Personal, professional and organisational ethics

Intro to ethics:

Through doing more research about ethics I aim to find about more about the implications ethics may have on my professional practice and continue to develop my approach to ethics for my inquiry. In module 1 we started looking at the topic of ethics and the effects it may have on your practice via social media and in my previous blog (professional ethics) I created a mind-map about ethics, so it'll be interesting to see how my thoughts and knowledge burgeon and alter.

The professional ethics reader states that there are three main areas of ethics:

- personal (family values, religion, culture)
-professional (professional code of conduct)
-organisational

These all contribute to the promotion of social good in a larger society.

The reader states that there is a rippling effect through all of the different areas of ethics:
Personal - profession - organisational - society.

History of ethics:

The history of ethics is long and its development can be traced from Plato and Aristotle right up to today where almost every philosopher has a view on ethics. The word ethics is widely held to have its origins in the Greek work ethos, which means character. The Greek philosophers were much taken with the notion of good and bad in their discourses and writings. Ethics has its roots in moral philosophy and is concerned about the right or the good way to carry out actions. 

Religion and law are both closely associated with morals and ethics. - I found this an interesting sentence because law wasn't something I had really associated when it comes to ethics, but in reality ethics play a massive part in the justice system and law. Law exists to provide a structure for society and set standards for social norms and expectations for behaviour. 

Ethics comes from the theories of moral philosophy. There is the notion also of the natural man which is animal like and the conventional man who is shaped by the social rules and norms as argued for by Hobbes in his social contract proposal. 

Other philosophers:

Hobbes (1651) viewed ethics as a practical solution to social harmony and good through the vehicle of a social contract. He posited that in order to achieve peaceful, co-operative social order we need to adhere to a set of moral rules. These rules are necessary because of certain facts about human life which he subscribed to. These were equality of need, scarcity, essential quality of human power and limited altruism. Without moral rules, these facets would lead to a constant state of war with one and all, which would be intolerable. In order to overcome this, the social contract would

Thinking point: produce a list of virtues relevant to you as an individual and include the two extremes. Then do the same for your profession.

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facilitate beneficence through its set of rules. The Social Contract works on the premise that rational people will accept it on the understanding that everyone else will as well and is supported by the idea that morality is a set of rules for mutual benefit. 

Ethical dilemma in workplace:

In the nursing profession, those who were members of the catholic church were forbidden by their faith from assisting in terminations of pregnancy. Again, this is an example of an ethical dilemma which requires negotiation with employers. 

In the corporate world the near collapse of the banking system in 2007, which many would contend was as a result of unethical behaviour where short-term gains were viewed as preferable to ensuring sustainability of the banking system is a case in point. Employers in the banking sector drove short-term profits at the expense of the greater social good. 

Research ethics:

When planning an inquiry or research, you need to adhere to sound ethical practice in carrying out the actions themselves. On another level, it is also good to consider the broader ethical implications attached to the research or inquiry. For instance what is the motivating factor behind the inquiry? Does the inquirer want to bring about a social (professional) good? Who stands to benefit most from the research?
Being a researcher carries many responsibilities to a range of reference groups, including participants, employers (in the case of practitioner-researchers), the academic institution (where the research is part of a course) and the research community. In the special case of research carried out as part of a course, the supervisor additionally has important responsibilities – holding the ultimate responsibility for ethical practice and gaining approval and having responsibility to minimise the risk of harm to the student researcher. 

This section about research ethics is very relevant to me and to my professional inquiry so I need to make sure I where to sound ethical practice in all parts of my research. I have begun thinking about this when filling out my ethics forms  and can see how important it is to have knowledge in this area. 

Key words from the reader about ethics:
- civil
-moral
- rules

Now I have a broader knowledge about ethics and the wide spectrum surrounding it I will continue to do some more research specifically about ethics in the arts, dance and theatre. As this will hopefully continue to increase my awareness about the topic.


References:

Professional ethics reader:
http://mdx.mrooms.net/pluginfile.php/631105/mod_resource/content/2/Reader%205%20Professional%20Ethics%202016-17.pdf

British Educational Research Association (2004, 2011) Revised Ethical Guidelines for Educational Research. Cheshire: BERA. Available from: https://www.bera.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/BERA-Ethical-Guidelines- 2011.pdf?noredirect=1