Statistics is Essential for Professional Ethics

All professional ethics are dependent on the epistemology of the profession. The possibility of following a code of ethics, whether the official one or an alternative code, is dependent on being able to obtain knowledge and understand the world. Professional knowledge has to be based on inferences from limited information. Statistics provides the optimal methods for making such inferences, and thus ethical professional conduct requires individual or collective understanding of some statistical thcory and practice. This is demonstrated using the medical profession as an example. Statistical methods are essential in all areas of medicine, in routine medical practice, in screening for disease and in research. Evidence from medical journals, textbooks and research bodies shows that the statistical basis for ethical conduct is lacking. However, there are attempts to improve the situation.     

Time for a unified approach to medical ethics

A code of ethics is used by individuals to justify their actions within an environment. Medical professionals require a keen understanding of specific ethical codes due to the potential consequences of their actions. Over the past thirty years there has been an increase in the scope and depth of ethics instruction in the medical profession; however the teaching of these codes is still highly variable. This inconsistency in implementation is problematic both for the medical practitioner and for the patient; without standardized training, neither party can be assured of the practitioner's overall depth of knowledge. Within the field of ethics certain principles have reached a consensus of importance. Incorporation of these concepts in meaningful ways via a consistent curriculum would provide students with an appropriate skill set for navigating their ethical environment. Moreover, this curriculum should also be extended to residents and professionals who may have missed formal ethical training. This would provide a consistent framework of knowledge for practitioners, creating a basis for clear judgment of complex issues.     

The Being of Leadership

The ethical foundation of the medical profession, which values service above reward and holds the doctor-patient relationship as inviolable, continues to be challenged by the commercialization of health care. This article contends that a realigned leadership framework - one that distinguishes being a leader as the ontological basis for what leaders know, have, and do - is central to safeguarding medicine's ethical foundation. Four ontological pillars of leadership - awareness, commitment, integrity, and authenticity - are proposed as fundamental elements that anchor this foundation and the basic tenets of professionalism. Ontological leadership is shaped by and accessible through language; what health care leaders create in language "uses" them by providing a point of view (a context) within and from which they orient their conversations, decisions, and conduct such that they are ethically aligned and grounded. This contextual leadership framework exposes for us the limitations imposed by our mental maps, creating new opportunity sets for being and action (previously unavailable) that embody medicine's charter on professionalism. While this leadership methodology contrasts with the conventional results-oriented model where leading is generally equated with a successful clinical practice, a distinguished research program, or a promotion, it is not a replacement for it; indeed, results are essential for performance. Rather, being and action are interrelated and their correlated nature equips leaders with a framework for tackling health care's most complex problems in a manner that preserves medicine's venerable ethical heritage.     

Exploring the Ethical Aspects of Leadership: From a Korean Perspective

Theories of ethical leadership provide important insights about the effect of leader’s ethics on the relationship between leaders and followers. However, there is an increasing demand for addressing key constructs that enhance the capacity to explain theoretical aspects of ethical leadership. The purpose of this study is to expand the theoretical framework of ethical leadership based on Korean traditional leadership by focusing on personal cultivation, morality, and social responsibility. Using a framework of intrapersonal process as leadership and core value and competence as components of leadership, this study examines the ethical aspects of Korean traditional leadership and provides the implications to further develop the theory of ethical leadership. It is found that ethical integrity ensued from sugi (self-cultivation) is an essential precondition to develop leadership, and the core value of ethical leadership includes Zhixin-Chijing (cultivation of the mind and internal piety) and the competence consists of both Ipzhi (setting a solid self-vision/establishing goal) and Silsim (practical mind, grasp changes in reality with a sound mind) in Korean traditional leadership that contributes to expanding the theoretical understanding of ethical leadership. Implications for future research in the area of ethical leadership are discussed.     

Discouraging unethicality versus encouraging ethicality: Unraveling the differential effects of prevention‐ and promotion‐focused ethical leadership

Theory on the impact of ethical leadership has traditionally been based on a deontological approach to morality. Underlying this perspective is the assumption that all leader behaviors that encourage “normatively appropriate conduct” will influence followers in a similar fashion. Put differently, the current consensus seems to suggest that actions that focus on preventing unethical behavior—attending to “the wrong”—will have the same impact as actions that focus on promoting ethical behavior—attending to “the right.” Taking a within‐person approach, we draw upon social exchange theory to challenge this consensus and build theory that suggests a follower's felt trust from their leader will be differentially impacted by prevention‐ versus promotion‐focused ethical leadership. We also explore how these different types of ethical leadership may indirectly, through felt trust, impact citizenship behavior and counterproductive work behavior. Finally, we consider how the role of the “moral manager” may interact with the “moral person” by identifying leader moral hypocrisy as an important between‐person moderator of these effects. Given the importance of ethical decision‐making in organizations and the calls for increased ethical leadership, our findings have important implications for both theory and practice.     

