Office as a Vocation: re-instating the ethics of office in public service (Office as a Vocation)

Abstract:

This project is an historical investigation of the ethics of ‘Office’, its main constitutive elements, including its relationship to casuistical forms of reasoning and conduct, its key ‘theorists’ and its role in forming the comportment of official persona in public service. A key objective of this projecti is to revitalize interest in the practical importance of an ethics of ‘Office' in public service, as well as to re-establish the crucial place of the ethics of ‘Office’ within the history of ethical theory, where it is currently barely visible.