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These days there are a variety of ethical codes that define and monitor the personal and collective responsibility for decision making and professional regulation. At the minimum, codes of ethics police individuals of a defined group who explain “these are standards the general public can expect us to follow.” To a greater degree, such codes might have the possibility of bringing a more profound sense of professional awareness, the ability to analyze situations, influence future conduct, and broaden and/or deepen a person’s understanding of one’s role and personal responsibility as a member of a profession and its representative in the community. In general, ethics can be defined as a code of conduct based on universal moral duties and obligations that indicate how one should behave. Ethics deal with the ability to distinguish good from evil, right from wrong, and propriety from impropriety. Apart from a variety of definitions and ethical codes, there are also different types of ethics.
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Principle Ethics – objective focus on rational standards, rules, universal codes. Principle Ethics address the question “What shall I do?” (Gladding, et.al., p. 43).
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Ethics of Choice – a work ethic that defines what it means to work as a responsible and effective member of an organization, highlighting personal responsibility and providing clarity and guidance on how to interact creatively with the organization’s vision (Thomas, Ethics of Choice website).
Along with ethics types, there are also ethical decision making models (types and models may be one of the same). Such models include:
- Rational (Kitchner, 1984) – distinguishes between intuition and critical evaluation to justify one’s action. Principles of beneficence and non-malfeasance weigh in heavily before a course of action is determined.
- Virtue (Jordan and Meara, 1990) – prompts the question “Is this the best thing to do?” (Gladding, et.al., p. 44). If virtue ethics predominate, ethical awareness is constant.
- Pragmatic (Woody, 1990) – an integration of ethical principles into daily clinical practice through a series of practical steps that raise one’s conscious level around decision making regarding appropriate actions.
- Kidder (1995) – “ethical decisions are end-base, rule-base, or care-base. ...End-base asserts the greatest good for the greatest number drives the decision. Rule-base relies on obligations to a set of codes or principles, regardless of outcome. Care-base . . . commitment to the Golden Rule” (Gladding, et.al., p. 48).
- Integrative (Tarvydas, 1998) – reference to one’s professional code of ethics and basic ethical concepts that can additionally be integrated into the process of decision making.
- Feminist (Hill, Glaser, Harden, 1998) – attention to terminology and definitions make gender important in considering one’s views. It is a multi-faceted approach, a style of collaboration with and attentiveness to marginal participants.
- Social Constructivism (Cottone, 2001) – understanding of ethical principles through social and cultural networks and their influence in decision making.
- Transcultural (Garcia, Cartwright, Winston, Bokzarchowska, 2003) – understanding how intra and inter cultural groups' interaction, engaging, and disengaging affects ethical decision making.
The types and models of ethics are plentiful! Beyond those previously listed, one must still consider all the codes that ethics professional organizations, religious bodies, professions, national accreditations, and state boards have developed for their respective members. It is also important to understand how belief, culture, and social systems influence and effect the structure of ethical practice, dilemma, and resolution.
Where does a person start? A counselor might believe that their ethical practice begins when they are licensed; in the same way that a medical doctor, attorney, psychologist, or marriage and family therapist might. A minister might understand that there is a set of rules or principles that they tacitly agree to follow when they are ordained, commissioned, or called. A teacher or professor might see the standards that set guidelines and boundaries defining their interaction and relationship with students and other faculty as norms of behavior when signing a contract to teach. All of these examples reveal some form of ethical code or standard that applies to the individual as well as the system they are joining.
It sounds simple, doesn’t it? Get a job. Join an association. Say “Yes” to the rules. If it is so simple, why are specific ethical principles so frequently violated? Why are some abused more than others? Why is there often more than one answer to ethical dilemmas?
In my experience, ethical codes, types, or models are truly effective only when individuals and communities understand the significance of, and practice the growth of character building or, specifically, practice ethical character. When Lajos Egris (1946) talked to his readers about great plays that have stood the test of time, his focus was on character and not plot. As he explains, “…character is the only element that could serve as the foundation” (p. 91). He goes on to say “…situations are inherent in the character…” and “… before every situation that a dramatist creates, he should ask himself three questions: What should I do? What would other people do? What ought to be done?” (p. 91). Egris’ three questions, related to character in a story, are similar to specific duties of professionals: doing good (beneficence) and avoiding evil (non-malfeasance), and responsibility to community. (To understand a distinction between “prima facie” duties and “duty proper,” see W. D. Ross’ seven prima facie duties as listed in Karen Lebacqz, Professional Ethics Power and Paradox, p. 25).
