What is the difference between personal ethics and professional ethics?
Ethics is a word that can be used loosely, so it’s important to understand the meaning of this question by first discussing what is meant by personal ethics or professional ethics.
I assume the question is using the term personal ethics to mean one’s conscience and the term professional ethics to mean adherence to a professional code. Sometimes those two roles can conflict. For instance, we have cases of doctors who have refused to prescribe the morning after pill, because they believe it will terminate a human life. In this case the doctor has decided that his personal ethics will guide him or her. Alternatively, a police officer may enforce a law that they personally believe is unjust. In this case the police officer has decided to put aside personal concerns and allow professional obligations to guide his or her behavior. Likewise a judge may follow the law and impose the death penalty even though he or she may be personally opposed to it.
Typically people have resolved this by drawing a line between their role as a professional and their role as an individual. They often decide to follow a professional code of ethics when they are acting as a professional even though they may personally disagree. However, if your professional obligations put you in such a state of conflict that you feel you can’t uphold your personal ethics, then you have the option of resigning.
This dilemma is not limited to professional vs personal. All of us are confronted with the reality of rules or laws that we personally believe are unjust or immoral. We have to determine how to resolve this tension. Being a pragmatic ethicist, I do not believe that we should always take a principled and extreme stance for every issue. For instance, I am against the death penalty, but I don’t feel like moving out of New York State just because this state allows the death penalty.
An ethical decision that I was faced with within my professional career was about a month ago. I’m a dental assistant so I work with people every day and I have to deal with people and their personal bias. I had a patient that was underage and she come into the operatory by herself. I asked the patient did she have a guardian with her and she said “yes”, and she started to inform me that her grandfather didn’t like African American people. At that point I was faced with an ethical dilemma to not inform her grandfather about the treatment or to faced her grandfather, that I knew didn’t care for African American people. The problem was very difficult because I didn’t know how her grandfather was going to react toward me as a professional person.
As a police officer my ethical responsibility does take precedence over my personal views. I do not make the laws but I must carry them out as they are presented. It is not my place to make changes. If there is a conflict between my ethical responsibility and personal views, I will move forward with the ethical responsibility as I have promised to do. If I were not able to do this, I would not be a police officer. My personal views are in line with my ethical responsibilities which makes this very easy for me. If at any time I find that I am struggling with this, I would find another
When this class first began, I questioned my understanding of ethics. Was it simply breaking the law? Was it an action or inaction against a written policy? Did it only involve hurting others or could you perform an unethical act against yourself? These thoughts led me to the dictionary where I sought the definition of ethics.
The word ethics is derived from the Greek word ‘ethos’ meaning character or conduct. It is typically used interchangeably with word moral which is derived from the Latin word ‘moves’ which means customs or habits. Ethics refers to conduct, character and motivations involved in moral acts. Ethics are not imposed by a profession, by law but by moral obligation. It is unwritten code of conduct that encompasses both professional conduct and judgement. Ethics helps support autonomy and self-determination, protect the vulnerable and promotes the welfare and equality of human beings. An ethical dentist- patient relationship is based on trust, honesty, confidentiality, privacy and the quality of care.1
Each profession has their own way of navigating ethical dilemmas, which are problems that don’t have a clear ethical/moral choice. The ethical decision
Ethics: while defined by Merriam-Webster dictionary as “the discipline dealing with what is good or bad [through] moral duty”, this concise phrase does not seem to encompass the word’s full connotation. The way ‘ethics’ is defined in the dictionary alludes that there is a black-and-white answer to whether an action, belief, or opinion is ethical. Unfortunately, when applying this term to real life, decisions are almost never as clear cut as right or wrong. Why then, are we so quick to judge things as right or wrong, good or bad, ethical or unethical?
It is important to note that morals only apply to individual action and consequence. Ethics, however, apply to the actions of two or more people. Ethics are meaningless unless applied in a social context. Ethics serve to define the acceptable actions of the individual within the social structure. Ethics are established through the consensus of many people and with the guidance of human experience. Ethics serve the purpose of deciding what is right in society according to your peers, subordinates, and superiors.
Ethics will have various effects on my personal and professional life. There are many different theories and principles that can be easily applied to my life. Four examples of these theories would be utilitarianism, virtue, deontology, and the golden rule. These theories will have differing sizes of impact in my life. Some may be harder to incorporate into my personal life compared to my professional life, others may only slightly change how I currently act in any given situation.
Every individual has certain values and ethics that he/she stands by. Values give us a sense of what is important while ethics gives us a sense of what is right and wrong. Together, these qualities help guide us through our everyday life: what actions to take and what decision to make. Sticking to ethical standards allows you to stay clear of trouble; therefore, strengthening people’s trust in you. In return, this leads to gaining people’s respect and cooperation, which may result in leadership responsibilities. Therefore, we believe that personal values and ethics will affect a person’s career success. However, there are times where individuals will make unethical choices--some situations might question your resolve. This can be caused by
Ethics deals with actions with adequate standard of attitudes, behavior that is pleasing to the people or organizations. Every job has a code of ethical conduct that is supposed to be is followed. It is very necessary to understand that ethical rules must apply and obey with basis of what is right and wrong which is written in the law. That is why there are professions that have organizations or associations which have the method of ethical conducts or standard.
Ethics is derived from the greek word ‘ethos’, which means character and the latin word ‘moras’, which means customs. Thus ethics is defined as the personal and professional behaviour with regards to the values, customs, behaviour, principles and morals of society (Senarante, 2011). Professional ethics can be defined as the personal and corporate standards of conduct that is carried out by members of a particular profession. For example, medicine, accounting and engineering. Professional ethics or business ethics cover larger areas than the law, and although an issue may not be illegal, it can be considered as an ethical issue (ATT Ethics, 2013). Business ethics can be defined as the policies and principles that act as operational guidelines
Ethics is defined as the morality that defines a person’s actions or behaviors; a viewpoint to see things as good or bad, right or wrong. Almost all clinical situations for a nurse have to do with ethics. We, as nurses, have a responsibility to do the right thing. A situation that comes to mind is when a patient who was addicted to opiates was recovering from a traumatic surgery. In report, the prior shift nurse made comments about the patient’s drug history, and that they were probably drug searching.
Many managers and organisations make the mistake of assuming that what’s wrong is illegal and what’s legal is right and if it’s legal it must be ethical. Yet many ethical dilemmas present themselves before the decision makers where right and wrong can not be clearly identified. They involve conflict between interactive parts – “the individual against the organisation or the societ...
The first one is on my professional duties which follow rules and professional codes. The second one is applying ethical behavior in my day-to-day personal life. As I mentioned earlier, I tend to follow the theory of utilitarianism in order to do positive things in my day-to-day life. In general, I believe that ethics must be a rule for all human beings throughout their entire life. Finally, I believe ethical behavior is a teachable theory and education can change society’s understanding about the importance of ethical behavior and morality. Therefore, unethical behavior has negative consciences to someone’s life and to the community as
Ethics is simply doing the right thing. In the business situation ethics are the moral concept of a firm getting through it organizational duties ethically.