For courses in Professional Ethics, Ethics and the Professions, Work and Society, and Business Ethics. Unique in perspective, this text offers a comprehensive values-based approach to professional ethics that is sensitive to the primary ethical issues of the workplace and that offers a positive way for dealing with these issues. It focuses on values important to all professionals and on how people do their work, not what type of work they do, and recognizes the strengths of various moral theories and the ways to harmonize as many moral values as possible. Part One provides a thorough introduction to moral concepts, theories, and forms of reasoning--for students with little or no background in ethics. Part Two discusses the values that are central to the moral life of professionals--integrity, respect for persons, justice, compassion, beneficence and nonmaleficence, and responsibility. A unified mix of text, readings (from literature, philosophy, and the professional ethics canon), exercises, cases for discussion, and discussion questions offer numerous opportunities for practice in interpreting values and applying them to the workplace.

When (if ever) may a professional deceive a client for the client's own good? Under what conditions (if any) is whistle-blowing morally required? These are just some of the questions that scholars as diverse as Michael D. Bayles, Thomas Nagel, Sissela Bok, Jessica Mitford, and Peter A. French confront in this stimulating anthology. Organized around philosophical issues such as the moral foundations of professional ethics, models of the professional-client relationship, deception, informed consent, privacy and confidentiality, professional dissent, and professional virtue, the volume illuminates the complex ethical issues that arise in journalism, law, health care, counseling, education, engineering, business, politics, and social science research. A variety of pedagogic aids including clear introductions to and study questions for each set of readings, concrete cases designed to focus discussion, and an appendix on preparing cases and position papers, make the text invaluable for both students and teachers of professional ethics.

The adversary professions--law, business, and government, among others--typically claim a moral permission to violate persons in ways that, if not for the professional role, would be morally wrong. Lawyers advance bad ends and deceive, business managers exploit and despoil, public officials enforce unjust laws, and doctors keep confidences that, if disclosed, would prevent harm. Ethics for Adversaries is a philosophical inquiry into arguments that are offered to defend seemingly wrongful actions performed by those who occupy what Montaigne called "necessary offices." Applbaum begins by examining the career of Charles-Henri Sanson, who is appointed executioner of Paris by Louis XVI and serves the punitive needs of the ancien régime for decades. Come the French Revolution, the King's Executioner becomes the king's executioner, and he ministers with professional detachment to each defeated political faction throughout the Terror and its aftermath. By exploring one extraordinary role and the arguments that can be offered in its defense, Applbaum raises unsettling doubts about arguments in defense of less sanguinary professions and their practices. To justify harmful acts, adversaries appeal to arguments about the rules of the game, fair play, consent, the social construction of actions and actors, good outcomes in equilibrium, and the legitimate authority of institutions. Applbaum concludes that these arguments are weaker than supposed and do not morally justify much of the violation that professionals and public officials inflict. Institutions and the roles they create ordinarily cannot mint moral permissions to do what otherwise would be morally prohibited.

An invaluable resources for the study of the relation of business, economics, ethics, and religion.

Cultivating Moral Character and Virtue in Professional Practice is a pioneering collection of essays focused on the place of character and virtue in professional practice. Professional practices usually have codes of conduct designed to ensure good conduct; but while such codes may be necessary and useful, they appear far from sufficient, since many recent public scandals in professional life seem to have been attributable to failures of personal moral character. This book argues that there is a pressing need to devote more attention in professional education to the cultivation or development of such moral qualities as integrity, courage, self-control, service and selflessness. Featuring contributions from distinguished leaders in the application of virtue ethics to professional practice, such as Sarah Banks, Ann Gallagher, Geoffrey Moore, Justin Oakley and Nancy Sherman, the volume looks beyond traditional professions to explore the ethical dimensions of a broad range of important professional practices. Inspired by a successful international and interdisciplinary conference on the topic, the book examines various ways of promoting moral character and virtue in professional life from the general ethical perspective of contemporary neo-Aristotelian virtue theory. The professional concerns of this work are of global significance and the book will be valuable reading for all working in contemporary professional practices. It will be of particular interest to academics, practitioners and postgraduate students in the fields of education, medicine, nursing, social work, business and commerce and military service.

Émile Durkheim is one of the founding fathers of sociology and Professional Ethics and Civic Morals is one of his most neglected yet insightful works. Durkheim's view that the instability of industrial society was connected to the decline of religion and his characterization of the state as the ultimate moral force in society reveal his lifelong engagement with the relationship between the individual and society. In Professional Ethics and Civic Morals Durkheim poses a major question: given the negative social consequences of unfettered markets, which caused what he termed ‘anomie’, how is the state to reconcile morality with the market? Durkheim argues that the answer is to be found in the evolution of a civil religion, in the form of professional codes and civic values, which would counteract the effects of individualism, just as guilds had regulated medieval economic life. Arguing that the state has a vital role to play in moral life and that morals are at bottom social facts – a controversial position which drew considerable criticism – Durkheim also argues that the state had a duty to protect the rights of the individual, via a form of cosmopolitan patriotism. Durkheim also articulates a highly original and critical interpretation of the rules around property and inheritance – a perspective which resonates with debates about inequality and the redistribution of wealth today. Included in this Routledge Classics edition is a new introduction by Bryan S.Turner, placing Durkheim in contemporary context and outlining the key tenets of Professional Ethics and Civic Morals.

This work focuses on one of ethics' most insidious problems: the inability to make clear and consistent choices in everyday life. The practical tools and techniques in this book can help readers design a set of personal standards, based on sound ethical reasoning, for reducing everyday compromises.