Andrea

Throughout the semester, the role of ethics and moral values in policymaking has been a center-point of discussion. As we have discussed, the Rational Actor Model suggests that policymaking is made without plurialistc conflict, and seeks the most effective solutions without ethical considerations. 

Other models suggest less clear-cut rationales behind policy decision-making. For example: Forester (1984) argues that individual agendas complicate decision-making; Sabatier (1999) argues that “deep core beliefs” and “policy values” at least partially dictate policy analysis and action.

A recent New York magazine article, “Them and Them,” about the political takeover and subsequent policy changes in a public school district in Ramapo, NY, seems to corroborate the various models suggesting that individual agendas and policy values play a role in dictating how policies are evaluated. 

In Ramapo, the sizeable Hasidic community, which for the most part does not enroll its children in public schools, has succeeded in gaining control of the school local board. Now in control, they are steadily cutting funding and programs, and diverting resources to support yeshiva-based education programs for their own children, leaving children who rely on the public school system without the necessary resources to excel, or even graduate.

The implementation of policies that divert public resources from the general population to a special interest group seems inarguable unethical, but Hasidic community leaders argue that residents can vote with their feet: “You don’t like it?…. Find another place to live,” one leader said.

In “Why Policy Analysis and Ethics are Incompatible,” Amy (1984) contests the standard arguments against the integration of policy analysis and ethics, finding that the current technocratic style of policy analysis and the shunning of ideological considerations in American politics prevent substantive ethical inquiry from being included in the analysis process. 

The systematic exclusion of ethical inquiry in the policy process seems to extend to the case of Ramapo, where the Hasidic leaders on the school board are pursuing their own culturally based agenda, without consideration for the many public school students affected by their inequitable policies. Here, however, rather than rather than ideological considerations being ignored, the religious ideologies of these leaders are driving their policymaking. 

The community leaders see nothing wrong with their decisions to cut resources from public schools to benefit their own community needs, reallocating public school resources and space for religious activities. Resources have been cut to the point where it has become impossible for public school students to graduate from high school in less than four years, thus substantially reducing their access to quality college education. When faced with pushback, the school board leaders say their critics are anti-Semites, leaving little space for substantive discourse or problem solving.     

Wolf (1980) finds that the “fundamental ethical assumptions that underlies policy analysis, is taken for granted by the institutions that sponsor the analyses, and accepted (usually without examination) by the people who perform them” (2). For the most part, bureaucratic structures given policymakers significant ethical leeway, assuming they are making efficient and ethical choices.

But this assumption also has its limits: In New York, school boards can direct State funds to pay for special-needs children to attend nonpublic schools. In Ramapo, he school board has granted so many special needs requests to Orthodox children – based on the argument that school appropriateness includes a familiar, culturally sheltered environment – that the New York State Department of Education has formally notified the district that it is violating the law.       

Here, we have found the moment when policy and ethical considerations collide: The Orthodox controlled school board has made policy decisions based on their own values, shunting equitable policymaking in the pursuit of their own ideological agenda. Here, rather than ideological considerations not being included in policy analysis, an agenda based on values has driven the policymaking process.                                  

Resources:

Amy, Douglas J., “Why Policy Analysis and Ethics are Incompatible,” Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 3(4), 1984.

Mead, Lawrence M., “The Interaction Problem in Policy Analysis,” Policy Sciences, 16(1), 1983.

Shulock, Nancy, “The Paradox of Policy Analysis: If It Is Not Used, Why Do We Produce So Much of It?” Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 18(2), 1999.

Wallace-Wells, Benjamin. “Them and Them,” New York. April 29, 2013.

Wolf, Charles Jr., Ethics and Policy Analysis, RAND Corporation, 1980.

The inclusion of ethical considerations into policy analysis creates a critical appreciation of the limits to which traditional economic tools and analysis ought to be employed in shaping and evaluating public policy. Contrary to the dominant theoretical dichotomy between “value-free” economic theory and moral values, moral questions are necessary interrogations that can inform analysis and shape policy recommendations. As Amy argues, in many instances moral issues arise. The example of abortion is a pertinent, and perhaps one that is often used to showcase how such moral considerations cannot be shunned but on the contrary represent integral parts of the analysis process. Often though, policy analysis through its nature and interaction to the institutional, bureaucratic and professional policy fields neglects those ethical aspects. This neglect can bias not only the definition of policy goals but also the analysis process itself.

