Value Pluralism and Its Implications for American Public Administration

Abstract

This article discusses the idea of value pluralism and its implications for American public administration in dealing with value conflicts. It is argued here that the pluralist view that our values are often incompatible and incommensurable with one another is more coherent with our moral experience than monist views that assume an underlying harmony among human ends. I also argue that the monist character of much of public administration discourse, by ignoring this moral experience, constrains the ability of public administration as a field to assist practitioners in dealing with value conflicts and may risk promoting an excessive zeal among practitioners in pursuing their own monist ends. A constitutionalist approach to public administration is proposed here, which seeks, by means of a combination of administrative independence and juridic ism, to constrain the ability of political and administrative power to limit the range of values considered in discourse. Finally, the relationship between value pluralism and anti-administration is examined.