The Governability The Ethical Considerations

It is an important approach to define government power & functions and maintain its original characteristic by means of examining its moral bases. In order to make government moral characters clearer and more apparent, this paper tries to examine government power & functions ethically by illustrating and exploring three respects of moral theories, principles and responses to its changing situationThe moral foundation and limitation of government power & functions have drawn a lot of attentions from western thinkers, which has produced various kinds of theories, such as the rational theory that a government should pursue the cause of public service and serve people heartedly;the just theory that a government should guarantee the fair and justice of the society; the contractual theory that a government' s power comes from the citizens who are content to give up part of their entitlements; and the utilitarian theory that a government should limit its power to people' s freedom and rights.It is apparently known that the supreme attribute of government power & functions is its public characteristic from all the above-mentioned theories. Based on the public characteristic, the maintenance, enforcement and development of government power & functions must follow a series of value principles. Purposely, government power & functions should serve the people and for the people; in method,government power & functions should ensure the justice; structurally, government power & functions should keep balance within itself; on scope, the range of government power & functions should be limited.Government power & functions as a whole is changing, and constantlyrestoring and sublimating its original ethical attribute in the course of developing with the advancement of the times and society. In the modern and polycentric society, government power is showing the tendency of decentralization , and the focus of government functions has transformed, therefore, the ways of fulfilling the functions have also changed. Government ability is facing the challenge of exploiting a new way of development. All these changes require a government to have a quality of democracy, foster a strong consciousness of responsibility, form a habit of pursuing high efficiency, and arise its ability of comprehensive administration from the moral potentiality. Only in this way could the stability and persistence of the moral quality of the government power & functions be kept for certainty.