公共政策 道德为何重要 Why ethics matters

公共政策：道德为何重要

https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt24h2rv

作者：乔纳森·波士顿、安德鲁·布拉德斯托克和大卫·恩格 2010
https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt24h2rv.3

1. 道德与公共政策（第 1-18 页）

这本书是关于道德和公共政策的。 这样的话题立即引发至少三个问题。 首先，什么是道德？ 第二，什么是公共政策？ 第三，道德与公共政策如何以及以何种方式联系在一起？ 毫不奇怪，这三个问题都产生了大量文献。

简而言之，道德就是我们应该做什么或不应该做什么。 也就是说，它关心什么是好与坏，什么是对与错，什么是正义与不正义，什么是高尚与卑鄙，以及我们如何区分。 有许多不同且经常相互竞争的道德框架、理论……

2.正义、人性与审慎（第21-36页）

本章在论证政策，特别是旨在减少全球贫困的政策的背景下审视正义、人道和审慎的概念，我的意思是赤贫作为一个全球性问题，需要各国政府和国际组织的紧急关注。 我的论点是，有充分的理由不从道德上将这个问题归为主要的全球正义问题； 然而，也不应被视为主要基于所谓的“人道主义”，该术语与紧急实物援助密切相关。 相反，我建议，我们需要开发并包括......

3. 进行道德政策分析（第 37-54 页）

在当代社会，经济和社会进程是由私人、分散的活动与政府活动之间大量复杂而微妙的相互作用决定的。 与对许多专业服务的需求一样，对政策分析的需求也源于知识差距。 政府决策者，例如内阁部长或议员，不断面临必须找到解决方案的公共问题。 通常，这些决策者会采取新的公共政策或调整当前的政策设置来解决当前的问题。 在政府之外，许多非政府组织的决策者也寻求政策分析。 这些决策者依赖于政策分析......

4. 作为分析师、顾问和倡导者的公务员（第 55-78 页）

参与政策制定的公务员在威斯敏斯特式的议会民主国家中至少履行三个不同的职能：分析师、顾问和倡导者（参见 Gallagher 1981，第 72-3 页）。 这些职能不一定按角色或职位来区分，而是与公共政策制定中信息、利益和意识形态之间的相互作用相对应（Weiss 1983）。

本文探讨了分析、建议和倡导内部和之间的紧张关系，并建议区分这三个职能，不要将其分开或划分。 事实上，法律和惯例、道德实践准则以及公共部门价值观声明都鼓励保持适当的区别……

5. 小心你的愿望（第79-98页）

本章对比了两种适用于民主政策体系的相互竞争的办公室道德模型。我赞成的模型是分散道德责任的模型，其中精确的道德内容随着公职的性质而变化。 我将我反对的模式贴上“隐形伦理”的标签，因为它通过颠覆民主伦理来促进有道德的公共政策，而民主伦理被认为过于保守。 大多数传统政策体系的运作方式都介于两者之间，混合了我所青睐的多元化和我不喜欢的家长式作风。 我的目标是推动政策体系从家长式统治转向多元化。

6. 关于气候变化最重要的事情（第101-116页）

本书的标题——公共政策：道德为何重要——意义重大。 在有关应对气候变化的公共政策辩论的主角中，许多人认为道德无关紧要。 主角大多是科学家和经济学家，他们认为不需要道德哲学的贡献。 他们错了。

以经济学家马丁·韦茨曼（Martin Weitzman）对《斯特恩评论》（Stern 2007）的批评为例。 在将子孙后代的福祉与我们自己的福祉进行比较时，尼古拉斯·斯特恩使用的贴现率比许多经济学家更低。 这意味着他附加了更多...

7. 承认道德有助于建设性的气候变化辩论（第 117-140 页）

与气候变化相关的公共政策的设计和分析通常不会明确提及道德层面。 鉴于道德原则通常需要对哪些原则应指导决策进行主观判断，因此从政策分析中排除明确的道德可以被视为为公共政策提供更稳健和客观的基础。

然而，这在气候变化的背景下提出了一个困境，公共政策制定的关键挑战之一是实现一个能够超越选举周期的框架，并且能够弥合温室气体之间巨大的时间和地理距离……

8. 分担应对气候变化的责任：共同但有区别的责任原则解读（第141-158页）

根据 2007 年政府间气候变化专门委员会报告，除非能够实现全球针对气候变化的集体行动，否则快速变化的气候带来的主要威胁可能会对地球上的所有生命产生灾难性影响（IPCC 2007）。 尽管所有主要政府都承认人为排放对导致全球迅速变暖的因果作用，但尚未采取任何行动来减少此类排放。

达成有效的气候变化国际协议的最大希望是建立在广泛商定的共同但有区别的责任原则（CBDR）的基础上，原则...

9.美德与公地（第159-180页）
许多环 如果每个人都按照自己的“私人”理由行事，那么所有人都会产生明显的次优结果。 1 气候变化问题（Gardiner 2001，2004）、人口快速增长引起的问题（Hardin 1968）、维持渔业的问题（Ludwig et al. 1993），农业和林地利用的一些问题，以及许多其他环境......