Leaders of Character: The USAFA Approach to Ethics Education and Leadership Development

We describe the educational character and leadership development processes used by the United States Air Force Academy that other educational institutions may find useful. Our processes include an integrated educational curriculum designed to complement and integrate the experiential learning that results in achieving specific organizational outcomes, co-curricular activities in cadet living, and a specific focus on the ethical development of leaders’ respect for human dignity and cultural competency as well as the mechanisms to assess and refine our processes.     

Supervisors’ Ethical Leadership and Employee Job Satisfaction: A Social Cognitive Perspective

Although several studies explored the relationship between supervisors’ ethical leadership and employee job satisfaction, little information is available on this relationship in the Chinese context. We propose that moral cognition is an essential process in the relationship between supervisor’s ethical leadership and employee subjective well-being. The present study, through the lens of the social cognitive theory, examined the relationship between supervisors’ ethical leadership and employee job satisfaction, as well as the employee moral-cognitive processes between them. Based on 371 employees in a Chinese enterprise, the present study employed structural equation modeling to examine the hypothesized research model. The results confirmed that supervisors’ ethical leadership was positively related to employee moral awareness, moral identity and job satisfaction, respectively. Moreover, employee moral awareness and moral identity partially mediated the relationship between supervisors’ ethical leadership and employee job satisfaction. The theoretical and managerial implications were further discussed.     

Gouvernance et éthique cliniques : deux outils complémentaires pour une meilleure coordination des soins et des traitements

“Governance”, “ethics” and “clinical” three words for a same goal: protect the human health. “Corporate governance” must be associated with the new theory of the firm, for which the theory of asymmetric information provides the foundations. Indeed problems of information represent a fundamental change in the prevailing paradigm within economics; they are central to understanding political economy. “Clinical governance”, promoted by the UK government, constitutes an overarching mechanism designed to improve clinical quality in the National Health Service. To the medical establishment, it is a means to improve the quality of medical practice through clinical guidelines. To make a significant impact on the improvement of healthcare quality, the principles of clinical governance must produce synergy by involving professionals in the modernization of the organization. To obtain excellence in heath care, collective actions and shared decision making were essential. In this context, Clinical ethics consultations could provide a structured approach to decision making that could assist heath professional to resolve conflicts or ethical problems that arise in the care of particular patients.     

Nuancing the Healer's art — The epistemology of patient competence

The programmatic thrust of Thomasma and Pellegrino [5] is clarified and underscored and is interpreted as an attempt to introduce a fixed point into the ethical dimension of medicine by specifying some regulative principles for the medical profession. Two important features of this type of enterprise are noted: on the one hand, it may lead the profession to distinguish between technically identical actions on the basis of the normative principles it produces, thus excluding some morally permissible actions as duties constitutive of the art. It is argued that the formulation of the grounds for this ethic given by Thomasma and Pellegrino is insufficient. In order to speak to the clinical situation, medical ethics must not be based on merely the ‘living human body’ alone, but on the patientqua person.     

Duty orientation: Theoretical development and preliminary construct testing

We develop and test the construct of duty orientation that we propose is valuable to advancing knowledge about ethical behavior in organizations. Duty orientation represents an individual’s volitional orientation to loyally serve and faithfully support other members of the group, to strive and sacrifice to accomplish the tasks and missions of the group, and to honor its codes and principles. We test the construct validity and predictive validity of a measure of duty orientation across five studies and six samples. Consistent with the conceptualization of duty orientation as a malleable construct, we found in separate field studies that duty orientation mediates the relationship between ethical leadership and ethical and unethical behaviors, and between transformational leadership and ethical behavior. In predicting ethical and unethical behavior, duty orientation demonstrated incremental predictive validity beyond the effects of affective organizational commitment, organizational identification, experienced job responsibility, collective self-construal, and organizational values congruence.     

Ethical Embodiment and Moral Reasoning: A Challenge to Peter Singer

This paper addresses Peter Singer's claim that cognitive ability can function as a universal criterion for measuring moral worth. I argue that Singer fails to adequately represent cognitive capacity as the object of moral knowledge at stake in his theory. He thus fails to put forth credible knowledge claims, which undermines both the trustworthiness of his moral theories and the morality of the actions called for by these theories. I situate Singer's methods within feminist critiques of moral reasoning and moral epistemology, and argue that Singer's methods are problematic for moral reasoning because they abstract from their object valuable contextual features. I further develop this claim by showing the importance of embodiment for the construal of objects of moral knowledge. Finally, I develop the moral and scholarly implications of this critique. By showing that the abstract, universal methods of reasoning Singer employs cannot credibly construe the objects of ethical inquiry, I call into question the validity of these methods as a means to moral knowledge in general. Furthermore, since moral reasoning takes place within an embodied moral landscape, it is itself a moral enterprise. Singer's moral reasoning, and ours, must be held accountable for its knowledge claims as well as its concrete effects in the world.     

Software engineering code of ethics and professional practice

The Software Engineering Code of Ethics and Professional Practice, intended as a standard for teaching and practicing software engineering, documents the ethical and professional obligations of software engineers. The code should instruct practitioners about the standards society expects them to meet, about what their peers strive for, and about what to expect of one another. In addition, the code should also inform the public about the responsibilities that are important to the profession. Adopted in 2000 by the IEEE Computer Society and the ACM--two leading international computing societies--the code of ethics is intended as a guide for members of the evolving software engineering profession. The code was developed by a multinational task force with additional input from other professionals from industry, government posts, military installations, and educational professions.     

