慈悲與智慧的公務倫理
The Ethics of Public Service Based on Compassion and Wisdom
The main concepts of bureaucracy are generally derived from Weber’s bureaucratic model. Weber identified several characteristics of bureaucracy, including the “professional division of labor, impersonality, hierarchical management structure, and formal rules and regulations”. These characteristics produce positive functions such as specialization, rationality, obedience, consistency and predictability. However, they also cause many negative functions, like trained incapacity, lack of morale, communication barriers, and inflexible and rigid methods. Unfortunately, most people characterize bureaucracy purely in terms of this negative side. This article points out that the bureaucratic system has pathologies such as “reification of authority, goal displacement, impersonality,” and then explains that in order to solve these pathologies, empathy and professionalism alone are not enough. This paper describes a new model of public service ethics based on compassion and wisdom, and proposes a new framework of affection, reason and law. It emphasizes humanism, and empowering civil servants with more powers to help people solve their difficulties.
Keywords
sympathy, empathy, bureaucracy, wisdom, compassion