Ethics and Policy Analysis

Abstract

In discussions of ethics and policy analysis, two questions are important to distinguish. One question concerns the fundamental ethical assumption 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. The second ethical question concerns the choice of appropriate values, objectives, goals, and constraints to be adopted in specific policy studies. Expressed in more formal language, what should be the arguments in the utility function that is to be maximized? What should be the study's maximand? For example, should the appropriate goal or objective of a program or policy be to maximize total income (ignoring distributional consequences), or rather to maximize the income gains or the opportunities of a particular group (for example, the poor, the aged, minorities, etc.), or to maximize a particular type of benefit (e.g., say, housing, or education, or nutrition, or clean air) for all, or for a particular group? This paper will deal primarily with the second question.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Feb 01, 1980
Accession Number
ADA099997

Entities

People

  • Charles Wolf, Jr

Organizations

  • RAND Corporation

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Biomedical

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Biological Sciences
  • Cost Benefit Analysis
  • Costs
  • Economic Analysis
  • Economic Impact
  • Economics
  • Education
  • Ethnic Groups
  • Formal Languages
  • Judgment
  • Language
  • Morals (Social Psychology)
  • Psychology
  • Public Policy
  • Social Welfare
  • Standards
  • Students

Fields of Study

  • Medicine

Readers

  • East Asian Political and Security Studies within the Soviet Union
  • Emergency Management and Homeland Security.
  • Theoretical Analysis.