Abstract

What is the right paradigm for professional ethics? According to Mike Martin, there is a received or dominant one—he calls this the consensus paradigm—in which professional ethics is reducible to duties and dilemmas. It consists of identifying the duties that are or should be standardized within professional codes of ethics applicable to all members of a profession, and grappling with how to apply the duties to particular situations where they conflict or have unclear implications. Martin rejects this as “implausible and constricting”. His counterproposal is that professional ethics be expanded to include personal commitments and ideals. By “ideals” he means “commitments to forms of goodness around which individual character is formed and which are not reduced to general duties,” and by “personal” he “means that they shape the work of individuals without necessarily being incumbent on all members of a profession”.