What Do the Ghosts Want? Or, Why Did Mozi Think that Belief in Ghosts Would Lead to Societal Order?

本文是筆者探討中國古代「忠」和「忠信」概念演變及其在中國古代政治思想中角色的第三篇論著，也是筆者建構先秦「忠」觀念思想史的一部份研究成果。 本文闡述了《戰國策》、《莊子》、《韓非子》等文獻以及稷下學者對「忠」和「忠信」觀念的價值之「商榷」或「批判」，以及其批判所引發「忠」概念內涵的變質（「忠」於道德→「忠」於自我利益）。進而得知，時至戰國末年，原先戰國早中期儒、墨兩家所提倡的「忠」概念之價值功能已遭到「轉折」。筆者冀望能藉由此分析而構畫出戰國時期由「忠」概念演變輪廓－戰國時期由「忠」概念建構的政治思想之言說，歷經了多樣且複雜的演變過程，而其價值功能也隨之浮沈。

Reviewed by: China: The Political Philosophy of the Middle Kingdom by Bai Tongdong David Elstein China: The Political Philosophy of the Middle Kingdom. By Bai Tongdong. London and New York: Zed Books, 2012. Pp. vii–viii + 206. isbn 978-1-78032-075-5. If there is any justice in the world, Bai Tongdong’s recent book China: The Political Philosophy of the Middle Kingdom will find a ready audience among students and nonspecialists interested in classical Chinese political thought and what it has to say about China now and good government in general. Although it is a fine introduction to early Chinese political philosophy, it is more than just that. Bai’s overarching theme is that China in the Spring and Autumn and Warring States period (referred to as SAWS, roughly 771–221 b.c.e.) was facing a social and political situation very similar to that in modern Europe, and the Chinese philosophy of this period is best understood as a kind of modern philosophy. He argues that the nature of the philosophical problems in China was significantly different from what it was in ancient Greece, despite the close proximity in time (although he still makes occasional comparisons with Plato’s Republic). In his view, China displays an alternative form of modernization that is instructive both for understanding the phenomenon of modernity and for reflecting on the limitations and problems of current political structures and philosophies that developed out of European modernity, particularly liberal democracy. This is a controversial and challenging point of view, and I will come back to it later. First, I want to describe the content of the book. The theoretical framework [End Page 513] outlined above is the subject of the first chapter, followed by four chapters on the main philosophies Bai discusses: two on Confucianism, one on Daoism (particularly the Laozi), and one on Legalism. Much of the material is based on previously published articles and Bai’s Chinese book,1 and he occasionally refers the reader to these sources for more detailed arguments. The accounts of these philosophies are excellent. Bai’s exposition is clear and he deftly balances explanations of the philosophical ideas in their historical context with notes about their impact in Chinese history, illustrative comparisons with Western philosophies, and thoughtful speculations about their relevance for contemporary China and the rest of the world. Bai is clear that his sympathies lie with Confucianism. He frames his philosophical history around Confucian thought, focusing on Daoism and Legalism as reactions to and critiques of Confucianism. He presents Daoist and Legalist objections to Confucianism, but he certainly believes that Confucianism offers a better and more attractive political vision. In addition to his description of classical Confucian thought, Bai also gives significant attention to the question of Confucian politics today, and here gives a brief defense of his own preferred theory of a Confucian hybrid regime that blends democratic and meritocratic elements (pp. 77–81). I have no quarrel with his discussion of equality in Confucianism, and I certainly agree that classical Confucianism advocated meritocracy. I cannot address the substance of Bai’s theory in this brief review, but I wish he had been a little more careful about acknowledging that this is his theory and that the role of merit in politics is highly contested among contemporary Confucians, many of whom are much more egalitarian than he is. He tends toward locutions such as “Confucians would argue . . .,” which offer the impression that these beliefs are shared by all Confucians, and nonspecialists (I assume the target audience) will probably not be aware that much of what Bai says is rejected by many contemporary Confucians. The chapters on Daoism and Legalism are likewise very good and my concerns are few. Bai does a fine job pointing out the connections between Laozi and Han Feizi while naturally showing how the social and political structures they have in mind could hardly be more different. I appreciate that Bai points out that Han Feizi never rejected the possibility of compassion entirely (p. 124). I would disagree, however, with Bai’s assessment that Han Feizi denied that “we can ever reliably improve our moral character” (p. 133); he allowed that...

