Personal Code of Ethics - Essay Example

Running Head Personal of Ethics Personal of Ethics Introduction The designation "professional" is highly desired in our society and has been for centuries. People will even take courses of action that seem on the surface to be against their economic interest because they want to protect the privilege of being known as professional. An example would be the refusal to seek higher wages by participating in collective bargaining efforts for the primary reason that such an activity might appear unprofessional. Professions rigidly guard entry. One who seeks admittance must demonstrate understanding of and acceptance of the profession's language game. The knowledge possessed by each profession is a source of power for that profession. Through their publications, meetings, examination syllabi, and other activities, various professional associations have historically played a role in defining and furthering the technical aspects of the profession, deciding who is competent to practice in that profession, and elaborating the discourse carried on by that particular profession. Moreover, criminal justice is increasingly required to satisfy continuing education requirements in order to keep their professional status. Personal Code of Ethics My personal code of ethics involves moral and social responsibility issues, fair treatment of customers and colleagues. Clients served by professionals have no choice but to rely upon their lawyers for expert advice. Professionals are assumed to have a command of a complicated and changing subject matter; that is why they have been hired. But this also means that clients are rarely able to evaluate the professional's competence. This is true in criminal justice as well as in the other professions. In criminal justice this is a more complex notion because of the issue of third parties (Beauchamp and Bowie 2003). My personal code of ethics is based on the Judeo-Christian ethic. This ethics generally considered to be the foundation of Western ethical and moral standards. The Ten Commandments and the Golden Rule are firmly ingrained in this ethic as is the Protestant work ethic and faith, love, charity, fairness, and justice. The problem today, however, is that much of this basic truth has either been distorted, corrupted or applied only under certain circumstances or to the other person. It is not difficult to get most people to agree with the Ten Commandments, or at least on Commandments 5 through 10; that is, to agree with them in general or as they might apply to someone else (Beauchamp and Bowie 2003). If you want to be told the truth then you tell the truth; if you want to be treated fairly, then treat others fairly. Since most countries and religions of the world have some form of belief that comes close to the part of the Golden Rule that relates to treating others as you want them to treat you, then in theory if properly adhered to it can personalize business relations as well as bring fairness into business. The only problems with this is that unless all parties involved also believe in and adhere to the Ten Commandments there may be marked difference in what constitutes fairness, love, charity, and justice between the parties whenever any exchange situation exists. Without a common foundation upon which to build, there are bound to be many differences and many problems (Robbins, 2002). Duties of justice rest on the fact or possibility of a distribution of pleasure or happiness (or the means thereto) that is not in accordance with the merit of the persons concerned. A duty may arise in such cases to upset or prevent such a distribution. Corporations are frequently confronted with duties that arise from justice (Robbins, 2002). Like duties of justice, duties of beneficence do not arise because of any culpability on the part of the corporation. Duties of beneficence rest upon the mere fact that there are other beings in the world whose condition can be made better. If the corporation recognizes these beings and is able to improve their condition, then a duty of beneficence arises (Robbins, 2002). The fact that duties of beneficence are recognized by managers of corporations is demonstrated by the fact that they cause the corporations to make charitable contributions. One is hard pressed to swallow utilitarian reasoning that such contributions may in the long run improve profitability by the creation of goodwill. In fact, the best arguments against such action are utilitarian in nature. Milton Friedman represents perhaps the best-known proponent of this utilitarian point of view (Beauchamp and Bowie 2003). Duties of self-improvement are the most difficult of Ross's duties of individuals to translate to a corporation. Duties of self-improvement rest on the fact that one can improve her own condition with respect to virtue or intelligence. Interestingly, Ross includes pleasure in the improvement of another's condition but omits it in the improvement of one's own condition (Sims, 2003). An example is the practice of companies paying the cost of sending managers to universities to improve their education. Utilitarians would undoubtedly argue that such action is taken to improve profits through lower costs generated from the better management the corporation expects to receive from better-educated managers (Boatright, 1997). Corporations would undeniably justify this practice on such utilitarian grounds. However, the imagination must truly be stretched to translate an individual manager's