Revista Tinerilor Economiºti (The Young Economists Journal)

Management – Marketing - Tourism
pains.” 42 If we ad all the pleasures produced by an action and all the displeasures (in
general, an action has consequences of both ways), and then we subtract from the sum
of pleasures the sum of pains, we will obtain what is called „the utility of that action”
(Mill, 1994). A correct moral decision is that which produces the greatest utility
confronted by the possible alternatives.
The decision in the public space is not based only on utility. The ethics of
virtue or thinking style of feminist ethics (the ethics of care) may be other criteria taken
into account in the decisional process. The deductive ethical theories gain a secondary
role; instead the role of flair or of discernment is major. It is about an ethics of social
consensus considered in analogy with the customary right or it is a „customary ethics”
(Jonsen, Toulmin, 1988). For this reason we compare the new case with the example
case using probable judgements of analogy.
There are not explicit rules for such analogical reasoning, but only the flair or
the moral discernment of deciders, that is what Aristotle named phronesis (“practical
wisdom”) (Mureşan, 2001). It is what in public politics is called taking a decision
depending on an „incremental reasoning” (Lindblom, 1959), which supposes the using
of analogy or similar public politics. An implemented public decision received the
social consensus and gains at least practical credibility. Incrementalism offers a
valuable continuity at the level of public politics and a certain type “of limited
reasoning” which supposes the choice of the decisions depending on the goals already
accomplished and tested in practice, which received the title of good practice due to the
already accumulated experience.
Another ethics applicable to the public politics and decision is that of virtue
or a neo Aristotelian ethics (A.MacIntyre, R.Rorty). It is about a moral philosophy of
the decision which is centred on human, not on action or rule. The interest falls upon
the importance of reasons of moral action. The criterion for the public decision
becomes „the moral sensitivity” (Rorty, 2006) of the actor implied in the process of
public politics, a kind of empathy, of care for the other. In order to judge the moral
deeds one does not need the great ethical theories, „a framework for the identification
of the moral problems and for the reflection upon them” is sufficient. This framework
supposes the existence of „four bunches of moral norms” (Beauchamp, Childress,
2001), constituted of: principles, rules (characteristic principles), rights, virtues and
moral ideals. The methodological frame is based upon principles taken from bioethics
as: the principle of charity (“norms which create general benefits and their weighing in
comparison with the costs and risks”) (Mureşan, 2001), the principle of autonomy
respect (the respect of autonomous people’s capacities and liberty to take decisions), the
principle of no harming (the avoidance of harming), the principle of justice (a group of
norms for the distribution of benefits, risks, costs in a fair way).
From another ethic perspective, the public decision in the public politics may
subject to some criteria which strictly belong to the individuals’ rights. The rights must
not be violated whatever the consequences of the realized action might be. On this
dimension of rights, public politics developed their own decisional logic which aims at
the respecting of rights of all those implied in the cycle of public politics who come up
with a developed legislation.
42
Bentham apud. Adrian Miroiu, Speranţe ale eticii aplicate,
http://adrianmiroiu.files.wordpress.com/2008/03/02introd-etica-aplicata.pdf, accessed at
27.10.2010.
113