One theme in the political thinking of the Warring States era was whether political action and human action generally were and should be governed by considerations of abstract morality or by expediency. This study explores how this dialectic played itself out in the Confucian, Mohist, Taoist, and Legalist traditions. The study examines the original texts, as they have come down to us, of the major Warring States traditions, critically comparing them and the ideas they articulate against each other, against later Chinese thinking, and against certain trends of contemporary political thinking. The Confucian tradition, reacting against what was perceived as the social and political deterioration of contemporary society, attempted to restore order on the basis of a universal set of objectively valid moral principles that included the satisfaction of human needs and interests, but was in itself independent of particular interests or desires. The circumstances of the times, however, undermined the credibility of such universal moral claims, and rival interpretations, when they did attempt to ground morality, fell back upon loosely utilitarian principles. But this morality void of objective grounding also failed to provide a convincing principle of order. With the Legalist school order came to be based on moral principles, but on individual will and the ability to impose that will on others.

Huang-Lao Daoism was a prevalent mode of thought or temporal discourse that was broadly popular and highly influential for the considerable period of history spanning from the Pre-Qin period to the Wei-Jin periods. Although no longer the mainstream discourse or mode of thought after the Wei-Jin periods, Huang-Lao Daoist thought never wholly departed from the minds of Chinese literati; its subtle influence continued to operate beneath the surface, having far-reaching effects that cannot be overlooked. This is Huang-Lao Daoist thought—a political philosophy guided by Daoist principles; a mode of thought rich in its theoretical aspects yet also highly practical. Although the Daoist philosophy grounded in the Laozi (老子) and Zhuangzi (庄子) texts was full of profound philosophical principles, it failed to offer examples of how to put these principles into practice in the real world, whereas Huang-Lao Daoist thought presented a holistic approach; it grafted aspects from the School of Names and Legalism onto the main trunk of Daoism, with the School of Yin-Yang providing structural elements, whilst avoiding negation of the established mainstream culture by maintaining an emphasis on the educational ethics of the Confucians. With an eye to establishing realistic values and order, Huang-Lao Daoism grew to become a highly feasible and implementable system of political philosophy. The Huang-Lao tradition moves the School of Dao “from the direct negation of authoritarianism to a new means of taking authority (or neo-authoritarianism),” thereby realizing a shift from independent roots to imperially sponsored scholarship in Daoist thought. One might draw a parallel with modern times: the inclusive approach of Huang-Lao Daoism may be compared to a phrase often encountered in Mainland China today, that the country adopts a system, “led by Marxist theory and practice, of socialism with Chinese characteristics,” where Marxism takes the lead, notwithstanding that there are certain characteristics grafted onto it. That is to say that Huang-Lao Daoism had a real presence in its times; it was a mode of thought actively adopted and practiced by rulers and a theoretical system that was highly influential, whilst also being a very complex mode of thought. Huang-Lao Daoism constitutes a thread running continuously through political philosophy from the Warring States and pre-Qin eras to the Han dynasty. As such, research into Huang-Lao thought is of key importance and holds an extremely significant position in understanding the history of Chinese thought overall.

