Professional Ethics

“On the whole human beings want to be good, but not too good, and
not quite all the time” George Orwell
The African Fable
Truth, Falsehood, Water, and Fire were traveling together and came upon
four heads of cattle. They decided to split the cattle evenly and each take an
equal share. But Falsehood was greedy and told Water that Fire was going to
burn his land and steal his cattle. Water believed him and jumped on Fire
and put him out. Falsehood tricked Truth into believing that Water was going
to steal their cattle so they took them to the top of a hill for Water cannot
run uphill. Falsehood laughed that he had tricked everyone and Truth,
realizing Falsehood had lied, began to fight him for the cattle. They called
Wind to determine whom the cattle belonged to, but Wind did not know.
According to this fable, what are Falsehood and Truth still doing? According
to this fable told in Ethiopia and other eastern African nations, Truth and
Falsehood are still in a battle with one another. Let's hope truth wins.
Philosophy
Meaning, nature and Scope
Meaning of Philosophy
• The word philosophy literally means love of wisdom. It is derived from
two Greek words i.e. 'phileo' (love) and 'Sophia' (wisdom).
• According to a tradition, Pythagoras was the first to describe himself
as a philosopher. He speaks of three classes of people, attending the
festal games: those who seek fame by taking part in them; those who
seek gain by plying their trade; and those who are content to be
spectators. Philosophers resemble the third class: spurning both fame
and profit, they seek to arrive at the truth by contemplation.
• Oxford Dictionary defines philosophy as "that department of
knowledge which deals with ultimate reality, or with the most general
causes and principles of things."
• Aristotle considers philosophy as "the first and last science"—the first
science because it is logically presupposed by every other science, the
last because deals with reality in its ultimate principles and causes. He
defines it as follows: "There is a science which investigates being as
being, and the attributes which belong to this in virtue of its own
nature. Now this is not the same as any of the so-called special
sciences, for none of these treats universally of being as being. They
cut off a part of being and investigate the attribute of this part"
(Metaphysics 1003a18-25).
Nature of Philosophy
1. The love of wisdom
A philosopher is someone who is obsessed with wisdom. He is an advocate
of knowledge and truth. He desires to understand what it means to know
and what it takes to consistently and constantly apply knowledge rightly.
Thus, he cherishes wisdom (the right application of knowledge).

2. The asking of fundamental questions

Philosophy is the practical act and habit of asking fundamental questions
about reality. These are those basic and objective questions that strike at the
very heart of any issue that is concerned with existence as a whole. In order
to properly fulfil this role, a philosopher has to become annoyingly
inquisitive.
3. A critically rational enquiry
Philosophy as it were actually began in “wonder”; wonder about the
usual and unusual occurrences in the universe. Philosophers are
interested in understanding the ultimate and unifying principle of the
universe and are guided by a need to be rational, sensible and
intellectual while doing so.

4. Subjectivity and Objectivity

Man (subjectivity) and the universe (objectivity) are the dual beings
that philosophy is generally concerned with. The ontological issue of
what man is and how he relates interactively with the universe around
him is deeply grounded in the very presupposition of philosophy.
5. Dialectical Argumentation
The art of “dialectics” entails the verbal communication between a
subject and an interlocutor, of which there is a systematic pattern of
“question and answer” in order to dive deep into issues, and reach for
its underlying truth. In doing this, there entails some level of
argumentation and logical reasoning, which asserts a very unique
quality of philosophy.
Scope of Philosophy
What philosophy talks about

Philosophy talks about universals and general realities. It sees things

from the widest perspective. It perceives things as a whole. It considers
the entirety of being as a vast interconnected system. This is why
philosophy is regarded as a universal discipline. For example; if
philosophy were to talk about man, it would do so in connection with
those elements that are globally and objectively present in all men.
What philosophy does not talk about

In contrast to the above, philosophy, due to its nature does not talk
about particulars or individual entities. It is not concerned with
specifics. It would never consider reality in isolation from the whole.
For example; considering the problem of democracy, philosophy is not
concerned with the democracy of a particular country alone (like
Nigeria) but the concept of democracy on a global scale.
Branches of Philosophy
Epistemology - the branch of philosophy concerned with the nature
and scope (including limitations) of knowledge. It addresses four main
questions. 1) What is knowledge? 2) How is knowledge acquired? 3)
What do people know? 4) How do we know what we know?