            Perhaps the cost-benefit analysis, a widely used policy tool, reveals better than any thing else the inherent tension between ethics and policy analysis. As Amy argues,  “cost-benefit analysis is popular in policy analysis because it gives the appearance of ethical analysis without involving the risks.” (1984: 587). Indeed, cost-benefit analysis is looking at the aggregation of personal preferences, while rejecting inter-personal comparisons of well-being. In other words, thorugh the analysis we get a clear picture of aggregate costs and benefits that describe the well-being and preferences of a community, society, state or nation. At the same time, by considering levels of utility and preference satisfaction as the fundamental measure of human well-being, welfare economics refutes the moral utilitarian principle as formulated by Bentham: “it is the greatest happiness of the greatest number that is the measure of right and wrong.” The Pareto optimality principle rejects redistributions (because someone is made worse off and individual utilities cannot be compared), thus removing the moral basis of utilitarianism from welfare economics (Staveren, 2007). Therefore, by absorbing morality into subjective and incomparable individual preferences, cost-benefit analysis has effectively removed ethical evaluation from the policy discussion.

            The implications of this fundamental theoretical presupposition in terms of policy are indeed important. The focus on preference satisfaction fails to link up with the normative terms of policy debate, and it leads to difficulties and implausible implications when preferences change and conflict. If we look beyond theoretical models, such alterations and clashes of preferences are evident in a plethora of scenarios in the public policy realm.     

            Indeed, even though the cost-benefit framework, at least implicitly acknowledges the importance of individual liberties, it fails to integrate the larger nexus of morally significant values that influence social action and policy outcomes.  Such values consist of individual freedoms, rights –formal or moral – and perceptions of equality within a society. For a policy to be accepted and successfully implemented one can argue that welfare increases are not the sole condition; respecting rights, freedoms and perceptions of equality appear similarly important. And what seems to matter is the perception of a society’s and its citizens’ rights, freedoms and equality. Such perception is built upon specific historical contexts and traditions that carry along and transmit ethical values. For instance, the opponents to the extension of public health care in the US, although often center their discourse on economic arguments, seem to draw their influence from deeper ideological perceptions on who has the right to health care and to what extent the state is responsible to provide this service. Equally, the current reactions to the decline of welfare benefits in Southern European countries cannot only be understood in terms of a decrease in welfare, but also as a redefinition of workers and pensioners rights at the basis of a larger effort to balance cost and benefits and which in the long term, does seem to promote economic solvency and not ethical values of justice, fairness and equality.

            In that sense, policies that aim to the redistribution of resources should be first thought under the scope of the shift they create in terms of moral values, freedoms and rights. Beyond the obvious question; how can we achieve a wider evaluation framework of public policies, one that moves beyond the maximization of welfare -- assuming that maximization is clearly measurable – and considers moral values within a society, another issue emerges: that of the role of the policy analyst towards not only his client but towards the society he is evolving in. Certainly, as Patton and Sawicki suggest this issue does not have a clear answer. While the reflective questions that Tong develops (see Patton and Sawicki, 1986:43) or the principles that Lindblom suggests (idem) can provide useful guides for analysis, developing a moral code seems difficult not so much due to the “passivity” of analysts and their tendency to follow orders or satisfy the client but more so, due to the moral baggage that analysts bring in their analysis and the utopic belief that an analyst is impartial and ideologically neutral. In that sense, policies and analysts cannot be understood outside their specific moral context.

References:

 

Patton, Carl V. and David S. Sawicki, Chapter 2: “The Policy Analysis Process”, pp. 30-46, in

                Basic Methods of Policy Analysis and Planning, Prentice Hall, 1993.

Amy, Douglas J., “Why Policy Analysis and Ethics are Incompatible,” Journal of Policy

                Analysis and Management, 3(4), 1984.

Staveren, Irene. "Beyond Utilitarianism and Deontology: Ethics in Economics," Review of Political Economy, Taylor and Francis Journals, vol. 19(1), pages 21-35. 2007.

 

A key theme that ran through the readings of this week was the ethical responsibilities of researchers in areas that could be used for informing the public and policymakers. Amy argues that researchers need to be objective, consider ethics and not let their professional power struggles interfere with good research. Patton and Sawicki argue that most research is value-laden and that researchers need to be responsible for the information they put into the public sphere. These interpretations of the necessity of ethics in social science research seems applicable when considering the implications of testing as evaluation and the value placed on it, in public school provision.

