Structure of answer:

• Introduction (basic information about ethical dilemmas in public administration).
• What are the ethical dilemmas in Public administration.
• What are the issues?
• How it can be resolved?
• Conclusion.

Keypoints:

• A dilemma is something wider and more demanding than a problem, however difficult or complex the latter may be (Rapoport, 1960).
• The reason is that dilemmas, unlike problems, cannot be solved in the terms in which they are initially presented to the decision-maker.
• Caught on the horns of a dilemma the decision-maker is not only faced with opposed and perhaps equally unwelcome alternatives; even worse their incompatible juxtaposition also implies that they are mutually exclusive in the sense that the satisfaction of the one can only be made if the other is sacrificed.
• It is then the case that solving a dilemma resembles a zero sum game, whereby the choice of one value alternative is necessarily followed by the negation of the other.
• ‘Solving’ the dilemma in such a way would, therefore, be a contradiction in terms and a misnomer, since the solution reached likewise would seem to be no more than a scission and a dichotomic split of the intertwined aspects of the issue at hand.
• The advanced set of fundamental principles or criteria that integrate and rearrange the process of dealing with ethical dilemmas in public administration are:
• Democratic accountability of administration.
• The rule of law and the principle of legality.
• Rofessional integrity and
• Responsiveness to civil society.