The Practices of Public Managers in Portugal and the Codes of Ethics

Abstract

http://dx.doi.org/10.5007/2177-7055.2014v35n69p61

The set of ideas and programs, known as New Public Management (NPM), enable the empowerment of leaders, through a greater degree of freedom in decision-making, by means of less a priori control and, appropriate training (OECD 1996); (Bilhim, Neves 2005). In this article, overcoming the duality Kant/Aristotle and placing ethics, according to Rawls, in the tension between justice and freedom, we question whether ethics is an end-point or rather a direction to be chosen. In addition, we propose instruments and processes that can serve as “ethic architecture” to guide the ethics of public service.