Douglas Amy suggests that policy analysts and researchers should attempt to be objective and acknowledge the normative issues around ones research so their values do not ‘creep’ in (p.578).  When an analyst does not consider ethical values, the author argues, it is more often because, “it frequently threatens the professional and political interests of both analysts and policymakers” and is rarely that ethical considerations do not play a part of the issue at hand (p.587).

Patton and Sawicki argue that the claim that researchers and advisors are able to be completely objective and are not contributors to the policy process because they are not the decision makers is false: “Our position is that analysts and advisers influence policy in many ways, including how they define the problem, specify alternatives, present data, select examples, and frame recommendations” (p.43). The authors argue that although information presented to decision makers is merely information and not policies that researchers need to take responsibility for the consequences of the information they produced.

This line of logic follows the role of researchers as Warwick and Pettigrew describes as “knowledge generators” rather than consumers of knowledge or “knowledge brokers” (p.338). Since social scientists are aware that the information they produce is going to either be used by a) the public or b) policy makers to inform their decision-making process, then researchers have an obligation to that information.  The authors point to education as a key issue area that research and information provided to policymakers strong impacts perceptions and preferences citing the Education Opportunity Survey conducted by James Coleman as a punctuated event that marks social science entrance into the public sphere as an informer, or knowledge generator.

It is often a concern in the education field that the evaluative measurements provided by standardized testing is not aligned with the other goals and values of mass public education. Even this past week, Pearson, the largest standardized testing producer and corporation, wrongly calculated the amount of students who qualify for gifted and talented programs in New York City. Although the evaluation arm of Pearson are not “researchers” or are they “advisors” to public policy, the accuracy of evaluation and consequent interpretations of student’s achievements, advancements and in this specific case- a child’s “giftedness” or - intelligence is insurmountable.  The companies policy is to provide the scores, be accountable and transparent as possible which led to parent inquiries, and Pearson’s reevaluation of their data to conclude that several mathematical errors disqualified 2700 students who have since shown to have qualify for gifted and talented seats.

Although this information is not directly imparted to policy makers, the fact that there are now thousand students more than seats available is a testament to needing more gifted schools, or a different evaluation measure. It is also a perfect example of how social scientists, or monitoring and evaluators, or mathematicians in the social sphere need to be accountable and responsible for the information they put out there.

In conclusion, it seems that in the very least the objectivity of the tests is important, the interpretation of the scores are very important, the availability of the data used to score and evaluate the tests is important and what impact that has on school is important, and these are all issues that the authors this week discussed as ethical considerations that social scientists need to be aware of when developing research.

Resources Cited

Patton, Carl V. and David S. Sawicki, Chapter 2: “The Policy Analysis Process”, pp. 30-46, in  Basic Methods of Policy Analysis and Planning, Prentice Hall, 1993.

Amy, Douglas J., “Why Policy Analysis and Ethics are Incompatible,” Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 3(4), 1984.

Warwick, Donald P. and Thomas F. Pettigrew, “Toward Ethical Guidelines for Social Science  Research in Public Policy,” In Daniel Callahan and Bruce Jennings Eds., Ethics, The Social Sciences and Policy Analysis, Plenum Press, 1983.

Rotherhan, A. “The Illusion of the Gifted Child”.  Time Managine. April 25, 2013. http://ideas.time.com/2013/04/25/the-illusion-of-the-gifted-child/

Claude Joseph

Amy’s paper “Why Policy Analysis and Ethics are Incompatible” does not provide a clear picture as to how the relationship between ethics and policy analysis should be grasped. In contrast to Amy, I don’t believe that ethics is neglected in policy analysis. Quite to the contrary, policy analysis is a normative endeavor that constantly looks for objective technique to support a given ethical stance. Ethics, more precisely moral philosophy,  is indeed the philosophical root of policy analysis. The rationale behind any policy analysis can be found in Aristotle’s virtue ethics, Kant’s deontological ethics, Gauthier’s moral by argument, Hume’s ethical intuition and Bentham’s utilitarianism, to mention a few.

Some of these ethical frameworks are to a large extent mutually exclusive. Emmanuel Kant’s deontological ethics differs from Bentham and Mill’s utilitarianism. While the latter is a consequentialist theory whose core principle is to maximize utility regardless of the means used, the former argues that sometimes the intention behind the act matters most. Therefore, to Kant, means matters. Aristotle, on the other hand, would argue that it is neither the means nor the end that matters, but the person that undertakes the action. While a utilitarian or a deontologist would ask what should a policy analyst do when face with an ethical dilemma, Aristotle would ask what should he be. For Aristotle, moral behavior expresses virtues or qualities of character. Another interesting ethical viewpoint in policy analysis is John Rawls and Amartya Sen’s distributive justice, which takes on both Kant and Bentham.

