray” (Berkowitz 2006, 124). While liberalism is the dominant ethical paradigm in public administration ethics in the West today and will likely remain so for the foreseeable future, globalization will present major challenges to this ideology. As public administrators in the West come into closer, and more consistent, contact with their counterparts in other cultures (cf. Slaughter 1997), civil servants will need to understand, and try to accommodate, nonliberal ethical systems. In the past, liberalism has shown a strong capacity to adapt when political and economic conditions change: it will need to do so again, or risk becoming parochial and irrelevant.

Recommended Readings Dahl, Robert A. 1971. Polyarchy: Participation and Opposition. New Haven: Yale University Press. Kymlicka, Will. 1995. Multicultural Citizenship: A Liberal Theory of Minority Rights. Oxford: Clarendon. Riker, William H. 1982. Liberalism against Populism: A Confrontation between the Theory of Democracy and the Theory of Social Choice. San Francisco: W. H. Freeman. Shapiro, Ian. 1996. Democracy’s Place. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press. Tomasi, John. 2001. Liberalism beyond Justice: Citizens, Society, and the Boundaries of Political Theory. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.

Chapter 13

Marxist–Leninist Ethical Traditions

A

t the height of its strength, communism in one form or another ruled over a commanding portion of the world’s population. While most of these governments have either fallen (such as the Soviet Union) or downplayed their Marxist principles (such as the People’s Republic of China [PRC]), the importance of the communist political ideology—Marxism–Leninism—remains. Moreover, the explicitly political and instrumental ethics of Marxism–Leninism makes the study of this particular ethical tradition useful when considering similar movements as they may arise on the world scene. As the name indicates, the two major thinkers in Marxism– Leninism are Karl Marx (1818–1883) and V. I. Lenin (born Vladimir Ilich Ulyanov; 1870–1924), although Friedrich Engels (1820–1895) would also belong in this group. Marx and Engels provided an overarching theory of “scientific socialism,” focusing upon class conflict, contradictions in capitalism, the dialectical method and “historical materialism,” and the importance of the proletariat for the creation of the classless society (communism).1 Lenin’s contributions consist in describing how revolutionary forces educate and lead the working class, describing how these forces (specifically, a “vanguard party”) gain and maintain power after a revolution, and (in practice) providing the political structure for the “dictatorship of the proletariat.” Where communism succeeded in becoming the reigning ideology of the state, it has been a Marxist–Leninist state of some type 295

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or another. However, the historical fact of Marxism–Leninism’s success vis-à-vis other forms of Marxism points to a major controversy in Marxist–Leninist thought.

How Marxist Is Marxism–Leninism? A long-standing debate, both within and outside Marxist circles, addresses the inspirational relationship of Marx’s works to the ideas, and later political system, created by Lenin (cf. Meyer 1957, 7–15). Some argue that Marxism–Leninism is a direct result of Marxism itself (Furet 2000; Harding 1996; Malia 1995).2 For others, Marx’s works were used and misused by Lenin, dividing Leninism from any real connection other than in language and name with Marxism proper (cf. Pearce 1991; Avineri 1968, 256–58; Yarros 1920). Other Marxist authors simply downplay or ignore the Leninist version in their discussions (G. Cohen 2000; Elster 1985). Finally, some argue that harsh evaluations of Lenin’s views tend to distort what is valuable in his system (cf. Le Blanc 2006). This debate is not merely academic, as the often antagonistic nature of these discussions shows: the connection between Leninism (totalitarianism) and Marxism (as the major school of thought for socialism) could have wide-ranging implications for the evaluation of Marx-inspired socialist notions in general (cf. Gregor 2009). Moreover, this debate relates to some difficulties in interpreting Marx himself. Those who relied on the gradual and automatic development of capitalism into communism, and those who stressed the creative historical role of revolutionary initiative, could both find support in Marxist writings. The former accused the latter of seeking to violate the laws of history as laid down by Marx; the latter retorted that the former expected the impersonal process of history to make the revolution for them, which might mean waiting until the end of the world. (Kołakowski 2005, 341)

Those thinkers who emphasize the deterministic elements, therefore, tend to minimize the Marxism of Leninism: “The voluntarism of the Leninist vocabulary of insurrection has too often been overlooked by those who want to consider him an orthodox heir of Marx” (Wolpert 1948, 253). As such, the disputes within Marxism

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itself make determining the similarities between Lenin and Marx all the more difficult. There are various similarities between Marx and Lenin as political organizers, most specifically in terms of organizational manipulation. For both thinkers, organization was a key concern, most importantly in terms of maneuvering organizational rules to one’s benefit through the strategic use of meetings and the loyalty of fellow ideological travelers. As a result, both thinkers were intimately aware of the necessity of understanding and bending to one’s will some important organization structures. For instance, Lenin manipulated the party to give his Bolshevik faction the organizational capacity to put their minority position above the majority of the party (Service 2000, 153–58).3 So too with Marx: the main tensions within the First International involved the struggle for domination between Marx’s followers and those supporting the Russian anarchist Mikhail Bakunin.4 Through deception and “creative” management of the rules of the organization, Marx assured his followers of dominance, even if the result was the collapse of the International itself (Kołakowski 2005, 210–11; Berlin 1963, 216–18). This type of organizational exploitation would be typical for various communist movements attempting to gain power (cf. Courtois and Panné 1999, 336–38), and such practices often continued after the seizure of power, even at the highest levels of civic administration and political institutions. While both were revolutionaries, there are many differences in the lives of Marx and Lenin. Marx remained more of a theorist of radical action, while Lenin sought to put these principles into action. In particular, Lenin emphasized the importance of professional revolutionaries in the task of gaining and maintaining political power for the working class: Such workers, average people of the masses, are capable of displaying enormous energy and self-sacrifice in strikes and in street battles with the police and the troops, and are capable (in fact, are alone capable) of determining the outcome of our entire movement—but the struggle against the political police requires special qualities; it requires professional revolutionaries. And we must see to it, not only that the masses “advance” concrete demands,

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but that the masses of workers “advance” an increasing number of such professional revolutionaries. Thus, we have reached the question of the relation between an organisation of professional revolutionaries and the labour movement pure and simple. ([1902] 1969, 107, emphasis in original)

For Lenin, the various workers’ movements in Russia were not enough; spontaneous action by the workers would lead only to “trade-unionism” rather than the implementation of the true revolutionary spirit. As such, the vanguard party was a necessary (but not sufficient) condition for the advancement to the Marxist classless society.5 A comparison of Lenin and Marx reveals that some of Lenin’s modifications to Marxism are not minor. Perhaps the best example of such a modification is the addition of the vanguard party, the group of professional revolutionaries who will help “push” History along.6 But would this notion go against Marxist material determinism? Or is the vanguard party rather an extension of the working class’ dynamic historical position? Whether this is a strong theoretical modification, or merely the practical guide to implementation of Marxist communism, is difficult to determine. Various authors emphasize Marx’s arguments on the determinate nature of the means of production and technology on the movement of History, pointing out many areas in Marx’s works that focus on economic processes over individual and/or group will (cf. Ashcraft 1984, 660–67). Marxist thinkers of this type could particularly cite Engels’ condemnation of the German Peasants’ Revolt of the early sixteenth century as a “premature” revolution (Engels 2006) as showing the importance of impersonal economic/technological developments before revolution is possible. Karl Kautsky, viewed as the epitome of Marxist orthodoxy in the time of the Second International, would fall into this category (cf. Coser 1972, 175–77). But there are also multiple points at which Marx highlights the importance of action (praxis) and the role of the working class—and its guiding party—in “making” history (cf. Harding 1996, 171–74; Lane 1981, 53–54; Lukács 1970, 25–28). Many non-Leninist Marxists in the early twentieth century— notably Karl Kautsky, Rosa Luxemburg, and Georgi Plekhanov—stood on the determinist end of the Marxist spectrum, although the level and type of determinism varied. These thinkers, in various ways,

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argued that the violent Marxist revolution would indeed occur, but in the far-distant future. Up to that point, however, it was important for socialist activists to better the condition of the working class through the means of elections, social legislation, and other peaceful mediums. While not denying the importance of revolution per se, these authors tend to discount it as an immediate concern. On the opposite side of the Marxist spectrum from the Leninists were the revisionist Marxists, who took an evolutionary position on determinism to the point of denying much of Marxism and its theory of historical development. Eduard Bernstein usually is named as the main revisionist writer who emphasized gradual change, parliamentarianism, and a more pragmatic approach to socialist aims and argued that the emphasis on sudden, violent, and revolutionary change was both unlikely and undesirable. In this manner, the revisionists followed many of the same ideas as those of Kautsky and others but simply denied the relevance of violent revolution either in the present or in the future. This evolutionary perspective in the end resulted in the rejection of the Marxist revolutionary eschatology, much to the chagrin of various Marxist schools and to the fury of the Marxist–Leninists. While noting these differences, there are certainly similarities between Leninist and non-Leninist versions of Marxism. Perhaps the best example of a similarity focuses upon the instrumental notion of good for both groups. As will be discussed below, ethics—the behavioral standards in place to help us achieve “good”— in Marxism–Leninism are instrumental, based upon whether an action will better bring about the end of the (good) classless society. The driving rationale for action is “science,” understood as the correct application of material dialectics in determining those actions that are efficacious and appropriate, at a given historical point in development, to bring about the final end of capitalist society and its replacement with the final, communist society. To an extent, we can see a similarity with this view in the elaboration of Marxism in critical theory. Specifically, in his discussion supporting (philosophical) materialism, Max Horkheimer writes, Materialism is not interested in a world view or in the souls of men. It is concerned with changing the concrete conditions under which men suffer and in which, of course, their souls must

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be stunted. This concern may be comprehended historically and psychologically; it cannot be grounded in general principles. (1999, 32)

While expressing a general view of the relation between the material base and the “superstructure” of society, Horkheimer’s ethical argument is not strongly different from the instrumentalism of Lenin. Rather than emphasizing some type of general ethical rules or principles, Horkheimer focuses upon the “concrete conditions,” suggesting that ethical action depends upon these conditions, historical and psychological. Ethics, then, depends upon the historical conditions of society as it moves toward the classless society. While the methods suggested by the Frankfurt School are notably different from those of the Leninists—in that the Frankfurt School dedicated itself to the mixing of Marxism and Freudianism while Marxism– Leninism had little place for Freud’s ideas—the underlying rational and structure of ethical argumentation remains the same. Even after the separation between Western Marxism and Leninism in the middle point of the twentieth century, these strands could find similarities. For instance, Lenin argued that limitations of “reactionary” speech were a necessity for the continued existence of the Soviet Republic: under his view, “This historical truth is that in every profound revolution, the prolonged, stubborn, and desperate resistance of the exploiters, who for a number of years retain important practical advantages over the exploited, is the rule” (Lenin [1918] 1975, 37, emphasis in original). With such advantages, coercion by the working class’ dictatorship was both acceptable and vital. In a similar vein, Herbert Marcuse, in his “Repressive Tolerance” (1969), argues that forces of the “right” (broadly, those not “progressive”) must be barred from tolerance. Again, the methods were different—for Marcuse, tolerance should be shown only to an ambiguous “left,” while for Lenin speech must follow the dictates of the working class’ representative party—the underlying ideas and arguments remained remarkably the same. In the end, perhaps Leszek Kołakowski’s assessment of the connection between Marxism and Leninism is the most complete and concise: In short, the Leninist-Stalinist version of socialism was a possible interpretation, though certainly not the only possible one,

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of Marx’s doctrine. If freedom equals social unity, then the more unity there is, the more freedom; as the “objective” conditions of unity have been achieved, namely the confiscation of bourgeois property, all manifestations of discontent are relics of the bourgeois past and should be treated accordingly. (2005, 343)

But, what does the variation in strains of Marxism and Leninism tell us about the ethics for public administrators working in these systems?

The Method of Marxism–Leninism—Material Dialectics One of the greatest challenges in approaching Marxist–Leninist ethics is the philosophical method employed by Lenin himself, generally known as “material dialectics.” Indeed, various scholars have questioned whether there is much of a “system” to Leninism per se, seeing the various abrupt changes in Lenin’s positions on diverse issues—for instance, switching positions on bourgeois versus proletarian revolution, the role of the soviets in the governance of the revolutionary Russian state, and others—as illustrating opportunism and sheer realpolitik. Such a view, however, does not take into consideration the serious, indeed fanatical, devotion of Lenin to what he perceived was orthodox Marxism. Lenin believed that Marxism was more than the collection of Marx’s writings but instead, perhaps primarily, a methodology that must be used to understand the true dynamics of society. This method was the “science” of Marxism, which gave its user privileged access to the objective truth to the direction of history and the economic/political/social elements of history’s dynamics. More to the point, Marxism—in Lenin’s view—was justified and legitimized by its scientific/ predictive properties as well as by its focus on praxis. All actions by “true” Marxists, and therefore of the vanguard party, had to be explained within the larger framework of Marxist theory, using the Marxist method of dialectics. If certain historical patterns predicted by Marx did not come about, it was not because Marxism itself was incorrect but rather that the theory was applied too mechanically. Instead of merely parroting the words of Marx, Lenin argued that one needed to use Marx’s theory in application (praxis) to the concrete situation that exists in one’s own time.

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Let us consider an example of Lenin’s emphasis on Marxist methodology over “parroting” in his defense of dialectical thinking. At the turn of the twentieth century, a “crisis of Marxism” raged in the European Left over the validity of Marx’s arguments, theory, and application. One of the major issues concerned Marx’s prediction of increased pauperization of the working class in advanced industrial societies: according to Marx, the need for capitalists to invest in technology would strain profits, with capitalists increasingly cutting the wages of workers to maintain profitability. With advancing industrialization, the workers’ condition would worsen, leading to hunger, disease, and desperation, which would—among other factors—lead to the revolt of the working class against capitalism and the bourgeoisie. And yet, in the most advanced economies, pauperization did not occur. For “revisionists”—the most famous being Eduard Bernstein (1961)—this incorrect prediction shows serious flaws in Marx’s whole system. Lenin, however, disagreed vehemently, arguing that such a critique required a superficial reading of Marx’s theory: if one follows Marx’s method of dialectics in Lenin’s argument, then one will see that Marx’s predictions are sound in the end.7 As the concrete situation changed, so the specifics of Marx’s predictions would be modified, but not the overarching pattern. Lenin’s Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism ([1917] 1987) is his example of Marxist dialectical method used to explain concrete situations: as capitalism became a global regime in the time since Marx’s death, its patterns of exploitation changed. The advanced countries gained “superprofits” from various de jure and de facto colonies, using these exploited periphery nations to dump surplus capital from the saturated home markets as well as use these “superprofits” on social legislation in the home countries as a means to prevent worker unrest. Moreover, these “superprofits” were used to “bribe” trade union leaders and other members of the “labor aristocracy,” thus leading these individuals to sap the revolutionary consciousness of the workers. Lenin, therefore, could argue that in a narrow, short-term view, Marx was “wrong” in his prediction on working-class pauperization, but that Marx was actually correct in that (1) this oppression was shifted to the oppressed and exploited nations, which would expand revolutionary fervor to the rest of the globe, and that (2) imperialism (or “finance capitalism” or “monopoly capitalism”) merely made the national woes of

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capitalism international and would inevitably lead to the pauperization of the workers in the advanced economies, as Marx predicted. History did not come to a halt in the nineteenth century, and Lenin would critique those who read Marxism as if history stopped—that is, those who read Marxism atheoretically and amethodologically. Giving examples of Lenin’s use of “material dialectics,” however, is much simpler than actually trying to identify or define the main elements of dialectics itself. In the words of Georg Lukács, It is of the essence of dialectical method that concepts which are false in their abstract one-sidedness are later transcended (zur Aufhebung gelangen). The process of transcendence makes it inevitable that we should operate with these one-sided, abstract and false concepts. These concepts acquire their true meaning less by definition than by their function as aspects that are then transcended in the totality. . . . For if concepts are only the intellectual form of historical realities then these forms, one-sided, abstract, and false as they are, belong to the true unity as genuine aspects of it. (1971, xlvi–xlvii)

The obscure terminology originates in Marx’s language of analysis, which itself is based on the idealist, and notably difficult, system of G. W. F. Hegel (1977). In general, “dialectics” seeks to understand the ongoing process of history, acknowledging that this process is made up of various types of contradictions. The mistake is to consider these contradictions as something “foreign” or “aberrant” in reality itself, as one might view “outlier” cases in the natural sciences. Rather, contradictions are part of the greater totality of social reality. As these contradictions become more severe, a crisis occurs, in which the contradictions are “transcended” (Aufhebung) in a new, unified totality (cf. Rees 1998). In Marx’s formulation, History is not driven by some abstract idealist spirit (Geist)—as it was in Hegel—but instead is driven by economics, in terms of both technological/economic development and the arrangement of human relations within these economic systems. Capitalism, in this view, erupted from the contradictions of feudalism, with the bourgeoisie serving as the “revolutionary class” that would bring capitalist relations to their full level of productivity and creativity. However, within the historical era of capitalism, contradictions exist: labor is transformed into alien commodities,

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and the accumulation of capital serves the few bourgeoisie to the detriment of the proletariat. As times goes on, capitalism creates surpluses of which it cannot dispose, as the usual consumers (the workers) are living on barely subsistence wages. These contradictions will inevitably lead to capitalism’s destruction, in Marx’s view. More to the point, the new era is born in the ashes of the old: the sheer inhumanity of existence for the proletariat will bring about class consciousness, where the workers will rise up against what is alien and oppressive in capitalism, while also expanding on the creative and productive power of the capitalist economy in nonoppressive ways. Note that, in Marxist dialectics, this general narrative of history is not a hypothesis: it is pure “scientific reasoning” that capitalism will collapse and that the classless society will arise. Marxism–Leninism begins from the position that material dialectics is the true way to understand social reality, while other methods—such as free-market economics, “bourgeois” social sciences, and the like—must necessarily be partial, or indeed even reactionary. A major point that distinguishes Lenin’s view of dialectics from many others is his constant insistence on the elements of “science” and “praxis” in dialectics. The “science” of dialectics requires its user to view the concrete situation of the present, with all its contradictions, within the framework of the totality of reality—the full process of History. The “praxis” of dialectics requires the user to then take the knowledge of the totality back to the concrete situation and translate it into actions that will further the process of history. Action is of the highest importance, for as Marx famously wrote, “The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point, however, is to change it” ([1888] 1978, 145, emphasis in original). For Lenin and those who followed him, the error of other supposed Marxists was not taking dialectics seriously, in its both scientific and praxis-oriented nature, and instead focused only on gradualist, evolutionary, and in the end opportunist means to reach the ends of revolution. Lenin argued that the changes were not gradualist per se but rather that major “shifts” would happen in society, of which the vanguard of the working class needed to be attentive. In this view, [t]he dialectician must . . . seek to locate those crucial nodal points (or “nodal lines,” “leaps in nature,” “breaks in gradualness”) at

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which sudden qualitative (or revolutionary) change can no longer be avoided. . . . The distinctive mark of dialectical thinking, of Marxism, was, Lenin insisted, recognition of the fact that in all processes, natural and social, moments occur when there is an abrupt break in continuity. (Harding 1996, 233)

These abrupt breaks are the moments of revolution. But even after revolution commences, the need for dialectical thinking remains. As will be discussed below, Lenin (and future Leninists) would argue that the “transitional period” between the capitalist era and the communist era, unanalyzed by Marx because the concrete situation was not evident to him, requires a group of dedicated individuals to guide the process toward its final end.

Applications of the Tradition to Public Service We can analyze Marxist–Leninist applications to the civil service in two ways. First, we could examine empirically the situation in the Soviet Union, the PRC, or other communist nations themselves. Second, we could consider the theoretical requirements themselves. For the most part, we will focus upon this second method. While case studies of various Marxist–Leninist regimes would prove interesting, such a specific type of analysis would take this chapter too far from its purpose. Moreover, most communist nations (and more important revolutionary movements) were, in some form or another, Marxist–Leninist.8 As such, an analysis of Marxist–Leninist ethical theory will provide guidance in understanding the ethical thought of these diverse groups. As one scholar notes, “Marxism–Leninism does not dictate the content of Soviet administrative theory, but it does impose distinct limitations” (Sanjian 1986, 206). One could make similar statements about Marxist–Leninist groups in general. It is difficult to overemphasize the influence of Lenin’s thoughts and personality on the formation of Marxism–Leninism in general. In particular, his theories of the vanguard party and democratic centralism connected with his own actions in bringing the Bolshevik Party to power in Russia. Perhaps the most characteristic element of his personality and, in a less practical form, his theories is his flexible dogmatism: in other words, Lenin’s ability to remain true to his theoretical principles while making large tactical or strategic reversals in a short amount of time. Here again, Lenin’s view of

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material dialectics required that one make changes to plans and policies should the concrete situation change: following the same plans when developments showed a different relation to totality would be both ignorant and self-destructive. Lenin’s goal orientation no doubt assisted in his tenacity: “Lenin always placed the seizure of power at the center of his thought. No less than the bourgeois liberties that Kautsky held dear, Lenin always considered the electoral path in terms of expediency” (Bronner 1982, 588). This flexible dogmatism had two consequences. First, it permitted Lenin and his followers to gain and maintain power in Russia and radically transform the tsarist state into the Soviet Union. The second consequence, however, is more problematic from the civil servant perspective: while the final end of public administration in a Leninist regime is clear—the achievement of the classless society—the means one could use to reach it are constantly changing. Lenin’s often contradictory actions and advice leave the Leninist public service apparatus at a significant disadvantage. More to the point, Lenin argued that many of the kinds of restraints that would guide—and limit—civil servants are at best illusionary, in both the capitalist and the transitional “socialist” forms of states. Perhaps Lenin’s most blunt statement in this regard was his definition of dictatorship: “Dictatorship is rule based directly upon force and unrestricted by any laws. The revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat is rule won and maintained by the use of violence against the bourgeoisie, rule that is unrestricted by any laws” ([1918] 1975, 23). In Lenin’s view, all states, regardless of their particular “forms,” are fundamentally dictatorships, in that the ruling class will use force in order to serve its own interests. Under this definition, the dictatorship of the proletariat is in no sense different from a capitalist parliamentary democracy, as both have a class dominating the society and that, in the last instance, has no regard for the rule of law. The main difference, for Lenin, is which class had dictatorial control: that the Soviet Union was now (supposedly) under proletariat control, this dictatorship served the true interests of the working class and, as a result, of History itself. The obvious difficulty, however, is how to regulate, control, and act as civil servants within a system that explicitly denies the actual worth of the concept of the “rule of law.” Public administration ethics in Marxism—Leninism is made more complex because of the developmental dynamics inherent in

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Marxist socialism/communism. Marx, Engels, and Lenin (Azrael 1966, 13–14), among others, in one form or another, generally agreed that the administrative apparatus of the socialist society would be very similar to that in the previous, capitalist society (cf. Azrael 1966). In itself, this connection is not shocking: according to Marx, communism arises when capitalism has expended all its progressive force, with the workers’ revolution and the classless society arising from it. For Marx, the new society will not smash everything that previously existed—such a view struck him as naïvely utopian, as well as dangerously similar to the anarchism of Bakunin—but rather would expand upon the strengths of capitalist society while lacking capitalism’s destructive contradictions. As with industry, so with administration: Marx praised the increased rationalization brought about by administration in the capitalist system (cf. Marx 2000). Administrative rationalization was not the problem but rather the type of class oppression fostered within it. However, what a nonoppressive, socialist administration, built up from the ashes of the bourgeois era, would look like was never made clear in the works of Marx or Engels. Lenin and the Bolsheviks attempted to expand on this idea, especially in the early years of the Soviet Union, but with mixed results. Public administration was a difficult area, as the Bolsheviks rode to power with the slogan “All Power to the Soviets,” where administrators would be elected by the workers themselves and could be immediately recalled. As the new regime moved to limit the power of the soviets as being “anarcho-syndicalists,” this issue became less pressing.9 More to the point, the sheer lack of workers trained in specialized administration required the use of “bourgeois specialists” in the early years of the regime. While the initial focus on the soviets and the idea of worker-run factories implied a form of communal governance and administration, Lenin soon moved “to gain official approval for the replacement of the collegial management by the principle of one-man authority (yedinolichie)” (Azrael 1966, 43). Again, Lenin argued that a dialectical analysis of the current situation required expanding the productive forces of the Soviet Union, so as to protect it from encroachment by the aggressive, capitalist world. The streamlining of administration through one-man rule, under this view, would increase productivity, thus increasing the safety and security of the proletarian state and thus serving

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the greater good of the workers and of History. As this change illustrates, even the correct arrangement of public administration (communal, hierarchical, etc.) must align with dialectical thinking, which in practice means following the dictates of the workers’ vanguard, that is, the party. Up to the era of Stalin and beyond, an ongoing difficulty was balancing the influence of the “bourgeois specialists” and the “red directors” (communists appointed to high managerial positions), and the control of both by the party (cf. Azrael 1966, 43–90). A more specific problem for Marxist–Leninist public administration ethics is the rather naïve view of the civil service Lenin illustrates before taking power. In particular, Lenin’s discussion of bureaucracy in his The State and Revolution sees administrative activity as seductively simple, even when he does not argue that the new workers’ state “will smash the old bureaucratic apparatus . . . shatter it to its very foundations . . .” (1987, 355). In explaining how the dictatorship of the proletariat will differ from the previous capitalist systems, Lenin writes, Capitalist culture has created large-scale production, factories, railways, the postal service, telephones, etc., and on this basis the great majority of functions of the old “state power” have become so simplified and can be reduced to such simple operations of registration, filing and checking that they can be easily performed by every literate person, and it will be possible to perform them for “workmen’s wages,” which circumstances can (and must) strip those functions of every shadow of privilege, of every semblance of “official grandeur.” (1987, 302, emphasis in original)

Under this view, public administration is so simple that “every literate person” is capable of it. Even in Soviet practice, this notion could not stand—the complexity of the modern state’s organization requires specialized skills and knowledge. As Lenin’s works became canonical, however, finding ways to express the reality of complex administration in acceptable language became difficult.