This chapter examines and deconstructs a well-known institution in China: Confucianism. China is often presumed to be different from Europe: While the Western world was simultaneously cursed by a Hobbesian state of war and blessed by a deeply ingrained tradition of constitutionalism, the East was supposed to be endowed with peace but burdened with autocracy. Confucianism, a political philosophy that emphasizes benevolence, is often taken to prescribe pacifism in China’s external relations and paternalism in China’s state-society relations. Yet, Confucianism is not unlike other world philosophical thoughts in that it contains both elements that support peace and those that justify war and components that champion freedom and those that defend autocracy. This chapter traces Confucianism’s evolution from its birth in the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods (770–221 BCE) to its construction in the Imperial era (221 BCE to 1911 CE). It shows that China’s history had roughly equal parts of pacifism and aggression, and limited government and imperial despotism. Confucianism has continued to be reconstructed to this day to support the official line of “peaceful rise” in international relations and a one-party dictatorship in state-society relations. Nevertheless, this deep historical analysis suggests that both the past and the present have suppressed alternatives truer to the Confucian legacy.

MLR, 10I.4, 2oo6 II89 criticism, including Leslie Adelson's arguments against the exclusionary effects of critical rhetorics of hybridity and 'in-between-ness'. Adelson herself provides aGer man version of her article 'The Turkish Turn in German Literature and Memory Work' (Germanic Review, 77 (2002), 326-38). Jim Jordan highlights postmodernist features of Turkish and other migrant German writing (with a focus on $enocak and Akif Pirin9ci). Manfred Durzak gives a cool account of the satirist Sinasi Dikmen. Part III has a survey of Ukrainian-German migrant literature (Alexandra Krav chenko); a more substantial survey of Russian-German literature, with a lengthy appendix giving the contents of several remigrant journals (Hans-Christoph Graf von Nayhauss); brief papers on Johann Warkentin (Valentina Zaretchneva) and Vik tor Heinz (Lilla Egorova); and an account of Jewish culture in Breslau (Norbert Honsza). Mecklenburg's concluding report mentions, inter alia, the lack of cover age of Romanian-German literature, snipes atAdelson and McGowan for providing previously published work, and allows that his own keynote paper's 'provozierende Wertungen' were 'zurechtgeriickt' by the contributions of Bullivant, Pazarkaya, and Jordan. From this, and Canan Senoz Ayata's more formal report, we conclude that in Istanbul a good time was had by most. Durzak's 'Nachwort' describes the difficulties of preparing camera-ready copy, the problems posed by Turkish special characters ('$enocak' crops up in Bullivant's essay), and the impossibility of enforcing a com mon referencing system, or even-in one case-persuading an author to provide any references at all. Still, itwas all worth it. UNIVERSITYOFWALES SWANSEA TOM CHEESMAN Im Schatten der Literaturgeschichte: Autoren, die keiner mehr kennt. Pladoyer gegen das Vergessen. Ed. by JATTIE ENKLAAR and HANS ESTER. (Duitse Kroniek, 54) Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi. 2005. 358 pp. E70. ISBN 90-420-I9I5-8. If one chances upon the name of a forgotten author, four kinds of interest might impel one to study him or her further: a purely positivistic desire to find out more; a feeling that the works would be worth incorporating in the canon-itself a difficult concept-or at any rate bringing back to the attention of the reading public or literary scholars; awish to discover what made the author popular or influential at the time but has lost its potency; and respect for representatives of extinct cultures and ways of life. The editors of the present volume flirt with all of these, though primarily the third: why are surviving libraries showing the aspirations and tastes of blirgerliche Lesekultur (p. 8) of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries so dead to us? Not every contribution can be mentioned here. To my mind the more important factual essays are a study of Gutzkow concentrating on Die Ritter vom Geiste; a brief account of Karl Emil Franzos's life and ghetto stories; a survey of Leo Hirsch's work as a leading critic in the I920S and the ghettoized culture of the I930s; and a treatment of Gustav Landauer mainly as critic and political thinker. Pleas for greater recognition include a redefinition of Sacher-Masoch's celebrated -ism; a defence of Otto Roquette's novellas; and an attempt (inmy view, unsuccessful) to rescue Alfred Margul-Sperber from the accusation of over-comfortable, routine writing. Walde mar Bonsels is presented, all too briefly, as having more interest than filmings of Die Biene Maja might suggest. Friedo Lampe was never well known; a case ismade for close study of Am Rande der Nacht. Vicki Baum is considered, in line with previous recent attempts, as more sophisticated than her public image. Carl Hauptmann is viewed as the master of psychological analysis of marginal figures who are unable to communicate their concerns. Historico-socio-cultural analysis is applied to Ernst von Houwald's writings for children. Felix Dahn is examined for his rhetorical struc II90 Reviews tures and ideological foundations. Erinnerungskultur isprominent with Adam Muller Guttenbrunn's Lenau trilogy: Lenau as a symbolic figure (rather than as awriter) embodies the lost culture of the Banat Swabians. Of interest more in theDutch context are contributions on Friedrich Markus Huebner, Sophie van Leer, and Grete Weil. All the essays are at least competently written and show commitment...