In policy analysis, Bentham’s utilitarianism perspective is manifested in the form of cost-benefit analysis. This approach aims at maximizing total utility without any regard to the harm that might cause. Thus, when mayor Giuliani decided to exclusively use competitive bids (sealed bidding) to award public contracts to private businesses provided that the administration knew well that Minority Business Enterprises aren’t capitalized enough to compete against big business, it was a deliberate ethical decision, not just a technical one. Therefore, arguing that there is a clash between ethics and policy analysis is misleading. Policy analysis is a battle over competing ethical choices. And, as it happens, each ethical choice is rooted in an ideology. For instance, democrats believe that minorities stand to lose a great deal from privatization. So, to minimize those losses, they believe that governments should select privatization arrangement carefully and monitor them closely (Suggs, 2004). Conversely, in his book “Privatization in the City: Successes, Failures, Lessons” with a foreword by Rudolph W. Giuliani, Savas, a republican, advocates a system of privatization that would favor big businesses. The rationale is that relying on good techniques to contract out public services would avoid the problem of principal-agent such as adverse selection or information asymmetry.

The whole approach about equity, justice and fairness is likewise a normative perspective that is ideologically oriented. The G.I Bill, the Great Society program, among others, were enacted under democratic leadership. Tax cut for the rich, on the other hand, was a republican byproduct.

Ethics is not neglected in policy analysis. Quite to the contrary, policy analysis is a battle over ethical choices where each choice is associated with a devised technique as a support. The cost-benefit analysis is a technical support for the normative utilitarian perspective.

After successfully securing the air rights over the former Penn Station and negotiating with Pennsylvania Railroad to provide a smaller station below ground-level in 1962,the then- Madison Square Garden Arena owners demolished the former Penn Station (an architectural gem along the same lines as Grand Central).  Now, 50 years after  construction, MSG’s special operating permit has expired, and opposition is mobilizing to renew their permit for only another 10 years in order to allow the City to develop alternatives to the current configuration (including forcing MSG to relocate), in order to expand the station’s capacity and redress an architectural blunder.  The growing kerfuffle raises endless questions over how to successfully integrate ethics and values into policy analysis; The situation is a morass of value-based, ethical, and financial concerns, and whether (and how) officials choose to integrate unquantifiable values into their analysis of the situation may effectively choose their position, and their side, for them.

·      How should policy makers balance the interest of MSG against the rights of Penn Station users and businesses? This question alone is fraught with potholes, questions of corporate citizenship, and quantitative concerns.

·      What are the interest of the riders and the businesses? After all, the station clearly works, albeit in an inefficient, overcrowded, and non-aesthetic fashion. Do values such as architectural quality and aesthetics (and the importance of first impressions on visitors) have a place in government decisions, especially ones which demand the City to be as pro-active and combative as this?  Can those values be integrated into a cost benefit analysis, as Charles Wolf Sr. believes? Or are they incompatible, as Douglas Amy believes? If they are incompatible, does that mean that advocates for a New Penn Station are operating without the benefit of an analysis, or does their analysis validate a New Penn in some form? Or are officials such as Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer merely acting in their own best interests as elected officials who have disgruntled constituencies?

·      Would City officials be acting irrationally for waxing sentimental about the Old Penn Station, a mere fifty years after allowing it to be demolished, or do they have a right to change their minds and pursue whatever option will best support the quality of life and pride-of-city of New Yorkers? On that note, is MSG is a source of valid City pride, or it is merely an edifice of the booster spirit supporting Molotch’s and Logan’s City-As-Growth-Machine theory? If it is the latter, does the City have an obligation to rebel against its own complicity in value-less City building? (If it is the former, then are we back to square one?).

·      Or is it possible that the entire debate be fairly captured in financial, efficiency, and capacity terms (i.e., dry and rational terms), as the demand for enhancing Penn Station is derived from a three-fold increase in Penn Station’s ridership since the existing station was designed? How would the (possibly inefficient) desires of the crunched, pushed, crowded, and stifled riders (such as increased waiting areas, fresh air and sunshine, formal music performance areas, or luggage storage) fit in?