Efficiency and Efficacy toward the “Classless Society” Perhaps the clearest element of Marxist–Leninist public service ethics deals with efficiency. In many ways, efficiency (rightly

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understood) is the main and overwhelming imperative in a Marxist– Leninist civil service. Efficiency rightly understood simply means that the right action is whatever best advances the state toward the good end of the classless society: Right action is a matter of theory, not morality. It is not a question of doing the right thing in response to codes of conduct or principles, but of correctly grasping what course of action corresponds to the needs of the moment. These needs are shaped by the paramount necessity to hasten the achievement of successful proletarian revolution. (C. Brown 1992, 230)

In the Marxist–Leninist conception of efficiency, there are two main elements: instrumentality and teleology. The instrumental nature of this ethic is clear. Ethical consideration is not primarily about rules but rather about calculation, using the methods of “scientific socialism.” Marxism–Leninism is not simply instrumental in its notion of efficiency—it is also strongly teleological. Rather than calculating efficiency based on some present gauge (utility, the national interest, etc.), this system assesses with the aim of realizing the future, specifically the eschatological horizon of the communist society. Using the method of dialectics, the Marxist–Leninists argue that such a calculation is both possible and necessary. By studying the dynamics of material, technological, and economic history, the public administrator or, rather, the party leadership that will direct the public administrator can make calculations regarding the best possible action given the concrete situation “on the ground.” Moreover, these calculated, end-driven activities are imperative, as it is a dialectical necessity that the classless society should arise. While miscalculations, such as basing one’s decisions on a different ideological perspective or simply committing an error of calculation, might temporarily stymie the development toward the end, nothing can definitively stop the dialectical “march of history.” In practice, this focus on efficiency led to an emphasis on productivity: by making the Soviet regime powerful and strong, Lenin and others believed that this would ensure the safety of the “proletarian society” against its capitalist opponents long enough for world revolution to occur. Moreover, high levels of productivity would inspire the proletariats of other nations to follow the Leninist lead toward this final revolution.

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Two major difficulties arise in the Marxist–Leninist notion of efficiency in public administration. The first, more philosophical, problem focuses on the normative element of necessity. Specifically, it was often noted that even if the Marxist–Leninists could incontestably show that they have correctly identified the “march of history,” such evidence does not make support by civil servants (or anyone else) ethically necessary. In other words, just because something will happen does not mean it should happen, nor that one should help bring the result about. The second, and more practical, problem arises in determining what best leads to the classless end. Lenin himself, in his actions, provides the best example of this problem. Consider these words from a speech Lenin gave in 1920: We say that our morality is entirely subordinated to the interests of the proletariat’s class struggle. . . . Morality is what serves to destroy the old exploiting society and unite all the working people around the proletariat, which is building up a new, a communist society. . . . To a Communist all morality lies in this united discipline and conscious mass struggle against the exploiters. We do not believe in an eternal morality, and we expose the falseness of all the fables about morality. (quoted in Kołakowski 2005, 769)

Two elements of this selection show the difficulty in assessing what is to be done. The first is the focus on the “struggle against the exploiters.” Much of Lenin’s description of right action focuses specifically on vanguard party activity against a recalcitrant state: but his understanding of correct actions is not as clear, particularly as regards the “transitional” socialist stage (i.e., the dictatorship of the proletariat) between capitalism and communism. The second, related issue comes from the inherently contingent nature of efficiency/morality in the Marxist–Leninist system. While history is moving in the necessary direction of the classless society, the basis for ethical action changes with the material basis of society. What was the most efficient and therefore ethical activity of the recent past may be backward or “objectively” reactionary today. While Lenin (and later Stalin, Mao, and others) argued that he managed to steer the right course through the dialectics of history, it is difficult for the administrator to find consistent bases for her actions in the words of these leaders.

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We see this type of thinking most especially in Lenin’s own activities. He was noted for his major changes in tactics and even strategy when attempting to gain and maintain power for the Bolshevik group. While he would make these changes, he would also claim that his actions were consistent with the aims of the revolution—indeed, he would claim there was no contradiction in what was done and that those who did not follow him were actually being obstructionist and/or deviating from the revolutionary path in some way. Here again, we see the influence of Lenin’s notion of material dialectics: these apparent contradictions are in fact a reflection of the concrete situation, of the reality as it stands at that moment. In practice, especially after Lenin’s passing, determining what material dialectics would require in any given situation became increasingly difficult. In combination with democratic centralism, this would lead to the “fairy-tale” situation of citizens explicitly claiming there is no contradiction between state actions, while at the same time realizing internally that this is not the case: [E]verybody was supposed, on the one hand, to be aware of this [constant revision of history and doctrine] and the fairly simple way in which it was done, but, on the other, to say nothing about it on pain of the direst consequences. . . . [I]n public, he [the citizen] professed adherence to the ideology as an unchanging catechism, while in private or semi-consciously he knew that it was a completely adaptable instrument in the party’s hands, i.e. Stalin’s. (Kołakowski 2005, 864)

As noted by scholars, “The Soviet Government will, after having acted, pretend to have deduced its decisions from the Marxist–Leninist catechism. It is true that an autocratic government is in danger of becoming prisoner to its official, unscientific ideology” (Oppenheim 1950, 954, emphasis in original). Political strength and unity, however, are the driving engines of Leninism in all of its forms. As Mao explains, regarding guerilla warfare, “. . . [G]uerilla success largely depends upon powerful political leaders who work unceasingly to bring about internal unification” ([1937] 1961, 63). Efficacy in the Marxist–Leninist system also requires some explaining. Theoretically, the administrative units of the state are oriented toward client-side efficacy, at least as regards the proletariat (and, oftentimes, the peasants). However, the “proletariat”

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here is understood as a class, not necessarily as individual members of that particular class (i.e., particular workers). For Lenin, one could not rely on the views of individual workers per se, in that most workers were capable of only “spontaneous” action and thus would tend to identify their “ills” incorrectly: workers would want shorter hours or more pay, rather than asking for radical societal changes that would, in the end, benefit the proletariat as a whole. Especially in the initial decades of the Soviet Union, Marxist Leninism tended more toward emphasizing provider-side efficacy, although the means used ranged from managerial reorganization to the use of state terror. However, debates within the party itself regarding whether administrative units required management by loyal party members, “bourgeois specialists,” or some mixture of the two tended to inhibit the administrative efficacy of the USSR and thus also hamper elements of provider-side efficacy. One of the more interesting elements of the Marxist–Leninist tradition, at least in theory, is its attitude toward political efficacy, at least in terms of intraparty efficacy: specifically, the concept of “democratic centralism.” As Wheeler describes its structure, The formal administrative theory which accompanied the method went by the name of democratic centralism. In theory, problems and issues would percolate up from the bottom of the party pyramid. This was a requirement. If anyone in the “grass roots” covered up a problem, he might suffer later for having done so. This was the “democratic” side. As problems percolate up through the successive stages of the party hierarchy, they are increasingly collected and synthesized. When they reach the party apex they are like the product of the upward movement of staff recommendations in any large bureaucracy. However, once the party apex gets those issues and decides party policy on them, there is no longer any substantive debate on the validity of the decision, its wisdom or accuracy. The decision is transmitted back down to the grass roots in the form of absolute, sovereign command. Substantive opposition is the dread “deviationism.” The only debate that is allowed is how best to carry out the decision, not whether it is right. This is the centralism side of democratic centralism. (1957, 640)

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Lenin himself argued against the notion of “numeric” democracy as reflective of the abstract formalism of capitalism: in other words, mere “head counting” would lead to special interests, division, and irrationality. Democratic centralism, on the other hand, would connect leaders to the lowest party member and, by extension, the population as a whole.10 As the acknowledgments of problems moved their way up the party hierarchy, a consensus among the party and its leaders could form, following the strict guidance of material dialectics, leading to an appropriate solution. Unity, however, is key in this idea of efficacy: once the party, as bearer of the truth of Marxism, decided on a course of action, it was the duty of the members to follow the decision without question. “Deviations” would lead to divisions, under this view, and these divisions would threaten the entire socialist enterprise should they result in the weakening of the proletarian state.

Expertise Marxism–Leninism’s focus on science, specifically the science of material dialectics, shows a strong concern for expertise as foundational for the regime itself. But this does not mean that civil servants are themselves the preeminent experts. Rather, it is the party, as the vanguard of the proletariat class, which is expert in terms of dialectics. As material dialectics is the guiding science for understanding the interrelation of economy, history, and society, obviously it holds a pride of place in the Marxist–Leninist system. It is the party’s claim to expertise in material dialectics that legitimizes its control over the society, and the main crime of “deviationists” is their lack of expertise in dialectics, leading to errors and divisions. Marxism–Leninism is unique in how its affiliates expertise in a “science” with the duty and ability to rule, in some way analogous to the “philosopher-king” notion in Plato’s Republic. But while this emphasis on expertise in dialectics applies to the party and its members, expertise becomes more ambiguous in the realm of public administration itself. Expertise in material dialectic is the necessary condition for the party’s rule, but such expertise is not necessarily a requirement for general administrative actions. In a way, other types of expertise are looked at more skeptically in the Marxist–Leninist

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system as vestiges of ill-gotten bourgeois prestige rather than reflective of any truly important knowledge. Indeed, in the period before the October Revolution (most especially in Lenin’s The State and Revolution), the Bolsheviks tended to agitate against the notion of administrative specialization. Specialization served as an excuse for administrative fiefdoms: under their view, as technology advanced, administrative tasks were simplified to the point that any literate individual should be able to perform them. After gaining power, the Soviet regime accepted the need for “bourgeois specialists” to run many administrative and managerial functions, with the idea that this concession would cease to be necessary once enough cadres of workers/party members were adequately trained to take these roles themselves. While theoretically administrative expertise could be separated from material dialectics, in practice party leadership could, and did, demand administrative expertise to submit to the dialectical expertise of the party. Perhaps one of the most glaring examples comes from the serial administrative abuses during the Ukrainian Terror Famine of the 1930s (cf. Conquest 1986). Certainly, such interference was not limited to administrative expertise, as illustrated by the infamous influence of Trofim Lysenko on Soviet genetics attests (cf. Joravsky 1970). However, Marxist–Leninist regimes have tended to acknowledge the necessity of administrative expertise in practice, even to the point of allowing wage differentials between higher level managers and lower level ones (cf. Azrael 1966, 32–33). Administrative and technical expertise, then, were acceptable among civil servants, but wise civil servants would make it a point to ensure that their expert evaluations on given matters did not contradict the expertise of the party: regardless of expertise, the party could not be wrong.

Equality In theory, Marxism–Leninism is among the most egalitarian of theories. However, this egalitarianism becomes apparent only after the final destruction of capitalism and all reactionary forces aligned against the proletariat. Until the revolution has fully played itself out, “equality” can mean only the fake and formal equality of capitalism under the rule of law, which militates against the classless

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society and the true equality of communism. As such, in the time between the initial revolution and the final classless society, distinctions between individuals and ranks must remain. Foremost is the distinction between the proletariat (working class) and other classes, in particular the bourgeoisie and the capitalists, which nominally include the petty bourgeoisie, the lumpenproletariat, and reactionaries of various stripes.11 The “dictatorship of the proletariat” adequately explains the relationship—public administrators are working primarily for the benefit of the working class, therefore workers are accorded benefits that would be denied others. However, as noted above, these benefits are for the class as a whole, not necessarily any given worker and his spontaneous desires. Even in the working class itself, the party separated into the workers on the one hand and the party workers on the other. As one scholar notes, “Tactical alliances with other classes are rendered easier by the Leninist conception of the party and the working class as two separate units” (Fiszman 1959, 84). The party itself would act as the guiding force of the proletariat, as this group of revolutionaries will both protect the workers’ movement while at the same time preventing the movement from falling into revisionism or other “deviationist” fallacies: . . . [I]n point of fact, no revolutionary organization has ever practiced, or could practice, broad democracy, however much it may have been desired to do so. It is a harmful toy because any attempt to practice “the broad democratic principle” will simply facilitate the work of the police in carrying out large-scale raids, will perpetuate the prevailing primitivism, and will divert the thoughts of practical workers from the serious and pressing task of training themselves to become professional revolutionaries to that of drawing up detailed “paper” rules for election systems. (Lenin [1902] 1969, 136, emphasis in original)

By emphasizing the dangers to unity, efficiency, and success, Lenin indicates a necessary inequality within the Marxist–Leninist system, at least until the classless society comes forth. More importantly, those who are not workers require unequal treatment in order to ensure that they do not threaten the proletariat state. As such, certain groups—capitalists, aristocrats, former political leaders, former employers, other “exploiters” (real or

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imagined) such as the kulaks—must be denied certain benefits of public assistance. As Lenin explains, We must not only frighten the capitalists so that they should feel the all-pervading strength of the proletarian State and should forget to think of active resistance to it. We must crush also their passive resistance, which is undoubtedly far more dangerous and harmful. We have to impose work in the framework of the new State organization. It is not enough to throw out the capitalists, it is necessary (after having kicked out the incapable unreliable “passive resisters”) to put them to new State service. This applies to the capitalists as well as to a certain upper section of the bourgeois intelligentsia, clerks and so forth. ([1917] 1997, 56–57, emphasis added)

In practice, this means categorization of the citizenry is required, with those that are in the good classes versus those that are not. Within the Soviet Union, this resulted in certain populations being denied access to public goods, or indeed even the goods they themselves produced, even to the point of death by starvation (cf. Conquest 1986). In communist China, a broad classification system determined the distribution of obligations and public goods, with “red” groups being acceptable to the regime, while “black” categories, which would include the amorphous group of “evil elements,” were always under risk of oppression, imprisonment, and death (Margolin 1999, 486). In the case of communist China, even civil servants themselves might find themselves excluded from the programs they must oversee. We can find this paradox of exclusion in the well-known and oft-rehearsed phrase, “It’s better to be Red than Expert.” For all of these systems, equality played an important role ideologically, but always at the end time of their systems. In the “concrete conditions” of Marxist–Leninist states surrounded by capitalist states, equality before the officers of the state and the state itself would have to wait.

Economy Within Marxism–Leninism itself, “economy” becomes a difficult concept. As the aim of a communist state is the end of class society and private property, “economy” seems more of a capitalist concern

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than a “real” one. While various communist systems attempted to find creative, noncapitalistic ways to finance their state apparatuses, often resulting in the use of slave labor in various gulags or laogai (cf. Applebaum 2003; Margolin 1999), we will briefly focus on some of the broader elements of Marxist–Leninist notions of economy. The meaning of “economy” in the Marxist–Leninist system derives from the general notion of historical development as understood by materialist dialectics: in particular, “economy” is a function of structure of the state and society in the “transitional” socialist stage before the communist era of the classless society. Rather than an instantaneous change to the communist era after the Marxist revolution, Lenin argued that there would be a transitional period— the socialist era—that would be directed by the “dictatorship of the proletariat” under the auspices of the vanguard party. This inbetween stage was particularly necessary for comparatively “backward” nations like Russia, in that the level of industrial development was still too low for full communism to function. Also, this period would solidify the consciousness of the working class and the rest of the society to the final aims of Marxist egalitarianism and the elimination of private property.12 During this transitional stage, one could see a mixture of capitalist and socialist elements within society. For instance, as mentioned above, wage differentials were still permitted for a time, as this would be necessary to ensure that the “bourgeois specialists” would still be productive. Another example of such a mixture would be the New Economic Plan (NEP) introduced by Lenin in 1921, which integrated elements of capitalism into the Soviet economy for the purposes of increasing productivity. While at first glance one might assume that separating capitalist from communist notions of economy would be simple, the truth is much more complex. For Lenin, as a dedicated student of Marx, capitalist economic systems are unjust and oppressive not as a result of advanced technology and/or production. Luddite or agrarianist perspectives on the modern world struck Marx as hopelessly naïve and utopian and most likely arising in the minds of the petty bourgeoisie rather than in authentic proletarian consciousness. Rather, the irrational and inhumane relations between people make capitalism inherently contradictory. According to Marx, Lenin, and various other Marxist thinkers, the future classless society would not only allow human beings to finally be fully and authentically “human”

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but also be much more efficient, productive, and innovative than the capitalist system it supersedes. What a modern, advanced, industrial (or even postindustrial) economy, based along the lines of the classless society, would look like remains vague. While this might seem to be a major weakness for the Marxist–Leninist system, this lack of clarity on the concrete appearance of the classless society is dictated by the method of material dialectics itself. While the dialectician can see the general outlines of the totality of history through his dialectical understanding of the dynamics of the means and modes of production as they relate to historical development, the specifics can only be determined when the situation is “ripe.” In other words, outside of the concrete situation in which one analyzes the particular through the totality, then moves in the direction of the totality through praxis in the particular moment, one cannot give clear, specific, and concise definitions of the shape of the future. To claim that one could see what the future would look like in its specifics would be to go beyond Marxist methodology, and to instead indulge in fantasies. To give a concrete example: Lenin could argue his Imperialism was an extension of Marx’s own views, views that Marx could not have given himself because (being a good dialectician) he did not move beyond the concrete situation of his own era to speculate on the specifics of future arrangements. Had Marx tried to give such specifics, he would likely have gone horribly awry, with his predictions being severely incorrect. So too with the future economic structure of the classless society: Lenin, like Marx, could only point to its general outlines, but not give concrete specifics before the situation was ripe/mature. In broad strokes, however, Marxism–Leninism was sure that the future economy would be a planned economy, where goods and services would be distributed rationally and fairly, rather than through the haphazard mechanisms of the free market. This expectation was based on the view that experts, most likely from the party, could accurately determine need and most efficiently allocate resources to needs. Under such a view, the separation of economy, society, and governance (as the mechanisms of the state would, with the classless society, “whither away”), politics as such would cease to be. As Harding helpfully summarizes this view:

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(a) The planned and rational allocation of resources (both capital and labour) in order to realize an optimal outcome, could be arrived at scientifically and should not, therefore, be a matter for serious disputation or political debate; and (b) The principles governing the allocation of rewards within society were, similarly, amendable to positive (that is, quantifiable) resolution by basing them upon the contribution of individuals and groups to the productive endeavours of society. (1996, 153)

With this in mind, the economy of Marxism–Leninism aimed toward a planned, rational economy based along scientific principles and capable of scientific certainty. As a matter of public administration, economy presents an interesting difficulty for the analyst of Marxism–Leninism. In practice, the difficulty faced by Marxist–Leninist systems is the attempt to bring about this scientific exactitude to economic planning, and thus its administration. Finding equilibrium between resources and needs often became a matter of creative accounting: this was especially true under the reign of Stalin. While the idea was that a planned economy would be more rational, “. . . Soviet industry was riddled with mistakes and cursed with thousands of accidents thanks to poor management and the breakneck speed of the Five-Year Plans” (Montefiore 2003, 211), oftentimes based on unrealistic expectations and the fear of imprisonment or execution for “economic crimes” and failures. Once again, we see areas where administrative expertise and party-led expertise conflict: if the party, through its higher expertise in material dialectics, demands that certain allocations of goods, services, and materials occur in ways that seem impossible according to the administrative expert, the administrative expert must find a way to square the circle. As the major focus of Marxism–Leninism is economics, in a certain sense, dialectical expertise trumps administrative exasperation. While theoretically these difficulties would begin to disappear as the transitional socialist stage moved into the fully communist society, the economic collapse of the Soviet Union and allied states, and the movement away from strictly Marxist economic lines in the PRC, prevents one from seeing if these predictions would be true.

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Conclusion While Marxism–Leninism lacks the popularity it held in the past, excepting certain radical groups in the Third World (such as the FARC), that does not mean it is gone. As one scholar notes, Marxism– Leninism attracts followers because of the idea “that political and social transformations can be effected by will power and organization” (Conquest 1972, 142). Among neo-Marxists (for instance), Lenin’s ideas are still strongly evident, even if in a modified form (Hardt and Negri 2001). Whether these thinkers can use portions of Lenin’s thought without falling into his methods remains to be seen. Also, one may expect to see some elements of Leninism in various forms of environmentalism. For instance, one sees scholars such as Roger S. Gottlieb starting from an explicitly Marxist perspective (1989), then moving on to “deep ecology” and religion as a globalized movement (2006). The circulation of various thinkers and groups from being “reds” to “greens” (or, “watermelons,” as they are sometimes derisively called) at least leaves open the possibility that some type of eco-vanguard party would develop in the future. But regardless of what type of ideology appears in the coming years, we can expect that revolutionaries of the future will still make use of Leninist methods, in both gaining as well as maintaining power.

