ABSTRACT

Ethics is the branch of philosophy that considers the formation and operation of moral values. In other words, it is the explicit deliberation about what is good or bad and what is right or wrong. Social work attends to core aspects of our society, often focusing on people who are excluded, marginalized, disadvantaged or who lack access to the resources needed to resolve their own problems. Such people include children and their parents, people with disabilities, older people, people with mental health difficulties, people struggling with poverty and lack of access to social infrastructure such as reasonable housing, and so on. These are areas of our lives about which we all tend to hold strong and sometimes conflicting values. So how could ethics not always be at the forefront of our thinking about social work?