The owners of MSG and the riders both have claims in this growing conflict; as MSG's Vice President for Communications puts it, “The Garden — a company that has recently invested nearly $1 billion in its arena and helps drive the city’s economy by supporting thousands of jobs and attracting hundreds of annual events — is being unfairly singled out because of a decision that was made 50 years ago: to demolish the original Penn Station.” In this scenario, the choice of whether to explicitly integrate values and ethics into the City’s analysis may force City officials to take the side of the riders, and not, as Amy describes, simply go with the most feasible and cost effective option ( which would most probably renewing MSG’s special use permit indefinitely and acceding to the status quo) and then justify it on technical grounds.

-References-

Amy, Douglas. Why Policy Analysis and Politics are Incompatible. 1984. Journal of Policy Analysis and Management.

Logan, John R. and Harvey L. Molotch. Urban  Fortunes: The Political Economy of Place. 1987. University of California Press.

Dunlap, David. Madison Square Garden Says It Will Not Be Uprooted From Penn Station.  New York Times Online. Retrieved from: http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/09/madison-square-garden-says-it-will-not-be-uprooted-from-penn-station/

Zoé Hamstead

The recent debacle over Reinhart and Rogoff’s (2010) National Bureau for Economic Research working paper raises a number of ethical issues for policy analysis generally. Their study, based on 200 years of data on GDP growth and debt in 44 countries finds that average growth rates fall dramatically above a 90% debt/GDP ratio. With the recent release of a PERI working paper that replicated the Reinhart Rogoff study (Herndon et al., 2013), but found that the authors made a number of serious methodological errors, other, less technical issues surrounding the study have emerged. In particular, the extent to which the original findings permeated policy discussions around austerity measures raises the issue of to what extent researchers should be cautious about raising policy implications of their findings, and the role of media dissemination.

Reinhart and Rogoff’s study makes a claim about the direction of causality which is arguably linked to their normative stance on economic policy, but does not adequately allow for alternative interpretations or freely admit to a political bias. Their statistical analysis does not directly examine the direction of causality, yet they speculate in their concluding remarks that countries with high debt will need to “tighten fiscal policy in order to appear credible to investors…” Moreover, they argue that countries with high debt are vulnerable to unexpected financial crises. Yet, they do not balance this speculation with alternative possibilities, such as that raised by Paul Krugman and others. Krugman argues that historical examination can lead one to see that the extreme cases of high debt and slow growth, such as occurred in Japan and Italy, are instances in which growth slowdown has led to higher debt (Krugman, 2013). Warwick & Pettigrew (1983) argue that researchers should be cautious of using expansive interpretations and clearly separate interpretations from the actual research findings, which in Reinhart and Rogoff’s study, were mere associations accompanied by arguably weak causal hypotheses. Allowing the subjects of bias, personal values and normative considerations to enter into the discussion of policy implications would draw the reader to question assumptions made by the researchers, and enrich the dialogue about policy implications (Amy, 1984).

As Herdon et al. point out, the Reinhart Rogoff study was used in testimony before the Senate Budget Committee, their tables were reprinted in publications and presentations of the Centre for Economic Policy Research and Peter G. Peterson Institute for International Economics, was cited in numerous popular media outlets such as The Economist, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, National Public Radio, and cited in more than 500 academic publications (Herndon et al., 2013). What responsibility do the authors have of controlling the message their research communicates to these audiences and specifying the extent to which the findings can be interpreted for policy guidance? Warwick and Pettigrew (1983) argue that social scientists should not engage in publicity campaigns for their policy preferences as part of disseminating research results, should emphasize limitations, and again, separate empirical and normative issues. Audiences of mass media publications will be unable to distinguish between normative and empirical issues unless they are made clear in reporting; these audiences cannot be expected to review research methodology and design of every reported finding in order to ascertain for themselves the research design limitations. This problem relates to the social science research profession’s roots in technocratic optimism, and a desire to see the social scientist as someone who is value-free and therefore capable of advising policy without being influenced by values (Amy, 1984). This false perception of the researcher degrades the ability of policymakers and public stakeholders to engage in informed debate about public policy issues.

References

Amy, D. J. (1984). Why Policy Analysis and Ethics Are Incompatible. Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 3(4), 573–591.

Herndon, T., Ash, M., & Pollin, R. (2013). Does High Public Debt Consistently Stifle Economic Growth?: A Critique of Reinhart and Rogoff. Political Economy Research Institute. Amherst, MA.

Krugman, P. (2013). Grasping at Straw Men. The New York Times: The Opinion Pages. Retrieved April 29, 2013, from http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/26/grasping-at-straw-men/

Reinhart, C. M., & Rogoff, K. S. (2010). Growth in a Time of Debt.

