ABSTRACT
This chapter sketches different realms within which virtues that may be pursued and obligations arise. It analysis where the paths of duty and virtue lie within each realm. The chapter explores the officials searching for the public interest must accommodate two fundamental problems. The first, is the insufficiency of either the welfare standard or the justice standard when each is taken alone. The second problem for officials is that the specific content of both conceptions changes over time as a result of changing social conditions. The chapter discusses the officials that have been tempted into bad actions by responding to strongly felt obligations to friends and colleagues than by a badly distorted idea of what the public interest requires or a contemptuous attitude toward process. A pitfall for public officials in foreseeing consequences is to mishandle the inevitable uncertainty in the choices they make. The chapter also discusses the capacity for rationalization is a far greater enemy than personal ambition.
