Professional ethics
Consenses and controversy
• Consenses---agreement
• Controversy--disagreement
Profession
• Occupation/job that requires advanced expertise ,self regulation and
concerted service to the public good
Charecteristics of a profession
1. Advanced expertise
Requires sophisticated skills and theoretical knowledge
Formal education, training, continuing education and updating are needed
2. Self regulation
• Professional societies sets standards for admission to profession, drafting
codes of ethics, enforcing standards of conduct
• 3. Public good
• Physician promotes health, lawyer protects legal rights
• Engineer provides a product or a project to the welfare f the public
Give your opinion about making jobs of carpenter, barber, porter ,driver are to
be recognised as profession
Professional
• Relates to a person or work that a person does on profession , and requires
expertise, self regulation and results in public good
• Term professional means person /status
Professionalism
• According to Macintyre professionalism is defined as the services related
to
achieving the public good
Criteria for achieving and sustaining professional status
1. Advanced expertise
2. Self regulation
3. Public good
Advanced expertise includes
• Sophisticated skills and theoretical knowledge in exercising
judgement
• The professional should analyze the problem
Self regulation means analyze the problem independent of
self interest and direct towards the best interest of the
customers
Public good means the efforts in the job should be towards
promotion of the welfare, safety and health of the public
Types of professionalism
1. Professionalism as independence
According to Whitelaw R.L without protection of
• The rights to refuse an unethical activity
• The freedom from surveillance, psycological manipulation and other job
evaluation methods, the engineers cannot attain the professional status
• 2 . Serving employers
• Provide loyal service to the employers or clients to the core of
professionalism
3. Intermediate position
The realistic type of professionalism lies between two extremes
• Engineers should attain standards in education, job performance and
creativity
• Accept the most basic moral responsibilities to the public as well as to their
employers, clients and co-workers
The eight core characteristics of professionalism are:
• Competence,
• Knowledge,
• Conscientiousness,
• Integrity,
• Respect,
• Emotional Intelligence,
• Appropriateness,
• Confidence.
Characteristics of a profession
1. Extensive training
• Entry into profession requires an extensive period of training of
intellectual and moral character
• Theoretical base is obtained through formal education, usually in an
academic institution
• It may be a bachelor degree from a college or university
Knowledge and skills
• Necessary for the well being of the society
• Knowledge of physicians protect us from disease and restores health
• Lawyers knowledge is useful when we are involved in a crime or
something like that
• The Chartered Accountant's knowledge is important for the success of
recording financial transactions or when we file the income return
Monopoly
• The monopoly control is achieved in two ways
1. The profession convinces the community that only those who have
graduated from the professional school should be allowed to hold the
professional title
2. By persuading the community to have a licensing system for those who
want to enter the profession
if practicing without license they are liable to pay penalties
Autonomy in work place
• Professionals in private practice have considerable freedom in choosing
their clients or patients
• The professionals working in large organizations exercise large degree of
impartiality ,creativity in carrying their responsibilities
• Physicians must determine the most appropriate medical treatments for
their patients
Ethical standards
• Professional societies promulgate the codes of conduct to regulate the
professionals against their abuse or any unethical decisions and actions
affecting the individuals or groups or the society
Professional role models
1. Savior
2. Guardian
3. Bureaucratic servant
4. Social servant
5. Socail enabler and catalyst
6. Game player
Models of professionalism
1. Business model
2. Professional model
Responsibility
• Different senses of responsibility
1. Charecteristic quality
2. Obligations
3. General moral capacity
4. Liability and accountability
5. Praiseworthiness/blameworthiness
Types
1. Moral responsibility
2. Casual responsibility
3. Job responsibility
4. Legal responsibility
Responsible professionalism
• Five types of virtues
A. Self direction
B. Public –spirited virtues
C. Team-work virtues
D. Proficiency virtues
E. Cardinal virtues
