Responses to Value Conflicts: Voice, Exit, and Disloyalty
The most serious ethical conflicts for policy analysts usually pit responsibility to the client against other values. A variety of factors complicate ethical judgment: continued access to the policy issue, the status of current and future employment, the personal trust of the client, and the analyst's reputation. Many of these factors involve implications that go well beyond the particular ethical issue being considered. For example, loss of employment directly affects the economic and psychological well-being of analysts and their families, as well as the sort of advice that will be heard on the issue at hand. it will also contribute to the sort of advice that will be offered in the analysts' organizations on similar issues in the future. We must be careful, therefore, to look for consequences beyond the particular issue at stake.