Professional Codes
Michael Davis
Is generally shorthand for ‘‘code of professional ethics,’’ a set of standards governing the conduct of members of a certain occupation. Whether or not a business has its own code of ethics, many of its employees or contractors may. There are, for example, codes of ethics for lawyers, account ants, and actuaries, for engineers, chemists, and computer scientists, for professionals in purchasing, marketing, and personnel. A professional code is neither a (purely) personal code, ordinary morality, nor (mere) law. What, then, is it?
A professional code states (‘‘codifies’’) standards of practice, whether by describing preexisting practice (as a dictionary definition does) or by creating the practice (as a definition in a statute does). A code that does not state an actual practice (more or less) is a possible code, not an actual one.
A professional code need not be written. An oral formulation will do. However, in any society where writing is common, most professional codes are in writing for the same reason most technical standards are: writing makes them easier to recall, easier to transmit to newcomers, and so on.
A code of ethics – any code of ethics – states standards of practice for a group. For example, a corporate code states how employees of a certain business should conduct themselves. It does not apply to everyone. In this respect, codes of ethics resemble laws rather than morality. They are relative. Codes of ethics are nonetheless part of morality in at least two ways. First, their standards must be morally permissible. (A ‘‘torturer’s code of ethics’’ could only be ethics in scare quotes, an ethic or ethos much as counterfeit ‘‘money’’ is money only in a degenerate sense.) Second, the standards in question must morally oblige members of the relevant group. A code of ethics cannot, however, oblige because it restates common moral standards or applies them to new circumstances. A code of ethics must require something ordinary morality merely permits. A code of ethics, by definition, always sets a standard of conduct ‘‘higher’’ (that is, more demanding) than ordinary morality. How can a code of ethics be both a morally obliging standard and a standard higher than ordinary morality?
The answer is simple: a code of ethics must be part of morality because of some (morally obliging) convention, for example, an oath or con tract. The convention must, in conjunction with some ordinary moral standard (e.g., ‘‘Keep your promises’’), add a new moral standard.
Here then, is a crucial difference between codes of ethics and law. Law as such achieves order by threatening liability, legal restraint, or punishment; a code of ethics achieves order by getting novel moral commitments from people who take such commitments seriously. A code of ethics is, therefore, always a personal code; its claim results from a person’s commitment, not from external force. A code of ethics is nonetheless never merely a personal code; the commitment in question must be shared with others, the rest of the group.
A professional code is the code of ethics of a certain kind of group, a profession. What is a profession? For our purposes, a profession is a group of people organized to earn a living by providing a service at a standard higher than law, market, and (ordinary) morality demand. A profession must be a group. There can no more be a profession of one than a club of one. A profession must be organized. Without organization, there is only a particular occupation. But not just any organization will do. The organization must be designed to help its members earn a living. An organization concerned only to help others would be a charity or other service group, not a profession.
The service a profession provides may be of any (morally permissible) sort from which its practitioners can earn a living (though in fact professions tend to be organized by relatively well educated occupations). The professional need not be an independent consultant (for example, the traditional lawyer). The professional may be an employee, whether of government or private business. Indeed, even such occupations as plumber, secretary, or peddler could organize as a profession. All they need to do is adopt (and generally follow) standards for earning a living higher than law, market, and morality impose. (Without such higher standards, the resulting organization would be a trade association, labor union, or similar organization of self interest.)
Why would any occupation want to be a profession? Why, in other words, would rational people voluntarily burden their livelihood with demands neither law, market, nor morality make? The answer, of course, must be that the people in question believe that they benefit over all from taking on those burdens. One profession may organize to protect its members from market pressure to do what law and morality forbid. The code of such a profession would emphasize the aid each member owes those who do what law and morality require when client, employer, or government try to get them to do something else. Another profession may organize to protect the reputation of its members. Its code would emphasize practices designed to prevent the appearance of wrong doing. And so on. Most professional codes reveal a mix of such purposes.
A professional code cannot achieve its purpose unless members of the profession in fact generally do as the profession’s code requires. Professional codes thus create a cooperative practice: each participant benefits (primarily) from what the others do and would not do did they not believe the rest were generally doing the same. Since the standards of a cooperative practice are morally obliging if participation in the practice is voluntary and the standards themselves are morally permissible, each person who voluntarily maintains membership in a profession, is morally obliged, even without oath or contract, to practice it as its code says.
Bibliography
Bayles, M. (1989). Professional Ethics. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
Davis, M. (1987). The moral authority of a professional code. Authority Revisited: NOMOS XXIX. New York: New York University Press.
Kultgen, J. (1988). Ethics and Professions. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.