What Is Your Professional Code Of Ethics?
A people that value its privileges above its principles soon loses both.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower
I was asked this question in my ethics class and I wondered – how one can have a professional code of ethic that differs from their personal? I say this because I believe my code of ethics is something engrained in every fiber of my existence as a definition of who I am. If I go against my ethics and morals, which I may do for reasons such as ego, self-esteem or pressure to conform to others, I do so with a gut-knowing that I am going against my principles and beliefs as to how I operate in the world around me. The responsibility principle would argue that most people want to do the right thing and will accept responsibility when they take wrong actions on others. The counter argument to this is psychological egoism which is based on the assumption that human nature is such that all human action is based on self-interest.
In 1801 a sermon by the cleric Sydney Smith of the University of Oxford was published. It included a thematic forebear to the adage which warned about bias in decision making:
It is, then, a matter of sovereign necessity, before we decide on great, and momentous questions, which affect our own happiness, and the peace of the world, to make a wise, and virtuous pause, and review, with an honest severity, those peculiarities of disposition, situation, and education, which may communicate an unfair bias to the mind, and induce us to decide, not as the truth of things is, but as we are ourselves.
“…Not as the truth of things is, but as we are ourselves” speaks to me as meaning those things I create. Which means to me that the world exists as I show up in it and how I act, respond, or otherwise treat all the elements of this world in my daily interactions. It is important for me to see all the ways the world shifts depending on what’s going on for me internally. The stories inside my head and the meaning I make of the world around me impact how I see the world, how I show up for others, and how I impact those others based on how I a showing up.
I took an epistemology class a few years ago from a Shaman. That class forever changed my view of the world and my role in it based on one paper I had to write – what do you believe? Epistemology is the study of knowledge and this class in particular focused on what beliefs do you hold to be true, and how do you know they are true. The premise being that the byproducts of your beliefs inform how you behave and thus impact others. In the end I realized I truly know nothing. There is nothing I can prove and there is nothing that is universally right or wrong, it is all conditional based on my beliefs, my situation, and my surroundings. How this impacts my code of ethics, in particular in communities such as a business or other, is that I no longer take something as absolute right or wrong. There is no right or wrong or better or worse way to do anything, there is just degrees of context for which the outcome moves you closer towards something or you learn something more about the path you are on.
So if there is no such thing as right/wrong, good/bad or other duality of the same ilk, then what is ethics? What is the driving morality inside of me that determines my behavior towards myself and towards others?
Communitarianism is a branch of philosophy which emphasizes the connection between individual and communities. “Communities are sustained by the realities of everyday life, including interdependence, reciprocity, and self-interest” and I believe that communities are weakened when social life is fragmented – when I becomes more important to me that the You, or the collective We, so. Martin Buber writes about the distinction between seeing people and their issues as I-it or I-Thou. In an I-It relationship people are objects of “competition or compromise” on a quest to get somewhere or to accomplish some goal. On in the I-Thou relationship can I see beyond the other as an object for me to manipulate or workaround and see [you] more fully as part of me. I “transcend the I” to something greater than me but for which I am part of. The notion is that only through a community of others do I become more me. Dewey would say this is an alternative way as he applauds individuality, but abhors individualism, “especially economic individualism”.
The notion here is that only through a community of others do I become more me. That is to say, it takes the other [person] for me to be a whole [person]. As if to say that only through you can I see me, and that without you I do not exist. Without you, without that notion of other, almost a duality yet non-duality, I cannot fully express myself. Without you I do not exist for there is no me to exist in what I truly believe. For me to deny you, whether that “you” is my shadow side, my neighbor, my community or other – then I deny myself the experience of having a relationship with you to be who I am.
As you know, I love to study indigenous ways and here I will draw heavily on the Native Americans and their code of ethics which places great emphasis on the respect all living and non-living objects. Important ethical takeaways for me include:
- They practice tolerance of those who are lost on their path
- They never take more than what they need and they never take from another [person, community, or nature]
- They honor other people's thoughts and words regardless of what they believe, giving each person the right to personal expression. Never interrupting them.
- They never speak poorly of others for that negative energy will return back to you
- They forgive each other for mistakes
- Be truthful at all times, honesty is the test of ones will within the universe
- Make conscious decisions as to who you will be and how you will react, be responsible for your own actions.
- Share your good fortune with others. Participate in charity.
Perhaps my code of ethics is best summed up by Mary Katherine Bateson:
