That is, administrative ethics is about the merits of choices made in our role or office as professional public servants, however humble our particular station might be. Ethics emerges primarily in relation to uncertainty over what types of conduct or choice our professional role might require of us. For convenience, I put to one side the rare and extreme circumstances where one's personal conscience does and should speak out against illegal or corrupt forms of unprofessional conduct by colleagues and especially supervisors. The main point is that there will be many instances where our professional role or office requires us to follow a course of action which differs from the one most preferred according to our personal view of the matter. But, putting it crudely, we are not paid to act out our personal agenda, but to act as agents of the public, with a duty to act in accordance with the best interests of the wider community as reasonably determined by duly-constituted authority.
Ethics arises precisely because legitimate duties conflict.
There can be contradictions among the duly-constituted authorities. This is no easy matter as there are plenty of occasions for genuine uncertainty over what course of action is indeed most appropriate, and over conflicts of competing official responsibilities. Democratic theory rightly accords prominence to the external and public justification of official conduct. Seen in this light, administrative ethics can not be divorced from public accountability. A basic test of public sector ethics is the extent to which officials can satisfactorily justify their conduct and official performance before appropriate accountability agencies.