proffessional ethics by ezeokafor anthony

INTRODUCTION

Since the beginning of complex society the public has always been intrigued by the very broad idea of professionalism. And the advancement in literacy and civilization today has pave way for the public to gain a better understanding of what professionals stands for. From the creation of man, there have existed various professions, in various ways in the loose sense. The word profession is just a modern way of master and apprentice style of the ancient time. With the coming of western education, profession transcends from that level to been skillful in a particular field. Therefore, there is no particular field let say medicine, law, military e t c. that has no code of conduct in its profession and for these codes of conducts to be useful, there need be the associating of two or more person from the same field, with the purpose of professionalizing their profession for a better patronage. There is the need to have guiding principles for both the professionals and the public.

Alan Goldman has observed that

Perhaps the least cynical and sinister causal explanation for the nature of these codes, short of attributing their cannons to dispassionate consideration and criticism of the moral arguments, would appeal to the understandably single minded-pursuit of goals central to professional practice and service, goals with great social value, like health care and economic production. It is natural for professionals to elevate the primary concerns of their particular professions to predominant status, even when they are opposed by values equally prominent in our common moral framework.¹

The professional carries additional moral responsibilities to those held by the population in general and in society. This is because professionals are capable of making and acting on an informed decision in situations that the general public cannot, because they have not received the relevant training.² For example, a lay member of the public could not be held responsible for failing to act to save a car crash victim because they could not give an emergency tracheotomy. This is because they do not have the relevant knowledge. In contrast, a fully trained doctor (with the correct equipment) would be capable of making the correct diagnosis and carrying out the procedure and we would think it wrong if they stood by and failed to help in this situation. You cannot be held accountable for failing to do something that you do not have the ability to do. This grasp of the professionalism by a greater percentage of the general public have enkindled kin interest in professional roles and their relationship with their client.

On the ground of the above exposition my aim in this work shall be to elucidate on two model of professional/client relationship. In exposing the thematic of this work I shall adhered to this outline;

·         What is profession?

·         Professional/client relationship

·         Advocacy model

·         Fiduciary model

·         Evaluation/ Conclusion

 WHAT IS PROFESSION?

A profession is an occupation that requires extensive training and the study and mastery of pecialized knowledge, and usually has a professional ethical code and process of certification or licensing. The extensive training is to acquit one with the meaning, values and importance of the profession to the person involved and to the public. One who has undergone this training and perfects them is one of the criteria to becoming a professional in that profession. The author Dorothy Emmet has described a profession as that which “carries with it the notion of a standard of performance, it is not only a way of making a living, but one in which the practitioners have a fiduciary trust to maintain certain standards.” Aside from the expectations that a professional will possess a certain technical ability, “professional competence has to be joined with professional integrity.” In other words, “the more professional a job, the greater the responsibilities that go with it.”³

Questions arise as to the ethical limits of the professional’s responsibility and how power and authority should be used in service to the client and society. Most professions have internally enforced codes of practice that members of the profession must follow, to prevent exploitation of the client and preserve the integrity of the members of the profession. This is not only to the benefit of the client but to the benefit of those belonging to the profession.

“Many but not all professions have developed what they term as “codes of ethics” to present their relevant norms. Violations of codes can result in loss of membership in the profession. Such codes are comprised of statements of the obligations of individuals. They do not generally cover the responsibilities of the profession as a whole or as a collective. Some collective responsibilities are born by individuals and others cannot be and so the profession must find expression for how such collective responsibilities will be fulfilled”⁴

Disciplinary codes allow the profession to draw a standard of conduct and ensure that individual practitioners meet this standard, by disciplining them from the professional body if they do not practice accordingly. This allows those professionals who act with conscience to practice in the knowledge that they will not be undermined commercially by those who have less ethical qualms. It also maintains the public’s trust in the profession, meaning that the public will continue to seek their services. “The six obligations of professionals to clients can be stated as standards of a good and trustworthy professional. A good professional is honest, candid, competent, diligent, loyal and discrete”.

PROFESSIONAL/CLIENT RELATIONSHIP

“The central issue in the professional-client relationship is the allocation of responsibility and authority in decision-making-who make what decision. The ethical models are in effect models of different distribution of authority and responsibility in decision-making”⁵

It is imperative to note that as early as Aristotle, moral responsibility was viewed as originating with the moral agent (decision maker), and grew out of an ability to reason (an awareness of action and consequences) and a willingness to act free from external compulsion. For Aristotle, a decision is a particular kind of desire resulting from deliberation, one that expresses the agent’s conception of what is good. As Australian ethicist Will Barret points out, “Moral responsibility assumes a capacity for making rational decisions, which in turn justifies holding moral agents accountable for their actions. Given that moral agency entails responsibility, in that autonomous rational agents are in principle capable of responding to moral reasons, accountability is a necessary feature of morality”⁶

“As a general characterization of what the professional-client relationship should be, one needs a concept in which the professional’s superior knowledge is recognized, but the client retains a significant authority and responsibility in decision-making”⁷

The vital thesis in professional –client relationship is the place of authority i.e. who is to be responsible for decision making. Put differently, who is to be accorded authority and responsibility? There are about five model of professional client relationship, among which are;

1. Agency
2. Advocacy  
3. Friendship
4. Paternalism
5. Fiduciary

However, I shall critically carry-out exposition on two, namely fiduciary and advocacy.