Recommended Readings Hosking, Geoffrey. 1992. The First Socialist Society: A History of the Soviet Union from Within. 3rd ed. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Juliver, P. H. 1976. Revolutionary Law and Order: Politics and Social Change in the USSR. London: Collier Macmillan. Pipes, Richard. 1990. The Russian Revolution, 1899–1919. London: Harvill. Polan, A. J. 1984. Lenin and the End of Politics. London: Methuen. Service, Robert. 1979. The Bolshevik Party in Revolution: A Study of Organisational Change, 1917–1923. London: Macmillan.

Chapter 14

Ethics in the Russian Tradition

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ompared to the traditions surveyed in this book, the tradition of Russian ethics is dissimilar to both the philosophical/theological traditions on the one hand and the regional traditions (such as the African tradition) on the other. Unlike the philosophical/religious traditions, Russian thought is not typified by any strictly unified set of ideals, doctrines, or methods, but instead contains a diverse grouping of ideational positions. However, unlike the regional traditions, the Russian tradition is not merely the combination of various concrete problems that result in a unique form of ethical thinking. The Russian tradition is unique, and indeed it is difficult to find any tradition (doctrinal or regional) that shares similar traits to this one.1 Exhibiting an interesting mix of nationalism, conservatism, and radicalism, along with strong currents of pro- and antibureaucratic theories, the Russian tradition holds an intermediary position between doctrine and region.

Russian History—Familiar yet Alien The Russian tradition overlaps with Western traditions at various times over the centuries, but the separations that occur lead to vast differences between Russia and the West over the centuries, often giving the Russian tradition a distinctly alien appearance to Westerners. While there are similarities between Western Europe and Russia (discussed below), major historical and cultural differences 321

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separate the two regions. Russia became Christian comparatively later than Europe, converting under the rule of Prince Vladimir I in 988 C.E., under the influence of Byzantine Orthodoxy and during what is sometimes called the “Kievian” period (approximately 880 C.E. to the early twelfth century), when the Ukrainian region dominated the Slavic world (cf. Hosking 2001, 34–48). Russian history itself is rife with conflicts and wars, but the Russian nation suffered its first major defeat at the hands of the Mongols (the “Golden Horde”): “The sack of Kiev by Mongols occurred in 1240, and Mongol domination over Russia lasted until 1480, when Ivan III renounced allegiance to the Khan . . .” (Copleston 1986, 8).2 During this period, while the political subunits of the Mongol domination fought among themselves, the Orthodox Church provided the social cohesion for the Russian identity and would thus maintain a strong influence in the future, although the church would come under the direct, rather than indirect, control of the state in the reign of Tsar Peter the Great in 1721. While rule during the Kievian period involved both the prince and a council of nobles/knights (sg., boyar), centralization of power to the executive occurred under the rule of the first Russian tsar, Ivan IV “the Terrible” (1547–1584),3 who used this centralization as tool against the nobility and others who might stand in the way of monarchical power. Even from its inception, centralized control in Russia was a brutal affair, both to the nobility as well as to the peasants as the institution of serfdom strengthened during the rule of the tsars. The Romanov dynasty would start with Tsar Michael in 1613 and end with the secret execution of the royal family by the Bolsheviks in 1917. There are marked historical similarities between the Western tradition and the Russian tradition: both were Christian, both looked back to Roman times for inspiration, both had various feudal arrangements during the medieval period, and the like. However, with each similarity come striking differences that must be individually addressed. We will start with Christianity. The most obvious difference between Western and Russian Christianity is their denominations: the West being Catholic (and later Protestant) with Russia holding to Orthodoxy.4 This difference itself shows the early origins of the split between “Western” and “Eastern” ways. While tensions between the Eastern and Western

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churches were already evident as early as the Council of Nicaea (325 C.E.), the major break between Western Catholicism (centered in Rome) and Eastern Orthodoxy (its main hub in Constantinople) arose in the middle of the ninth century over the issues of church hierarchy, monasticism, and the filioque portion of the Nicene Creed.5 These differences reflected not only in theology, but also in church hierarchy and in church/state relations.6 Rather than the consistently apprehensive relations between monarchs and church hierarchy in the West, we see the development of a form of caesaropapism in the Byzantium Empire, then in the Russian Empire. Specifically, the ruler (be it the Byzantine emperor or later the Russian tsar) tended to have a dominant role over that of the Orthodox patriarch. However, the religious authorities also held a strong cultural position that the tsar would have to respect. While Europe and Russia both look back to Rome as a major turning point in history, “Rome” has a different meaning in these two regions. In particular, the Russians tend to identify with the Byzantium tradition of Rome rather than the Rome of Western memory. This is especially the case in the declaration of Moscow as the “third Rome.”7 While the Western traditions looked to the Roman Republic or the Roman Empire for their inspiration, the Russian tradition instead turned to the Byzantium Empire, with its Justinian laws, Orthodox practice, and history of tensions with the Muslim Middle East. Indeed, later Russian thinkers such as the Slavophile writer Ivan Kireyevsky (Walicki 1979, 93–96) welcomed this Byzantine focus as the way Russia was “spared” the overrationalization of life in the West. Moreover, elements of Byzantium’s self-image translated over, in corrupted form, to the Russian political system. For the Byzantines, [t]he capital of the Roman Empire had been moved by Constantine to Constantinople. As a result, the Byzantine emperor was the Roman emperor, the supreme autocrat of the Christian world by divine permission, and it was the duty of all Christians to recognize that. (Harris 2003, 22)

We can see this influence in later Russian thinkers, well into the nineteenth century and beyond. For instance, Konstantin (Constantine) Leontyev (sometimes referred to as the “Russian Nietzsche”;8 cf. Walicki 1979, 300) believed a return to Byzantine order was

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necessary, by which “he meant the principles of the strong state authority and Christian religion that Russia borrowed from the Byzantine Empire” (Avdeyeva 1994, 417). This focus on the Byzantine Empire leads to some of the political and social developments within the medieval period itself. Finally, there is the medieval period itself. With the differences in religious systems and imperial self-memory, it is clear that the feudal times of the West and Russia would show substantial differences. Three major differences are the role of the tsar, the place of the boyar (knight/noble), and the peasant commune (obshchina). There is no real counterpart to the tsar in the Western medieval period. The only European ruler who came close to having the same authority as the tsars would be Charlemagne, but the Holy Roman Empire lost most of its power by the time of his sons. The tsar, on the other hand, had a level of control most European kings and princes could only envy. This control, however, was one more in theory than in practice, as the sheer distances of Russian territory and the lack of administrative institutions limited the practical power of the tsar. Especially after the rule of Ivan the Terrible, the power of the tsar over the noble class was significant. What is particularly notable about this control is that boyars themselves advocated for the tsar to have a strong role: even before the rule by the Golden Horde, various blood feuds and disputes between Russian nobles and warlords often led to social instability and vulnerability to foreign foes. To prevent blood feuds from endangering both the nobles and Russia in general, the boyars emphasized that the tsar must have the authority to resolve these conflicts before they could imperil the nation’s security. The tsars would continue to show this strength into modernity, perhaps best illustrated by the forced modernization brought about by Peter the Great. The boyars themselves represented a form of old Russian nobility, and their political position was held within the land estates, but lost power to both Ivan the Terrible and Peter the Great. As a result, the nobility and others would constantly connect the Russian bureaucracy to tsarist autocracy (discussed below). Then, there is the role of the obshchina in Russian history and in its self-identification. As one recent author describes it, The obshchina is usually discussed in the factual form in which it presents itself in the revolutionary tradition, namely that it was a

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free co-operative association of peasants which periodically distributed the agricultural land to be tilled, and whose decisions bound all its members. (Chamberlain 2007, 122)

Here, we arrive at one of the most important ideas that unify Russian thought—the autochthonous community of Russia. We will discuss this idea and its importance more in the next section. Finally, the Russian tradition provides a familiar and alien perspective in its relation to modernity. Unlike other non-Western societies, Russia did not experience the transition to modernity at the end of a colonizer’s rifle, but also did not experience the gradual change to modernity that occurred in the West itself. Moreover, the two major events that precipitated modernity, the Renaissance and the Reformation, had little to no impact on either the society or the culture of Russia itself. Rather than the gradual, if painful, movement from the medieval to modern periods found in the West, Russia remained a medieval society (in particular in its commune system and serfdom) for centuries beyond Europe. Rather than the Renaissance and the Reformation, modernity came to Russia through the forced modernization of Peter the Great and the slow trickle of the writings of various German thinkers into the small intelligentsia of Russia near the end of the Napoleonic wars. The integration of modern thought and methods, therefore, did not arise gradually, creating a situation where modernity was integrated into Russian life in a piecemeal, and not necessarily consistent, manner. Throughout the debates between thinkers who emphasized the uniqueness of Russian life as a basis for philosophy and ethics (the Slavophiles) and those who instead argued that European modes of thought and life should be welcomed into Russia (the Westernizers) there was an undercurrent regarding the rightful place (if any) of modernity. With the victory of Marxism–Leninism, the Bolsheviks forcefully ended the controversy in support of their own view of modernity’s benefits and demerits.

The Autochthonous Nature of Russia and Environmental Influences on Its Society The Russian tradition, and Russian culture in general, is shaped to an extraordinary degree by the natural environment. This influence is visible in various ways. The multiethnic elements of Russian society

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are a reflection of the Eurasian nature of its geopolitical position, which is at the same time very large and very vulnerable. Whether across the steppe, from the West, or elsewhere, the Russian tradition is influenced greatly by the various groups that have invaded—or been invaded by—Russia. But there are other, more basic ways in which the environment of Russia influences its culture, traditions, and ethics. One of the most striking is the sheer harshness of the natural environment itself. Along with the long winters, much of Russia’s territory has a short growing and harvesting season, where any inclement weather could lead to the destruction of crops, with famine and starvation always a real possibility. More to the point, these dangers appeared arbitrary, where peasants would lack any real ability to prevent, or even mitigate, the ravages of an angry nature. As Geoffrey Hosking notes, It must be added that any amount of work, whether intense or prolonged, might easily fail to bring its reward. Such was the marginality of the land that a thunderstorm or heavy rains might deprive the cultivator of the fruits of months of frugality and labor. . . . But however carefully they might divine natural signs, they were helpless in the face of sudden misfortune. As a result, Russians are disinclined to plan ahead or to invest steady, calculated effort in any enterprise. Instead they tend to look to good fortune to help them, while always fearing that “evil spirits” might strike at any time. (2001, 15)

From the very beginning of the Russian tradition, then, there is the tendency to see the world as austere, unforgiving, and filled with evil of some type. Whether this evil comes in the form of bad weather, invaders from the steppe, or the like, there is an assumption that disaster is always a very near and real possibility, and there are few ways to curtail it. For the Russian people, collective help and collective responsibility became necessities. Local communities would form help associations in order to protect members of the community from unforeseen disasters, and these associations often served as the representatives of the community to higher, centralized powers, such as the Mongols or the tsar. Similarly, the Mongols—and later the tsars—would impose a regime of collective responsibility on communities, covering sundry aspects of life, including taxation,

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tithes, criminal prosecutions, and other matters. As will be noted below, this historical formation of strongly localized communities interacting with centralized powers would lead to difficulties in the formation of stable institutions of public administration, as Russian history tended to lack intermediary institutions between the local and the central governments. While the origin of the Russians themselves appears to be Scandinavia (cf. Jones 1984, 255), the Russian mentality comes from the region in which the population lives and in its interactions with the outside world, often through invasion. A particularly salient example of outside traditions influencing Russian culture comes in the development of its civil service, in particular the notion of personal authority that underpins the Russian bureaucratic culture. Two major sources for this notion of authority are (1) the Byzantine Empire and (2) the Mongol structure of authority. The Byzantine Empire, as the source of Orthodox Christianity and a likely ally against Islamic societies, also tended to influence Russian notions of authority in a distinctly caesaropapist direction. The combining of religious and political roles under the emperor would later be translated into a similar form of authority under the tsar and his advisors.9 The Mongols, in turn, strongly influenced the centralized/decentralized structure of Russian administration, while also modifying the tradition of collective responsibility in the local communities (cf. Dewey 1988). For both the tsars and the Mongols, the vast territory of Russia presented sizeable difficulties in creating and maintaining administrative institutions. Centralized authority in the person of the leader—be he khan or tsar—would serve to give some legitimacy to rule. Moreover, the translation of personal authority to subordinates who also would govern on the basis of personal authority—be they from the central government or from the local communities—would provide some stability in administration, even if it lacked impersonal, more permanent forms of administrative institutions.

Post-Soviet Russian Public Administration—The Abyss With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the civil service (along with the society in general) fell into comparative disarray. Not just the governing ideology of Marxism–Leninism had disappeared, for

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Russia also lost many of its imperial possessions it held for centuries, including such areas as Belarus, the Ukraine, and Poland, among others. Russia now faced a decline in world prestige, territory, ideological coherence, and own self-image. The post-Soviet era also presents unique challenges for the bureaucracy. More than just the collapse of infrastructure in Russia (although this is not minimal: many officers work with little or no wages), the civil service, for the first time in its history, lost a dominant ideology. As discussed below, public administration in Russia was under a ruling ideology since its inception, and this ideology was not that of the “public interest” as understood in the West but rather one focused on strengthening the position of the tsar vis-à-vis the nobility and other elites in Russian society. While the administrative ethics of the Marxist–Leninist regime differed significantly from its predecessor, in particular in its instrumentalist ethics, the civil service still had a dominant ideology upon which to base its actions. After the collapse of the Soviet Union (and Russian strength), the bureaucracy went adrift. As for the governing system itself, long decay within the Soviet era, with widespread corruption continuing afterward, created a moral vacuum in which civil servants are forced to function. This has led observers to conclude that “[gi]ven the burdens of the preSoviet legacy of despotism, the Soviet experience, and Russia’s transition history, there may be little hope for evolution of a professional civil service in the near future” (Stewart, Sprinthall, and Kem 2002, 283). As a result, all of the various traditions of Russian ethics could theoretically come into play in the contemporary situation, but none of them has any real dominance at this point. While there were early indications that Russia would turn toward liberalism, these hopes have not been realized, and the direction of Russian society remains ambiguous. Some of the earlier traditions found within Russian Orthodoxy may in the end influence Russian public administration ethics. As the Russian state begins to realign itself in more nationalist directions, it is not inconceivable that some of the Slavophile theories and ethics may come back into currency. Whether this turns toward a fascist direction of Vladimir Zhirinovsky (leader of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia) or regresses to a more socialist/communist system is still in question. Even in the contemporary context, we can see the Slavophile/ Westernizer dichotomy. As Scanlon notes, after glasnost, “[i]t

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became possible again . . . to be a Slavophile, in the sense of advocating Slavophile views or using the classical Slavophiles as authority for a related position of one’s own” (Scanlan 1994, 34–35). Moreover, the collapse of the Soviet Union provided the possibility of being pro-Western in a way not permitted by the Communist Party rulers, especially regarding capitalism. As will be noted below, the debate now takes new directions in the aftermath of Marxist rule.

Applications of the Tradition to Public Service One matter of note is the history of bureaucracy in Russia. Within the Russian tradition (up until the Bolshevik Revolution), the bureaucracy was synonymous with tsarist autocracy. Rather than a disinterested civil service based upon the common interest, the administration of the Russian state was primarily aimed at the furtherance of the interests of the monarchy and its associates. For instance, Tsar Ivan the Terrible “conducted what amounted to a campaign against the boyars, the old nobility, substituting for them new landowners whose position depended upon their services to the monarch, the so-called service gentry or nobility” (Copleston 1986, 10). While Western kings and popes certainly used centralization and administration as a means to gain power over other competitors for power (barons, bishops, and so forth), they built up bureaucracies for many other reasons as well. In the Russian context, however, the central reason for the civil service was its ability to strengthen the monarchy, even at the cost of the public good itself. By creating and maintaining the bureaucracy as solely a means to protect and increase autocratic control by the tsars, the public at large viewed the civil service with suspicion, and civil servants themselves had little opportunity or motivation to develop a strong ethical system for guidance. This notion of the civil service as merely agent of the chief executive is clearly present with the creation of the “Table of Ranks” by Tsar Peter the Great. As Walicki describes, “The Table of Ranks introduced in 1722 established a hierarchy of 14 civil ranks and their military counterparts. Noble rank (for life or hereditary) was automatically linked to a certain grade in the civil or military service” (1979, 27n26). This Table of Ranks influenced the development of the Russian bureaucracy in various ways. First, Peter the Great ensured,

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through the Table, that the bureaucracy of Russia would serve the interests of the tsars first and foremost, while also tying promotion and power in the civil service to the interests of the monarchy itself. The result of this close connection between bureaucracy and tsarist interest was the creation of what could be called the first police state in modern European history: especially after the assassination of Tsar Alexander II, Russia became a “silent country” as a result of massive security surveillance.10 Second, the creation of this administrative organization created a deep-seated resentment among the nobility and aristocracy, one that would show itself in certain conservative and/or Slavophile criticisms of the “despotic bureaucracy” of the tsarist system. Third, regardless of which oppositional doctrine one considers (right or left, Slavophile or Westernizer), nearly all of them advocated the removal of power from the “careerist” and “tyrannical” bureaucracy. But it should be noted that, although most oppositional groups wanted the bureaucracy, as it was, removed or minimized, that did not necessarily entail a move away from centralization or indeed even massive government intrusion (presumably through some civil service) into the lives of Russian residents. Indeed, with the exception of anarchist or communalist thinkers, such as Bakunin or Leo Tolstoy, most Russian authors advocated an activist form of government aimed at either modernizing or strengthening the Russian nation. As mentioned above, the Russian tradition has a long history in terms of the ethical dilemmas presented by bureaucracy, even in a system that is barely modern. While we have considered the influence of Marxist–Leninist ideology on civil service ethics in Russia during the Soviet period, in this section we will consider the ethics of the Russian tradition in the periods before and after the Soviet Union.

Russian “Irrationality” One constant note about the Russian tradition is its apparently irrational tendencies. Russia’s late entry into modernity leads various authors into viewing Russian thought through Western eyes, specifically by analyzing Russian thinkers only insofar as they interact with the philosophies of Europe or under the aspect of West/East relations. For instance, the study of Russian philosophy during the

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Cold War usually focused only upon those thinkers or currents that could be considered precursors to the development of Marxism– Leninism and the Soviet Union. But even in more recent investigations, Russian thought is placed as a mirror against Western thought, often leading to exaggerated notions of its irrationality.11 While there is no doubt that the Russian tradition is more mystical than modern Western philosophy (for the most part), this should not induce one to assume that it is inherently or completely irrational. By considering reason in its broader form (one that would include earlier forms of Western philosophy as well), the Russian tradition provides insight into ethics in general, and civil service ethics in particular. An ongoing debate within the Russian tradition—controlling for the Soviet period—concerns the relation between native philosophy, culture, and rationality versus European society, philosophy, and rationality. The debate itself began with arguments for and against the reforms brought about during the reign of Peter the Great and his forced modernization of Russia as well as the interaction between Tsarina Catherine II and the French philosophes. Perhaps the major events that began the Slavophile/Westernizer argument as conscious movements were the Napoleonic Wars, which provoked various debates in Russia. The first and major debate focused on the good or ill influence of enlightenment universalism. For Slavophiles, enlightenment universalism led to base utilitarianism, social and moral decay, and homogenized life (cf. Hosking 2001, 275–78). For Westernizers, on the other hand, enlightenment universalism illustrated a way out of tsarist autocracy, cultural backwardness, and economic malaise (cf. Offord 1985). A second and related debate followed in the aftermath of Russian success against Napoleon, with the notion of Russia as a “divine protector” and potential savior of Europe from its own worst excesses. The Holy Alliance, formed after the Congress of Vienna, was one example of this notion (cf. Bobbitt 2002, 165–68). While the terms have changed, the general dichotomy between those who look to Europe for progress versus those who focus on native Russian traditions remains the consistent dynamic in Russian thought, although one finds sundry versions along the spectrum from one to the other. For instance, Marxism–Leninism in some ways reflects the Westernizing views while also accepting

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some indigenous modifications. Obviously, the Marxist element comes from the West, but the notion of the vanguard party (as used by Lenin) had inspiration from the revolutionary groups of Russia itself, up to and including the actions of radical theorist Pyotr Tkachev and the sociopathic megalomaniac Sergei Nechaev.12 This distinction can also affect the types of ethics that civil servants should follow. Under the Slavophile ideal, civil servants would need to be much more attuned to the traditions of the Russian people than others. Instead of looking for innovation from the West, civil servants should look “to the soil” for the necessary arrangements for Russian society (cf. Walicki 1975). Slavophile authors (or those sympathetic to them), such as Kireyevsky, Alexis Khomyakov, Solovyov, and Leontyev, not only criticized European forms of rationality, usually attacking its calculating, utilitarian nature, or the exceptionally abstract and “lifeless” philosophies of Hegel and Kant, but also tried to formulate what made Russian thinking different and not simply irrational. Rather than creating complex philosophical systems, in the model of Hegel, or reductionist systems like the notion of “economic man” in Adam Smith’s economics or the utility-seeking individual of Jeremy Bentham, these authors instead offered systems that expanded how one could understand reality and, in terms of society, focused upon the traditions of the Russian countryside as a guide for social norms. The Slavophiles were not simply reactionaries or stooges for tsarist autocracy, however: many of them strongly criticized the strength of the monarchy (and, more specifically, the bureaucracy), viewing the expansion of the tsar’s power under Peter the Great as problematic at best. Instead, the Slavophiles tended to emphasize the village commune (obshchina), and the council of elders (mir) that brought order, as the “true” Russian tradition that they upheld. On the other hand, Westernizers would advise ignoring Russian tradition (if they even acknowledged the existence of such a thing) and instead focusing on the most recent ideas from Europe. Rather than looking for “native” solutions, the Westernizers would look at the moral progress of the West for guidance. In this regard, Westernizers tended to focus on the thought of Hegel, Schelling, and others for inspiration in solving Russian problems. As noted below, the Westernizers often argued that the history of Russia itself was not conducive to modernization and/or freedom.13 Among the great

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Westernizers—Belinsky, Herzen, Bakunin, among others—there is an interesting absence: few to no Westernizers of note would use various English/Scottish enlightenment thought in their aims at Russian modernization. While the Westernizers repeatedly apply Hegel, Schelling, Comte, and later Marx to the Russian situation, few are willing to use Mill, Bentham, or Hume, although some will begin to emphasize the importance of Herbert Spencer at points. Certainly, there is no shortage of authors who deny it has a history of rational philosophy. An excellent example of an earlier Russian thinker with this view would be Petr Chaadaev. While he would reverse some of this pessimism in his Philosophical Letters, his view of the intellectual level of Russia (or lack thereof) remained pessimistic: Isolated in the world, we have given nothing to the world, we have taken nothing from the world; we have not added a single idea to the mass of human ideas; we have contributed nothing to the progress of the human spirit. And we have disfigured everything we have touched of that progress. (quoted in Walicki 1979, 86)

For Chaadaev, Russia was an inherently backward region or, more precisely, a land without history. For some thinkers, this would be a positive situation, as the lack of history meant Russia was spared from the type of oppressive traditions that would inhibit progress. Alexander Herzen would find hope in Chaadaev’s notion of Russia: The absence of deep-rooted traditions (apart from the village commune [obshchina], which remained outside history, as it were) and the lack of a “ballast of history” that might have proved a burden to the present generation suggested to Herzen that Russia would find it easy to make a radical break with the “old world.” (Walicki 1979, 167)

For Herzen, the lack of history, and especially those aged traditions that could lead reason astray, provides an opportunity for Russia to advance. Ethically, especially for the civil service, Russia was a “blank slate,” which permits the most recent and advanced thoughts easier access to actuality than in other locations. For others, in particular the Slavophiles, the notion that Russia had no history, tradition, or reasoning was unsound.

