Strengthening the ethical expertise of evaluators

Abstract

In today’s turbulent world the ethical contribution of evaluators needs to be strengthened. Evaluators have been constrained making judgments that take account of values and morality by the fact/value dichotomy and other positivist social science precepts. Too often evaluation confines itself to assessing whether objectives set by program designers are achieved. In evaluation, valuing has to support improvement and learning that encourages societal development and equips citizens and stakeholders with knowledge that supports autonomy. This Platform essay argues that past efforts have over-emphasized the ethical conduct of the evaluator. There has been some extension to include broader societal concerns, e.g. the public good and democratic accountability; and more recently considerations of the evaluators’ ethical and moral expertise. However, there has been less attention to judging what constitutes good public policy including relevant criteria and their use. Evaluator judgments must of course include facts as well as values – they are intertwined. This opens up the question of how others have understood the pre-requisites of a “moral social science.”