Logic – is the study of reasoning. Logic is often divided into two parts,
inductive reasoning and deductive reasoning. The first is drawing
general conclusions from specific examples, the second is drawing
logical conclusions from definitions and axioms.
Metaphysics – is concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being
and the world. Cosmology and ontology are the two traditional branches of
metaphysics. Cosmology seeks to understand the origin, evolution, structure,
and ultimate fate of the universe at large, as well as the natural laws that
keep it in order. Ontology is the investigation into what types of things there
are in the world and what relations these things bear to one another.
Ontology deals with questions concerning what entities exist or can be said
to exist, and how such entities can be grouped, related within a hierarchy,
and subdivided according to similarities and differences. Before the
development of modern science, scientific questions were addressed as a
part of metaphysics known as "natural philosophy."
The scientific method, however, made natural philosophy an empirical and
experimental activity unlike the rest of philosophy, and by the end of the
eighteenth century it had begun to be called "science" in order to distinguish
it from philosophy. Thereafter, metaphysics became the philosophical
enquiry of a non-empirical character into the nature of existence.
Ethics – also known as moral philosophy, is a branch of philosophy which
seeks to address questions about morality; that is, about concepts like good
and bad, right and wrong, justice, virtue, etc.
Aesthetics – is the branch of philosophy dealing with the nature of beauty,
art, taste, and the creation and appreciation of beauty. It is more
scientifically defined as the study of sensory or sensori-emotional values,
sometimes called judgments of sentiment and taste.
Political Philosophy – is the study of concepts such as liberty, justice,
property, rights, law, and the enforcement of a legal code by authority: what
they are, why (or even if) they are needed, what makes a government
legitimate, what rights and freedoms it should protect and why, what form it
should take and why, what the law is, and what duties citizens owe to a
legitimate government, if any, and when it may be legitimately overthrown,
if ever. Three central concerns of political philosophy have been the political
economy by which property rights are defined and access to capital is
regulated, the demands of justice in distribution and punishment, and the
rules of truth and evidence that determine judgments in the law.
Morality and Ethics
Morality
• Morals are the welfare principles enunciated by the wise people,
based on their experience and wisdom. They were edited, changed or
modified or evolved to suit the geography of the region, rulers
(dynasty), and in accordance with development of knowledge in
science and technology and with time.
• Morality is concerned with principles and practices of morals such as:
(a) What ought or ought not to be done in a given situation?
(b) What is right or wrong about the handling of a situation? And
(c) What is good or bad about the people, policies, and ideals involved?
Ethics, Morality and Etiquette
• Hard to make distinction
• Morality: differentiation between right and wrong action.
• Etiquette: Code that governs social behavior within a society or class
group.
• Ethics: Philosophy of moral values.
• So, morality defines character whereas ethics points towards
application of morality. Etiquette focusses on behavior in a particular
setting.
What is ethics?
• Study of characteristics of morals.
• Deals with moral choices, conflicts and therefore decisions to be
made by each person in relationship with another person.
• Involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of
right and wrong behavior.
• Ethics is the science of conduct. It considers the actions of human
beings with reference to their rightness or wrongness. The word
"ethics" is derived from the Greek word ethos, which means
"character“
• Mackenzie defines ethics as ―the study of what is right or good in
human conduct‖ or ―the science of the ideal involved in conduct‖. It
is a branch of philosophy, specially the moral philosophy that studies
the evolution of concepts; such as right or wrong behaviour. So, it is
clear that ethics is the study which determines rightness or
wrongness of actions.
• The study on ethics helps to know the people‘s beliefs, values, and morals, learn
the good and bad of them, and practice them to maximize their well-being and
happiness.
• It involves the inquiry on the existing situations, form judgments and resolve the
issues.
• In addition, ethics tells us how to live, to respond to issues, through the duties,
rights, responsibilities, and obligations.
• In religion, similar principles are included, but the reasoning on procedures is
limited. The principles and practices of religions have varied from to time to time
(history), region (geography, climatic conditions), religion, society, language, caste
and creed. But ethics has grown to a large extent beyond the barriers listed
above.
• In ethics, the focus is to study and apply the principles and practices, universally.
Meaning of ethics and morals in Philosophy
• In philosophy- ethics study ideal human behavior and ideal ways of
being.
• Aristotle believes that ideal behavior were those practices that led to
end goal od eudaimonia, which is synonymous with high level of
satisfaction and happiness.
• Immanuel Kant believed ideal behavior was acting in accordance with
one’s duty
• Philosophical discipline of ethics: systematic approach to
understanding, analyzing, and sistinguishing matters of righr and
wrong, goof and bad, admirable and deplorable as they relate to
relationship a,ong sentient beings.
• Ethics is an active process, not a static concept- we will keep evolving
in our definition of ethical, right and wrong. It is not and can not be
static.
• It includes issues like freedom, responsibility to others around,
choices and judgments and so on.
• Morals are more specific beliefs, behaviours etc derived from ethics.
• Reverse of it is immorality- those behaviors that are in opposition to
accepted social, religions, cultural or professional ethical standards.
Definitions of Ethics in Psychology
• “A branch of philosophy concerned with that which is deemed
acceptable in human behaviour, with what is good or bad, right or
wrong in human conduct in pursuit of goals and aims.”
• Ethics explores the nature of rights, of moral responsibilities, and of
how to go about addressing an ethical problem.
Key Ideas
Types of Ethics
• Metaethics: [origins of ethical principles] investigate where out ethical
principles have come from and what do they mean. Are they social
conventions or do they involve expression of individual emotion?
Metaethics answers these questions- are ethical principles universals/ will
of God? What is the role of reason versus emotion in ethical judgment and
so on.
• Descriptive Ethics: [moral beliefs] study of moral beliefs of the people. It is
a field of empirical research into what people or societies consider right or
wrong.
• Normative ethics: [self moral conduct] more practical- task is to arrive at
moral standards that regulate and define right and wrong conduct. It
involves articulating good habits, duties, consequences of our behavior and
so on.
