HIGHER CIVIL SERVICE’S ETHICS Luiz Carlos Bresser-Pereira Paper published in Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Division for Public Economics and Public Administration, Promoting Ethics in the Public Service. New York: Untied Nations, 2000. Morality is the set of norms through which societies historically define behavior that is viewed as good or bad, as acceptable or not by the community. Ethics, on the other hand, may be seen as being synonymous with morality, the science or theory of moral practices. Ethics is also thought of as the character or ethos of an individual or a group -- the hierarchy of values and norms which he/she or they identify for him/herself or themselves against a prevailing moral code. Generally, I will use the term ethics in the latter sense for this paper. Morals -- or morality -- originate in social practices while ethics, as a science, is a rational endeavor. Ethics, as a set of principles, give a rational justification for behavior. They define individual and group priorities, and in the end, they may arrive at a systematic body of moral norms, as individual and group practices get interwoven. Professional Ethics Professional groups, although limited by moral norms, define their own ethics. They give priority to one or other social objective. They hierarchically organize their values and beliefs. For instance, artists value beauty highly; business entrepreneurs, profit; economists and managers, efficiency; politicians, power; jurists, justice; and the military, order. Professional ethics will share values in common with society. Although the hierarchy of values will vary from time to time and from group to group, there is a general understanding of professional ethics. On the other hand, there are differentiation among professions such that we can suggest -- as it were -- ethics of “beauty”, “truth”, “justice”, “order”, “profit”, “innovation”, “efficiency”, “power”, etc. These professional ethics are related and subordinated to the existing morality of a society and are observed and interpreted. Morality, in turn, was “discovered” from divine (religious) or secular (natural) sources or was “invented” by a logical process of reasoning and deduction according to Walzer. Thus we have set up a system of moral legitimacy. Professional ethics are legitimized by an existing morality which, in turn, is given value by revelation, logical deduction (invention), or simply by interpretation. Starting from these assumptions, which ethics characterize the higher civil servant? Ethics of the Civil Servant A simple answer would be that, like all managers, the higher civil servant would value efficiency. But to be more precise, it is necessary to add power and effectiveness. Higher civil servants want to be obeyed because of their management role. They want to see implemented the decisions that they or the politicians above them make in the name of the state. In this management function, they are also committed to public interest. For instance, because they value efficiency, higher civil servants want to see state services delivered at a minimum cost. Their reason is a reason of means, of an instrumental rationality. Because they value power, they are permanently concerned with their authority which emanates from the power of the state. But efficiency and authority are subordinated to and, believed to be, consistent with the fundamental objective of the state: the public interest. (This is in contrast