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Introduction / 11 sary reasoning that is characteristic of the political process and incorporate it, more self-consciously, into their own decision making. Chapter 2 of this book begins the argument by examining Berlin’s idea of value pluralism and how this pluralism is central to our moral experience, both in making our own moral choices among conflicting moral ends or conceptions of the good and in living with others whose moral ends happen to differ from ours. It is argued here that, far from being a form of relativism, value pluralism is an essential part of our moral experience and that in fact, without it, morality and moral choices, at least as we have come to understand them, would disappear . This chapter also emphasizes the importance of moral conflict to decision making in government and public administration and its special relevance to the problem of the “dirty hands” dilemma in government. Chapter 3 uses the writings of Crick to examine the historical meaning and function of politics and shows the special role of politics in helping us to deal with moral conflicts in a manner that minimizes the need for force and violence. I argue here that politics helps to promote moral conduct because it encourages governments to be responsive to a variety of different values or conceptions of the good held by different groups in society. Politics also makes it easier for individuals and groups in society to pursue their own values because it allows individuals a measure of freedom from government interference and because it helps to promote a more peaceful coexistence among these individuals and groups. Following this, in chapter 4 I examine the conflict that exists between politics and the vision of governance proposed by mainstream social scientists in public administration and especially by writers in public management. I argue here that a scientific approach to the study of governance, when taken alone, gives insufficient weight to its inherently political character because it advances an instrumental rationalist and deterministic vision of governance and, in doing so, downplays the conflicts of values and the uncertainty that are an inherent part of the way in which we have come to govern ourselves. As a result, this approach to governance may not be as helpful to the practice of public administration or governance as its advocates seem to think. Moreover, there is a risk that if public administrators and other government officials were to embrace this science-based approach too enthusiastically, to the point of excluding other more humanistic approaches, it could even harm the practice of governance. The chapter concludes that what we need is a pluralist approach to public administration that takes account of the political character of our system of governance and that recognizes that public administrators must often make choices among competing values. Chapter 5 explores just what such a pluralist approach to public administra- 12 / Introduction tion might look like by examining more closely how it is that politics is able to reconcile conflicts among groups holding rival conceptions of the good. Drawing on the ideas of Hampshire, it is argued here that political institutions can provide a set of locally accepted practices of procedural justice that help to resolve conflict by means of adversarial argument or “hearing the other side” rather than by force. This suggests, in the American context, the particular relevance of our constitutional practices in dealing with moral conflict. I argue here that our constitutional and political practices have led to a politicization of public administration that makes it difficult, if not impossible, for administrators to act in an apolitical or purely instrumental rationalist fashion and, furthermore, has the effect of forcing public administrators to take account of multiple and conflicting perspectives in making their decisions. In doing so, these practices serve to protect values that are held to be important by different groups in society by providing multiple opportunities for hearing the other side on issues involving these values. The protection and enhancement of these practices for hearing the other side is, therefore, a necessary part of a pluralist approach to public administration . Finally, chapter 6 examines how the process of adversarial argument or hearing the other side that is characteristic of politics might help public administrators engage in a process of practical moral reasoning as part of a pluralist approach to public administration. It is argued here that a more self-conscious cultivation within the mind of an internalized process of adversary reasoning— one that is derived from...

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