ABSTRACT

In this chapter I am working around two themes. First, I am exploring some descriptive and explanatory questions about professional ethics – including questions about the ways in which the ethical positions and sensibilities associated with certain occupational roles are created, sustained or transformed. Second, I am interested in some substantive ethical questions about how professionals ought to comport themselves and, in particular, in the question of how far our ethical stances are and ought to be defined by the roles we occupy. The first two sections of the chapter correspond, in large part, to these two themes. In the third section of the chapter I will sketch in some further exemplification of these themes, and their interactions, and in so doing highlight the central importance of role construction to professional ethics. My core purpose is to direct attention to the ways in which responsibility for professional ethics belongs with those involved in role construction and not just those acting within roles.1 I will draw on examples from both education and healthcare.