FIDUCIARY

Etymologically, the term fiduciary is gotten from the  Latin  word “fiduciaries”, meaning "(holding) in trust"; from fides, meaning "faith", and fiducia, meaning "trust". It  is a ethical relationship of trust between two or more parties. As such, a fiduciary prudently takes care of money for another person. One party, for example a corporate trust company or the trust department of a bank, acts in a fiduciary capacity to the other one, who for example has funds entrusted to it for investment. In a fiduciary relationship, one person, in a position of vulnerability, justifiably vests confidence, good faith, reliance and trust in another whose aid, advice or protection is sought in some matter. In such a relation good conscience requires the fiduciary to act at all times for the sole benefit and interest of the one who trusts.A fiduciary is someone who has undertaken to act for and on behalf of another in a particular matter in circumstances which give rise to a relationship of trust and confidence.

“In a fiduciary relationship, both parties are responsible and their judgments are given consideration. Because one party is in a more advantageous position, he or she has special obligations to the other. The weaker party depends upon the stronger in ways in which the other does not and so must trust the stronger party”⁸. A fiduciary relationship obtains when the parties are in a relation that involves the confidence or trust of one in another. The fiduciary is given trust by the other and that is because such trust is needed to permit the fiduciary to do what it is that the fiduciary is to do for the other.

“The appropriate ethical conception of the professional-client relationship is one that allows clients as much freedom to determine how their life is affected as is reasonably warranted on the basis of their ability to make decisions….As clients have less knowledge about the subject matter for which the professional is engaged, the special obligations of the professional in the fiduciary model become more significant. The professional must assume more responsibility for formulating plans, presenting their advantages and disadvantages, and making recommendations. …the less a client’s knowledge and capacity to understand, the greater the professional’s responsibilities to the client………..The fiduciary ethical model of the professional-client relationship emphasizes a professional’s special obligations to be worthy of a client trust”⁹.

The fiduciary has the basic responsibility (beneficence) to provide for those services specific to the particular relationship (trustee, accountant, lawyer, teacher) in a manner that is to the benefit of the client (student). The reciprocation of that trust placed in the fiduciary is the responsibility (non-malfeasance) not to violate the trust by causing any harm to come to the other who has surrendered some degree of autonomy in the relationship and placed it in trust and in confidence in the fiduciary. To fail in either responsibility is malfeasance and dereliction of duty. The relationship establishing such responsibilities is entered into by the recipient of the services of the fiduciary or by that person’s guardian or by the state on behalf of the recipients. The relationship involves a surrendering of some autonomy and the acceptance of some degree of paternalism on the part of the fiduciary who serves minors and the incapacitated and legally incompetent.

In the fiduciary model, a client has additional authority and duty in decision making than in the paternalistic model. A client's approval and verdict are requisite and he participates in the decision-making procedure, but the client depends on the professional for much of the information upon which he gives or withholds his sanction. The term consents (the client consents) rather than decides (the client decides) indicates that it is the professional's role to recommend courses of action. It is not the idea of two people contributing equally to the formulation of strategy, whether or not dealing at arm's length. Rather, the professional make provision for the ideas and information and the client agrees or not. For the process to work, the client must trust the professional to accurately analyze the difficulty, canvass the possible alternatives, know as well as one can their likely penalty, fully put across this information to the client, possibly make a recommendation, and work honestly and loyally for the client to effectuate the chosen alternatives. In short, the client must rely on the professional to use his or her knowledge and ability in the client's wellbeing. Because the client cannot verify most of the work of the professional or the information supplied, the professional has unique obligations to the client to make sure that the trust and confidence are vindicated.

THE PROFESSION THAT CAN APPLY FIDUCIARY MODEL

These professionals must first work from the framework of a fiduciary model of the client-professional relationship in which autonomy is, more or less, equally divided between the contracted parties (responsibility and accountability are shared).

• Trustee/beneficiary, Conservators and legal guardians / wards, Agents, brokers and factors / principals, Buyer agent (real estate broker) / buyer client.
• Confidential advisor including financial adviser and investment advisor / advisee or client, Lawyer/client, Executors and administrators / legatees and heirs.
• Corporate partners, joint venturers, directors and officers / company and stockholders: Board of directors / company, Liquidator/company.
• Mutual savings banks and investment corporations / their depositors and investors, Receivers, trustees in bankruptcy and assignees in insolvency / creditors.
• Doctor/patient , Teacher/student, Architects, engineers.
• Priest / parishioner seeking counseling.

CRITIQUE OF FIDUCIARY MODEL

One of the strong point that often come to light as the strength of this model is that allows clients as much liberty to agree on how their life is affected as is reasonably warranted on the basis of their ability to make decisions.

Also this model is meaningful only when client are in the position to give consent or competence to make decision.

