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Let me begin by saying that I do appreciate several of the commentators' observations and I shall respond to those below. Before doing so, however, I must add that there are a number of suggestions in the commentaries that seem to me useful only to the extent they reveal the failure of the commentators to read our article carefully, to do a little homework, to grasp some of the points we were making, or all three. I am mindful of the fact that all three commentators are recognized scholars in the more traditional field of comparative politics who may have had little or no contact with the literature of politics and the life sciences. Nor should I assume they would have any familiarity with the substantial literature in anthropology, archaeology, history, and social biology dealing with the evolution of social systems and the origins of the state upon which we have drawn and which has become so familiar to Corning and me that we are sometimes forgetful of the need to provide more examples and references, depending upon the reading audience.

Although we may be pessimistic (with good reason) about contemporary politics, especially as it effects the prospects for the survival of the human species in the long run, we can be more optimistic about the study of politics from a life science perspective. Certainly the two are related. Becoming optimistic about the former may depend in part upon the further development of biopolitics and of the biobehaviorial and life sciences generally.

An evolutionary perspective, which is currently enjoying a revival in the social sciences, raises the possibility of a major transformation in the study of political development and modernization. It may be desirable to supplement (and in some instances replace) the concept of "political development" with the concept of "political evolution." Political development may be likened to the biological process of ontogeny. It involves the construction of a viable set of political qua cybernetic processes and structures at any level of social organization, from wolf packs to human families to empires. Political evolution is an aspect of phylogeny. It involves the invention, elaboration, and diffusion of novel political forms of all kinds, only some of which may be more effective, or inclusive, or democratic, etc. Nor are all evolutionary changes necessarily "better" (i.e., more adaptive). Political development is concerned with problems of social engineering, while political evolution is concerned with architectonics—with the emergence of functionally significant political innovations. Political development is always situation-specific, while political evolution is also historical and may include changes that diffuse and become "species-wide." Political evolution is thus a dimension of the larger process of biological evolution. The emergence of political systems, which long predates the evolution of humankind, constitutes a set of adaptive strategies with significant evolutionary consequences. Political development and political evolution may go hand in hand, but this is not always the case. A particular polity may develop or decay independently of the larger process of political evolution. Among the many theoretical implications of this conceptual reformulation, we briefly address the impact on functionalist theory, modernization theory, social mobilization theory, political economy (positive theory), world systems theory, dependency theory, and contemporary Marxist views.

This article examines the implications of recent debate regarding the nature of moral development and moral maturily for public sector ethics. The research of Carol Gilligan and others has suggested that the conventional account of moral maturity (an "ethic of justice") overlooks an alternative "ethic of care," allegedly found only among women. Although these differing models of moral maturity are not as conceptually or empirically distinct as they initially appeared, treating the care and justice perspectives as ideal types demonstrates that neither provides a defensible account of moral maturity. The authors explain how an exclusive reliance on either impartial rationality or care and concern for particular others poses serious problems for administrators and that the administrative role demands capacities for ethical judgment and action associated with both the care and justice perspectives.