ABSTRACT
This book has examined the relationship between culture, values and ethics in social work and human services. Chapters 1 and 2 argue that the development of social work and human services theories and practices are related to the core concerns of human life. They also explore the ways in which the social phenomena that are the focus of social work and human services are grounded in human cultures. From this, in Chapter 3, it is shown that questions of culture must be taken seriously in looking at the ways in which wider social values provide the ground on which professionalization of these occupations has occurred. In particular, the ethics of these professions are central to the project of professionalization, in the construction of goals (ends) and methods of intervention (means). However, it is noted that this in turn raises questions about how the cultural basis of values underpins this historical development, because the relationship between ends and means reflects particular views about what is good in human lives. So, in Chapters 4 and 5 respectively, the competing arguments for universalist and cultural relativist approaches to professional values and ethics are examined. This discussion then leads in Chapter 6 into a consideration of ethical pluralism as an approach that seeks to move beyond the binary arguments that follow from the distinction between universalism and relativism. Two important areas of human society that have an impact on debates about culture, values and ethics are then explored in Chapter 7 (religion and spirituality) and Chapter 8 (politics), drawing out the relevance of these for thinking about social work and human services ethics in practice and policy.