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For instance, Kireyevsky argues against Western notions of reason by highlighting the very Russian element of Orthodox faith: No matter how underdeveloped the reasoning faculties of the believer are, every Orthodox person is conscious in the depths of his soul that Divine truth cannot be embraced by considerations of ordinary reason and that it demands a higher spiritual view, a view acquired not through external erudition but through the inner wholeness of existence. (Kireyevsky 1976, 200–201, emphasis added)

It is this idea of wholeness that various Russian thinkers would distinguish the Russian understanding of reality from that of the West, specifically by emphasizing unity, being (vs. knowing), and life. Vladimir Solovyov, a religious thinker inspired by Kireyevsky’s notions of “integral knowledge” (Kuvakin 1994b, 438–42), argued that understanding reality went beyond mere logical formalities, in that “. . . the human being belongs . . . to the total-unity and can be aware of its reality from within, by a kind of connatural immediate perception, intuition or faith” (Copleston 1986, 219). For various Russian thinkers (many of them either Slavophiles or religious authors, although not limited to them only), the Russian tradition is not “irrational” per se, inasmuch as it instead allows for other forms of cognition and understanding of reality outside of the Cartesian (or Kantian) framework. In broad strokes, “integral knowledge” (in its various uses) involves discovering reality via objective knowledge, subjective knowledge, and mystical or intuitive knowledge, uniting these together rather than overemphasizing any one of them. Objective knowledge, generally speaking, indicates that form of reasoning acknowledged in the West, especially in the natural sciences or in the study of formal logic. Subjective knowledge generally refers to the experiential/practical (perhaps “concrete”) knowledge the individual gains throughout her life, and in particular how these experiences are shaped by the particular historical/societal context in which the individual lives. Finally, mystical/intuitive knowledge refers to an intimate connection internally between the human person and absolute reality (oftentimes, meaning God)—while this type of knowledge is ambiguous, it is a necessary element to understand reality.14 Therefore, civil servants should aim to understand reality

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as it “serves life,” or in a concrete, noninstrumentalist sense. “Life” here means more than what can be deduced through formal logic or Western reason, but also what enhances the individual life of the client, and more importantly enhances the general “social” life of the culture and its ways of existence. If there is any consensus about Russian rationality, it is that the Russian tradition categorically refuses to accept instrumental rationality as a guide. Utilitarian calculation, in whatever guise, is repeatedly attacked in the various strands of the Russian thought, although for potentially widely different reasons. However, for most of the currents of Russian thought, a major argument against instrumental rationality is that it is untrue to the Russian context. Even the one school of thought that did take a type of instrumentalism and individualist utilitarianism seriously—the Nihilists—did so in a way dissimilar to that found in the West. Specifically, the Nihilists argued for social renovation through the work of “new men” who truly understood what attaining the highest utility meant: He has given up a portion of his life to be able to live the whole of his life like a man; he has deprived himself of two or three enjoyments, but in return he has received the highest delight which embellishes his life and supports him in the moment of his agony; he has received the right to know exactly what he is worth and that he is worth not a little. That is the selfishness of the new men, and to that selfishness there are no bounds; for that, indeed, they will sacrifice everyone and everything. (Pisarev 1976, 102)

As a result, even those Russian thinkers inclined toward a positivistic, utilitarian outlook would transform instrumentalism from a notion of “economic man” into a form of science-supporting übermensch. The Russian tradition tends to create, or change, ideas into something heroic, perhaps even apocalyptic, and thus tends to separate it from more mundane forms of instrumental logic.

Equality The most long-standing issue for Russian ethics on public administration has been the issue of equality. Russian society itself under the reign of the tsars was hierarchical and highly unequal. While the

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best example of this inequality is the near-slave status of the serfs, the society as a whole was stratified along various lines. Even after the emancipation of the serfs in 1861, inequality remained.15 More to the point, during the tsarist period, civil servants had to mind these stratifications, with their behavior and level of assistance determined in many ways by the station of the client. But even looking beyond the interests of the monarchy, within Russian thought itself there is great debate in terms of what type of equality is acceptable. At the extreme end of inequality, we once again turn to Leontyev. Against the grain of contemporary arguments, Leontyev argues that the only way to maintain diversity and particularity in a society is through rigid social stratification, while liberty and equality (of the type advocated by John Stuart Mill and others) will instead lead to a drab, oppressive form of mass mediocrity. As Leontyev writes against the egalitarian “rebels,” But those who would destroy the village commune, naively imagining that everything rests in the enrichment of the individual, are destroying the last support, the last remnants of the former alignment, stratification, serfdom, and immobility, i.e., they are annihilating one of the main conditions of both our state unity and our national-cultural isolation, and to some extent our heterogeneous internal development as well. That is to say, at a single stroke, they are depriving us of our individual peculiarity, our diversity, and our unity. (1976, 276, emphasis in original)

Under this view, the ethical push for equality is destructive of both unity and diversity in a society, most especially Russia. Instead of public administrators treating all clients equally or advancing equality, Leontyev’s ideal civil servant would reinforce and strengthen inequalities among the population, in service of the unifying order of tsarist autocracy and (a rather darkly viewed) Orthodox faith. On the more egalitarian side of the spectrum, we can point to Peter Lavrov, a major influence on the Populists (narodniki). Progress depends upon equality among the people, as well as on the “critically minded” individual (discussed below). But more than simply a matter of historical necessity, Lavrov believes that the intelligentsia (and indeed all those with the benefit of a moderately good life) had a strong an overwhelming duty to assist in bringing about equality. As he famously writes in his “Historical Letters,”

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Mankind has paid dearly so that a few thinkers sitting in their studies could discuss its progress. It has paid dearly for a few little colleges where it has trained its teachers, who to this day, however, have brought it little benefit. If one were to count the educated minority of our time and the number of people who have perished in the past in the struggle for its existence, and estimate the labor of the long line of generations who have toiled solely to sustain their lives and allow others to develop, and if one were to calculate how many human lives have been lost and what a wealth of labor has been spent for each individual now living a somewhat human life–if one were to do all this, no doubt some of our contemporaries would be horrified at the thought of the capital in blood and labor which has been lavished on their cultivation. What serves to soothe their sensitive consciences is that such a calculation is impossible. (1976, 138, emphasis in original)

While civil servants may or may not count as “critically minded” individuals, certainly their position would also depend upon the type of labor and blood Lavrov indicates. Therefore, civil servants have a duty, not only by reason of their position in the state but more importantly as a result of the training, cultivation, and the like they have enjoyed on the backs of the majority, to ensure equality among the population.16 But whether supporting or arguing against equality, most Russian authors agree that equality itself means more than formal/ legal recognition. Or, in other words, few Russian ethical systems argue that equality is simply equal recognition under law, as in various forms of liberalism. Throughout the Russian tradition, the emphasis remains on material and social equality more than legal (and even, at times, political) equality: under this view, the primary point of concern for a civil servant would not be to merely recognize each “client” as an equal but rather to actively lift the oppressed majority from material, educational, and social/status inequality. This “concrete” notion of “lived” equality is best exemplified in the ethical focus on economy.

Economy The issue of economy comes up repeatedly in the Russian tradition. While Russian liberalism generally diminished after the failed

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Decembrist rebellion of December 1825, the issue of economy did not disappear with the “gentry liberals.” Instead, the norm of economy fell under the view of the various socialist thinkers in Russia. It should be noted that “socialist” in this context is used broadly—for most intents and purposes, nearly all the important thinkers in Russia (whether Slavophile, Westernizer, or other) were some type of socialist. Indeed, there were few explicit supporters of capitalism among the intelligentsia, wherever on the political spectrum they were. This socialism could show itself in the forms more familiar to Western eyes (Marxism, “revisionism,” Fourierism, etc.) but could also come in the form of agrarian socialism based on the communal system among the peasants. In order to better understand the idea of socialism and economy in Russia, we must analyze the idea of the village commune, the obshchina. The obshchina was the name of the village communes that existed among the peasantry in Russia. The Slavophiles were particularly attracted to this type of organization because it was a spontaneous, “natural” element of Russian society. As the Slavophiles understood it, The disintegrating egoism of private ownership as a privilege divorced from any duties was unknown, and so was the rigid division into estates and the ensuing antagonisms. In ancient Russia the basic social unit was the village commune (obshchina), which was founded on the common use of land, mutual agreement, and community of custom, and which was governed by the mir—a council of elders who settled disputes in accordance with hallowed traditions and were guided by the principle of unanimity rather than the mechanical majority of the ballot. Society was held together by what was primarily a moral bond—a bond of convictions—that united the entire land of Rus’ into one great mir, a nationwide community of faith, land, and custom. (Walicki 1979, 96)

While the Slavophile view was no doubt overly idyllic, the obshchina provided the grounds upon which a natively Russian economy could be built. The importance of the village commune to a proper Russian economy was not limited to the Slavophile persuasion. For instance, the Westernizer Herzen believed Russia to be much more suited to socialism than Western Europe, in that “. . . the Russian people had been accustomed to communal ownership of the land

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from time immemorial, thus the idea of social ownership was close to them and understood by them” (Pavlov 1994, 226). Whether looking back to ancient Russian custom or forward to the advancements of European thought, Russian thinkers tended to unite on the ideas that (1) capitalism is an inherently destructive system that would only bring disaster to Russia and (2) the obshchina provides a means whereby Russia can create a just, socialist form of economic system (either of the native, “spontaneous” kind or of the European model). Indeed, perhaps the only major school of thought to downplay the importance of the obshchina was the Marxists (and later, Marxist–Leninists). While various Marxist thinkers in Russia tried to find ways to make revolutionary use of the peasantry, there was little desire to keep the commune system (as it was) in existence after the revolution. The major non-Marxist exception to this trend in Russian thought to commend the commune system is the anarchist Bakunin, who emphasized the patriarchal and superstitious nature of the obshchina (as well as the tendency for the peasants to be loyal to the tsar) as impediments to a truly free society and a workable socialism (cf. Bakunin [1873] 1990, 205–17). These varying forms of socialist views set the standard for the attempts of civil servants to act in an economical manner but also present some lacunae as to how these ends would be served. By focusing specifically on the obshchina as the unit where a socialist economy would best form, both Slavophile and Westernizer thinkers supported a decentralized form of economy, one markedly different from the form of tsarist centralized autocracy that existed. And yet, various Slavophile and Westernizer thinkers seem to realize that centralization, though not of the autocratic type, would be necessary. What role, then, would public administration play in such a system? What norms should civil servants follow? Effectively, there are two moral imperatives that the civil servant should follow. First, she should never judge what is economically best merely by a cost-benefit analysis, as this type of economic reasoning is shortsighted and ultimately far too narrow. Second, the civil servant should enhance those economic systems that rely on noncoercion and some level of unanimity, preferably by inhibiting the growth of disruptive private ownership and by encouraging common use and labor of land and property. In the end, however, it seems that the civil service itself would be rather limited, serving more as a coordinating device

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between semiautonomous communes rather than as a directive agency. Within the communes themselves, an administrative apparatus separate from “concrete” laboring would no doubt be viewed as a form of parasitism, emblematic of the excesses of tsarist autocracy.

Expertise Expertise, at least in the pre-Soviet period, was an ambiguous concept in the Russian tradition. Oftentimes, noble standing (or more likely, loyalty to the tsar) was a necessity of office rather than any real skill or training in public administration or organization. Then there is the position of moral expertise, which in one way or another tends to influence all currents of Russian thought. This type of expertise, whether of the “beautiful souls,” the Westernized “new men,” or indeed the Soviet “new man,” typifies a tendency within most Russian thinkers to aim at either a past or future moral rejuvenation of the community and the Russian people. Even the most egalitarian of Russian thinkers allowed for the importance of some level of expertise. Specifically, the aforementioned Lavrov noted the importance of a certain type of person in the advancement of progress in society, specifically the “ ‘criticallythinking individuals’ who can diagnose social problems and are thus in a position to eliminate social injustices” (Shein 1977, 29). These individuals, grouped together in some party, would help bring about a more just social system. These critically thinking people, however, would need to be more than thinkers: For the individual to feel that he is not alone, he must know that someone else not only understands how wretched he is, and why, but furthermore is taking action against the evil. Not words alone but deeds are needed. Vigorous, fanatical men are needed, who will risk everything and are prepared to sacrifice everything. Martyrs are needed, whose legend will far outgrow their true worth and their actual service. . . . For the multitude, they will become unattainable, impossible ideals. But on the other hand their legend will inspire thousands with the energy they need to fight. . . . The number of those who perish is not important here: legend will always multiply it to the limits of possibility. (Lavrov 1976, 153)

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What is interesting to note about many of these thinkers is that they emphasize a type of expertise outside the realm of the state. There are various reasons why these thinkers likely distanced themselves from advocating expertise within the state itself. First, as mentioned above, the bureaucracy usually was linked to the tsarist autocracy and its slavish service to the interests of the monarchy. Therefore, administrative “expertise” often meant, in practice, submissiveness before the authorities. Those with true knowledge, therefore, would usually be outside of the state and indeed often were against the tsarist state in some form or another.17 Second, for many of these thinkers, some type of substate political unit (such as the aforementioned obshchina) was the desired end, and therefore adding strength to the centralized civil service would undermine this goal. Finally, a rationalized civil service (along Western lines) would place the state in an “unnatural” (for Russia) relationship between the political system and the general population, specifically by trying to recreate the type of societal divisions that historically developed in the West but not in the East. Experts in the Western sense would thereby attempt to transform the concrete situation of Russian society into one unrecognizable to its residents. It should be noted that expertise could be useful but also could take on a radically different meaning, after some type of societal reforms. Especially among the radical thinkers, expertise, as a matter of educating the peasant masses to societal reformation or revolt, was vitally important outside the state, and would continue to be important after Russian society moved in a more socialist, enlightened, or similar direction. However, it is difficult to pinpoint whether these experts would themselves take roles in a modified civil service or if bureaucracy as we know it would simply be disbanded. Indeed, the only concrete version of expertise after a revolution that we see in Russia is that of the Bolsheviks, described in another chapter of this work.

Conclusion The Russian tradition is in transition, even while retaining continuities to its pre-Soviet past. Slavophiles and Westernizers continue their debates, but now on different ground: the Westernizers contend that the traditional foundations for Slavophile beliefs (a strong

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level of Orthodox belief, experience in the obshchina, etc.) disappeared during the Soviet era, making arguments based on Russian traditions obsolete. Slavophiles condemn Westernizers by pointing out that Russia has already tried a form of Western thinking—Marxism—and its results were devastating. As is always the case with Russia, it is difficult to predict what type of ethics will gain supremacy in the civil service, but it will assuredly be a uniquely Russian one, in one way or another.

Recommended Readings Berlin, Isaiah. 1978. Russian Thinkers. Henry Hardy and Aileen Kelly (eds.). New York: Penguin. Franklin, Simon, and Jonathan Shepard. 1996. The Emergence of Rus, 750–1200. New York: Longman. Kivelson, Valerie A. 1996. Autocracy in the Provinces: The Muscovite Gentry and Political Culture in the Seventeenth Century. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press. Kollmann, Nancy Shields. 1987. Kinship and Politics: The Making of the Muscovite Political System, 1345–1547. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press. Pearson, Thomas S. 1989. Russian Officialdom in Crisis: Autocracy and Local Government, 1861–1900. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Yaney, George L. 1973. The Systemization of Russian Government: Social Evolution in the Domestic of Imperial Russia, 1711–1905. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.

Part III

CONCLUSION

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Chapter 15

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I

n a book where we attempt to summarize the world, how can we meaningfully conclude the journey? One place to start is by revisiting the emotion that began the whole project for the authors and is likely a sentiment shared by the readers. To end this work, we will revisit the idea of frustration with intercultural communication.

A Brief Note on Frustration One of the normative themes that pervades modern politics and public administration theory and practice is the notion that we (practitioners, scholars, and students) must be open-minded, culturally sensitive, and committed to pluralism. The practical upshot of a commitment to this theme is that we must invite, seek out, and actively engage in transcultural communication, given the opportunities that invariably arise in a globalized environment. But, the thrust of the theme of pluralist commitment is that we also understand or incorporate meaningfully those other cultures with which we engage. To do so means not only to investigate other cultures but also to be willing to change (even evacuate) our own in favor of an alternative viewpoint. In short, it is not mere openness that is the point of pluralism; the point of pluralism is to change the orientation of the individual’s mind-set from a single-minded cultural view to a multiplicity of cultural views. 345

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Such a multiplicity, we aver, is not a reasonable possibility any more than is the possible notion of a hermetically sealed singleminded worldview. Those who have come to this point in the book may feel flummoxed by the very notion of understanding all of the cultures with which they have engaged throughout these pages. A question such as “what do I do with this knowledge?” is a reasonable one. Others, such as “how can we possibly understand all of these cultures?” or “how can we incorporate these cultures ethical premises into our everyday ethics?” are also normal questions to ask. It is also equally worthwhile to wonder (likely in silence) “I do not understand or agree with the ethics of x or y culture. Does that make me closed-minded or ethnocentric?”1 These are the questions that exemplify intercultural frustration. To our frustrated readers, we offer an analgesic quote from pragmatist philosopher Richard Rorty: This sort of ethnocentrism is . . . inevitable and unobjectionable. It amounts to little more than the claim that people can rationally change their beliefs and desires only by holding most of those beliefs and desires constant—even though we can never say in advance just which are to be changed and which retained intact. . . . We cannot leap outside our Western social democratic skins when we encounter another culture, and we should not try. All we should try to do is to get inside the inhabitants of that culture long enough to get some idea of how we look to them, and whether they have any ideas we can use. This is also all they can be expected to do on encountering us. If members of the other culture protest that this expectation of tolerant reciprocity is a provincially Western one, we can only shrug our shoulders and reply that we have to work by our own lights, even as they do, for there is no supercultural observation platform to which we might repair. The only common ground on which we can get together is that defined by the overlap between their communal beliefs and desires and our own. (1991, 212–13)

To the frustrated, we offer that you should reflect upon the knowledge you gained here to help you to understand the basis of the common ground upon which you may come to stand with people from cultural and geographic places that were, once upon a time, foreign.

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Concluding Remarks Nothing is more local than government, and nothing colors local government more than the local administration of law and policy. Within the pages of this book, we explored those background conditions of philosophy and history that influence the practice of local government administration for various groups of people around the world. Traversing the terrain of political ideologies, religions, constitutions, and social organization, this book, we hope, goes far to explain the particularistic practices of administration worldwide. We recognize that, despite our efforts, we have left out many things that readers may wish to see. For example, we regret the lack of analysis of traditions of political and administrative theory in Oceania as well as in portions of Latin America. In addition, we recognize that some readers may be put off by the lack of analysis of explicit theories of institutions such as Westminster, parliamentary, and presidential systems. We hope that readers will use the litany of other books available, some of which we cite in earlier chapters, in conjunction with this one so that they may get the full picture they desire. Although we are optimistic that readers will take many varied messages from these chapters, we hope that a number of themes stand out. First, although the terms efficiency, economy, expertise, efficacy, and equality persist as ethical and practical norms throughout the public administration literature, these terms do not translate similarly across all contexts. As the astute reader probably recognized early on, the concept of equality varies widely across traditions, with liberal equality being an aberration among them. Likewise, the concept of expertise is not merely a matter of technical or secular learning in many traditions. Moral learning, ethical expertise, and technical expertise are all important elements of expertise. Second, most of the traditions described here have a strongly communitarian theme. While the dominant premises of political philosophy in the Anglo-American corridor are liberal and democratic, the dominant traditions elsewhere are communitarian or (classically) republican. Thus, the ideas of complete equality of all persons, rather than functional equality of roles, seem to be aberrant if surveyed from a world perspective. While these traditions

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recognize some form of equality, it is one of function, of substantive citizenship, of economic class, and even of particular culture. Although assessment of merit for public service employees is a common international practice, the functional definition of equality may lead to variants in the practices of merit appointment. Further, the implications of functional and communal equality include stronger tendencies toward paternalism among clients and administrators, supervisors and frontline officers. Third, readers ought not underestimate the importance of religious scriptures and religiosity for shaping the ethical standards that public administrators and “ordinary” citizens expect of themselves and others. Even within avowedly secular traditions, such as contemporary liberalism, the religious foundations of ethics are difficult to ignore. For example, arguments made by John Locke for the importance of toleration, a paramount element of liberal equality, have a decidedly Christian foundation, largely ignored in the mainstream liberal literature. For scholars and practitioners of government and public service, there must be some acknowledgment of the scriptural or religious foundations for ethics in Islamic and Buddhist nations, for example. Further, it is necessary to recognize the normative force of religious edicts and expert pronouncements for the conduct in the personal and professional lives of citizens and public servants. As Islamic, Buddhist, and Hindu thinkers such as Qutb, Hanh, and Gandhi emphasize, efforts to impose a strictly secular interpretation of ethical standards may have long-lasting and negative consequences on the health (and safety) of the nation and its people. Fourth, within both the secular and religious traditions, history has a strong influence on the patterns of belief and practice for most (if not all) citizens and, in particular, government officials. Although discredited by some, the historicist’s emphasis on the importance of historical conditions for shaping ideas is not merely an academic concern in many of the traditions surveyed. As seen in both religious and secular traditions, Islam and Russian, for example, the narratives of history reappear and reinforce present theory and practice for government and philosophy. Further, as Wiredu, indicates, we abandon history and historical truths in philosophy at our own peril. While (Wiredu argues) some truths persist across

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time and space, we must realize the relative position of people’s own endeavors toward truth and meaning elaborations and the role that interdependencies among people of various philosophical stripe play in the invention or reinvention of historical truths. Among the things a cautious student of global governance must do, it seems, is to study her own history and philosophy as well as that of her host culture (Wiredu 1984). We hope that the chapters in this volume help students along this path. Fifth, imposition of “Western” standards upon other nations, while seemingly ensuring ease of cross-national administration, violates a number of the ethical concepts enshrined in the Western tradition itself. Of the many elements of current political philosophy in the global West, cosmopolitanism, authenticity, deliberation, social justice, diversity, and mutual respect figure prominently. Yet, the history of philosophical and ethical neocolonialism, along with trends toward “universalization” of standards via the United Nations and other international governance bodies, suggests that efforts to extend the elaborations to practice falter on the platform of practice. General statements of administrative ethics, such as the United Nations International Code of Conduct for Public Officials, assert standards of conduct that, while laudable, start from concepts and recommendations not grounded in the plurality of standards that individual regions and religions take as foundational.2 For example, the Code of Ethics for Public Officials limits its scope to “international commercial transactions” and focuses on bribery, defined as payments that enrich illicitly the accounts of public officials, or corruption, defined as insufficient accounting practices, to the detriment of other standards of ethics. The legalistic language of the code, though common to those nations with strong rule of law and constitutional practices, is not itself universal. In particular, as ethical standards in many nations and groups come from the group members themselves or their religious leaders, the emphasis on legalistic cures to corruption and bribery may fall short in some cases. In order to get beyond legalism and vague universalisms, the next wave of efforts to generate a global consensus on administrative ethics must begin with efforts to recognize local variations and reinvigorate the study of their divergences as well as convergences.