Forging the Link Between Multicultural Competence and Ethical Counseling Practice: A Historical Perspective

Recognition of multicultural competence as an essential component of ethical counseling practice is a growing trend. This article presents a historical perspective of salient events that have contributed to forging a link between multicultural competence and ethical behavior. Multicultural counseling is traced from its beginnings to its emergence at a position of prominence in the profession, along with the development of ethical guidelines over time. This time line depicts the infusion of multicultural considerations into ethical standards and provides a perspective for examining the current status of multicultural competence as an ethical mandate. Implications for the counseling profession are offered.     

Fostering ethical willingness: integrating emotional and contextual awareness with rational analysis

Ethical dilemmas are inherently challenging. By definition, clinicians decide between conflicting principles of welfare and naturally confront competing pulls and inclinations. This investigation of students' responses to an ethical scenario highlights how emotions and concerns can interfere with willingness to implement ethical knowledge. Clear-cut rules are the exception in psychotherapy, and clinicians must judge ethical issues on the basis of the unique context of each case. As such, subjectivity and emotional involvement are essential tools for determining ethical action, but they must be integrated with rational analysis. Strategies for attending to influential emotions and contextual factors in order to mobilize ethical commitment are described.     

The Italian Red Brigades and the structure and dynamics of terrorist groups

One of the problems in dealing with terrorism is that we have virtually no access to individual terrorists; only their actions are visible. The founders of the Italian terrorist group, the Red Brigades, on the other hand, have written about their experiences and have exhaustively explained their motivations. The author’s premise is that these autobiographies and her interviews with several of the group’s members give us access to the unconscious processes involved in the formation and operation of the group. After terrorist attacks, it is natural to ask whether the terrorists’ capacity for collective violence is an indication of personal pathology. This paper argues that the relevant pathology in the terrorist enterprise is not that of the individual but that of the group. Relying on the theories of groups of Freud (1921), Bion (1961), Anzieu (1984) and Kaes (2007), the author argues that psychoanalytic theory is essential to understanding the motivations and actions of violent groups which otherwise remain obscure. Although the discussion has been confined to one terrorist group, the author hopes that it can also be useful for understanding the unconscious dynamics of other groups structured around an ideology which mandates the destruction of human life.     

Ways of thinking about and teaching ethical problem solving: Microethics and macroethics in engineering

Engineering ethics entails three frames of reference: individual, professional, and social. "Microethics" considers individuals and internal relations of the engineering profession; "macroethics" applies to the collective social responsibility of the profession and to societal decisions about technology. Most research and teaching in engineering ethics, including online resources, has had a "micro" focus. Mechanisms for incorporating macroethical perspectives include: integrating engineering ethics and science, technology and society (STS); closer integration of engineering ethics and computer ethics; and consideration of the influence of professional engineering societies and corporate social responsibility programs on ethical engineering practice. Integrating macroethical issues and concerns in engineering ethics involves broadening the context of ethical problem solving. This in turn implies: developing courses emphasizing both micro and macro perspectives, providing faculty development that includes training in both STS and practical ethics; and revision of curriculum materials, including online resources. Multidisciplinary collaboration is recommended 1) to create online case studies emphasizing ethical decision making in individual, professional, and societal contexts; 2) to leverage existing online computer ethics resources with relevance to engineering education and practice; and 3) to create transparent linkages between public policy positions advocated by professional societies and codes of ethics.     

Creating an ethical organizational environment: The relationship between ethical leadership,ethical organizational climate,and unethical behavior

The purpose of this research is to provide a richer lens on the ethical organizational environment by examining the relationship between ethical leadership and unit-level unethical behavior through ethical organizational climate (EOC), with collective moral identity as a boundary condition. In testing our theoretical model, we first develop and validate a measure of EOC to address concerns with existing measures of ethical climate. Second, we examine the role of collective moral identity as a moderator of the relationship between EOC and unit unethical behavior. We discuss implications regarding the importance of developing a more comprehensive conceptualization of EOC.     

Responsabilités de l’expert judiciaire médical : des exigences déontologiques renforcées pour une activité accessoire

Medical doctor, forensic expert. Behind the duality of this role lie several professional obligations and responsibilities that must always be borne in mind by those who make a contribution to justice in providing their skills and professional knowledge. In reality, taking a moment to reflect on the ethical duties of the Forensic Medical Expert involves realizing that today, regulations and jurisprudence are seldom a requirement in a profession that performs an activity which may be ancillary but which is nonetheless essential in revealing the truth and therefore working towards Justice. Said person passes protean responsibilities on to health professionals for those who, paradoxically and statutorily, only occasionally work with the justice system. As such, from a civil, criminal and disciplinary perspective, a person skilled in the art is responsible for faults committed under the control of both the justice system and their peers in terms of their medical and expert activities. Given that the ancillary activity adds a great deal to the main role, this study raises the question of the ambiguity of a status that would benefit from official recognition as a regulated legal profession.