This chapter confronts the important underlying issues about “moralism” in political philosophy. “Moralism” has recently come to be pitted against “realism” in political philosophy, although there are strands of this division throughout the Western tradition. It distinguishes several versions of this idea, and considers to what extent a case in favor of a distinctive method, “realism,” can be grounded as against “moralism” in political philosophy. While political moralism is hardly bound to be unrealistic, it is true that the version as defended in this book is frankly opposed to the tyranny of the realistic in certain ways. Here, the chapter criticizes an aspect of realism, namely a family of views and arguments against the very idea—apart from any connection to idealism—that the evaluation of political practices and institutions is (primarily) a moral matter.

Reviewed by: The Dragon and the Eagle: The Rise and Fall of the Chinese and Roman Empires by Sunny Y. Auyang Nathan Rosenstein Sunny Y. Auyang. The Dragon and the Eagle: The Rise and Fall of the Chinese and Roman Empires. Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe, 2014. xxvi + 399 pp. 3 appendices, 5 timelines, 18 maps. Cloth, $35.00. Comparative histories are difficult to write. They require mastery of two or more completely different bodies of scholarship, a sophisticated understanding of the sources on which those works are based, and the ability to read them in their original languages. And most important, the comparisons should produce insights into the individual histories that would not easily emerge if viewed in isolation. Sunny Auyang, a retired professor of physics, has undertaken a comparative study of the Roman and Chinese empires from the foundations of Rome and the Zhou dynasty to the collapse of each in the fourth and fifth centuries c.e. The result is an object lesson in why good comparative histories are so rare. Auyang divides her study into two roughly equal parts of four chapters each. The first part traces the rise and fall of the Roman Republic and the state of Qin, the second treats Imperial Rome to its fall in 476 c.e. and the Han dynasty to the wars that ended it in 220 c.e. The chapters mostly blend chronological with thematic treatments. Thus the first chapter, “Nation Formation,” narrates the creation of a “melting pot” during the Zhou era of early China and the Roman conquest of Italy. Chapter 2, “State Building,” examines the Warring States period and the early and middle Republic in terms of their respective internal developments, especially the roles of Legalism and Confucianism, the two principal political philosophies competing for influence during the Warring States period. The third chapter, “Empire Building,” narrates the military and diplomatic events of the Warring States period, culminating in the victory of the state of Qin and of Rome’s conquest of the Greek east. Chapter 4, “Winning the Peace,” deals with the failures of Qin and the Roman Republic, which she claims were the consequence in either case of the acquisition of an empire. [End Page 740] Part 2 opens with “The Courses of Empire,” which presents brief sketches of events in the West from the Julio-Claudians down through the Later Roman Empire and in the East during the Former and Later Han. The main thrust of the chapter however is a long indictment of Confucianism and the corruption that resulted when it supplanted Legalism as the dominant philosophy of government in the former Han. Chapter 6, “The Arts of Government,” examines each empire’s administrative organization and methods of rule, focusing on relations between the emperors and the elite, particularly the role of the latter in local administration, taxation, and the role of law and ideas about its role in society. The seventh chapter, “Strategies of Superpower,” deals with each empire’s wars, diplomacy, and “Grand Strategy.” It covers Rome’s conflicts with the German tribes, the Parthians, and the Huns, and the problems Confucianism created for the Han government in dealing with the Xiongnu, nomadic horsemen and herders of the steppe. Chapter 8, “Decline and Fall,” naturally examines the course of events that led to the end of the Roman Empire and the collapse of the Later Han dynasty. The cause of each “fall” in Auyang’s view was corruption, a “cancer” in both empires that led to a maldistribution of wealth in which “too few producers support too many idle mouths.” In the case of China, Confucianism was the ultimate source of the cancer, while at Rome an effete cultural elite’s entry into high government positions under the Emperor Gratian and the inability of Orthodox bishops to accept the barbarians’ version of Christianity doomed the empire. For Auyang, once the Visigoths sacked Rome and the last emperor was deposed, the Roman Empire was at an end. Any work that endeavors to present a comparison of the long histories of two great empires in a little over three hundred pages must necessarily compress a lot into a very brief...