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Revisiting the Cosmopolitan Objection to This Book Although it may be merely a fashion of the times, cosmopolitanism and global consensus figure prominently in the contemporary literature on global governance, comparative ethics, regional and international governance organizations’ programs, and policy-specific efforts to devise an international consensus. For example, as Engelhardt (2006) and his interlocutors suggest, efforts to enforce a normatively global consensus for bioethics persist despite deep moral differences within nations, groups, and philosophical traditions. Echoing Engelhardt and Rose-Ackerman, we suggest that, irrespective of academic wishes to the contrary, we have not arrived at a state of postnational consensus and global governance, in ethics, law, policy, or philosophy. We respectfully doubt the possibility of such consensus now, or ever, without the prior, global assertion of a strong-armed imperialism. Within the traditions surveyed in this book, no less than six have world governance aspirations. Whether the specific form of rule is the kingdom of God, the world caliphate, the triumph of liberalism, the formation of a world-level constitutional republic, or the realization of the worldwide rulership of the proletariat, none has attained global status. Perhaps the closest approximation is merely epistemic; the chain of interconnectedness proposed in early Buddhism prefigures by centuries the chain of interconnectivity posited by network and globalization scholars. But what Buddhism promises is not a rule of law but the rule of an eternal self dwelling in us all, never culminating in one encompassing king but always persistent in everyone. The future of global governance, it seems, lies inexorably with local governance. Local governance intertwines in complex ways with the history, philosophy, and theology of the local inhabitants. Whether speaking of the locals in Timbuktu or Tehran, the production of society depends on modes of moral, economic, and sovereign organization that rarely come from external sources (see also Appiah 2005). To the extent that exogenous philosophies and theologies impinge upon a locality, the likelihood of success for that perspective depends on its acceptability to the local population. The empires of history, the Holy Roman, Persian, Song, Umayyad, or Mayan, knew this simple lesson well. Modern advocates of global governance ought to chasten

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their advocacy with the knowledge that global domination does not come without subsuming the local. For ethics, even more than government, the practices and beliefs of small pockets of faithful matter. Efforts to “confront,” “transcend,” “discourse with,” or, sadly, “assimilate” these practices and meld them with a whole starts with knowledge. Fortunately, the process of education in local practices, as the lives of historical figures such as Las Casas show, can turn the hearts of those who seek violently to confront the beliefs of others. An effort toward a world ethics, whether for a single profession, a group of professions, or all individuals, starts with education and knowledge. Throughout this text what we have tried to do is to impart knowledge. Though we do not subscribe to the notions of cosmopolitan world governance or the transcendence of a cosmopolitan ethic for all government servants, we believe that this project is commensurable with the project of other efforts to theorize or realize worldwide governance. Through this text, we hope we have augmented the knowledge bank necessary for realizing consensus-based, mutually meaningful cosmopolitan governance. We have tried to do this through imparting descriptive and applied knowledge of the philosophical and theological systems of the world. In doing so, we have tried to go beyond the posturing and pressure of a postmodern, postmaterialist, or poststatist insistence on transcending differences through lauding philosophical homogeneity. To be frank, what is cosmopolitan about insisting that we are all, truly, ethical Kantians if only we would try hard enough to selfactualize (cf. Swisher, Rizzo, and Marley 2005)?3 Previous efforts to describe a global ethics for public administration have often fallen into the trap of Kantian advocacy. Examples of scholars who avoid this include Guy Peters (1997), who argues that the foundation of civil service ethics in the future must be communitarianism. In brief, his argument is that the local communities and the ties that bind them are the roots of civil service ethics and that attempts to impose, top down, ethical standards are likely to result in distrust and disdain among the recipients of such instructions. While Peters does not elaborate on the form of communitarianism that is likely to pave the way toward a greater commitment to civil service ethics around the globe, the sentiment he advocates for here is certainly confirmed by the accumulated research done here.

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Caiden (2005), Yoder and Cooper (2005), and others point to the problems of systematic corruption and civil service malfeasance in much of the non-OECD world.4 Many of the philosophical systems in play in these areas have been surveyed in previous chapters here, and in many the importance of community protection, communal epistemology, and a general belief in the power of community over the primacy of the individual figure strongly. For example, as seen in the chapters on Confucian ethics and the ethics of some parts of Africa, the community is the bedrock of morality and knowledge, not the individual. Indeed, in some African systems the moral existence of the individual does not even become apparent without community acknowledgment. But, with such a strong community focus, what else other than failure might come of efforts to impose standards of individual accountability? The philosophy of the location does not support the practices imposed. Perhaps the greatest error of cosmopolitanism is its inflated notion of its own worth and destiny. In much of the cosmopolitan literature, global governance and a “global morality” are connected implicitly (and many times, explicitly) with modernity/postmodernity, with the assumption that globalism is synonymous with the most progressive, inclusive, up-to-date moral theorizing. Likewise, any theory, moral tradition, or philosophy that does not embrace this (usually Kantian) cosmopolitan morality is ipso facto exclusive, primitive, “reactionary,” and irrelevant in a globalizing world. One could certainly make the argument that all noncosmopolitan traditions are primitive and irrelevant—alas, most cosmopolitans do not bother with arguments but rather assume globalism’s superiority as an a priori condition of rationality. By presenting in a microcosm the variety of and important differences between ethical traditions, we intend this book to encourage cosmopolitans to take the arguments of other traditions seriously: after all, if one wants to claim that one can explicate a “global morality,” one should at least have some basic knowledge about what the globe’s population actually believes before claiming to give what they should believe. By presenting the various traditions in one volume, we hope to encourage the continuing “conversation of mankind,” where the conversation does not aim at the result of one enforcing the tenor

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of one dominant voice but rather allows sundry voices to work in harmony. Evoking the words of the immortal E. E. Schattschneider, “The flaw in the pluralist heaven is that the heavenly chorus sings with a strong upper-class accent” (1960, 53). To be clear, we wrote this book with the hopeful intention to encourage but not enforce any agreement, upper or lower class. It is this distinctively pluralist, descriptive, historicist, and nonnormative approach that we feel differentiates this work from the body of cosmopolitan scholarship on global ethics and global governance.

A Final Word Throughout the work we tried to balance sensitivity with apologetics, applied analysis with descriptive disclosure, and facts with norms. In spots, we inevitably failed and hope for correction. In the event that our interpretations of history or philosophy, politics or administration offended our readers, we apologize.

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Appendix

Chapter 3 Tables Table A. An Abbreviated Philosophical and Political History of India Circa 3000 B.C.E.: Indus Valley civilization thrives at Mohenjo Daro. Circa 2000 B.C.E.: Āryan occupation and assimilation of the Indus Valley and introduction of Sanskrit and the Vedic tradition. The early Jaina saviors thrive. Circa 1500–800 B.C.E.: Written recording of the four Vedas. Continuity of the Jaina legacy. Circa 800–500 B.C.E.: Written recording of the Upaniṣads. Continuity of the Jaina legacy. Circa 500 B.C.E.: Persian invasion of India. Circa 485–405 B.C.E.: Lifetime of the Buddha. Circa 500–300 B.C.E.: Laws of Manu written. Present form of the Rāmāyaṇa and Mahābhārata thought to be composed. 325–326 B.C.E.: Alexander the Great invades and conquers significant parts of India. Circa 320 B.C.E.: Establishment of the Mauryan Empire under Chandragupta. 268–231 B.C.E.: Rule of the great Mauryan king Ashoka. Circa 300–100 B.C.E.: Evolution of the six orthodox texts. Evolution of competing schools of Buddhism. Political disintegration of the Mauryan Empire. Circa first century C.E.: Mahāyāna Buddhism thrives, the six orthodox systems are elaborated, and the “Perfection of Wisdom” sutras composed. Circa second through fifth centuries C.E.: Various forms of Buddhism elaborated and the evolution and height of the Tantra school of the Vedic tradition. cont. on p. 356

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Table A. An Abbreviated Philosophical and Political History of India (cont.) 319: Establishment of the imperial gupta dynasty under Chandragupta II. Circa fifth through tenth centuries: Golden age of Buddhism in India. 1001–1027: First Muslim raids of northern India. 1192–1202: Establishment of Muslim rule by Mohammed Ghor in northern India. 1397: Mongol invasion by Timur Lang (Tamerlane). 1510: Portuguese establish trade in Goa. 1527: Establishment of Mughal rulership and expansion of European trade. 1769: British East India Company gains control of Indo-European trade routes. 1784: Establishment of the Raj. 1858: Revolt. 1915: Mohandas Gandhi emerges and leads the anticolonial movement through nonviolence until assassination in 1948. 1948: Independence. Table B. Castes and Stages of Life in Historical India Caste†

Brāhmin: highest, priestly, caste, mouth of the Lord; must know the laws for all other castes

Kṣatriya: caste of kings and warriors, arms of the Lord

Vaiśya: caste of traders and cattlemen, thighs of the Lord

Śūdra: lowest caste of agriculturalists and servants, feet of the Lord

Student: Obliged to learn the Vedas for up to 36 years in the household of his teacher. He must eschew worldly desires and pleasures and beg for his subsistence until returned to his family’s household.

Initiation at age 8. Obliged to learn the caste rules of all others. Must learn well enough to teach and perform the sacrifices.

Initiation at age 11. Obliged to learn the caste rules for those castes lower. Must learn the Vedas thoroughly.

Initiation at age 12. Obliged to learn the caste rules for the Śūdra. Must learn the Vedas thoroughly.

Not permitted to study the Vedas.

Life Stage*

cont. on p. 357 * From the Laws of Manu, excerpted by Radhakrishnan and Moore (1957, 177–84). †

From the Laws of Manu, excerpted by Radhakrishnan and Moore (1957, 175–76, 184–89).

Appendix

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Table B. Castes and Stages of Life in Historical India (cont.) Caste

Brāhmin: highest, priestly, caste, mouth of the Lord; must know the laws for all other castes

Kṣatriya: caste of kings and warriors, arms of the Lord

Vaiśya: caste of traders and cattlemen, thighs of the Lord

Śūdra: lowest caste of agriculturalists and servants, feet of the Lord

Householder: The most important of the 4 life stages as all others depend on the householder for their existence and subsistence.

Must earn a living by the 6 prescribed acts: teaching, studying, performing sacrifices for himself, performing sacrifices for others, and making and receiving gifts. Brāhmins may take up the work allowed for Kṣatriyas or Vaiśyas, but risk becoming outcastes if they sell items that contradict Brāhmin purity, such as milk.

The caste of kings and rulers who make and enforce the laws of castes and states. May perform 3 of the 6 acts for the Brāhmins: studying, sacrificing for themselves, and offering gifts. Kṣatriyas may take up the work of Vaiśyas in times of distress with none of the restrictions that would compromise Brāhmin purity.

The caste of traders and cattlemen, Vaiśyas have a positive duty to keep cattle for the remaining castes and are the tenders of the marketplaces. They may perform 3 of the 6 acts for the Brāhmins: studying, sacrificing for themselves, and offering gifts; Vaiśyas may take up agriculture or service (Śūdra tasks) but must do this for as little time as possible.

The caste of servants and agriculturalists, Śūdras must faithfully and piously serve the members of the other castes. The members of the Śūdra caste may not recite the Veda texts or prepare sacrifices but may offer gifts to the Brāhmins. In order to fulfill their expected social duties, members of this caste should follow the secular law and imitate (but not know) the sacred laws.

Life Stage

cont. on p. 358

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Life Stage*

Caste†

Forest dweller

Wandering ascetic

Brāhmin: highest, priestly, caste, mouth of the Lord; must know the laws for all other castes

Kṣatriya: caste of kings and warriors, arms of the Lord

Vaiśya: caste of traders and cattlemen, thighs of the Lord

Śūdra: lowest caste of agriculturalists and servants, feet of the Lord

Along with his wife, after his children (sons) are secure, the man may leave to a hermitage in the woods. The forest dweller must eschew all property and pleasures. Brāhmins may accept alms from the Kṣatriya or Vaiśya castes . Only after giving up all attachments to the world and vowing to recite the Vedas until death may a Brāhmin enter the period of the wandering ascetic.

Only when the Kṣatriya’s whole estate is secured may he take up life as a forest dweller. This is unlikely in the case of a king. He must dispense with property and pleasure but may not accept alms from the other castes.

Only when the Vaiśya’s estate is secure may he take up life as a forest dweller. He must dispense with property and pleasure and may not accept alms from the other castes.

Not permitted.

Not permitted.

Notes

CHAPTER 1 1 Errors of language, commission, and omission as well as the many infelicities of style included here are the fault of the authors. 2 Cf. Ghostbusters, directed by Ivan Reitman (Columbia Pictures, 1984). 3 It should be noted that such views may not be in alignment with the perspectives of Kuhn himself. Cf. Kuhn (2000, 105–20), against the “strong program,” which he calls “an example of deconstruction gone mad” (Kuhn 2000, 110). 4 “Apparatus of government” is a phrase borrowed from Michael Oakeshott to describe the sum of government, administrative, offices (cf. Oakeshott 1991). 5 We are not making a case for an “end of history” argument here. We do not argue with Hegel or Fukuyama that there is an end to history, nor do we believe there will be a “last man” as such. History accumulates like so many artifacts in the sand. Some are forgotten, dug up, and forgotten again, some never reappear and none mourn their loss. All of the artifacts may sum, like history, to something, but we will never know due to the fallible nature of our knowledge, and any effort to impose some summative order will be as arbitrary as any other. 6 One clear problem with this starting point is the historical evidence for the emergence of some texts is not as solid as it is for others. An equally viable alternative starting point could be the Confucian tradition. CHAPTER 2 1 In this work we discuss a number of doctrines that could be interpreted as secular religions, that is, faith in the redemptive power of democracy, or faith in the power of natural and medical science to solve the perennial problems of the human condition, or faith in the power of communist economics for the salvation of the working class. References to the civic religion of a constitution we reserve for the chapter on “Ethics in the Constitutionalist and Republican Traditions.” 359

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Notes to pp. 22–54

Virtually all religions, whether theistic or not, have a core set of recognizable symbols that signify to believers the essential tenets of the faith while also signaling to outsiders the existence of a community of meaning that interprets these symbols similarly. So too with secular orthodox systems. In some of his recent work, Bo Rothstein makes the argument that fairness is the universally held norm for public administrators. We do not disagree with Rothstein’s fundamental argument, but rather offer that fairness is a secondary, emotive expression that one might put forth to describe an administrative system that adheres to the Five E’s. To elaborate, arguments for the eminence of fairness bring to the fore issues of distributive justice, which, in turn, evoke the concepts of equality, efficiency, efficacy, and economy. Certainly, establishing patterns of distribution also requires some expertise. Without taking away from Rothstein’s well-put, empirically based argument, we simply desire to go further in a theoretical direction that could lend support to his claim. Note the recall of products contract-produced in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) such as toothpaste, cough syrup, and painted toys. Though blame is often shifted to the production side, one is led to question the culpability of the firm that engages in multiparty or multinational contracts without repeat bargaining and oversight. The reduction of both bargaining costs and production costs in these cases was not efficient if efficiency was measured over time.

CHAPTER 3 1 Unless part of a quotation that does not employ diacritics in the romanization of the original language, we use the conventional romanization scheme followed by Radhakrishnan and Moore (1957). 2 There are many criticisms leveled against the caste system, both within the Indian political and philosophical tradition and from outside of the Indian tradition. Notably, Buddhism and Jainism reject the classification of people by caste, particularly the sanctioned role of the Brāhmin caste as the priestly caste. Rejection of the caste rules in contemporary India, as specified in the Constitution of India, articles 14 to 17, caste rules, particularly pertaining to the “untouchables” or Dalit caste, suggests that caste is not a legal or social basis for discrimination. While de jure these laws arbitrate against caste discrimination, de facto caste consciousness remains high in modern India. 3 The historic varṇas are not the complete catalogue of castes extant today, which number in the hundreds. 4 Guṇas refers to qualities of the Self (Puruṣa) and of matter (Praḳti). 5 The translation of the terms associated with guṇas varies considerably. The definitions given by Banerji (1996, 36) are used here: “Sattva, of the nature of pleasure, is light and illuminating. Rajas, of the nature of pain, is mobile and stimulating. Tamas, of the nature of indifference, is heavy and enveloping.” Contrast this to Radhakrishnan and Moore (1957, 109n3): “The three modes (guṇas) are goodness (sattva), passion (rajas), and dullness or inertia (tamas). These are the primary constituents of nature and are the bases of all substances.” 6 The description of the caste system here is very elementary. Extensive

Notes to pp. 56–59

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elaborations on the caste system itself and the consequences (secular and in the next life) of caste mixing are left out in favor of time and space. “There are over 200 Upanisads, although the traditional number is 108. Of these, the principal Upanisads are ten: Īśa, Ken, Kaṭha, Praśna, Mụṇḍ̣̣ aka, Māṇḍūkya, Taittirīya, Aitareya, Chāndogya, and Bṛhadāraṇyaka. Śaṁkara, the great Vedantic philosopher, wrote commentaries on eleven of the Upaniṣads, these ten and the Svetasvatara. He also referred to the Kauṣītaki and Mahānārāyana. These together with the Maitrī, constitue the fourteen principal Upanisads” (Radhakrishnan and Moore 1957, 37). Dharmaśāstras are ethics texts that derive their philosophical and normative force from their status as expositions on the sacred (Veda) texts. Arthaśāstras are linked to dharmaśāstras in their character, but the objective of the arthaśāstras is to elaborate on the proper conduct of gaining and using wealth and power. Each of these systems’ names corresponds to an English translation (though sometimes inadequate) discussed later in the chapter. The designation “twice born” applies to those caste groups who, through studying the Vedas, are able to be “reborn.” The Kaṭha and Chāndogya Upaniṣads make this case quite succinctly, particularly in the tales of Naciketas and Death, and Svetaketu, the figs, and the salt. See Radhakrishnan and Moore (1957, 42–50, 64–77). “Sāṁkhya and Yoga, Mīmāṁsā and Vedanta, Vaiśeṣika and Nyāya, the six classic systems, philosophies, or more literally ‘points of view’ . . . are regarded as the six aspects of a single orthodox tradition. Though apparently and even overtly contradictory, they are understood to be complementary projection of the one truth on various planes of consciousness, valid intuitions from differing points of view—the like experiences of the seven blind men feeling the elephant in the popular Buddhist fable. The founders, actual or supposed— Kapila, Patañjali, Jaimini, Vyāsa, Gautama, and Kaṇāda—should probably be regarded as schools rather than as individuals. Nothing is known of them but their names” (Zimmer [1951] 1989, 605). Nyāya literally means that way that the mind is led to a conclusion. We are led to conclusions by arguments or reasoning. These arguments are either valid or invalid. It (Nyāya) is, in the wider sense, the science of demonstration or correct knowledge. In knowledge we can distinguish four factors: subject, object, the resulting state of cognition, and the means of knowledge (Radhakrishnan and Moore 1957, 356) “This [Vaiśeṣika] system takes its name from ‘viśeṣa’ (particularity); it emphasizes the significant of particulars or individuals, and is decidedly pluralistic. The Vaiśeṣika is mainly a system of physics and metaphysics. It adopts a six-fold classification of the objects of experience: substance, quality, activity, generality, particularity, and inherence. . . . We find that three of these (substance, quality, and activity) possess real objective existence and we can intuit them; the other (generality, particularity, and inherence), are the products of intellectual discrimination” (Radhakrishnan and Moore 1957, 386). Though see Krishna (1992 and 2007) for a differing interpretation of the “myth of moksa centrality” (Dalvi 2007, 658).

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Notes to pp. 67–85 It is generally thought that Kauṭilya composed his Arthaśāstra between 321 and 296 B.C.E. It is generally thought that Aristotle composed Politics between 335 B.C.E. and 323 B.C.E.. See Rangarajan (1992, 211 and 219), which has been distilled in this chapter as appendix B. “The state shall bear the expenditure on training courtesans, prostitutes and actresses in the following accomplishments: singing, playing musical instruments . . . conversing, reciting, dancing, acting, writing, painting, mindreading, preparing perfumes and garlands, shampooing and making love” (2.27.28-29; Rangarajan 1992, 351). The memory and words of Gandhi and his independence-seeking compatriots have been variously redeployed within India. We do not address this here.

CHAPTER 4 1 Daoism, also spelled Taoism, is the school associated with the Dào (道). In this chapter, we romanize to Dao. 2 老子. In this chapter, and in the Confucian one as well, we adopt the Pinyin Chinese romanization scheme. Many of the sources we use for these chapters employ the Wade-Giles Chinese romanization scheme. In all quotes from texts using the Wade-Giles system, the original romanization scheme is left. 3 莊子 4 Similar sentiments are echoed by many others included in the select bibliography included below, but see Hansen (2000), Kohn (2000), and Kohn and Roth (2002) for more exposition and criticism of this perspective. 5 “People have been accustomed to say that there were three religions in China: Confucianism, Daoism, Buddhism. But Confucianism, as we have seen, is not a religion. As to Daoism, there is a distinction between Daoism as a philosophy, which is called Dao chia (the Daoist school), and the Daoist religion (Dao chiao). Their teachings are not only different; they are even contradictory. Daoism as a philosophy teaches the doctrine of following nature, while Daoism as a religion teaches the doctrine of working against nature” (Fung 1976, 3). For an India-sided view of the relationship between China and India through the Buddhist religion, see Sen (2006, 161–93). 6 楊朱 7 淮南子 8 郭象 9 王弼 10 Here we can see some similarities to the general school of nominalism in the later medieval Western tradition. However, while the nominalists tend to argue that we cannot access the fullness of existence (and thus are left with only names), the Daoists take a decidedly different position. 11 孟子 12 Some contention remains about the authenticity of chapters and works attributed to Yang Chu, as W. T. Chan (1969, 309–10) and Fung (1952, 133–35; 1976, 60–67) both note. Both scholars also note, however, the influence of the thoughts of Yang Chu, either as a true person or pseudonimic persona representing a range of other thinkers’ more reclusive and hedonistic thoughts, on the evolution of Lǎo zǐ and Chuang-Tzu Daoism. We include Yang Chu here, as

Notes to pp. 85–107

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the tale attributed to Yang Chu of the sage who does not remove one hair to save the world has implications for modern day public administration ethics. 道德經 In some ways, this notion of doing less is similar to the “night watchman” notion of the state seen in some conservative-liberal and libertarian authors, such as Michael Oakeshott and Robert Nozick. These similarities do not derive from similar starting points, as these other authors focus on “not doing” in the context of Humean-style skepticism, in the case of Oakeshott, or as a deduction from a “state of nature” argument emphasizing individual liberty, as explicated by Nozick. Epistemology is purposely left out here as the hedonist naturalism of the preDaoist Yang Chu, and to some extent that of Lǎo zǐ, is similar to a crude form of sensationalist empiricism, much on the order of later Humean empiricism. There is much to be said of the comparability of Humean empiricism and Hume’s notion of definition with that of the Daoist writers. Indeed, a perusal of Hume’s ideas of definition and Zhuāng zǐ’s discussion of Kung-Sun LunTzu’s discourse on the “White Horse” is illustrative of a similar system of thought. These points will not be argued here. The Yang Chu chapter and the relations about Yang Chu in the Mengzi are contested by a number of authors. Both W. T. Chan (1969, 309) and Fung (1976, 60) suggest that the Yang Chu chapters may be inauthentic. Nevertheless, the inclusion of the Yang Chu chapter by both authors in their analyses of Daoism suggests that this chapter is of some importance for understanding the Daoist system of philosophy. Indeed, it seems to us that Lǎo zǐ and Zhuāng zǐ each have elements of Yang Chu’s naturalistic hedonism in their subsequent texts. The recommendation for the sage to treat all as infants is not suggestive of some form of crass paternalism or despotism. Rather, Lǎo zǐ in chapter 55 suggests the following to be the nature of the infant: “He who possesses virtue in abundance may be compared to an infant. Poisonous insects will not sting him. Fierce beasts will not seize him. Birds of prey will not strike him. His bones are weak, his sinews tender, but his grasp is firm. He does not yet know the union of male and female, but his organ is aroused. This means that his essence is at its height. He may cry all day without becoming hoarse, this means that his (natural) harmony is perfect” (W. T. Chan 1969, 165). One can see similarities in this discussion to the idea of prudence within various republican authors, in particular in the ideas of Cicero in De officiis. 韓非子 The focus on the care of laws, connected as well with the comparative absence of the state, shares similarities to the libertarian perspective on law from F. A. Hayek. But Hayek comes to this conclusion for different reasons: for Hayek, the importance of law is that it increases long-term predictability for citizens in the state, thus allowing individuals to make more informed decisions.

