ABSTRACT
PROFESSIONAL ETHICS If we were to attempt to fix in definite language the ideas current on what the relations should be of the employee with his chief, of the workman with the manager, of the rival manufacturers with each other and with the public-what vague and equivocal formulas we should get! Some hazy generalizations on the loyalty and devotion owed by staff and workmen to those employing them; some phrases on the moderation the employer should use in his economic dominance; some reproach for any too overtly unfair competition-that is about all there is in the moral consciousness of the various professions we are discussing. Injunctions as vague and as far removed from the facts as these could not have any very great effect on conduct. Moreover, there is nowhere any organ with the duty of seeing they are enforced. They have no sanctions other than those which a diffused public opinion has at hand, and since that opinion is not kept lively by frequent contact between individuals and since it therefore cannot exer cise enough control over individual actions, it is lacking both in stability and authority. The result is that professional ethics weigh very lightly on the consciousnesses and are reduced to something so slight that they might as well not be. Thus, there exists to-day a whole range of collective activity outside the sphere of morals and which is almost entirely removed from the moderating effect of obligations.