Religious Studies ReviewVolume 38, Issue 2 p. 120-120 Envisioning Eternal Empire: Chinese Political Thought of the Warring States Era – By Yuri Pines Russell Kirkland, Russell Kirkland University of Georgia, AthensSearch for more papers by this author Russell Kirkland, Russell Kirkland University of Georgia, AthensSearch for more papers by this author First published: 11 June 2012 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1748-0922.2012.01613_8.xCitations: 1Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat Citing Literature Volume38, Issue2June 2012Pages 120-120 RelatedInformation

The study is to examine measures of moral consciousness and moral intention and their linkages for Chinese youth in Hong Kong. It aims at testing the cognitive-developmental model of moral consciousness along seven stages, in ascending order: moral confusion, hedonism, personal interests, interpersonal and intrapersonal accord, societal order, societal progress, and universal principledriess. A face-to-face survey of 1,500 Chinese youths in Hong Kong provided data for analysis. The survey benefited from focus groups, which helped formulate items to measure moral consciousness. Structural equation modeling showed that one-step effects of moral consciousness on those of a stage higher were significant and more positive than two-step effects of moral consciousness on those of two stages higher. Moreover, effects of the moral consciousness of higher stages are more positive on moral intention and more negative on delinquent intention than moral values of lower stages. The cognitive-developmental model appears to hold with regard to Chinese youth.