CHAPTER 5 1 Statistics on the number of Buddhists in nations around the world vary. Estimates range from 102 million in China to 7 million in India and 55 million in Thailand, or almost 95 percent of the Thai population. See http://www.buddhanet.net/e-learning/history/bstatt10.htm for some further statistics.

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Notes to pp. 108–113 Buddhist enlightenment is with the Buddha and his path itself. It is not found in the doctrines of Buddhism. As related in the prajñā-pāramitā and the Mahāyāna Viṁśaka (20 Verses on the Great Vehicle), the raft (Buddhism) is essential for carrying one to the “other shore” of enlightenment, but from there the raft qua raft is useless. More discussion of the precepts will follow, but, as Harvey notes in an extended discussion of the precepts, there are five general precepts, three pure precepts, and ten great precepts. The five precepts are “non injury,” “avoiding theft and cheating,” “avoiding sexual misconduct,” “avoiding lying or wrong speech,” and “sobriety.” The three pure precepts are “[c]ease from evil, do only good, do good for others.” The ten great precepts are “not killing, not stealing, not misusing sex, not saying that which is untrue, not taking or selling drugs or alcohol, not speaking against others, not praising yourself and abusing others, not being mean in giving either dharma or wealth, not being angry, not defaming the three treasures [Buddha, Dharma (Dharma), Sangha]” (Harvey 2000, 69–82). Readers will note that we separate Buddhism from the broadly Vedic, Indian chapter, despite the historical origin of Buddhism in India. Scholars of Vedic philosophies, such as Zimmer ([1951] 1989) and Radhakrishnan and Moore (1957), describe Buddhism as one of the heterodoxies of the Vedic faiths. The Buddha did not reject discipline or moderate austerity. Indeed, he insisted upon followers developing endurance through milder acts of austerity. He rejected the practice of severe austerity—lengthy fasts, mortification of the flesh, extremities of heat and cold, and other forms of extreme selfdenial practiced by Brāhmin ascetics—as an example of attachment or craving for enlightenment. Just as one who is powerless over one’s desire for food or alcohol will overindulge in these and suffer the ill effects that result, people who pursue extreme austerity due to their intense craving for enlightenment will underconsume or overexpose themselves and suffer the ill effects of that practice. Either overindulgence or extreme asceticism will lead the practitioner to the consequences of (1) disengagement with the world due to one’s own selfishness, (2) an inability to engage with the world due to one’s own addiction, (3) and, importantly, perpetuation of ignorance of true reality. See Harvey (2000, 9) for a description of the Jātaka literature or the tales of the Buddha’s previous lives. See, for example, Zimmer ([1951] 1989, 463–67) and Smart and Hecht ([1982] 2007, 255–58). Contrary to the commonplace use of the term karma as a deterministic system, karma is not a doctrine of determinism or fatalism, and karma does not wholly determine the path of one’s life. “The aspects of life which are seen as the result of past karma include one’s form of rebirth, social class at birth, general character, crucial good and bad things which happen to one, and even the way one experiences the world” (Harvey 2000, 23). These karma-predicted elements of one’s life do not exhaust the possibility that circumstances may also help or hinder one’s path toward enlightenment. These “hard-to-attain favourable circumstances which make liberation possible [are]: 1) rebirth as a human, 2) at a time when there has been a Buddha, 3) the perfection of one’s

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bodily senses, 4) hearing the Dharma, 5) the company of good men, 6) a true ‘good friend’ (teacher), 7) the means for ‘instruction in the true rule of life,’ and 8) the holy life” (Harvey 2000, 30). There are many interesting parallels between the person of Christ and the person of Buddha; indeed there are two scholarly, theological fields devoted to the discussion of these two persons and their role in the world and the afterlife. A substantial literature exists that compares the images, teachings, salvific role, and sufferings of both the Buddha and Christ. We do not undertake a careful examination of this literature but recommend interested readers look to the following sources: Hanh and Pangels (2007); Hanh (2000); and Borg (2004). See also relevant sections of Hooper (2007). The Jātaka literature, or the tales of the Buddha’s lives before his Buddhahood, is a significant and entertaining source of material on the ethics and actions of the Bodhisattva. See the coda below for an elaboration on Jaina. There are multiple divisions or schools of Buddhism. The major two divisions are Mahāyāna (Northern or Big Vehicle) Buddhism and Hīnyāna (Small Vehicle) or Theravāda (Southern) Buddhism. Northern or Mahāyāna Buddhism is split into two as Eastern Buddhism, encompassing Chinese Ch’an or Japanese Zen Buddhism, but also Pure Land Buddhism, and Tibetan Buddhism. Many of these distinctions rest upon which text each sect appeals to more as the basis for its practices and beliefs (Cousins 1998, 369–444). Unless otherwise indicated, we refer to Mahāyāna Buddhism. By contrast, consider the importance of “naming” in the Confucian tradition. Consider the quip from Augustine to the question, “What was God doing before he made heaven and earth?”: “He was preparing Hell for people who pry into mysteries” (Augustine [c.398]1961, 262[XI.12]). Or “What then is time? I know well enough what it is, provided that nobody asks me; but if I am asked what it is and try to explain, I am baffled” (262[XI.14]). Buddhist karma, particularly in the Mahāyāna strain, is slightly modified from karma in the Vedic faiths. It is the link in the chain in dependent origination, which causes a person to “see” things as existing. Sharing something with the notion of karmic accumulation in the Vedic faiths and the Hīnyāna tradition, Mahāyāna karma is based in actions of thought and doing, but the source of all thinking and doing lies with one universal consciousness from which individual karma emerges (see Zimmer [1951] 1989, 532). Specifically the consciousness of self, which is a limited form of consciousness predetermined by the effects of karma and previous pieces of existence that clouds visions of the truth of impermanence of the self and nonbeing. Name represents mental existence, and form material existence, of things or phenomena. The six senses are mind and the five physical senses: sight, taste, touch, hearing, smell. The six sense organs or “six entrances” are mind, eyes, mouth, nose, ears, and skin. “Contact, which is the fusion of the six sense organs, six sense fields, and six consciousnesses, stimulates awareness. Implied in contact are the conditions—clarity and proximity or the object being perceived and direction of

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Notes to pp. 118–131 the attention toward it—that are essential if this fusion is to result in awareness” (Mizuno [1987] 1996, 66–67). Sensation or feeling is the perception of pleasure or pain that comes from processing data accumulated through contact. Desire, variously interpreted as craving (Sanskrit tṛṣṇa, pronounced “trishna”) is “an instinctive impulse based on ignorance. . . . Craving is subdivided into three categories: physical craving, the craving for existence, and the craving for non-existence” (Mizuno [1987] 1996, 67). Attachment is an ignorant delusion about what will lead to the abatement of suffering based on desire. “If people are ignorant they cannot reason correctly and safely. As the yield to a desire for existence, graspings and clinging and attachments to everything inevitably follows. It is this constant hunger for every pleasant thing seen and heard that leads people into the delusions of habit. Some people even yield to the desire for death of the body. From these primary sources all greed, anger, foolishness, misunderstanding, resentment, jealousy, flattery, deceit, pride, contempt inebriety, selfishness, have heir generations and appearances (The Teaching of Buddha, 1975, 81–82). Existence being a state before one’s transcendence to Nirvāṇa or the realm of eternal and universal nonbeing. Birth and rebirth are the source of all suffering. Misery, or suffering, as noted in the first noble truth, is inherent in all existence. Compare with the Daoist notion of nonaction. Arguments have been made that Buddhism is an antifeminine religion. While certainly some teachings of the Buddha, the subsequent exegesis on the texts, and the elaboration of rules in the monastic orders do suggest potential difficulties for women to reach enlightenment or to be faithful nuns, many more teachings suggest that the path to enlightenment is open to all, regardless of sex. Women, mothers, sisters, and nuns were to be respected and cherished by their male counterparts, just as these same women were to cherish and serve their male counterparts. In a time when radical gender equality is expected, the doctrines of Buddhism seem to adopt a more “difference feminism” approach, which not all may agree with. We could perhaps compare this to the Christian idea of all human beings as equally made in the image of God but unequal in terms of final salvation. See also the discussion of the duck and the crane in the Confucianism chapter. In brief, the argument is that a crane’s long legs are beautiful, but it would harm the duck’s legs to make them like a crane’s legs, and it would denigrate the substance of both crane and duck to try. As with Christianity, there is a concept of “hell” in Buddhism, but the two “hell” concepts do not map onto each other completely. The realms of heaven and hell in the Buddhist literature (particularly the Mahāyāna) are plural, individually representing different levels of heavenliness or hellishness. One’s time as a “soul” or “ghost” in either realm is, as with almost all other things in Buddhist cosmology, impermanent. That is, heaven or hell is a realm of rebirth as a godly or a ghostly or demon creature. As with Christianity, the way in which one lives one’s life determines one’s path (to heaven or hell), but

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in Buddhism the path to the realms of heaven or hell may take the course of multiple lifetimes to walk (Harvey 2000, 12–13, 135–36). The approximation of the Buddha’s teaching to medicine or the doctrines to therapy guides is quite frequent in some of the ancient and recent scholarship on Buddhism. In order to avoid the possibility of conflating Buddhist means or doctrines with a scientific or technological outlook on life, we avoid using this metaphor extensively here. See Waldau (2000) for an elaboration on Buddhism and animal rights. The name of this king is also spelled Ashoka.

CHAPTER 6 1 孔子 2 Confucius will be referred to as Kǒng fū zǐ in this chapter. 3 In this chapter we do focus primarily on Chinese strains of Confucian thought as this is the variety with which we are best acquainted. Likewise, the reasons of history—that early Confucians were ethnically and geographically Chinese—compel us to restrict ourselves more forcefully to the Chinese context. The reader is strongly advised to review the works on Korean Confucianism listed in the bibliography of selected works as Korea, more than present-day China, is a Confucian nation. 4 孟子 5 荀子 6 王陽明子 7 禮 8 義 9 天 10 仁 11 敬 12 忠 13 智 14 孝 15 恕 16 天命 17 君子 18 The Confucian gentleman is one who is sincerely moral and enjoys learning, associates with other learned men, and strives after virtuosity rather than worldly goods. The gentleman is one who has “cultivated the great qualities” over his lesser qualities. Mencius suggests that all could become a great sage emperor with enough attention to the cultivation of their morally great qualities. One cannot do this, though, without being a member of the state. See Mencius 1970, book 6, part A, nos. 14–17 for a more complete rendition of this. 19 揚雄 20 韓愈 21 The Confucian disposition against instrumentally rational expertise was also reflected in the values of the postrevolutionary Maoist government’s edict: better to be red than expert (Bell 2006, 155). However, also confer the chapter in this text on Marxism-Leninism.

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Notes to pp. 147–176 Are there five virtues, six virtues, five organs, five senses, or four virtues, or is benevolence (ren) all that there is? One, upon reading primary and secondary texts of Kǒng fū zǐ and Confucians, will find that there are multiple numbers cited, and the inconsistency can be troubling. The virtues and texts for the civil service exams were Confucian of some variety since the Han Empire at least. The use of the male pronoun is historically consistent here, but see Wang (2003) for an insightful historical-philosophical analysis of the role of women in Chinese thought. Later commentators have sought to paint Kǒng fū zǐ with a more misogynistic brush based on passage 14 in book 16 and passage 25 in book 17 of the Analects. Kǒng fū zǐ seems not to be a misogynist as such, as simply reinforcing the necessary distinction of acknowledging the roles of people in the social order. 正名 A similar theory is found in the medieval Christian thinker John of Salisbury. See John of Salisbury, 1990.

CHAPTER 7 1 The Jewish tradition is a broad one, which requires some elements to be left out for reasons of space. The mystical tradition of Kabbalah, while interesting in its own right, cannot be considered in detail here. The changes brought about by the Reform movement in Judaism also present much of interest that, unfortunately, must be left to the side. Finally, specific elements within the “Jewish and democratic state” of Israel are too specific for our concerns here, but cf. chap. 10 of Walzer et al. (2000). 2 Quotations come from the King James Version of the Bible (Old and New Testament). 3 Confer Elon (1983) for a fuller discussion of the kehillot in the halakah tradition. 4 This is a greatly summarized account of developments in the religious and political history of Judaism. For a fuller account, confer Lorberbaum (2001) and Kaufmann (1960), among many others. 5 A bat kol effectively refers to a divine or heavenly voice. In this context, the bat kol is God (or his messenger) informing the rabbis that Rabbi Eli’ezer is correct. 6 This notion connects to a major inequality in Judaism (for most of its history), specifically concerning women, although this has undergone major changes in modernity. While this inequality could have had major consequences in earlier times, the public administrative ethical dilemmas are not of major import for this work. However, cf. chap. 13 of Walzer et al. (2003). 7 Spinoza, in his Theologico-Political Treatise (1951), makes the most famous case for the inapplicability of the Torah and its regulations with the end of a sovereign Jewish state. CHAPTER 8 1 Depending upon the particular works in question, we could consider Montesquieu ([1748] 1989) and Edmund Burke ([1790] 1999) as protoconstitutionalists. While there are similarities, constitutionalism proper is certainly not a derivative of either of these thinkers’ work. 2 Indeed, constitutionalism cannot do such a thing, simply because a focus on

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regime values also must acknowledge the relativist nature of moral claims from the variety of regime types that exist in the world. Or, as Arendt puts it elsewhere, “politics was precisely a means by which to escape from the equality of death into a distinction assuring some measure of deathlessness” (Arendt 1972, 165). One should not impute a necessary connection between the type of patriotism extolled by republicanism and the ultranationalism propounded by various fascist regimes. While republicanism and Italian Fascism do share some inspirations (the Roman Republic/Empire in particular), they are attracted to different elements of them: the republicans support patriotism as part of the freedom and equality of citizenship, while Fascists emphasized the lockstep unity of a homogenous, authoritarian nationalism (cf. Gregor 2005). Machiavelli’s instrumentalism finds some similarities in the ethics of the Marxist–Leninists, described elsewhere in this text. In this way, thinkers who might not usually be categorized as republicans can be seen sharing certain similarities. One need look only at the regime focus, and its universalist expansion, in the counterrevolutionary writings of Joseph de Maistre (1994). Maistre’s revulsion at democratic equality, however, makes it problematic to connect clearly such counterrevolutionary writers to the general republican tradition. The major communitarian versus liberalism debates occurred during the 1980s, coming to an inconclusive end in the 1990s. As a result, much of the communitarian argument has either fallen under some version of liberalism (as with Sandel) or focused more on the importance of discourse (in the works of MacIntyre and Hauerwas). Taylor is a notable exception (C. Taylor 1989, 2007). As the selection makes clear, Sandel considers his views to be republican rather than simply communitarian. However, given that the republican tradition (outlined above) deviates in some marked ways from that of Sandel, we believe “communitarian” is a better classification for his arguments. An example of MacIntyre’s narrative theory of ethics in action comes in the writings of Methodist theologian Stanley Hauerwas, discussed in greater detail in the tradition of Christianity chapter of this text. In some republics, nearly everyone born in, or naturalized to, the state would count as a citizen, and therefore there would be a broad concern for equality. In republics of the past, however, various groups could never have the ability to become citizens: women, certain ethnic/religious groups, “metics” (foreign laborers), and others being some examples. For example, Chinese Taipei (aka Taiwan, ROC) has a Censurate that performs administrative law-like functions. The Censurate is an old institution with Confucian roots and different philosophical backing than administrative law courts or consiels d’État. We speak of Western constitutions alone here as the difficulty of interpreting the practical implications of constitutions, much less administrative law, in other nations, North Korea for example, that have constitutions but whose politics are determined by factors exogenous to the constitution itself is too great. For an elaboration on the use of constitutional analysis in the case of North Korea, see Jordan and Ip (n.d.).

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Notes to pp. 191–197 Bertelli offers the following description of the three techniques used by administrative law courts: “First, a ‘court may directly oversee compliance from the bench, either by requiring periodic reports from the agency or through the use of monitors or masters who serve as intelligence agents.’ Second, the court may approve a consent decree under which ‘administrative discretion is much more limited . . . because the plaintiffs or monitors are a confirming presence and coequal parties in the negotiations.’ Third, the courts may order receivership, meaning that ‘the court may take over, its patience exhausted by the evident ineffectiveness of direct oversight or consent degree negotiations in securing compliance” (Wood 1990, 36–37 in Bertelli 2005, 138–39).

CHAPTER 9 1 “Ecclesiastical” refers to the specific arrangement and organization of the body called “the church”—this includes issues of legitimacy (so, apostolic succession), roles, responsibilities, and the like. 2 “Theological” refers to attempts at systematic and/or analytical arrangement and explication of religious doctrine, traditions, and narratives. Obviously, “theological” discourse can be quite varied within any religious tradition. 3 “Liturgical” refers to the rituals, practices, and symbols used in the ceremonies, broadly defined, by a given religious group. Within the Christian tradition, many of the major differences between denominations arise from liturgical differences. 4 We are using the King James Version translation simply because of its familiarity to English speakers. As indicated by the numerous translations of the Bible within English alone, various possible translations that could be used. We do not intend to show greater or lesser preference for the KJV through its use. 5 Consider the differences in antiquity: Tertullian advocated complete separation of believers from pagan society, Eusebius defended an emperor-focused notion of faith, and Augustine explicated the “Two Cities” distinction. 6 Briefly, Augustine’s “Two Cities” refers to the division of those who love God more than all else (those aiming for the heavenly city) and those who love themselves more than all else (those of the earthly city), with these two groups mixed together in the world until the second coming. The “Two Swords” notion means that both the political and spiritual authorities gain their power from God and therefore serve the same master in different ways (the political safeguarding the faithful in the world, the spiritual safeguarding the souls of the faithful in heaven). Luther’s “Two Kingdoms” idea has similarities to the arguments of Augustine and Gelasius but more forcefully circumscribes the realms of authority between the secular and individual conscience. 7 For instance, Carlyle and Carlyle ([1903–1936] 1970) consider only late antiquity up to the end of the medieval period, and this research required six volumes. 8 Briefly, Roman civil servants had to take an oath of office that required, among other things, paying homage and fealty to pagan gods (such as Jupiter) and/or to “divinized” emperors (such as Augustus or Nero). For a Christian civil servant, such an oath would implicate him in idolatry and blasphemy. While this issue of oath taking is not a predominant concern of most Christian groups in modern nation-states, one can see a similar reluctance in the case of the Jehovah’s Witnesses.

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For instance, the “political liberalism” of John Rawls would not permit much in the way of religiously informed political action unless it fell within the “overlapping consensus,” if even then (cf. Rawls 1996). Schmitt’s argument, in brief, is that the idea of political sovereignty in the West today is directly related to the notion of divine sovereignty in the past. In effect, statements about God’s sovereignty were “transferred” to the secular realm, in particular the state. Schmitt himself uses this idea to advance a decisionist notion of leadership. “But in the political sphere, and with respect to the men or agencies in charge of guiding peoples toward their earthly destinies, there is no valid use of the concept of Sovereignty. Because, in the last analysis, no earthly power is the image of God and deputy for God. God is the very source of the authority with which the people invest those men or agencies, but they are not the vicars of God. They are the vicars of the people; then they cannot be divided from the people by any superior essential property” (Maritain 1951, 50; cf. Maritain 1951, 28–53; for neo-Thomism, cf. McCool 1992). In this way, Maritain is arguing in a sharply anti-Rousseauian vein. Briefly, the narrative theory of ethics emphasizes the importance of language and stories in the creation and development of normative traditions. While systematic analysis of ethical ideas is not discouraged in narrative ethics, the compilation of “stories” holds a greater priority. Certainly, the ethical schools mentioned above are not all-inclusive. One could also include postmodern views (Milbank 1991), more explicit political theology (O’Donovan 1996), neo-Anabaptist ethics (J. H. Yoder 1994), political ethics derived from the just war tradition (Weigel 1987), and sundry others. The dichotomy of salvation/damnation involves a host of theological controversies going on to this day, such as the debates regarding free will versus predestination. Another such question is the number of the saved, ranging from Origen’s view that all might be saved to the very minor number implied by the “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” sermon of Jonathan Edwards. For our purposes, we need not address these concerns here. The term caritas is used for simplicity. The concept of love (caritas, agape, etc.) is a complex one in Christianity. A full discussion of this concept is beyond the scope of this chapter. An example of this reasoning is in Saint Augustine’s City of God, book XIX (cf. Augustine 1998). Obviously, this is not a question limited to Christian political ethics, but one that creates divisions within Christianity itself. While various denominations are undergoing grueling debates internally regarding the place of homosexuals within the framework of the church, perhaps the best known example is the controversy within the Anglican Communion, where proponents of gay rights in the Episcopal Church of America are at odds with the traditionalists within the Anglican Church of Nigeria, among others. In some branches of the Christian traditions, and especially in earlier times, following the commands of the state was required by the New Testament itself. The primary text in this regard is Romans 13:1-7, “Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God. . . .”