• Applied Ethics: ethical principles in action in specific situations
Sources of ethics
Six primary sources
1. Religion
2. Genetic inheritance
3. Philosophical systems
4. Cultural experience
5. Legal system
6. Codes of conduct- within society or within formed groups.
Theories of Ethics
Utalitarian, Rights, Casuist
Utilitarian Approach
• Ethical action is one that provides the most good, or does the least harm.
• Utilitarianism holds that the most ethical choice is the one that will produce the
greatest good for the greatest number.
• Aim: greatest balance between good and harm, wherein good should be wining
over harm.
• In professional realm- it is that corporate action that produces greatest good and
does least harm for all who are affected- customers, employees, shareholders,
community and the environment.
• Deals with consequences of actions- aim to increase good and reduce harm
• Therefore, it is consequence based.
• Holds that every entity’s interests should be considered equally when making the
decision, and this includes those of other species since they also are capable of
suffering.
• It is also the most common approach to moral reasoning used in
business because of the way in which it accounts for costs and
benefits.
• Because we cannot predict the future, it’s difficult to know with
certainty whether the consequences of our actions will be good or
bad. This is one of the limitations of utilitarianism.
• Utilitarianism also has trouble accounting for values such as justice
and individual rights. For example, assume a hospital has four people
whose lives depend upon receiving organ transplants: a heart, lungs,
a kidney, and a liver. If a healthy person wanders into the hospital, his
organs could be harvested to save four lives at the expense of one
life. This would arguably produce the greatest good for the greatest
number. But few would consider it an acceptable course of action, let
alone the most ethical one.
Calculus in ethical decision making
• Developed by early utilitarian thinkers to make ethical decision
making scientific. This calculus weighed consequences of action in
terms of its impact on all animals and humans and took into account
factors like:
• The number of humans and animals that would benefit
• The number of humans and animals that would be harmed
• How intense any resulting pleasure would be
• How long any resulting pleasure might last
• How intense any resulting pain would be
• How long any resulting pain might last
• Utilitarianism stressed equality and fights against self-interest on the
part of the ethical actor.
• As an illustration, let’s say you’ve volunteered to buy the paint for the
fence that you and your three bordering neighbors share. The fence
has to be painted one color: brown or white. You prefer white but
your neighbors want brown. If you used a utilitarian approach, you
would buy brown paint because three outnumbers one. Just because
you are buying the paint does not give you any more weight in the
decision.
Rights approach
• Has roots in work of Immanuel Kant and others who stressed individual
rights.
• Ethical action is one that best protects and respects the moral rights of
those affected.
• Starts with the belief that humans have dignity based on their human
nature and they have the ability to choose freely what they want to do
with their lives.
• On the basis of such dignity, they have a right to be treated as ends in
themselves, as important rather than being only means to other ends.
• The list of moral rights therefore includes right to make choice about what
kind of life to lead, to be told the truth and not be lied, to have privacy and
so on.
• Also, rights imply duties- in particular, duty to respect the rights of others.
• This approach asks us to identify the legitimate rights of ourselves
and others, in a given situation, as well as our duties and obligations.
• Consider how well the moral, legal, and contractual rights of everyone
are respected and/or protected by the action, and assess how well
those affected are treated as fully informed, sentient beings with the
right to free consent instead of just as a means to an end.
• As such, the ethical action would be the one we have a moral
obligation to perform that does not infringe on the rights of others.
• When confronted with conflicting or competing interests or rights, we
need to decide which interest has greater merit and give priority to
the right that best protects or ensures that interest.
Casuist approach
• Case-based method of moral reasoning particularly employed in field-
specific branches of professional ethics.
• Uses general principles in reasoning analogically from clear cut cases
which are called paradigms.
• Orderly yet flexible way to think about real life ethical problems.
• Has a long and complex history- many ancient Greek and Roman
philosophers have used a case based approach to discuss ethical
issues.
• T he Roman orator and philosopher Cicero wrote the first known
“case book” on situations in which duties seem to conflict.
• When examining complex issues, casuists may arrange and sort many
cases to create a resource called a taxonomy. Treating similar cases
similarly, casuists use taxonomies to develop general guidelines or
policies.
• Casuistry takes rules into account but begins with the moral and
practical features of each case.
• demands deliberation about how to put good character and virtuous
motives into practice.
• How decisions are made- first the particular features of a case would
be identified, and then a comparison would be made with other
similar cases and prior experiences, attempting to determine not only
the similarities but also the differences.
Other approaches
• Fairness/Justice approach: has its roots in the teachings of the ancient
Greek philosopher Aristotle, who said that "equals should be treated
equally and unequals unequally." The basic moral question in this approach
is: How fair is an action? Does it treat everyone in the same way, or does it
show favoritism and discrimination?
• Common-Good approach: common good as "certain general conditions
that are...equally to everyone's advantage.“
• Virtue Approach: Virtues are attitudes or character traits that enable us to
be and to act in ways that develop our highest potential. They enable us to
pursue the ideals we have adopted. Honesty, courage, compassion,
generosity, fidelity, integrity, fairness, self-control, and prudence are all
examples of virtues. Ethical actions therefore should pursue path of virtue.
Professional Ethics
• Ethics in professional domain is critical because now we are becoming
more specizliased in job fields- more complexity.
• Professional bodies are becoming more structured and working in
defining, developing and refining professional codes.
• Sign of maturity and professional pride and gives unity to professions
if they are guided by common ethical principles.
• Talks about what kind of dilemmas might come up, how to resolve
those dilemmas and so forth.
• Helps professional choose what to do when faced with challenging
problems.
• Prescriptive professional ethics: guidelines that prescribe what to do
in tough situations.
Benefits of Professional ethics
1. Asset Protection and Assurance:
• When workers possess an ethical working environment and ethical
behavior in the workplace, the company’s maintenance cost
decreases to a remarkable extent because they are well aware of
their duties and responsibilities towards the company.

