ADMINISTRATION ETHICS AND JUDGMENTS OF UTILITY - RECONCILING THE COMPETING THEORIES

Administrative ethics in the 20th century is marked in part by the ado ption of classic utilitarian decision-making techniques that try to ma ximize good effect in the lives of the citizenry. However despite a pl ethora of widely used quantitative techniques spawned by utilitarianis m, the practical foundations of this ethical theory have been called i nto question with various discoveries by organization theorists that i n actuality the classic theory is not a good general description of wh at successful managers do. This new model is often referred to as ''sa tisficing.'' The new model also has a serious problem: No theory of sa tisficing has yet provided an understanding of how any decision making that is merely satisfactory can also be wholly ethical. This paper ex plores this tension and resolves it to some degree by arguing that the two theories are complementary, not competitive. We do this by relati ng each theory to patterned, or rule-guided, behavior and by examining how each contributes in its own way to a better understanding of mana gerial judgments of utility.