Primacy of the Public Good

Professional ethics codes often emphasize fulfilling a public good or service. "Public good" is a broad term encompassing various aspects of collective benefit for society.

Collective Welfare

Quality of Life

Refers to the ability to enjoy surroundings, pursue goals, and actualize values. A low quality of life may involve poor health or lack of resources. Professionals play a role in enabling people to maximize their quality of life. For example:

Doctors restore health.
Lawyers redress wrongs.
Accountants ensure adequate resource coverage.

Well-being

Focuses on states of health, including physical, psychological, and emotional health. It involves access to goods and resources and avoiding deprivation. Professionals contribute by ensuring individuals are well-fed, sheltered, and healthy.

Safety

Includes information and physical security. Information security is vital due to the amount of information shared, both voluntarily (social media) and involuntarily (medical information). Physical safety involves ensuring the reliability of infrastructure and technology (e.g., bridges, brakes, food safety, air and water quality).

Health

Maintaining a population's health enables them to pursue goals and be productive. Physical health is essential for fulfilling duties and obligations.

Collective Welfare as a Main Aim of Professionals

Professionals aim to ensure society can attain necessary goals. Public good can be broadly defined as the necessary conditions for realizing commonly recognized elements of public good – infrastructure, information protection, physical safety, food, air, and water quality.

Professionals have an obligation to act in a way that benefits the public, justifying their specialized status.

Professional Orientation

Professions are oriented towards different ends within the public good:

Lawyers: Oriented towards clients, providing legal protection and representation.
Accountants: Oriented towards clients, maintaining privacy, ensuring compliance, and protecting assets; forensic accounting identifies problems.
Medical Professionals: Oriented towards patients, maintaining their general good and welfare, considering public health.
Engineering: Entrusted with society's infrastructure, enabling access to resources and technology.

Preventing Harms to the Public

Power Imbalances and Special Obligations

Professionals possess specialized knowledge, skills, and abilities, creating a power imbalance relative to the average person. This imbalance creates special obligations to present information understandably and be open to questions mitigating impacts of the power imbalance. There's a strong care ethic component to professional ethics due to the special position and obligations of professionals.

Obligation to Identify and Disclose Potential Harms

Specialized education and training enable professionals to better understand potential public health crises or dangers to consumers. Examples include misleading claims about health products that exploit the public's lack of understanding of science. Professionals should correct misunderstandings and speak out on issues of public health and safety.

Avoiding a Pejorative View of Ignorance

When discussing public awareness, recognize that ignorance does not mean stupidity; it simply means a lack of information.

Obligation to Act

Professionals must use their skills for the public good and disclose potential harms.

Stakeholder vs. Shareholder Philosophies

Shareholders

Have a financial interest in a company and expect a return on their investment; there is an ethical obligation to them.

Stakeholders

Are directly impacted by an organization's actions, even without financial investment. For example, communities surrounding chemical plants are stakeholders due to potential environmental impacts.

$All shareholders are stakeholders, but not all stakeholders are shareholders$

Professionals have an obligation to ensure stakeholders are aware of potential harms and to actively prevent those harms, for example, preventing unsafe designs from being realized.

Professional Codes Emphasizing Public Good

IEEE

Holds paramount the safety, health, and welfare of the public; prioritizes the public when weighing work responsibilities.

National Society of Professional Engineers (NSPE)

Engineers' primary obligation is to protect the safety, health, property, and welfare of the public.

American Chemical Society

Chemical professionals should be actively concerned with the health and safety of coworkers, consumers, and the community; prioritizes the public good, emphasizing improving the state of science and managing risks from chemical processes.

Universal Obligation

Societies entrust professionals with specialized knowledge and skills. If something could cause harm, there’s an obligation to disclose it. This includes risks related to food, air, water, vehicles and infrastructure.