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Notes to pp. 204–215 On these exemptions in war situation, see Ramsey ([1983] 2002). On the issues of abortion and euthanasia, see Ramsey (1978). Obviously, this is a generalization, and one can point to times, movements, or denominations that did indeed focus on a more collective change. Such a change could be seen as an imminent direct action of God, as in the case of the Spiritual Franciscans (Burr 2001), or as a direct action of some collective itself, as in the case of the peasant uprisings in the early Protestant Reformation or the Anabaptist movement. Modern thinkers of the latter type of movement would include Yoder and Hauerwas. Liberation theology, discussed below, places much greater emphasis on collective and structural change in society. “Improvement” covers a great deal: for various views (e.g., Thomist), progress can be made, but within limits. At least until about two hundred years ago, Christian ethicists believed the perennial conflicts of earthly life (rich vs. poor, warfare, etc.) could not be eliminated until the end times. This has, to an extent, changed, although this time period has also seen the rise of “political religions” (cf. Voegelin 1952). Whether these trends are interrelated is beyond this scope of this work. The Catechism itself is separated into numbered sections, reprinted here in brackets. The term police powers comes from the “Slaughterhouse Cases,” decided by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1873. One can see similarities to the Buddhist concept of “skill in means” or prajñāpāramitā here. Please confer the Marxist-Leninist chapter of this text for a broader discussion of Marxist ethics. In this manner, liberation theology shares with many Marxist writers a disgust of “reformists” of any stripe: reformism for both views is dangerous in that it dilutes revolutionary fervor, leading to at best cosmetic changes to the economic system instead of fundamental, radical, and necessary change. One particular element of concern for Ratzinger was the meaning behind the notion of “community” within liberation theology. As he wrote, The original synthesis of event and interpretation can be dissolved and reformed continually: the community “interprets” the events on the basis of its “experience” and thus discovers what its “praxis” should be. The same idea appears in a somewhat modified form in connection with the concept of the “people,” where the conciliar emphasis on the “People of God” is transformed into a Marxist myth. The experiences of the “people” elucidate Scripture. Here “people” is the antithesis of the hierarchy, the antithesis of all institutions, which are seen as oppressive powers. Ultimately anyone who participates in the class struggle is a member of the “people”; the “Church of the people” becomes the antagonist of the hierarchical Church. (Ratzinger 1985, 181) There are other points, particularly on the use of Marxism, that also raised concerns.

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CHAPTER 10 1 The “clash of civilizations” hypothesis is most closely associated with the work of a similar title by Huntington 1998. 2 The concept of “orientalism” is most closely associated with the work of Edward Said’s work of a similar title. Said 1979. 3 Early Islamic “travel literature,” as typified by the writings of Ibn Battuta, and the grand sociological histories, such as that typified by the work of ibn Khaldun, along with the cross-cutting work of religion and philosophy from Ibn Sina (Avicenna), Ibn Rushd (Averroës), al-Farabi, and al-Ghazali, represent some of the greatest examples of cross-cultural, interreligious dialogues in Islamic history. 4 The instruction to Muslims on the preparations and maintenance of the body may strike outsiders as extensive or even excessive. The food one eats, the water and other fluids one drinks, how one washes oneself (and following which actions or under which circumstances), the care of one’s home, and rituals of birth and death are all regulated through exposition in the Qur’an and later fatwas (religious instructions proffered by jurists). Islam is, indeed, a total system of faithful living. 5 What constitutes righteous caliphal authority has been a major motivating question for Islamic political thought through the ages. 6 It is convention to add the phrase “peace be upon him” to instances where the prophet is mentioned. A further convention is “may God grant him favor” following the use of the names of individuals historically recognized for their piety and role in the faith. We do not mention the prophet by name except in this single instance. 7 The Islamic calendar or Hijri calendar is a lunar calendar that begins with the year 1 A.H. or year of the Hijra/emigration to Medina from Mecca in 622 A.D. on the Gregorian calendar. 8 Scholars of the Qur’an note that the move from Mecca to Medina had a perceptible impact on the tone and substance of the revelations the prophet received. Scholarship on the Qur’an notes the difference by reference to a Meccan period or Medinan period revelation. See Claude Gilliot, “Creation of a Fixed Text,” in The Cambridge Companion to the Qur’ān, ed. Jane Dammen McAuliffe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 41–58. 9 Crone (2004, 411–13) offers an excellent chronology of early Islam from 622 C.E./1 A.H. to 1260 C.E./638–39 A.H. 10 In this section, we refer to Uthman’s death as “death” to avoid the baggage associated with the terms “assassination,” “murder,” or “killing,” which may provoke some skepticism from adherents of either Sunni or Shi’a history. 11 Concerns about the role of innovation within the faith make up a significant part of the extensive literature on Islamic jurisprudence. See the coda to this chapter on Islamic jurisprudence and finance for more on the distinctions made about the role and threat of innovation. 12 See, for example, Sarah Stroumsa, Freethinkers of Medieval Islam: Ibn Al-Rawandi, Abu Bakr al-Razi, and Their Impact on Islamic Thought (Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, 1999).

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Notes to pp. 222–227 Numerous excellent resources on the topics exist in English as well as other Western languages, predominantly French, German, and Spanish. See, for example, Mohammad Hashim Kemali, Principles of Islamic Jurisprudence, 3rd ed. (Cambridge, UK: Islamic Texts Society, 2003), for an extensive discussion of major principles and variations on classic terms of jurisprudence. As Nanji (2007, 295) notes, “The key responsibility of all scholars and authorities in matters of faith, however is their adherence to principles that acknowledge the plural historical and cultural experiences of the worldwide Muslim community and the validity of different interpretations [of the law]. In a recent international meeting of major Muslim scholars representing the different schools of thought held in Amman, Jordan in July 2005, this principle was acknowledged as a consensual statement declaring: ‘Whosoever is an adherent of one of the four Sunni schools of Jurisprudence (Hanafi, Maliki, Shai’i, and Hanbali), the Ja’fari (Shi’i) School of Jurisprudence, the Zaydi School of Jurisprudence, the Ibadi School of Jurisprudence, or the Zahiri School of Jurisprudence is a Muslim. Declaring that person an apostate is impossible.’” Bulend Shanay, in the online Overview of World Religions (http://philtar. ucsm.ac.uk/encyclopedia/index.html), offers some categorizations of schools of adherents and nations in which these schools are presently dominant. These are found in the box on the six major madh’habs in this chapter. Crone’s analysis of the ninth-century antinomians (religio-legal anarchists) suggests that they were predominantly concerned with the elimination of politics or the willful imposition of rulers, not necessarily the imposition of laws. The question of the administration of law is largely left out of the picture. But, following the logic of antinomianism, if there is no ruler to oversee law, there are no rulers to deputize magistrates, thus there are no magistrates as such. These adherents, notably the Mu’tazilites and the Brethren of Purity, sought spiritual freedom from the imposition of religiously sanctioned power, not necessarily freedom in a hedonist or radical anarchic stance. For more on anarchism, see the chapter on Russian traditions. The works of Olivier Roy constitute an effort to dispel images of a simplified caricature of a unified Islamic fundamentalism that stands in opposition to the “rest of the world.” See Roy (1998 and 2006) for thorough but accessible discussions. Wine is mentioned in a number of places within the Qur’an but only in the context of part of the rewards of the faithful in paradise. See shura 56, 18–21. Wine in the present life, we can infer from the text, is that which does “pain heads and take away reason.” Here we can see similarities to the ideas within the Christian tradition, perhaps best explicated by Thomas Aquinas, on the unity of faith and reason. Their discussion of the role of revelation, of course, is rather different. Here too we see similarities to the Christian tradition, especially those coming from the perspective of Tertullian (in an earlier period) or more recent Protestant thought, such as from Stanley Hauerwas. One could look at the relation of Catholic Christians to the Magisterium of the church as having a similar relationship to believer and religious faith. The major difference between Catholics and Muslims in this case would be one of

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structure: Islam’s imams soperate in a decentralized manner, while Catholicism operates within a centralized hierarchy. ibn Khaldun is considered one of the greatest Islamic thinkers and is an early sociologist. Within the Muslim canon, ibn Khaldun’s position is not unlike that of Max Weber. His works on social organization and politics transcended national and religious boundaries, and his analyses of the refinements of government organization in the Muqaddimah reverberate in some of Weber’s writings. A further comparison of the two thinkers’ works is beyond this chapter but is readily apparent to students and scholars familiar with both. The parallels that can be drawn between the thought of ibn Khaldun and that of modern political theorists are litany. When reading the Muqaddimah, in whole or part, one is struck by the strains of Adam Smith, Max Weber, Edmund Burke, Edward Said, Alexis de Tocqueville, and Alasdair MacIntyre that flow throughout. An extended comparison between the Muqaddimah and these thinkers’ thoughts is obviously beyond the present project’s scope. See Black (2001, 54–55). al-Mawardi is very specific about the differences between a delegated and an executive minister. “One may distinguish between the two ministries in four respects: first, a delegated minister may judge and look into complaints while an executive minister may not; second, a delegated minister may retain the exclusive power to appoint local governors, but an executive minister may not; third, a delegated minister may undertake to mobilize armies and wage wars, while the executive minister may not; fourth, the delegated minister may dispense of the treasury funds by receiving what is due to it and paying what it owes, but an executive minister may not” (1996, 29). See also Jordan (2006) for a comparative elaboration on the accountability implications of these distinctions. Crone (2004, 309–12) offers an excellent summary of the hospital system and the regulation of doctors in early Islam. al-Buraey (1985) also elaborates on the foundations of professional regulations in various sections of his work, but notably from page 223 to page 285. Brief but thorough biographies of each of the founders of these madh’habs can be found online at http://www.muslimheritage.com/. Most of these biographies were composed by Adil Salahi.

CHAPTER 11 1 This is also in contrast to the forms of communitarianism associated with some forms of republicanism in the West, where community is kept together through a sense of membership based on a certain civic notion of duty rather than affective or ritualistic communitarianism. 2 Ethnophilosophies are a conglomeration of philosophical systems with characteristics that correlate by ethnicity or language group. 3 We suspect that Prof. Asante might disagree with the “mere” enterprise done here. While the authors have traveled in and studied Africa as a place, an idea, and an integral part of the history of moral and political philosophy, we are not Africans and cannot make any claims to the authenticity of which Prof. Asante speaks. Yet, we suspect, neither can may of the readers of this book. We attempt to be as Afrocentric and Afrosensitive in this inquiry as

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Notes to pp. 255–285 we can, following the aim of this text to understand/present traditions as they understand themselves to the best of our ability, and hope readers will forgive any failings. The system of role equality should not be conflated with a crude Platonism wherein the metal of one’s soul determines one’s role in the society. In some ways, this is similar to the manner in which Marxist leaders, most especially Lenin, would point to the commune tradition (obshchina) in traditional rural Russia as a type of example of the future communist utopia. Obviously, the Bantu of Kavirondo and the Russian obshchina are not merely examples of the same type of social structure. Multiple spellings of this name exist in the literature. Nzinga, Nzingha, and Nzinja are all used widely, and references to her Christian name appear in relative frequency.

CHAPTER 12 1 In its libertarian version, see Nozick (1974); in its most explicitly anarchist form, see Wolff (1970). 2 Obviously, this is a broad generalization. For each of these thinkers, we would need to make qualifications to this statement, but the limitations of space prevent an extended discussion of them. 3 The variants on the theme of democracy include strong democracy, representative democracy, discursive democracy, agonistic democracy, parliamentarian democracy, synagonistic democracy, democracy with Chinese characteristics, and Confucian democracy; the list is lengthy indeed (cf. Collier and Levitsky 1997). 4 Many of these types of equality were discussed earlier in this work—see the orthodoxy chapter. 5 Against both Locke and Kant, various feminist theorists have contested whether the authors meant humanity in general or only men (cf. Okin 1989). Given the current status of these two liberal schools of thought, however, we believe we can safely assume that all humanity is indicated by their works, and not merely one sex. 6 Whether Locke’s view of equality is internally consistent is irrelevant to our discussion (but cf. Waldron 2002). Suffice it to say, Locke’s understanding of equality has been exceptionally influential on later types of liberal ethics. 7 Rawls himself seems to view public administrators in an instrumental and “flat” way, where civil servants are merely the enforcement arm of the executive, with little autonomy, discretion, or initiative. 8 Arguments could be made for and against the requirements of age for standards of voting eligibility. Likewise, in a highly interdependent world where the choices of national leaders affect the outcomes of life for citizens of other nations, one could make a reasonable case for the relaxation of citizenship requirements for voting. These arguments are not advanced here but should be acknowledged in the context of the implementation of democratic equality. CHAPTER 13 1 There is a long history of theories of communism in Western philosophy. Whether it is the communism of the guardians in Plato’s Republic ([380 B.C.] 1992), the various types of communalist living arrangements advocated by

Notes to pp. 295–298

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both orthodox and heretical Franciscans (Burr 2001), or the arguments of some of the more radical elements within the French Revolution, the idea of a society without private property was not new with Marx. It would be a great mistake, however, to conflate these various forms of communism/communalism with Marxist communism. Indeed, one of the first writers to accuse Marxism of dictatorial tendencies, Bakunin, did so in Marx’s lifetime, and another Russian writer (Constantine Leontyev) made similar broad accusations against communism not long after (cf. Bakunin [1873] 1990; Leontyev 1976, 277–79). Specifically, at the Second Party Congress in Switzerland in the summer of 1902, Lenin worked to reduce the number of editorial board members for Iskra (the party newspaper) in order to consolidate power. More to the point, he aimed to restructure the party into the group of centralized and disciplined “professional revolutionaries” he described in What Is to Be Done? After various representatives stormed out in protest, Lenin’s organizational changes came for a vote, giving him in effect an artificial majority. Indeed, Lenin used this manipulation to give his section a positive name: Bolshevik refers to “majority” while Menshevik indicates “minority,” even though the Bolsheviks were the actual minority for most of the period before the October Revolution. The First International (the “International Working Men’s Association”) was an organization dedicated to aligning the political, economic, and educational policies of various national socialist–type parties—although not founded by Marx, he quickly rose to a recognized leadership position (cf. Berlin 1963, 181–89). The Second International (the “Socialist International”) consisted of the major Marxist/social democratic parties of Europe (cf. Lindemann 2009; Service 2007, 36–45). At the start of World War I, most of the various parties voted for war credits for their respective countries, irrespective of the Second International’s earlier pacifist declaration: Lenin viewed the war credit votes as an overwhelming betrayal of the revolutionary movement. The Third International (also known as the “Communist International” or “Comintern”) was based out of the Soviet Union: theoretically, it aimed to aid and strengthen Marxist revolutionary groups internationally but in practice moved toward advancing Soviet foreign policy. Leon Trotsky, after fleeing the USSR with the rise of Stalin, attempted to form a Fourth International based on Trotskyite principles, although it has since split into multiple “Trotskyist Internationals.” Авангард “History” is capitalized here in order to indicate the Hegelian/Marxist perspective of Lenin: while “history” denotes the mere names and dates of events and people, “History” indicates the progressive, directional dynamics underlying the superficial events. The science of “material dialectics,” which forms the philosophical basis of Marxism-Leninism, bases much of its theory and method on the study of History (the grand dynamics of society) within history (the current, concrete situation), as will be described below. In this regard, Lenin is not necessarily unique. As Marx’s writings both contained unfulfilled predictions (increased pauperization) as well as failed to predict various historical developments (such as the resurgence of nationalism), Marxist writers have consistently felt the need to “prove” that Marx is, in some fundamental sense, correct. Lenin’s arguments in Imperialism are

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Notes to pp. 302–317 a response to the crisis of Marxism in the early twentieth century, while Le Blanc’s analysis (2006, 15–48) is an attempt to “prove” the prescience of Marx in the age of twenty-first-century globalization. It is a matter of debate whether these arguments, intended to shore up Marxism’s feasibility, are still “orthodox,” and indeed it is open to debate what “orthodoxy” would entail. These regimes/movements include those that were explicitly Leninist (USSR, the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia), those that were reconstructed along Leninist lines (various Eastern Bloc nations), those that were Leninist and received direct aid from the Soviet Union (Ethiopia under Mengistu Haile Mariam), and those ideologies that were derived from Leninism (Maoism in the PRC) or were later derivations from these derived forms (Maoism in the Khmer Rouge and the Sendero Luminoso). The “soviets” (councils) themselves hold an odd place in any discussion of Marxism-Leninism. The soviets—workers’ or peasants’ organizations that were usually located around a specific factory or the like—had elements in common with the “commune” idea already present in Russia (see the Russian tradition chapter) as well as with syndicalism. Syndicalism, usually associated with Georges Sorel and with various protofascists, advocated factorylevel worker “syndicates,” shaped around military discipline, that would serve as the army of revolution against the bourgeoisie. Some scholars have noted that Lenin’s The State and Revolution has elements of syndicalism within it, although Lenin himself did not expand upon them. The soviets were soon pushed from any position of real power within the USSR, replaced by state agencies and, more importantly, by the supremacy of the party. For a recent attempt to rehabilitate democratic centralism, using the Chinese model as an example, see Angle (2005). An ongoing difficulty in the Soviet version of Marxism-Leninism was the place of the peasantry. For Lenin, it was essential for the proletariat (and its party) to align with the peasants, be they so conservative and superstitious, in order to overthrow the tsarist regime. In terms of Marxist theory, this combination could prove problematic. In Lenin’s view, the Russian peasantry had begun to develop class distinctions like those found in urban areas, with a landless peasant “proletariat” aligned against property-owning kulaks. As with the general theory of Marxism-Leninism, the place of peasants in administrative matters is also ambiguous. For Lenin, there were also other, very pressing, problems in the Soviet Union that would require this stage: the material and human destruction wrought by World War I, the raging Civil War in Russia, the general breakdown of law and order within Russia as a whole, and the utter collapse of the Russian economy rank among the most pressing. Perhaps the most jarring, however, was his acknowledgement that the Russian proletariat had been “declassed” during World War I—with the horrors and deprivations of the war, the workers lost their class consciousness—and thus the vanguard party effectively would have to “rebuild” the proletariat itself (cf. Harding 1996, 154).

CHAPTER 14 1 “Russia” is here meant in the broad sense, which includes various other Slavic cultures and countries. While one could question the correctness of including

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Ukrainian, Polish, or other thinkers/ideas in this section, we do so for the following reasons. First, Russia remains dominant for all of these groups, either as the center of culture or (as is often the case) for the simple reason of the country’s powerful influence over its neighbors. Second, historically Russia has represented the wholeness of Slavdom to the outside world, for better or worse. Finally, while other Slavic cultures are not bereft of strong thinkers—one need consider only the many important thinkers from Poland— these thinkers tend to fall into the orbit of the Russian tradition, one way or another. As a result of Russia being further to the east, and especially given its period of domination by the Mongols, authors have traditionally considered Russia to be “semi-Asiatic,” and thus potentially an example of “Oriental despotism” (cf. Wittfogel 1957). The Russian word (Groznyi) can be translated in various ways, as “the terrible,” “the severe,” “the formidable,” or even “the dread.” As a result, one could attribute various meanings to this ambiguous term (cf. Copleston 1986, 10). Here, we specifically mean Russian Orthodoxy. Initially, the Russian Church looked to Byzantium for initial guidance. A major change occurred after the collapse of Constantinople in 1453: as one scholar describes the aftermath, The Muscovite Church could claim to the strait and narrow path where its senior pastor [i.e., Constantinople] had gone astray. The decision of the Byzantium Church at the Council of Florence [1439] to reunite with Rome and to accept Rome’s doctrinal authority now looked like an act of apostasy punished by God. That is how it had been treated when Isidor returned from the council to Moscow, and that is why Moscow had disavowed the ecclesiastical authority of the patriarch in electing Iona to be metropolitan in 1448. Spiritually, the break with Byzantium came slightly before events precipitated a physical break. (Hosking 2001, 100).

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In the late sixteenth century, the Muscovite Orthodox clergy finally gained a recognized patriarchal see in Moscow from the synod in Constantinople, leading to the beginning of a Russian Orthodox Church, rather than simply a Greek Orthodox one (cf. Hosking 2001, 99–107, 131–33). Specifically, the contention was whether the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father only, or from the Father “and the Son” (in Latin, filioque). As a matter of Trinitarian theology, this difference is of large importance. For instance, Orthodox priests could marry, but only Orthodox monks (who were under a vow of chastity) could become bishops. As a result, many of the tensions between the monastic mendicant orders (Franciscans, Dominicans, etc.) and the diocesan bishops simply do not exist in Orthodox history. Moreover, there is no patriarch in the Orthodox system who holds a similar place to the Pope in Catholicism. The first Rome was Rome itself. The “second Rome” was founded during the rule of the Emperor Constantine, specifically Constantinople (now Istanbul). After the Turkish conquest of Constantinople, various Russian clergymen declared Moscow the “third Rome,” with obvious resonance for Russia as a whole.

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Notes to pp. 323–335 Leontyev serves as a good example of the “God-haunted” nature of Russia. While Nietzsche preached atheism and a hierarchical order based on will, Leontyev argued for strict inegalitarianism based upon a dark version of Orthodox Christianity, where God was a fearsome being first and foremost. We see these differences even in the lives they led—Nietzsche spent his last years suffering from syphilis-induced insanity, while Leontyev became a monk in one of the more rigorous monasteries of Russia. This was not a simple process, however. As the developing Russian Empire was a multiethnic society with many religions, the tsars were initially hesitant to take on religious titles that might alienate portions of the population, which could lead to civil unrest. Moreover, the tsars were concerned that taking on the title of the emperor of the “third Rome” might give Russian Orthodox patriarchs more power over the state and society than would be prudent. In the end, however, the tsars did hold a religious position analogous to that of the Byzantine emperors of earlier times. For a literary example of this overwhelming security state, see Conrad ([1911] 2007). A notable example is the recent work by Chamberlain (2007), which tends to accentuate the irrationalism and mysticism of the Russian tradition by defining “reason” in very narrow ways. While this method may help underscore the irrationalism of Russian thought, it does so at a cost: under similar investigation, one would have to argue that there was no philosophy (indeed, perhaps no reason) in the West until René Descartes and no reasoned notion of freedom until Immanuel Kant—surely at least a partial exaggeration. Nechaev is an interesting case. A revolutionary who claimed more importance than he actually had and preached an exceptionally violent form of revolutionary action, he managed to convince Bakunin to provide him funds from the International (without that organization’s knowledge). Caught by the police after ordering his disciples to kill another member of their group (who questioned Nechaev’s authority), his “People’s Vengeance” group was used as an example “to discredit the revolutionary movement as a whole” (Walicki 1979, 177n28). He was the inspiration for the terrorist character Verkhovensky in Dostoyevsky’s novel Devils (Chamberlain 2007, 67). As we will note below in the economy section, however, one should not draw too sharp a line between the Westernizers and the Slavophiles, especially on the topic of the obshchina. While not an exact match, one could consider this “mystical” knowledge as referring to the same suprarational experience of reality Plato describes as seeing the “idea of the good” in Republic, or the notion of illumination in the works of Augustine of Hippo and Bonaventure. Under the emancipation, the serfs technically were “free,” but they owed their former owners the cost of the liberation. Very few could realistically pay this “debt,” leaving the vast majority of the peasants indentured servants to their former masters, no more free in practice than they were before the emancipation. Even these egalitarian ideas, however, could run into resistance from the general population: as they “. . . would come up against the mistrust and

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conservatism of the masses, intensified by the fact that, in such a harsh climatic and geographic milieu, novelty and experimentation could genuinely be hazardous, even disastrous” (Hosking 2001, 22). Misunderstanding and violence between reforming elites and the masses, therefore, is endemic in Russian history (cf. also Heller and Niqueux 1995). Even among the Slavophiles, those who could be called “experts” would actively attempt to undue the reforms of Peter the Great (among others), as they viewed these changes as destructive to Russian customs and the Russian way of life.