education to the bottom line. A more plausible explanation for such things as classes in human relations might be found in the desire to fulfill a duty for self-improvement. If this is true, does the public bear costs when a corporation does not recognize such a duty For example, one could argue that by failure to improve managers' knowledge of business ethics, a corporation has caused the public to incur greater risk of unethical conduct by the corporation (Sims, 2003). The duty of self-improvement becomes one we may more easily associate with business enterprise if we expand upon Ross's definition a bit. A commonly held and frequently cited belief is that business corporations have the duty to make profits. Total impact criminal justice provides the broad classification into which the deontological basis suggested here will fit. The classifications system could take the form of accounts set up for each of the duties that a company has chosen as applicable to it. So if all the Ross duties were deemed appropriate, the company would set into place seven social responsibility accounts, one for each identified duty. Since doing one's duty has an associated impact upon profit, an account would also be created to summarize those effects over periods of time. The criminal justice is a key professional involved in assisting management with the task of setting responsibilities and with monitoring progress toward meeting such responsibilities (Donaldson, 2002). Comparison between Personal and Professional Codes of Ethics The main difference between personal and professional codes of ethics is that independence is not allows in criminal justice profession. In the personal code of ethics, independence may be defined in a professional context as a state in which one is self-reliant and not easily influenced by others. Professionals rely upon their own expertise and judgment rather than opinions, biases, or emotions of other persons. Independence, as an ethical concept, is prominent in the criminal justice profession (Buchholz and Rosenthal 1998). Indeed, all professionals should be independent in that they should not subordinate their judgment to make a client happy (Boatright, 1997). The main similarity between the personal and professional codes is that they demand fair treatment of all people and high professional skills. Conflicts of moral duty come in various shapes, sizes, and intensities. We cannot anticipate all such problems. But what such conflicts have in common is both situational and philosophical. By situational we mean that a personal moral dilemma is experienced by the criminal justice professional. She is faced with a concern and, often, a hardchoice situation. By philosophical we mean that thinking about essentials--goals, purposes, reasons--is ignited by the moral conflict. Confronting ethical dilemmas in professional criminal justice is a real task (Buchholz and Rosenthal 1998). Professional morality demands adherence to the law. But legislation, court opinions, administrative decisions, and (especially) bureaucratic interpretations of the law are rarely crystal clear. Because of this necessary imprecision, there are many opportunities to "bend the rules" or to "find the loophole." Such behavior, by criminal justice professional, is not inherently wrong. Nor is it subject to prosecution or condemnation if discovered. In criminal justice, especially, a premium is put upon creative interpretation of regulations (and of prior interpretations). The system exists to be used, we are told; a clever professional takes advantage of ambiguity and resolves it in the perceived best interest of his client. This is normal professional practice (De George, 1999). The political and social views of professionals do not, usually, impinge upon work-related tasks. But suppose the following scenario: An auditor is, for either religious or intellectual reasons, a pacifist. Her views forbid serving the military in any manner or cooperating in any vocation that encourages the development, manufacture, or distribution of military weapons. She is called in to participate in auditing a major corporation and discovers that the company is engaged in research likely to result in the development of a highly (Buchholz and Rosenthal 1998). My personal codes of ethics help me to resolve moral issues and problems of moral choice. Independence is a critical concept that sets ethics apart from other professions. This is the only exclusive function that the ethics performs for society. In rendering an opinion the criminal justice professional assumes a public duty (De George, 1999). Moreover, this public duty must transcend any employment relationship or other duty toward the client. In many cases, criminal justice system follows ethical relativism, the view that says there are no absolutes, there are no "blacks" or "whites," things are always changing, and everything is relative. This is the philosophy expressed by Hegel, Marx, Spencer, and Dewey and to a certain extent by Bentham and Jevons in their pain-happiness and painpleasure concepts. This concept is very weak in many areas. There is no common standard in time or position; what is fair to one person may be unfair to another, what is fair in one situation may be considered unfair in another situation, and what might be accepted in one country might be unacceptable in another country. The final determinant of right and wrong and the worth of any belief is one's own belief and justification that supports it. It puts major emphasis