Warwick, D. P., & Pettigrew, T. F. (1983). Toward Ethical Guideliens for Social Science Research in Public Policy. In D. Callahan & B. Jennings (Eds.), Ethics, The Social Sciences and Policy Analysis (pp. 335–369). Hastings-on-Hudson, New York: The Hastings Center.

On the question of the compatibility of ethics and policy analysis Douglas Amy (1984) and Charles Wolf (1980) seem to disagree that these concepts are incompatible. Amy advances several arguments for the incompatibility of ethics and policy analysis while Wolf argues that the incompatibility can be overcome if analysts are more inventive. Both authors do agree that ethics is either deliberately left out or ignored in policy analysis and research. In both their papers several points are highlighted: the dominance of positivism within the social sciences and the dominance of the social sciences within policy analysis, the ideological conflict that the inclusion of ethics in policy analysis and research would create between the analysts or researcher and their primary clients, and the use of cost-benefit analysis to measure efficiency as a way to include ethical issues in policy analysis. Of the reasons advanced for the incompatibility of policy analysis and ethics these three points resonate most and I would like to comment further.

Douglas Amy in “ Why Policy Analysis and Ethics are Incompatible” argues that the inclusion of ethics in policy analysis represents a threat to the analyst-client relationship, as the results of posing ethical questions when analyzing policy may contradict the ideological position of bureaucrats, politicians and the communities they represent. The Temporary Assistance for Needy Families commonly referred to as “welfare” provides an example of how posing ethical questions could create ideological contradictions. In the US this type of income transfer has primarily been criticized for being too paternalistic in requiring that recipients actually engage in activity that results in them transitioning off of welfare. This conditional requirement reflects the ideologies of the policy analysts and bureaucrats as well as the politicians who support the continuance of this program. An ethical analysis of the provision of welfare could conclude that in the interest of equity and justice the program should be administered unconditionally in some cases. This would directly contradict the ethos in US society regarding work and being productive which is one of the main reasons that the condition that recipients should engage in activities that lead to possible employment is imposed.

In “Ethics and Policy Analysis” Charles Wolfe argues that the fundamental ethical assumption that underlies all policy analysis is that it is better to apply a systematic and scientific approach to the analysis of public policy. Then steers away from this point instead choosing to focus on the ways analysis can include ethics such as choice. This systematic scientific approach to policy analysis is the direct result of the dominance of positivism in processes of policy analysis and research. This reliance on positivist theory is largely what makes ethics and policy analysis so incompatible. Positivism focuses on the analysis of measurable variables, employing quantitative methods to identify trends and make predictions. Advancing even basic ethical questions, which relate to equity or equality and justice presents substantial measurement and evaluative problems for the policy analyst. In the case of welfare for example one could ask, “ How does such a public assistance program achieve equity?” The resulting answers would only be normative in nature and based on the value judgments of the analysis working on such a question. Such value judgments are difficult to quantify and measure and therefore would be near impossible to use as the basis of predictions. So that such ethical questions are ignored in policy analysis and research because they yield results that are not easily measured.

Both Amy (1984) and Charles (1980) make reference to the use of Cost-Benefit analysis as a way of incorporating some ethical concerns into policy analysis. I believe as Charles (1980) inferred, that the use of Cost-Benefit analysis is a “cop-out” by analysis who are not creative or talented enough to develop the means to measure and analyze other ethical issues. Cost-Benefit analysis imposes a limit on the ability of analysts to explain policy issues as it focuses exclusively on questions of efficiency while other equally important questions of equity and justice are left out of the analysis. This practice in policy analysis is inadequate in many policy arenas, as several policy issues remain unresolved. In the case of the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program, while a cost-benefit analysis of this program may yield positive results that support the continued provision of this program example number of families assisted, re-entry into the workforce and elevation out of poverty. A cost-benefit analysis is of little use in evaluating the potential equity and equality enhancing attributes of the program and will provide even less by way of its effects on justice in terms for example of whether or not the benefits are going to individuals who truly require public assistance.

Whatever the reasons advanced for the exclusion of ethics in policy analysis it is undeniable that several questions concerning the effects on equity and justice of public decisions remain unanswered. Inclusion of ethical questions in the policy analysis and research process could lead to improved policies and programs that benefit society in general.

References

Amy, Douglas J., “Why Policy Analysis and Ethics are Incompatible,” Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 3(4), 1984

Wolf, Charles Jr., Ethics and Policy Analysis, RAND Corporation, 1980.