Mastery, Authority, and Hierarchy in the “Inner Chapters” of the<i>Zhuāngzǐ</i>

Das Wesen Osterreichs ist nicht Zentrum, sondern Peripherie. -Joseph Roth Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, the controversial Austrian author of Venus im Pelz (1870) and countless other erotic novellas, is little known for his political utopianism. I seek to read Sacher-Masoch not only as a writer with a distinctive Utopian vision of a multi-cultural, property-free, communal Empire, in contrast to the Habsburg state's self-serving image as a politically stable Central European country, but also as a writer, focused on the Austrian Empire's ethnic diversity and gender conflicts. As Sacher-Masoch foresees it, the German language would serve as a common denominator to allow the various Habsburg nations to communicate with each other more effectively. Accordingly, much of his work espouses a paradoxical Germanlanguage Pan-Slavism, when he writes: Wir werden das Oesterreicherthum vertreten als eine politische Nationalitat, in der sich die naturlichen Nationalitaten, jede im vollen Genuse ihrer Rechte und Freiheiten, vereinen lassen. (Sacher-Masoch: Materialien 337) Despite the controversial political implications of his Germanic Pan-Slavism, his exciting, page-turning novellas, set at the colonial borders of the Hapsburg Empire, have usually been read in the context of sexual transgressions and dominating female figures, of which Venus im Pelz is merely the most prominent example. More recently, Barbara Hyams, Michael Gratzke, Barbara Mennel and others have explored the relationship of Sacher-Masoch's sexual politics and his political aesthetics in their groundbreaking works.1 However, his radically Utopian political program is less often considered: for instance, Albrecht Koschorke argues in his influential literary biography Sacher-Masoch: Die Inszenierung einer Perversion (1988) that the most truthful revelation of Sacher-Masoch's determinism lies in the nihilism, asceticism and renunciation of his protagonists. Koschorke brings in a verdict of depravity when he writes: Unversehens geht der Impetus einer grundsatzlichen Gesellschaftskritik in Demonstration einer sundenfallmasgen Anlage der Welt und der Menschen unter. Schon der Titel Das Vermachtnis Kains verleiht der diagnostizierten Schlechtigkeit eine religiose Weihe. (55) And shortly before in the same context: Wenn auch die Weltanschauung, die Sacher-Masoch skizziert, manches zu seiner Zeit ausnehmend Fortschrittliche weitertragt, wenn sich dort Spuren von Stirners Der Einzige und sein Eigentum mit Ideen eines slawischen Urkommunismus-man hat hierin eine Geistesverwandtschaft mit Tolstoi sehen wollen-kreuzen, so bleibt der Grad der intellektuellen Durchdringung der plakativ aufgezeigten Miftstande doch aufterordentlich gering. (54) Hence, Koschorke sees Sacher-Masoch's social criticism and political convictions as no more than ornamentation adorning the insidious aestheticism of cruelty in his gory stories. This has been addressed by literary scholars such as JohnNoyes (1994), Michael O'Pecko (1994) and Kai Kauffmann (2001). Their research has shown, for example, that Sacher-Masoch's politics are always coextensive with private, and particularly, sexual power relations (Noyes, Historical Perspective 16). A reading of his seminal novellas reveals that Sacher-Masoch's playful imagination posits an enactment of gender reversals and sexual negotiation that allows the author and his readership to explore the boundaries of permissiveness within the societal order at the borders of the Habsburg Empire. Whereas his masochistic protagonists seek to obtain pleasure by disavowing and suspending reality, his empathie description of multiethnic society in Galicia portrays the sadistic institutional power tormenting peasants and minorities such as Jews. The suspension in fantasy allows Sacher-Masoch not only to invert sexual power relationships, but also to stylize the periphery as a repository of deeply held fears of emasculation. …

Benedict Spinoza (1634–1677) is feted as the philosopher par excellence of the popular democratic multitude by Antonio Negri and others. But Spinoza himself expresses a marked ambivalence about the multitude in brief asides, and as for his thoughts on what he calls “the rule of (the) multitude,” that is, democracy, these exist only as meager fragments in his unfinished Tractatus Politicus or Political Treatise. This essay addresses the problem of Spinoza’s multitude. First, I reconstruct a vision of power that is found in the Ethics but that tends to be overlooked in the scholarly literature: power is not just sheer efficacy or imposition of will, but rather involves a capacity for being-affected; I call this the conception of power as sensitivity. The second part of my argument shows how, given Spinoza’s emphatic political naturalism, the conception of power as sensitivity can be extended to his political philosophy to shed light on what Spinoza calls potentia multitudinis, or “the power of the multitude”—a term found solely in the Political Treatise and nowhere else in his oeuvre. This juxtaposition reveals significant qualifications to the liberatory potential of the multitude currently claimed in the scholarly literature.

The Huai-nan-tzu M M (hereafter HNT), an eclectic Taoist work presented to the court of Han Wu-ti around I39 B.C., is an important source of information concerning Warring States and Han conceptions of the size, shape, and operations of the cosmos. The doctrines incorporated in HNT represent one of the final steps in the development of Chinese cosmology anterior to Tung Chungshu's K Tff grand synthesis of natural and social philosophy, political theory, and public policy that established the ruling ideology of Confucian government for the remainder of the Han and beyond. In HNT, as would no longer be the case a few decades after HNT was written, natural philosophy could be presented as a set of issues largely independent of political theory and public policy. Nevertheless, in HNT and certain related texts, one can in some cases see the beginnings of an integration of those two sets of issues. One such case is found in the names of the eight winds and eight directions, their symbolic connotations, their correlations with the seasons, and the definition of social and political activities appropriate to each. This article will discuss some problems of the nomenclature of winds and directions encountered in HNT and certain other closely associated texts. The names of the eight winds seem not to have been fully standardized at the time that the Huai-nan-tzu was written. The names for the winds given in HNT 4:2a do not agree with the names given in 3:4a and in 4: i6a, nor do they agree with the names given in Li-shih ch'un-ch'iu g .EMkWA (hereafter LSCC) I3: 2b, in a passage that was closely copied in the opening pages of HNT 4 1). That the names were at that time in the process of becoming standardized can be seen in the fact that the (identical) names of the winds in HNT 3:4a and 4: i6a are also the names given in Shih chi 9 E 25 and in the chapter on the eight winds (Chapter 24)