第三部分：伦理与经济视角

10. 解决经济不平等问题（第 183-200 页）

2009 年 7 月，《奥塔哥每日时报》商业与货币版块的头条新闻是“经济衰退对新西兰富豪榜的财富造成了损失”（Hartley 2009）。 这个故事不太可能触动读者的心弦，但它列出了根据《国家商业评论》编制的数据，在过去 12 个月里，富豪榜上 155 名上榜者的财富总额如何损失了 57 亿美元， 从 2008 年的 444 亿美元下降到 2009 年的 387 亿美元。似乎没有人能够逃脱经济衰退的摧残，不是……

11. 道德对于经济增长重要吗？ （第 201-226 页）

过去四十年来，新西兰的生活水平远远落后于澳大利亚。 ……总理阐述了他的愿景，即到 2025 年缩小与澳大利亚的差距。我们认同这一愿景。 新西兰拥有巨大的潜力：强大的机构、勤奋而富有创造力的人民、世界首屈一指的信任和诚信程度以及丰富的自然资源。 所以当然可以缩小差距。 但它不会自行关闭。 如果不采取任何行动，差距可能会变得更严重，对我国的未来产生越来越严重的长期影响。 开始...

12. 金融市场监管：恐慌、道德风险和长期利益

从学术角度来说，本章讨论的与最近发生的事件相关的许多研究都处于早期阶段并且相对未经测试。 因此，本章既是临时性的，也是试探性的。

关于最近金融海啸的原因和应对政策的争论可能会持续数十年。 在与大萧条相关的此类问题上仍然存在相当大的分歧。 相比之下，最近事件的关键道德点——“贪婪”的破坏性影响——似乎是不言而喻的：金融家的贪婪，投资者的贪婪，也许是 美国消费者。 银行家...

13. 对无条件公民身份授予的搭便车反对的另一种答复（第257-276页）
反对无条件福利的一个强有力的反对意见是所谓的“搭便车论”。 这一反对意见是基于正义的考虑。 它告诉我们，有些人从其他人的努力中受益，却没有为所有人都受益的共同事业做出贡献，这是不公平的（Elster 1986）。 这种指责通常是针对左翼自由主义者对基本收入计划等利益相关提案的辩护，该计划如果足够慷慨，可以通过普遍的、无需经济状况调查的补助金来大幅放松为生计而工作的必要性 。 对无条件福利规定的搭便车反对是这样的：为什么应该……

Public Policy: Why ethics matters

https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt24h2rv

BY Jonathan Boston, Andrew Bradstock and David Eng  2010
https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt24h2rv.3

1. Ethics and public policy (pp. 1-18)

This book is about ethics and public policy. Such a topic immediately raises at least three questions. First, what is ethics? Second, what is public policy? And third, how, and in what ways, are ethics and public policy connected? All three questions have, unsurprisingly, generated large literatures.

Put simply, ethics is about what we ought to do or ought not to do. That is, it is concerned with what is good and bad, right and wrong, just and unjust, or noble and ignoble, and how we can tell the difference. There are many different and often competing ethical frameworks, theories,...

2. Justice, humanity, and prudence (pp. 21-36)

This chapter examines the concepts of justice, humanity, and prudence in the context of justifying policies, especially policies aimed at reducing global poverty, by which I mean extreme poverty approached as a global issue and requiring the urgent attention of national governments and international organisations. My thesis is that there are good reasons not to classify this matter morally as primarily a matter of global justice; nor, however, should it be considered as based primarily on what is called ?humanitarianism?, a term that is closely associated with emergency aid in kind. Rather, I suggest, we need to develop and include...

3. Doing ethical policy analysis (pp. 37-54)

In contemporary society, economic and social processes are shaped by vast numbers of complex and subtle interactions between private, decentralised activities and the activities of governments. Like the demand for many professional services, the demand for policy analysis arises from knowledge gaps. Government decision makers, such as cabinet ministers or councillors, continuously confront public problems for which solutions must be found. Typically, those decision makers adopt new public policies or adjust current policy settings to address the problems at hand. Outside of government, decision makers in many non-governmental organisations also seek policy analysis. Such decision makers rely on policy analysis...

4. The public servant as analyst, adviser, and advocate (pp. 55-78)

Public servants involved in policy making fulfil at least three distinct functions within Westminster-style parliamentary democracies: those of analyst, adviser, and advocate (cf. Gallagher 1981, pp. 72–3). These functions are not necessarily distinguished by role or position and correspond to the interplay between information, interests, and ideology in public policy making (Weiss 1983).

This paper explores tensions within and between analysis, advice giving, and advocacy, and proposes that the three functions be distinguished without separation or division. Maintaining appropriate distinctions is, in fact, encouraged in law and by convention, ethical codes of practice, and statements of public sector values....

