Ethics and aesthetics in Public Administration

• Public Service as a profession … It is but a small step from there to see the ideology of the market embraced … with the pursuit of self-interest progressively holding sway. Wherever this occurs, the integrity of public administration is undermined … literally at its foundation. Therefore, an additional burden falls on the professional leadership of the public service … to defend and promote the professional ideal even when, on occasions, that ideal is not honoured by the government of the day or even celebrated by the vast majority of fellow citizens …. who are content to pursue self-interest. To do this; to preserve the ideals of Public Service in the face of either indifference or hostility and to do so at a time when the tenure of many public servants is limited, takes considerable moral courage. Yet, the power of positive example will often do more to preserve the integrity of an organization than all of the other control measures put together. As often observed, independence, I surmise; is a matter of character not contract. Or compliance, I would add. If the majority of citizens belong to the world of the market, if political leaders cannot be assumed to look to promote the public interest as a matter of course, then what might be done to promote and enhance the cause of good public administration with both the good and the great and the wider public? It is here that an unexpected ally emerges from the past. Back to Adam … the aesthetics of public administration. As noted at the beginning of this article, Adam Smith has been adopted as the ideological father of the market economy. However, I also cautioned that many of those who embrace Smith do so without having read much of what he wrote … especially the great companion work to The Wealth of Nations, the Theory of Moral Sentiments. Yet, within the pages of the Theory, Smith makes some illuminating comments on what might be regarded as the aesthetics of public administration and their power to promote action for the common good. The discussion of public administration appears in Chapter One of Part Four of the Theory under the title, Of the beauty which the appearance of Utility bestows upon all the production of art, and of the extensive influence of this species of Beauty (In passing, I should note that the words utility and beauty are capitalized by Smith). In the paragraph immediately following that which refers to the invisible hand, Smith takes his central idea concerning the motive power of a beautiful system and applies it to the art of government (if you will excuse this 18th Century pun). Smith is worth quoting at some length:‘’… All constitutions of government, however, are valued only in proportion as they tend to promote the happiness of those who live under them. This is their sole use and end. From a certain spirit of system, however, from a certain love of art and contrivance, we sometimes seem to value the means more than the end, and to be eager to promote the happiness of our fellow-creatures, rather from a view to perfect and improve a certain beautiful and orderly system, than from any immediate sense or feeling of what they either suffer or enjoy. … if you would implant public virtue in the breast of him who seems heedless of the interest of his country, it will often be to no purpose to tell him, what superior advantages the subjects of a well-governed state enjoy; that they are better lodged, that they are better clothed, that they are better fed. These considerations will commonly make no great impression. You will be more likely to persuade, if you describe the great system of public police which procures these advantages, if you explain the connections and dependencies of its several parts, their mutual subordination to one another, and their general subservience to the happiness of the society; if you show how this system might be introduced into his own country, what it is that hinders it from taking place there at present, how those obstructions might be removed, and all the several wheels of the machine of government be made to move with more harmony and smoothness, without grating upon one another, or mutually retarding one another’s motions. It is scarce possible that a man should listen to a discourse of this kind, and not feel himself animated to some degree of public spirit.’’ The rest of the chapter is worth reading …not just for the original description of the invisible hand (a gift of divine providence), but also for the way in which Smith makes clear that the typical luxuries of the rich are mere baubles when compared to simpler goods of enduring value. However, it is Smith’s idea of good government, of good public administration being beautiful … and that this beauty should entice the allegiance of all citizens that is so interesting. By beautiful, Adam Smith means (in effect) fit for purpose... that being to promote the happiness of society. Yet, there is something more to beauty than the harmony of a system’s parts … all of which could be achieved as a matter of form. There is also an older idea of beauty, which incorporates the depth of things. At this point, it may be interesting to note a curious fact about the language of ethics (at least as developed in the Western world). In its earliest recorded form, the discussion of ethics was conducted in Ancient Greek. Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and their contemporaries typically made use of words like aischron and kalos. Aischron is usually translated as meaning shameful, kalos as honourable. Yet each word had an additional meaning. Aischron also meant ugly and kalos, beautiful. I mention this because it suggests that there was a time when the link between ethics and aesthetics was somewhat closer than might be recognised, at least at a formal level, today. Furthermore, it makes clear that there was a time when dishonourable deeds were also considered ugly. Although Smith makes no comment about this older idea of beauty, I think that he would approve of my doing so. That is, I think that he would endorse the idea that the character of those engaged in public administration matters at least as much as the form of government that they help to create and sustain. In this, I believe that he would be joined by many in the Rwandan leadership …. perhaps as unlikely an ally of Adam Smith as ever contemplated. End The author is a Development Policy Analyst. Email: bazimya@yahoo.co.uk