Central Philippine University

Lopez Jaena St.

Jaro, Iloilo City

A Critique Paper
To the Article

The Morally Mute Manager: Fact or Fiction

By Donald C. Menzel

In Partial Fulfilment of the Course

MBA 726 (Political/Social & Ethical Issues in Business Environment)

Submitted to:
Florence P. Bogacia, Ph.D

Submitted by:
Ma. Rowena T. Tagamolila

April 6, 2015

The article is entitled The Morally Mute Manager: Fact or Fiction. It is authored by
Donald C. Menzel, a professor of public administration and Director of the Division of Public
Administration at Northern Illinois University. The author argues that no one is entitled in both
ways as in acting as moral mutes with ethical voices.
The author tries to put in points from different views of different people as to how
American government should be run and by whom. He puts in views and points from Dr.
Charles Mitchell with his opinions on appointed and elected officeholders that neither accept nor
act on their ethical and moral obligations, and instilling an appropriate value system in the
leaders through a revamping of educational system ; and is contrasted by Woodrow Wilsons
proclamation in The Study of Administration that the administration of government is a field
of business and the running of government should be removed from the hurry and strife of
politics. Frederick Taylor founded the Scientific Management and advocated one-best-way to
accomplish work and introduce tools such as tie-and-motion studies to find the one best way.
Their management style puts more emphasis on being efficient and effective in the government
office and discourages having partisans and politics thereby being neutral in this area and also
regarding ethics as mere behaviours.
However, John Rohr considered this as the low road to ethics which features
compliance and adherence to formal rules. Ronald Reagan quipped that Washington is not the
solution but the problem.

Ted Gaebler and David Osbornes work brought forth the National

Performance Review , a document that embodied the spirit and soul of Reinventing government

by promising to turn the federal government into a government that works better and costs
less.
A growing concern with the rise of the morally mute managers, managers who should not
and did not act on their sense of morality while holding public office. A group of young
academics put forth a call for a New Public Administration.

It would be one in which

administrators and managers accepted responsibility for promoting social justice and equity.
In contrast, New Public Management advocates are mostly silent about the place of ethics
or morality in public management.

However, Professor Larry Terry, and

H. George

Frederickson outspoken opponents of New Public Management , believes that NPM has gone
too far in embracing entrepreneurial values and reduced the public interest to the sum of
atomistic individuals.
The author puts more weight on Gawthrops view points. He puts emphasis on
Gawthrops proposition that ethics is morality in action and that separating ethics and morality is
unacceptable and irreconcilable.
The author tries to reach not only graduate administration students but also those who
hold government office not only in America but possibly to all democratic government in the
world. The author specifically brought up his concerns with the ethical course offered in the
graduate programs.