issue of ethics in public service is as old as government itself. Yet post-Watergate has produced an enduring and unprecedented level of concern about the integrity of democratic governance (Garment, 1991). In the 1990s alone, the continuous stream of revelations, allegations, and investigations--involving presidents, presidential advisors, a U.S. Senator, a Speaker of the House of Representatives, a Ways and, Means Committee chairman, cabinet secretaries, a Supreme Court nominee, Gulf War syndrome spokesmen, campaign contributors, and numerous state and local official--suggests that this concern is unlikely to change any time soon. Nonetheless, this may be a Dickensian tale of two cities: when there is despair, there also may be hope. Indeed, ethical considerations can hardly be overlooked in a time of popular reforms that attempt to transform the public service ethos in the name of productivity (Gore, 1993). They of fundamental importance to the quality of democracy and its administration. Questions of morality and right conduct, Jeremy Plant (1997) points out, are now considered as significant as the traditional concerns of Wilsonian Public like efficiency. Driven by the increase in public attention (Adams, et al., 1993) and the recognition of the underlying importance of ethical conduct in government (Thompson, 1992), there have been several national ethics conferences (Park City, 1991; Tampa, 1995; St. Louis, 1996), a recently revised workbook (Mertins et al., 1994; also see Lewis, 1991), a case book (Pasquerella, et al., 1996), and a new journal (Public Integrity Annual 1996). In addition) much of the writing in the field has been codified (Madsen and Shafritz, 1992 and Richter, et al., 1990; also see Bowman, 1991; Frederickson, 1993; Cooper, 1994; Cooper and Wright, 1994; Reynolds, 1995). In the context of these events, the American Society of Public Administration (ASPA) promulgated its newly-revamped code of ethics in 1995. association's Professional Ethics Committee subsequently requested that a membership survey, based on the senior author's 1989 survey of the same organization (Bowman, 1990), be conducted to obtain an initial assessment of the effectiveness of the code. This was especially propitious timing because the intervening years witnessed the passing of the Decade of Greed and the coming of the Decade of Reinventing Government, a period of turbulent change that has included innovations, downsizing, and, as noted, scandals at all levels of government. A questionnaire (consisting of agree-disagree statements as well as several multiple choice and open-ended items), with a copy of the ASPA Code of Ethics, was mailed in spring 1996 to a random sample of 750 administrators who members of the society. Usable replies were received from 59 percent of those contacted, a respectable response rate for this methodology and one comparable to earlier research.(1) A profile of the respondents, which matches the ASPA practitioner membership, reveals a group that is predominantly white, male, well educated, experienced in local government, a middle or senior level manager, relatively high income, moderate to liberal in political philosophy, and holds at least a six-year membership in ASPA.(2) results explore three topics in ascending order of emphasis: perceptions regarding ethics in society and government, the nature of integrity in public agencies, and ASPAs Code. implications of the data, and the part that a professional organization can play to enhance honorable behavior, then examined. Ethics in Society Several questions probed respondents' perceptions of ethical concerns in the nation. findings indicate that these administrators do not believe that contemporary interest in morality is ephemeral. Most (83 percent) reject the claim that The current concern of American society with ethics in government is a passing fad (10 percent agree; the balance undecided). …