ABSTRACT
Public policy and administration (PA) should be realigned to accommodate an expanded ethical sphere. Emphasizing an expansion of the sphere of moral equality, PA Ethics (PA Eth-Talk, as afficianados sometimes call it) should give leadership to PA theorizing and practice. PA Eth-Talk that emphasizes expanding the ethical sphere beyond the limits of the nation state should be a no-brainer, and yet it encounters severe difficulties from symbolic systems. The ethical sphere limited to a particular group results in the kind of ethical thinking that can lead even Aristotle (nicknamed the “Brain”) to discriminate between barbarians and Greeks when discussing enslavement. The sphere has expanded so that it extends, for some, to other animals—like dogs and cats. The moral sphere or the circle of altruism has increasingly expanded to include all humans.
