Common Ground, Common Future: Moral Agency in Public Administration, Professions, and Citizenship (Public Administration and Public Policy Book 115)

Common Ground, Common Future: Moral Agency in Public Administration, Professions, and Citizenship examines the public and private roles of the citizen as a moral agent. The authors define this agent as a person who recognizes morality as a motive for action, and not only follows moral principles but also acknowledges morality as his or her principal. The book explains that public administration is a fundamentally moral enterprise that exists to serve the values that society considers significant, and that this moral nature makes public administration a prototype for other professions to emulate, a model of moral governance in American society. The title reflects the book's principal purpose and abiding hope: the development of a broad perspective on our individual and collective roles and responsibilities as citizens, professionals, and moral beings, with a recognition of mutual obligations to the large and small challenges inherent in the process of governance. The inherently moral nature of public administration, argue the authors (of Texas State U.), makes the public administrator as a moral agent a moral exemplar for other professions. They examine a unified ethic that is implied by this view of public administration and consider its application to other professions, including business, medicine, highe