5. Be careful what you wish for (pp. 79-98)

This chapter contrasts two competing models of an ethics of office suitable for democratic policy systems.¹ The one I favour is a model of dispersed ethical responsibilities where the precise ethical content varies with the nature of the public office. I label the model I oppose ?stealth ethics? because it promotes ethical public policy by subverting democratic ethics, which it sees as too conservative. Most conventional policy systems operate somewhere in-between, with mixtures of my favoured pluralism and my disfavoured paternalism. My aim is to nudge policy systems away from paternalism towards pluralism.

6. The most important thing about climate change (pp. 101-116)

The title of this volume – Public Policy: Why ethics matters – is highly significant. Among the protagonists in the debate about public policy in response to climate change, many think ethics is irrelevant. Most of the protagonists are scientists and economists, and they think they need no contribution from moral philosophy. They are wrong.

Take as an example a criticism directed by the economist Martin Weitzman against The Stern Review (Stern 2007). In comparing the well-being of future generations with our own well-being, Nicholas Stern uses a lower discount rate than many economists do. This means he attaches more...

7. Recognising ethics to help a constructive climate change debate (pp. 117-140)

The design and analysis of public policies related to climate change do not normally make explicit reference to ethical dimensions. Excluding explicit ethics from policy analysis could be seen to provide a more robust and objective basis for public policy, given that ethical principles generally require subjective judgements about which principles should guide decisions. This raises a dilemma in the context of climate change though, where one of the key challenges of public policy making is to achieve a framework that can endure beyond the electoral cycle and that can bridge the large temporal and geographical distances between greenhouse gas...

8. Sharing the responsibility of dealing with climate change: Interpreting the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities (pp. 141-158)

According to the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, unless global collective action on climate change can be achieved, the major threats posed by a rapidly changing climate are likely to have catastrophic effects for all life on Earth (IPCC 2007). Despite the fact all major governments have acknowledged the causal role of anthropogenic emissions in producing rapid global warming,¹ little action has yet been taken to reduce such emissions.

The best hope for reaching an effective international agreement on climate change is to base it on the widely agreed upon principle of common but differentiated responsibilities (CBDR), Principle...

9. Virtue and the commons (pp. 159-180)
Many environmental problems have the familiar structure of the dilemmas of the commons (Gardner et al. 1990), where any given individual may have reason to act in ways that result in the group being collectively worse off when everyone else acts in similar ways, so that recognisably suboptimal outcomes are produced for all if each person acts in accord with their ?private? reasons.¹ The climate change problem (Gardiner 2001, 2004), the problems caused by rapid population growth (Hardin 1968), the problems of sustaining fisheries (Ludwig et al. 1993), some problems of agricultural and forest land use, and many other environmental...

Part III: Perspectives on ethics and the economy

10. Tackling economic inequality (pp. 183-200)

?Recession takes its toll on wealth of Kiwi rich list? ran a headline in the Business and Money section of the Otago Daily Times in July 2009 (Hartley 2009). It was a story unlikely to have pulled at readers? heartstrings, yet it listed how, according to figures compiled by the National Business Review, in the preceding 12 months $5.7 billion had been lost from the combined wealth of the 155 entrants on the rich list, a fall from $44.4 billion in 2008 to $38.7 billion for 2009. No one, it seems, managed to escape the ravages of the recession, not...

11. Is ethics important for economic growth? (pp. 201-226)

Over the last four decades, living standards in New Zealand have fallen far behind those in Australia. … The Prime Minister has articulated his vision of closing the gap with Australia by 2025. We share that vision. New Zealand has vast potential: strong institutions, hardworking and creative people, a degree of trust and integrity second to none in the world, and abundant natural resources. So of course the gap can be closed. But it won?t close of its own accord. And if nothing is done the gap could get worse, with increasingly serious long-term implications for our country?s future. Starting...

12. Regulation of financial markets: Panics, moral hazard, and the long-term good 

Much of the research relating to the recent events discussed in this chapter is – in academic terms – at an early stage and relatively untested. Hence, this chapter is both provisional and tentative.

Debate over the causes of the recent financial tsunami and the policies to deal with it will probably continue for decades. There is still considerable disagreement over such matters in relation to the Great Depression.¹ By contrast, the key moral point from recent events – the devastating effects of ?greed? – might seem self-evident: greed of financiers, greed of investors, perhaps greed of US consumers. Bankers...

13. An alternative reply to the free-rider objection against unconditional citizenship grants (pp. 257-276)
A powerful objection against unconditional welfare benefits is the so-called ?free-rider argument?. This objection is based on considerations of justice. It tells us that it is unjust that some people benefit from the efforts of others without contributing to the common enterprise from which all stand to gain (Elster 1986). This line of accusation is usually directed to left-libertarian defences of stake-holding proposals such as the basic income scheme, which, if sufficiently generous, could substantially relax the necessity to work for a livelihood through a universal, non-means-tested grant. The free-rider objection against unconditional welfare provisions reads like this: why should...