In considering ethic of character, James Poling (1988) wrote for the Journal of Pastoral Care, “…What kind of persons and community do we become by our choices? What is our vision of who we are?” (p. 302). Poling cautioned that when story (or an ethical dilemma) focuses only on the vision of a particular community (or it could be understood as the view of one person) there is a danger of slipping into relativism, and the action taken may disregard a larger communal vision and the virtue of others. When the vision is short-sighted or an individual is narrowly focused by one’s self-interest, a power-differential between those involved and lack of responsibility toward how one’s action may cause suffering to others often occurs.
Aristotle once wrote, “The soul never thinks without a picture.” When one considers a picture of ethical character without it being blurred by relativism, what might it look like? Egris (1946) would say the picture reveals a person on a journey who faces a conflict (ethical dilemma). It is at this juncture that the individual moves toward greater heights or descends a spiral toward his or her demise. In this tension, inner forces unify or fragment parts of character. These inner forces are collectively human nature. Throughout one’s life experiences, our nature grows and, to degrees, develops. Our nature is influenced and shaped by genetics, culture, life circumstances, faith and belief systems, family of origin, community, and a host of other factors. At some point, what steps forward is the Self and his or her identity in community. It is this Self, when faced with a dilemma that reveals how these parts have shaped one’s ethical character, and in the revelation, there is a picture of how one views his responsibility to Self, others, and the bonds that unite them to a common community and a universal accountability. “It is this self in its community with which character ethics is principally concerned” (McClendon, 2002, p. 15). McClendon continues, “Being a person of some character is one of the preconditions of making responsible choices.” McClendon views character as the in-between purpose and policy (the “why” we do something within the standards of community). A person with ethical character understands his or her sense of response not only to a “profession”, but to a larger community that encompasses the marginal as well as those within particular comfort zones.
While persons as Egris, McClendon, Poling, and this author recognize that character is not fixed and that people’s personalities can change, the reality of this happening is limited when the focus is on ethical character and community responsibility. People are as people are. There has to be some motivation to change; some reason to see a new picture or to see the picture differently. There must be some reason to accept responsibility for ourselves, acknowledge, and then act appropriately within the interconnectedness of self and others with integrity.
The reason to change begins by recognizing all of our actions are connected to an aching search for who we are. Remember when God called out to Adam, “Adam, where are you?” God could have just as well asked, “Adam, who are you?” The questions are one and the same. Where we are in life defines who we are as a person and the reverse is also true. Many professionals spend careers actively doing, often truthfully and painfully, honestly and humbly, bravely and fearfully seeking to simply be. It truly is in our being that we take an account of our ethical character. It is in our being that we understand our deeds form our character and, as McClendon would acknowledge, our character guides our actions. We are truly recreated daily and, at the same time, held in place, for the time being, by how we decide to view things. It is how we see ourselves in community and with others, where we foolishly or humbly dare to belong, where belief and action meet, that we reveal our deepest values and the hidden self.
Ethical character springs from the hidden self revealed completely only to God, but seen by everyone through our actions. No, not by one or two incidents, because actions can be deceiving. Ethical character as an integral component of our actions is seen thoroughly in the composite of our being. A picture that never changes yet never is the same.
Dr. Wayne Clark is the Director of Clinical Training at the Louisville Seminary Counseling Training Center in Louisville, Kentucky.
References
Gladding, S. T., Huber, C. H., Remley, T. P., Jr., & Wilcoxin, S. A. (2007). Ethical, legal, and professional issues in the practice of marriage and family therapy. Pearson, Merrill Prentice Hall Publishing.
Egris, L. (1946). The act of dramatic writing. New York: Simon and Shuster.
Poling, J. (1988, Winter). “An ethical framework for pastoral care.” The Journal of Pastoral Care, XLII(4).
McClendon, J.W., Jr. (2002). Biography as theology. Eugene, Oregon: Wipf and Stock Publishers.
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