CHAPTER 15 1 Rorty’s notion of ethnocentrism is that it is an unavoidable epistemic position that we hold because we are not able to achieve the relativist goal of being able to definitively declare all worldviews equally good. We cannot gain a “god’s-eye view” and, Rorty says, we ought not to try. We are situated in a culture and its traditions, and we cannot evacuate our native culture quickly and completely. We are products of our culture, and those products, if we take the idea of human equality of intrinsic value, are good, whether they are particular or not. 2 D. Yoder and Cooper (2005) discuss the litany efforts of regional and international organizations to develop more universal standards of civil service ethics. While we recognize the importance of efforts highlighted by Yoder and Cooper, we side with their interlocutor Rose-Ackerman (1999) and suggest that the continuing project fertilizing a thousand flowers blooming in a limited set of gardens undermines the other efforts to allow nations to develop along their own trajectories or empower their own civil servants to act according to an authentic ethics (see Yoder and Cooper 2005, 314). 3 This sentiment is certainly not the property of the present authors. For example, Hershock (2000, 10) captures this spirit eloquently: “It follows that the first step toward realizing a universal human rights accord involves reaching an accommodating consensus about who we are and in what sort of world we are meeting to discuss the nature and extent of human rights. And if such an accord has proved to be intractably elusive, we would perhaps do well to attend less to the ostensive and much publicized factors of political and economic conflict than to disparities among our conceptions of reality— especially the reality of persons. . . . For the most part, it has been assumed that this shared ground consists of the ‘real’ world of ‘objectively’ observable facts—the world most precisely described for us by Western science and most effectively shaped through its related technologies. That is, it is assumed that as we all breathe the ‘same’ air, drink the ‘same’ water, sleep under the ‘same’ stars, and suffer the ‘same’ ignominies of hunger, sickness, old age, loneliness, and death as members of the species homo sapiens, we live in essentially the ‘same’ world and can be minimally defined through our coexistence in it. The Buddhist teaching of interdependence and its corollary that all experience is karmic in nature jointly suggests that this is a dangerously misleading assumption. The scientifically ‘real’ and ‘objective’ world is—like all other worlds—an expression of certain consistently held values, a cultural artifact, and not truly neutral ground.”

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The categories OECD and non-OECD are used here to avoid the contention some scholars and advocates have over terms such as “newly developed countries,” “developing countries,” “least developed countries,” and so on.

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Index

Abbasids, 222 Abu Bakr, 221 adam hashuv (prominent person), 167 Administrative Procedures Act, 188, 191 affective communitarianism, 252 African Convention on Preventing and Combating Corruption, 273 Africaology, 254 ahiṃsā, 61, 75–77, 80, 115 Akan, 258, 260, 265 “Akhnai’s oven,” 168 al-Buraey, Muhammad A., 238–39, 375 Alexander the Great, 165, 355 al-Farabi, 226–27, 234, 373 al-Ghazali, 230–31, 373 Ali, 221–22 Alighieri, Dante, 197 al-Māwardi, 234–35, 237, 239–40, 375 am ha-aretz (people of the land), 172 “American Statesmanship: Old and New,” 176 amr–bil–ma’ruf (instructing or enforcing good), 218

Ananda, 129 anarchism, 78, 86, 165, 307, 374 Anti-Federalists, 176 ‘aql (intellect), 255 Aquinas, Thomas; see Thomas Aquinas Arabia, 220, 223 arhats, 77, 114 Aristotle, 67, 142, 176, 178–79, 183, 234, 362 artha, 50, 62, 68, 72, 78, 79 Arthaśāstra, 15, 54, 55, 56, 62, 63, 65, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 74, 79, 361, 362 asabiyya (group feeling), 231 Asante, 251, 257, 260, 261, 263, 269, 273 Asante, Molefi Kete, 254, 375 Aśoka, 134–35 āśrama, 53 Atharva Veda, 52 Ātman, 53, 56, 58, 60 Aufhebung (transcended), 303 Augustine of Hippo, 196, 201, 206, 224, 365, 370, 371, 380 avidyā, 60 Ayyubids, 222

409

410

The Ethics of Public Administration

Baghdad, 222, 245 Bakunin, Mikhail, 86, 297, 307, 330, 333, 339, 377, 380 Basra, 222 Benin, 251, 258 Bernstein, Eduard, 299, 302 berurim (select men), 166, 170, 172 Bhagava-Gītā, 54, 55, 65–66 Bible (Christian), 21, 368, 370 bid’a (innovation), 222 Big Man Rule, 260–62 Bodhisattva, 77, 115–16, 119–20, 124–25, 130–32, 365 Bolshevik Party, 297, 305, 307, 311, 314, 322, 325, 329, 341, 377 boyar (noble or knight), 322, 324, 329 brahmacarya, 78 Brāhmins, 51, 54, 56, 61, 62, 65, 73, 111, 356–58, 360, 364 Bryan, William Jennings, 207 Buddha; see Guatama Buddha Burke, Edmund, 141, 176, 368, 375 Buyids, 222 Byzantine Empire, 197, 223, 322, 323–24, 327, 380 caliph (deputy), 219, 221, 223, 224, 228, 231, 236, 238, 241, 243, 246, 247, 350, 373 Calvin, John, 141 caritas, 201–3, 206, 207, 209, 371 Cārvāka, 56, 60 Catechism of the Catholic Church, 207–8, 372 Catherine II, 331 Chaadaev, Petr, 333 Chāndogya Upaniṣad, 58, 361 Charter of the Golden Stool, 261 China, People’s Republic of (PRC), 27, 295, 305, 319, 360, 378 Christ, Jesus, 138, 195, 198, 201, 206, 210, 220, 365 Cicero, 176, 183, 286, 363

Circle of Power, 228–29, 231 “clash of civilizations,” 217, 373 Code of Ethics for Public Officials, 349 collective responsibility, 18, 326–27 communal epistemology, 264–65, 352 Confucianism, 15, 83–84, 103–4, 137–42, 159, 160, 252, 362, 366, 367 Confucius (Kŏng fū zĭ), 84, 137–52, 154–55, 157–58, 160–61, 367, 368 consciencism, 261 Constantine, 195, 204, 323, 379 Constitution (USA), 178, 179 Cook, Brian J., 88–89 Council of Nicaea, 323 Crusaders, 222 cupiditas, 202 Cyrus the Great, 165 Dahomey, Kingdom of, 258, 267–68, 273 Dalai Lama, 107 Damascus, 222 daṇḍa (punishment), 66 daṇḍati (art and science of punishment), 67 Dante; see Alighieri, Dante Dao, 84–94, 95–100, 102–04, 150, 153, 362 Dào dé jīng, 85, 95, 101 dar al Harb (house of war), 217 dar al Islam (house of peace), 217 Das Kapital (Marx), 21 Dé, 85, 92, 94, 95, 97, 150 deliberative democracy, 42, 99, 281–82, 285 democratic centralism, 17, 305, 311–13, 378 Dewey, John, 279 dharma, 50, 53, 54, 56, 58, 61, 63, 72, 74, 80, 108, 111, 112, 115, 117, 119, 124, 128, 130, 135, 364, 365 dharmaśāstra, 53, 56, 361

Index

“difference principle,” 42, 284 dina de-malkhuta dina (the law of the kingdom is law), 169, 170, 173–74 Douglass, James, 210 economy, 22–23, 27, 31–34, 38, 40, 44, 68–69, 78, 96, 102, 133–34, 157–60, 173, 187–88, 206–12, 231, 233–36, 251, 259, 268–73, 282, 292–93, 304, 313, 316–19, 337–40, 347, 360, 378, 380 efficacy, 22–23, 30, 34–37, 38, 41, 42–43, 44, 55, 56, 62–63, 64–66, 68, 71, 90–96, 102, 130–33, 154–56, 173, 187–88, 189, 193–94, 206–12, 236–240, 266–68, 282, 290–92, 308–13, 347, 360 efficiency, 22–30, 31, 34, 38, 40, 44, 62, 66, 69–72, 75, 91, 96, 100–2, 125–30, 146, 156–57, 173, 180, 187–88, 189, 193, 194, 206–12, 233–36, 266–68, 275, 282, 290, 292, 308–13, 315, 347, 360 Egypt, 251, 254–55, 259 Eli’ezer, 168, 368 Engels, Friedrich, 295, 298, 307 equality, 14, 22–23, 24, 26, 30, 32, 36, 38, 40–45, 55, 56, 62–63, 74–75, 93, 96, 98–100, 102, 122–23, 124, 130, 134, 151–54, 158–59, 171–72, 178, 180, 182, 184, 187–88, 189–93, 201–5, 206, 212, 228–33, 241, 250, 254–63, 275, 277–78, 282–86, 287, 288, 314–16, 335–37, 347–48, 360, 366, 369, 376, 381 Ethiopia, 220, 257, 378 expertise, 12, 15, 22–23, 26, 36, 37–40, 44, 55, 56, 57, 63, 64, 72–73, 74, 93, 96–98, 102, 120, 124–25, 147–51, 172–73, 177, 187–88, 205–6, 241–44, 262, 263–66, 282, 287–90, 313–14, 319, 340–41, 347, 360, 367

411

Fatimids, 222 filioque (of the son), 323, 379 Five Pillars, 218 Frankfurt School, 300 Friedman, Milton, 277 Gandhi, Mohandas, 75–79, 348, 356, 362 Geist (spirit), 303 Gelasius (Pope), 196, 370 George, Robert P., 199, 277 Gikuyu, 268, 269 Globalized Islam (Roy), 244–45 Gokhale, Gopal, 75 Golden Horde, 322, 324 Goodsell, Charles T., 142 Greece, 142, 196 Guatama Buddha, 109, 110, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 122, 123, 124, 128, 129, 130, 131, 132, 133, 134, 355, 364, 365, 366, 367 Guicciardini, Francesco, 180 guṇas, 53, 360 Guo Xiang, 85 Gutiérrez, Gustavo, 207 Habermas, Jürgen, 215 Hadith, 218, 227, 233, 236, 241, 242, 245, 246 Hajj (pilgrimage), 218 hakham (prominent scholar), 167, 172 halakah (legal discourse), 163–65, 167–68, 170, 171, 174, 368 Hamilton, Alexander, 180 Hán Fēi zĭ, 103 Han Yü, 143, 144 Hanafi, 225, 246, 374 Hanafi, Abu, 225 Hanbali, 245, 374 “harambee” (pull together), 270 Harrington, James, 180

412

The Ethics of Public Administration

Hauerwas, Stanley, 196, 200, 202, 207–11, 213, 369, 372, 374 Hayek, F. A., 277, 290–92, 363 Hegel, G. W. F., 141, 303, 332–33, 359 Henry VIII, 213 herem (“ban”), 166 Herzen, Alexander, 333, 338 hind swaraj, 75 hisba (command the good, forbid the bad), 237–38, 239, 240, 244 “Historical Letters” (Lavrov), 336 Hobbes, Thomas, 180 Horace, 181 Horkheimer, Max, 299–300 House of Sa’ud, 222 Huái-nán zĭ, 84 Huanglong, 132 hudud (legal punishment), 237, 239–40 Hume, David, 278, 333, 363

Ivan IV (Ivan the Terrible), 322, 324, 329 Ja’fari, 246, 374 Jaina, 56, 60–61, 76, 355, 365 Jainism, 56, 61, 360 James, William, 279 jati, 53 Jefferson, Thomas, 180 Jerusalem, 165 Jesus; see Christ, Jesus John of Paris, 197 John of Salisbury, 67, 205, 368 Judah, 165 Just and Unjust Wars (Walzer), 185

kāma, 50, 72 Kant, Immanuel, 46, 275–76, 278–79, 282, 332, 376, 380 Kautsky, Karl, 298–99, 306 kehillot (lay representative associa“I am because we are,” 255 tions, sg. kahal), 166, 368 Ibāḍī, 217 Kenya, 187, 268, 270 Ibadi, 224, 246–47, 374 Khaldun, ibn, 219, 230, 231, 235, 373, ibn Khaldun; see Khaldun, ibn 375 ibn-Taymiyya, 230, 237–38 Khārijite, 217, 218, 222 ijma’ (consensus), 223, 246 Kiev, 322 ijtihad (independent critical reason- King, Martin Luther, Jr., 203 ing), 223, 225, 227 Kingdom of Dahomey; see Dahomey, Iliad, 55 Kingdom of imam (religious leader), 221, 226, “Kingdom of Ends,” 278–79 228, 236, 238, 246, 375 Kireyevsky, Ivan, 323, 332, 334 Imami, 217, 218 Kŏng fū zĭ; see Confucius Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capi- Koran; see Qur’an talism (Lenin), 302, 318, 377 Kṣatriya varṇa, 54, 56, 66, 356–58 Indus Valley Civilization, 51, 355 Kṣatriyas, 54, 357 “integral knowledge,” 334 Kuba, 251 Iran, 178, 221 Iraq, 221, 246 Lăo zĭ, 83, 85, 86, 90, 100–3, 362, 363 Ismail’i, 217, 218 Lavrov, Peter, 336–37, 340 Israel, 165–67, 169, 173, 368 Law of Peoples (Rawls), 293 istihsan (juristic discretion), 223, 246 Laws of Manu, 53, 355, 356 Īśvara, 60 Legalist, 103–4

Index

Leih-tzu, 91 Lenin, Vladimir Illych, 214, 295–98, 300–318, 320, 332, 376, 377, 378 Leontyev, Konstantin, 323, 332, 336, 377, 380 liberation theology, 196, 213–16, 372 Locke, John, 275–78, 282, 348, 376 Luther, Martin, 196, 370 Luxemburg, Rosa, 214, 298 maat (justice), 254–55, 259 Machiavelli, Niccolò, 28, 34, 67, 180–82, 205, 369 MacIntyre, Alasdair, 185–86, 200, 369, 375 madh’hab (jurisprudence), 223, 245, 374, 375 Mahābhārata, 55, 63, 64, 65, 79, 355 Mahāyāna, 15, 108, 115, 116, 117, 119, 122, 132, 355, 364, 365, 366 Maimonides, Moses, 167 Mali, 251 Maliki, 246, 274 Man and the State (Maritain), 199 Mandinga, 273 Mao Tse-Tung, 310, 311 Marcuse, Herbert, 300 Maritain, Jacques, 199, 200, 202, 205, 206, 371 Marx, Karl, 21, 257, 295–98, 301–5, 307, 317–18, 333, 377, 378 material dialectics, 299, 301–5, 306, 311, 313–14, 317–19, 377 Mau Mau, 251 Maududi, Syed Abul a’la, 224 Maurya Empire, 55, 67, 72, 73, 79, 135, 355 Mecca, 218, 219, 220, 373 Medina, 220, 221, 245, 246, 373 Mencius (Mèng zĭ), 85, 138, 139, 141–45, 148–53, 157, 158, 367 Mèng zĭ; see Mencius Mill, John Stuart, 276, 333, 336

413

mir, 332, 338 mitzvah (commandment), 168, 171 Mobutu Sese Seko, 271 mokṣa, 50, 54, 59–62, 361 Mongols, 222, 322, 326, 327, 379 Montesquieu, Charles Louise de Secondat, 176, 180, 368 Moral Man and Immoral Society (Niebuhr), 198 More, Thomas, 212–13 Moses, 164–65, 173 Mount Sinai, 164, 168 Mughals, 222 Muhammad, 220, 221, 237, 241, 245, 246, 247, 373 Murray, John Courtney, 199, 202 Mu’tazilite, 217, 222, 228, 374 Nāgasena, 117–18 nahi-an-il-munkar (refraining from and counseling others away from vices), 218 Nanda, 130–31 narodniki (populists), 336 Nash equilibrium, 31–33 Nechaev, Sergei, 332, 380 negative liberty, 278 Nehru, Jawaharlal, 75 Netherlands, 276 New Economic Plan (NEP), 317 Nicomachean Ethics (Aristotle), 67 Niebuhr, H. Richard, 207 Niebuhr, Reinhold, 198, 202 Nigeria, 197, 371 Nkrumah, Kwane, 257, 261, 271 nonaction, 91, 93–96, 103, 366 Nozick, Robert, 277, 279, 291, 363 Nubians, 251 Nuer, 251 Nyāya, 56, 57, 58, 361 Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika, 57, 58 Nyerere, Julius, 252, 254, 257, 261, 271 Nzinga, 257, 376

414

The Ethics of Public Administration

Oakeshott, Michael, 280, 359, 363 obshchina (commune), 324, 332, 333, 338, 339, 341, 342, 376, 380 Odyssey, 55 “On Bureaucracy” (Weber), 40 Ordinances of Government, The (al-Māwardi), 234 orientalism, 217, 373 original position, 284, 293 Orwell, George, 75 Ottomans, 222, 242, 243 Pagels, Elaine, 197 Pareto efficiency, 23–25, 193, 236 Paul, 195 People’s Republic of China; see China, People’s Republic of Peter the Great, 322, 324, 325, 329, 331, 332, 381 Philosophical Letters (Chaadaev), 333 Philosophy and Public Affairs, 40 Pizan, Christine de, 67 Plato, 142, 151, 226, 259, 313, 376, 380 Plekhanov, Georgi, 298 Policraticus (John of Salisbury), 205 Political Liberalism (Rawls), 289 Politics (Aristotle), 67 positive liberty, 43 Prakṛti, 56, 58, 63 praxis, 214, 265, 298, 301, 304, 318, 372 Prince, The (Machiavelli), 28, 34, 67 Public Administration Review, 21 Puruṣa, 58, 59, 60, 360 puruís çārtha, 50, 78 Pūrva Mīmāṁsā, 56 Qajars, 222 qisas (retaliatory justice), 217 qiyas (reason by analogy), 223, 246 Queen Nzinga; see Nzinga Qur’an, 218, 219, 223, 227, 232, 233, 235, 236, 245, 246, 373, 274

Qutb, Sayyid, 224–30, 232, 244, 348 ra’y (opinion), 225 rajas, 53, 360 Rāmāyaṇa, 55, 63, 64, 79, 355 Ramsey, Paul, 210–11 Ratzinger, Cardinal Joseph, 215, 372 Rauschenbusch, Walter, 198, 202, 207 reasonable pluralism, 281 regime values, 19, 176–80, 182–84, 186–88, 369 Ṙg Veda, 51, 52, 56 Rome, 183, 196, 197, 323, 379 Roy, Oliver, 244, 374 Sa’ud; see House of Sa’ud saeculum, 201 Safavids, 222 Salah (prayer), 218 Saljuks, 222 Sāma Veda, 52 Sāṁkhya, 56 Samuel, 165 Sandel, Michael J., 184, 185, 186, 369 Śāntiparva, 49, 65 śāstra, 54, 60 sattvas, 53 satya, 75, 80 satyagraha, 77, 78 Sawm (Ramadan fasting), 218 Schmitt, Carl, 198, 371 Schumpeter, Joseph, 277 Second Temple, 16, 165, 167 Second Treatise on Government (Locke), 278 Senghor, Leopold, 257 Seven Pillars, 218 Shafi’i, 245 Shahadah (profession of faith), 218 Shaka, 254 Shakyamuni, 111, 112, 114 shared meanings, 185

Index

Shari’a, 217, 219, 225, 232, 238, 241, 242, 243 Shariati, Ali, 238 shoftim (judges), 164 shura (deliberating council), 221 six orthodox systems, 56, 355 Slavophiles, 325, 329, 331–34, 338, 341, 342, 380, 381 Smith, Adam, 277, 332, 375 Social Gospel movement, 198 Social Justice in Islam (Qutb), 229, 244 Socrates, 142 Solidarity (movement), 203 Solovyov, Vladimir, 332, 334 Songhay, 251 South Africa, 76, 260, 268 Soviet Union (USSR), 17, 197, 295, 305–7, 312, 316, 319, 327–31, 377, 378 Stalin, Iosef, 308, 310, 311, 319, 377 State and Revolution, The (Lenin), 308, 314, 378 Storing, Herbert, 176–77, 182 subsidiarity, 207–8 Sunnah (tradition), 223, 236, 245, 246 Sunni, 217, 218, 221, 222, 223, 227, 242, 246, 373, 374 sva-dharma, 53 swadeshi, 78 Syamavati, 129 Table of Ranks, 329 Tagore, Rabindrath, 75 Taharah (purity), 218 Talmud, 164, 169 tamas, 53, 360 Tat Tvam Asi (“That art Thou”), 57 Tattirīya Upaniṣad, 61, 62 tattvas, 61 Taylor, Charles, 183, 369 Taymiyya; see ibn-Taymiyya “The Study of Administration” (Wilson), 40

415

Theory of Justice, A (Rawls), 41 Theravāda, 15, 365 Thich Nhat Hanh, 107 Thich Quang Duc, 107 third Rome, 323, 379, 380 Thomas Aquinas, 196, 197, 199, 207, 374 tikkun ha-medinah (perfection of the polity), 166 Titus Flavius, 165 Tkachev, Pyotr, 332 Torah, 164, 167–70, 172, 368 trade-unionism, 298 Two Cities, 196, 370 Two Kingdoms, 196, 370 Two Swords, 196, 370 Udayana, 129 ujamaa (familyhood), 252, 254, 261 ‘ulama (scholarly class), 241, 242, 243 Umar, 221, 238, 239 Umayyads, 222 UNESCO General History of Africa, 251 Upaniṣads, 54, 55, 56, 355, 361 ‘urf (custom), 223, 246 U.S. Executive Order 12866, 192 ‘usul al-fiqh (legal theory), 223 Uthman, 221, 222, 373 Vaiśeṣika, 56, 57, 58, 361 vanguard party, 17, 295, 298, 301, 304, 305, 308, 310, 313, 317, 320, 332, 378 varṇa, 53 varṇas, 52, 53, 56, 62, 360 Vedānta, 56, 59, 60, 361 Vedas, 51, 52, 54, 55, 56, 57, 59, 60, 61, 72, 73, 74, 80, 108, 109, 355, 356, 358, 361 vidyā, 60 Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 21 Vladimir I, 322

416

The Ethics of Public Administration

Wahhābī, 217 Walayah (guardianship), 218 Wallerstein, Immanuel, 214 Walzer, Michael, 153, 184, 185, 186, 233, 256 Wang Bi, 85, 95 Wáng Yáng Míng zĭ, 138 Way of water, 102–3 Webster, Daniel, 180 Wilson, Woodrow, 21, 40, 179 wudu (prayer preparations), 233 Xún zĭ, 138, 141, 144, 152, 155, 159, 160

Yáng Xióng, 144 Yàng Zhū, 84, 85, 86, 90, 91, 92, 103 yedinolichie (one man authority), 307 Yoder, John Howard, 202, 210, 372 Yoga, 56, 361 Yoruba, 251, 264 Zaïre, 271 Zakat (almsgiving), 218 Zhuāng zĭ, 83, 85, 86, 87, 92–96, 98, 99, 100, 102, 103, 363 Zulu, 251, 254, 260, 268, 273