A moralidade política do governo administrativo: uma leitura a partir da filosofia da integridade de Ronald Dworkin

Abstract

This thesis investigates the moral foundations of the exercise of governmental authority. The research problem asks which ultimate principles of political morality should guide governmental action so as to satisfy the requirements of legitimacy and justice articulated by Ronald Dworkin. The general objective is to identify principles of political morality capable of functioning as truth conditions for the public actions of governments — and, to some extent, of legislatures — taking as its framework the theory of law as integrity. More specifically, it seeks to: (i) highlight the role of morality, alongside law, as an ordering instance of political action; (ii) reconstruct the foundations of Dworkin’s thought concerning the presence of moral judgments in everyday life, in politics, and in law; and (iii) ultimately extract from this conception principles of political morality that may serve as a basis for understanding and evaluating the public actions of administrative governments. The research is justified, on the theoretical level, by the relative scarcity of studies that examine the philosophical foundations of public action from the standpoint of an integrated theory of law, politics, and knowledge; and, on the practical level, by its potential to provide analytical tools for assessing modes of governance. The conclusion is that public action should be grounded both in substantive values linked to equality and liberty — which, under a liberal egalitarian interpretation, may be expressed through the principles of fair social cooperation and existential authorship — and in attitudinal requirements that guide governmental deliberation and decision-making, which may be expressed through the principles of moral objectivity and political responsibility. The research is bibliographic and documentary in nature; its objective is exploratory, and its methodological approach is hypothetico-deductive.