Ethical Dilemmas in Public Policy

Book excerpt: This book employs a unique interdisciplinary approach to analyze different ethical dilemmas in public policy, applying values and concepts to examine substantive policy and public issues that are grounded in practical realities (by integrating philosophy, political science, law, policy studies etc.), thereby bringing fresh insights to governance. Building on the nascent scholarly literature on the role of values in governance, it focuses on analyzing “social values in public policy” in the East-West context of Hong Kong, yielding new insights on how to achieve good governance by reflecting on public affairs and policy issues from a social values perspective. The book will be of interest to researchers, postgraduate and undergraduate students in the fields of philosophy, political science, public policy and social science in general, while politicians, public administrators, policy researchers and other professionals (e.g. teachers, journalists, social workers, doctors etc.) from both East and West will find it stimulating and constructive. The book offers well-founded reading and reference material for citizenship education, e.g. as teaching materials, especially for General Education courses at universities and Liberal Studies and Arts curricula in secondary schools. It also provides food for thought on the part of general citizens.“This will be a very important and unique book in the study of ethical pluralism andpublic policy in Hong Kong.”– Professor Sonny Lo Shiu Hing“Public policy both reflects and shapes social values and social norms. However, the so-cial values and ethical dimensions of public policy are often left implicit and unexploredin policy analysis and policy formulation. The big questions – what kind of society dowe want to create? What is at stake here? Whose values? – are debated and discussedin some other context which is more distant from the applied world of policymaking.This book takes a different position and puts ethical issues and social values up front inan exploration of a number of key public policy issues in Hong Kong. In doing so, thebook makes a very timely intervention in Hong Kong’s increasingly contentious publicaffairs and makes an important contribution to the general literature.”– Professor Ray Forrest