One problem with this model is that some clients are not capable of making decisions**some people does not even know what they want

 ADVOCACY MODEL

When someone speaks up for a person with the intention of making sure that person’s views and wishes are listened to with the attention and respect they deserve: this is the essence of advocacy.  Advocacy describes a natural activity which is always present in any community whose members are concerned to look out for one another.  Most people’s first experiences of advocacy come from within the family, where family members support and promote each other’s rights and interests.  Thus a parent may advocate on behalf of their child to her/his class teacher, or a sibling speak up for a brother or sister dealing with the mental health system.

Part of the assumption of advocacy is that the advocate takes up the client’s cause fully, without any value judgment toward the client himself. Advocates use their expertise to advance a client’s cause.

The “ideology of advocacy according to legal scholar W. H. Simon calls.” this ideology assumes two principles of conduct: (1) that a professional is neutral or detached from the client’s purposes, and (2) that the professional is an aggressive partisan of the client working to advance the client’s ends.¹⁰.

The argument is that advocacy is ideologically “blinded” to ethical considerations outside those of the client. Such a construct thus allows professionals to absolve themselves of moral responsibility for the client’s ethical shortcomings, thus shifting accountability from the professional to the client. In addition, responsibility under this model is mostly functional and links the professional to the client by an obligation to perform to the best of her or his ability on the client’s behalf. To cite a moral responsibility here would generally serve no practical purpose. Attorneys, for example, are bound only to observe the restraints of law as they “zealously” advocate on their client’s behalf. Obviously, this ideology would work well for professions such as the law, in which even unpopular causes would sometimes need to be defended. Without such an ideology, these causes might go unrepresented, especially those who find it very difficult if not impossible to speak up for themselves in this way. Illness, disability, age, cultural background – these are some of the factors that make it very hard for some people to get their voices heard and which leave them at risk of being excluded from the services and entitlements that most of us take for granted.  This, together with the fact that, for many, families no longer provide the support and cohesion they once did, has led to the development of dedicated organisations offering advocacy support in their communities.

PROFESSION THAT APPLY THIS MODEL

The following profession can apply this model;

• Conservators and legal guardians, brokers (real estate broker), Agents, Buyer agent
•  Legatees and heirs.
• Doctor/patient , Teacher/student,
• Priest / parishioner seeking counseling.

CRITIQUE OF ADVOCACY MODEL

The role of advocate assumes a certain amount of subjectivity in the sense of one-sidedness of purpose and lack of consideration for third-party interests.

This model makes room for the voice of the less privilege in the society to be heard.

EVALUATION AND CONCLUSION

The function of advocacy, as it pertains to public relations, can remain a professional role responsible to client interests, professional interests, and third-party interests only if the professional includes a preliminary stage in the process of accepting a client’s issue. Under the fiduciary model described above, the public relations professional as potential advocate may be hired, for example, because of her or his expertise in the field of audience analysis, knowledge of the most efficacious persuasive techniques, and the proper methods of dissemination. It is generally accepted that the first job of public relations professionals is to establish a thorough understanding of the issue that they may be addressing on behalf of the potential client. Without that assessment, no professional should ethically proceed to undertake the role of advocate and the moral responsibility that role implies. Thus, a proper ordering of priorities would place a thorough understanding of the issue at the top of the list preceding any attempt at campaign development or even audience analysis. The role of autonomous professional assumes a certain level of objectivity in the sense of an ability, in the Kantian implication of the term, to use reason to determine action. As Australian philosopher Will Barrett points out,

“The sources of moral responsibility—the grounds on which moral responsibilities can be ascribed to agents—include our past actions, our roles, and our developed moral agency. The last of these—being capable of recognising [sic] the force of moral reasons, and of responding to them—is a pre-requisite for the other two sources of moral responsibility, and so of accountability [emphasis added]”¹¹ By contrast, the role of advocate assumes a certain amount of subjectivity in the sense of one-sidedness of purpose and lack of consideration for third-party interests. However, objectivity and subjectivity, although often at odds, are not necessarily mutually exclusive, and the public relations professional may, in fact, be both objective and subjective. The key is the order of approach. Objectivity, or the capability and freedom to be objective, is certainly one of the benefits of autonomy, and should be brought to bear in the early stages of counseling the client—the period in which a thorough understanding of the issue is obtained. It is during this stage that the public relations professional will determine the ramifications of the proposed actions and their effect on all parties.

Public relations professionals must first work from the framework of a fiduciary model of the client-professional relationship in which autonomy is, more or less, equally divided between the contracted parties (responsibility and accountability are shared). They must then undertake to determine objectively the ethicality of the action being proposed, considering both means and ends. Only when the morality of the action has been determined should the advisor become the advocate, acting subjectively in the client’s exclusive interest, but with responsibility and accountability shifting to weigh more heavily on the professional. Even then, considerable attention needs to be given to the morality of the message itself and to the techniques by which it is to be disseminated. This ordering of stages from the objective to the Responsibility and Accountability subjective will allow the professional public relations practitioner to perform all the necessary functions ascribed to the roles of the profession without either falling into the trap of ideological advocacy or succumbing to a less autonomous position. Ideally, responsibility and accountability would then coincide.