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Both Civil services and professional ethics in the technical-rational tradition draw upon both teleological and deontological ethics, and focus on the individual’s decision-making process in the modern organization and as a member of a profession. In the Civil sphere, deontological ethics are meant to safeguard the integrity of the organization by helping individuals conform to professional norms, avoid mistakes and misdeeds that violate the Civil trust, and assure that Civil officials in a constitutional republic are accountable to the people through their elected representatives. At the same time about upsc exam, it is encouraged to pursue the greater good by using discretion in the application of rules and regulations and creativity in the face of changing conditions. The “good” Civil servant should avoid both the extremes of rule-bound behavior and undermining the rule of law with individual judgments and interests. It is fairly self-evident that civil organizations depend on at least this level of ethical judgment in order to function efficiently and effectively, and to maintain civil confidence in government. At the same time, it is important to recognize that these ethical standards of an organization or profession are not adequate in and of themselves to ensure ethical behavior or even competent behavior. Despite the extensive literature on Civil service ethics, there is little recognition of the most fundamental ethical challenge to the professional within a technical-rational culture; that is, one can be a “good” or responsible professional and at the same time commit or contribute to acts of administrative evil. As Harmon (1995) has argued, technical-rational ethics has difficulty dealing with what Mailgram (1974) termed the “agentic shift,” where the professional or administrator acts responsibly toward the hierarchy of authority, Civil policy, and the requirements of the job or profession, while abdicating any personal, much less social, responsibility for the content or effects of decisions or actions. In the technical-rational conception of Civil service ethics, the personal conscience (or one’s moral compass) is always subordinate to the structures of authority. The former is “subjective” and “personal,” while the IAS prelims are characterized as “objective” and “Civil.” The ethical framework within a technical-rational system thus posits the primacy of an abstract, utility-maximizing individual, while binding professionals to organizations in ways that make them into reliable conduits for the dictates of legitimate authority, which is no less legitimate when it happens to be pursuing an unethical or even evil policy. An ethical system that allows an individual to be a good administrator or professional while committing acts of evil is, by definition, devoid of moral content, or even morally perverse. Given the reality of administrative evil, no one in Civil service should be able to rest easy with the notion that ethical behavior is defined by doing things the right way. Norms of legality, efficiency, and effectiveness—however “professional” they may be—do not necessarily promote or protect the well-being of humans, especially that of “surplus populations”—society’s most vulnerable and superfluous members whose numbers are growing in the early years of this century.
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