2. Productivity will increase:

• When the working staff and the workers value the work given to them
and then they will do all the given work in time and achieve their set
targets, this will greatly affect the sales and the productivity of the
company.
3. Team Work will develop:
• When all the workers do their jobs in a responsible way, then a time
comes when they have achieved the target way before the given
deadline, then a question arises What Next? So the situation
automatically bonds up all the individuals into a team.

4. Public Image and Brand Value Increases:

• If all the members of the company are dedicated to work as well as
figure out there values and responsibility towards the environment,
then it is for sure that the type of cleanliness and the disposal of the
waste product of the company will be unbeatable in the market,
hence resulting in attracting a bigger customer base due to the clean
and quality of the services or products.
5. Adaptive to changes:
• Workers with professional ethics in the workplace are definitely the
master key to the lock of success. The team of understanding,
trustworthy, reliable, motivate, concern and responsible people will
defiantly adapt themselves into any kind of position and work they
are filled with.

6. Decision making and implementing is always easy:

• Whenever there is a need to take a big decision then the best one
made is by the advice of the employees of the company, and what
will be better than every single employ respecting the decision and
supporting the company to go ahead with their decision.
7. Trouble-free working environment:
• Generally, where everyone is unknown and moreover no one wants to
know each other there are higher chances of great trouble and where
there is a friendly, respectful and great workplace or environment between
the employees there are fewer chances of the least troubles from the
employees end.

8. There is no one left negative:

• When people are detached from one another and someone gets negative
regarding the companies’ work then it has been seen that from that single
negative employee many are affected. Thus there is a sudden decline in the
working of the employees, but when everything is good to go and everyone
is concerned about one another then things become systematic and in case
if someone gets negative, the positive and supportive environment works
as a boost up for the person and again he/she starts working to their best.
9. Less Legal Issues:
• When everything is systematic and functional and in addition your
workers are cooperative and understanding then you won’t be facing
any problems or legal obligations from the employee’s end, because
all the workers are treated equally and all are well known with their
duties which the job requires from them.

10. The company will Touch New level of Success:

• When everything is so managed and systematic along with the
understanding of the employees because of their strong ethics, the
company will surely touch new heights of success and even the
growth of your business will be assured.