on what is popular (and this is continuously changing) instead of what is necessarily right or wrong. Rather than offer a moral judgment that is binding on all people, at all times, everywhere, it is flexible and changeable in every situation (Donaldson, 2002). My personal code pf ethics only partially corresponds with professional code of ethics. My ethics concept underlines that acting in a manner that produces the greatest amount of love, fulfillment, and benevolence. That is, it contends that moral action is the one that produces the greatest amount of Christian love of all the alternatives available. In some measure any immoral act of a member of the profession affects the whole because by its very nature the profession has advanced itself to society as a special community deserving special privilege and therefore having special responsibilities. We have tried to create an illusion that is mildly elitist. The public does not expect professional people to commit violent crimes. That is the sort of thing one expects from the laboring "class." So when it happens that professional people also commit violent crimes, the news is somewhat more sensational and pierces the aura that professions attempt to build about themselves. Therefore, we are our brother's and our sister's keeper. As members of the professional community we cannot escape any chaos associated with that community (De George, 1999). We are unable to assume the role of rugged individual in this context. Moral weakness in the community weakens the community defense against its detractors (Donaldson, 2002). The point of this dilemma is that attempting to regulate the morals of others in the community is at best a difficult morass. We will attempt no simplistic solution in this perplexing area except to state that though individual cases must be handled separately, the ethical models of deontologism, utilitarianism, and ethical realism are useful to us. From a utilitarian perspective, the consequences of kitchen tabling are mostly bad for all parties. From the perspective of the partners, the firm does not receive proper compensation for professional services rendered. Moreover, clients who receive services, particularly auditing services, so cheaply, come to expect future prices at comparable bargain levels (Donaldson, 2002). Ultimately, clients, the profession, and even society itself suffer as competitive conditions force the quality of audits to deteriorate as kitchen tabling becomes more and more widespread. Members of the profession, both present and future, also suffer bad consequences from kitchen tabling (Donaldson, 2002). Standards for time to complete audit and other work tend to be revised to unrealistic levels as kitchen tabling increases. This puts pressure on other professionals to perform at unrealistic levels and perhaps motivates them to practice kitchen tabling (De George, 1999). Problems are not unusual in any business organization where blood ties exist. Serious personnel problems especially occur when the boss's son or daughter is hired and put into a position over a more experienced employee. Alternatively, that same son or daughter might receive a promotion instead of a more qualified employee (Donaldson, 2002). Conclusion The ethical question criminal justice needs to address is not whether or not members of minority groups should be hired as criminal justice professional s. The criminal justice profession along with the rest of society long ago settled the ethical question of excluding persons from the professional community because of race, religion, or culture. The question concerns upward mobility of these criminal justice professional s once they are in the profession. Criminal justice professionals assert that it is not only good ethics, it is also good business to include persons from diverse backgrounds in our profession. This is especially true in the case of large international criminal justice that find themselves doing business in places where cultural diversity is an asset from a human resource and client development point of view. Because we accept people from different races, religions, and cultures as members of the professional community, it is important that we include them in the professional community. Inclusion means among other things that these criminal justice professionals can rise to the level of partner in criminal justice and to the highest level of management in corporations. Differences that may separate us as professionals should be laid aside because that is the right thing to do and because by doing so we assure good consequences. References 1. Beauchamp, T., and Bowie, N. (eds). (2003). Ethical Theory and Business, 7th edn, Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. 2. Boatright, J. (1997). Ethics and the Conduct of Business, 2nd edn, Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. 3. Buchholz, R. and Rosenthal, S. (1998). Business Ethics, Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. 4. Carroll, S. and Gannon, M. (1997). Ethical Dimensions of International Management, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. 5. De George, R. (1999). Business Ethics, 5th edn, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. 6. Donaldson, T., et al. (2002). Ethical Issues in Business, 7th edn, Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. 7. Robbins, S. (2002). Organizational Behavior. Pearson Higher. 8. Sims, R.R. (2003). Ethics and Corporate Social Responsibility: Why Giants Fall. Praeger. Read More