Unit 6 Flashcards
Michael Bayles
6 key features which define professions
Necessary features which define professions
Extensive training (they usually require advanced degrees). Provide important services for society. Training and skills are largely intellectual (this sets them apart from skilled craftsmen), and they apply specialized knowledge.
3 common features which define professions
Usually licensed or certified, they have a monopoly over the provision of certain services (only pharmacists can dispense prescription drugs).
Usually have organizations which represent them, defend their interests, and set professional standards.
Usually autonomous, they have wide freedom of judgement in their work.
Professional according to Waterloo applied ethics professor Conrad Brunk
include expectations of Integrity and Altruism in their definition of professions.
Economic history periods
Hunter\Gatherer
Agricultural (most people are peasants)
Industrial (late 18th to mid-20th century), moving towards
Knowledge and Service economy
Classic professions
Medicine, Law, Clergy
- first occupations to be professionalized
- -ate back at least to medieval times, before the industrial revolution.
- considered classy occupations, suitable for gentlemen (as opposed to trades, selling merchandise, and mechanical arts)
Bussiness Professions
Engineering, Accounting, Management
Helping professions
Medical Doctors Plus (Nursing, Psychiatry, Chiropractic), Social Work, Counselling, Teaching. 4
- Reflect a society with resources to devote to human well-being and social services (health, education, and welfare).
Shaw and Barry
Think that professionals have special responsibilities because:
Society invests heavily in the training of professionals.
Society grants professions a wide area of self-governance.
The state permits professions a monopoly over the provision of certain services.
We invest professions with a trust that they will watch over the well-being of society
“There is no special ethics that allows people in a profession to do as professions what it is immoral for others to do”
The doctor’s dilemna
George Bernard Shaw’s play
an elderly doctor declares that “All professions are conspiracies against the laity”
Laity
h originally meant everyone outside the religious clergy, but has come to refer to all non-professionals.
conspiracies in restraint of trade
Business corporations engaging in monopolistic practices, like price fixing
Dangers of professionalization
It’s in the interest of professionals to limit admittance to the profession, thus keeping competition low and fees high
-Competition is reduced and status is enhanced if a profession requires many years of training.
-The power of self-regulation is as likely to be used against para-professionals, cheaper competitors, or dissenters as against genuine misconduct.
-It’s in the interest of professionals to make their knowledge inaccessible to the laity through professional jargon or intimidating procedures.
-Dependence on professionalized experts is a threat to democratic values of self-reliance and public-spirit.
John Mcknight
Careless society
Careless society
community will be replaced by reliance on helping experts
Case for Licensing Professionals
They provide important services, too important to be left to just anyone.
They require specialized knowledge.
The need to protect the public.
The need to hold professionals to higher ethical standards with special ethical codes and special regulatory bodies
Remedies of professionalization - bayles
Put members of the public in professional regulatory bodies in sufficient numbers to give them a majority.
Limit the requirement for Licensing to services that (a) no reasonable person would want less than a fully trained professional to provide
John Ladd
The Quest for a Code of Professional Ethics
skeptical of the value of codes of ethics.
Dave Lindorff
Engineers Duty to Speak Out
whistleblowing
when an insider reports or publicizes the wrongdoing of a corporate or government organization
Monroe Freedman
Lawyers’ Ethics in an Adversarial System
Lawyer’s Trilemma
Lawyers have an obligations of confidentiality to their clients. They also are required to know all the facts of the case in order to prepare a defense, and to not disclose information given in confidence by their client that will be harmful to his case. On the other hand, they also have a duty of candour to the court. They are not supposed to condone perjury or obstruct justice.
private sector unis
funded by tuition fees and donations to their endowment.
universitas
incorporated guild or a guild of scholars
