To what extent is the ‘remedy’ in these cases to develop and strengthen the moral courage, moral sensitivity and fair-mindedness of individual social workers? The social workers struggling with high caseloads, poor support and lack of resources would vociferously reject being characterised as acting out of personal weakness, greed or folly. The public inquiries, that both respond to and construct the situations as ‘scandals’, invariably identify systemic, institutional as well as individual failings. In social work the ‘scandals’ publicly aired through the media often involve the death or abuse of a child, or serious mistreatment of residents in care facilities. Social work is one of the most vilified professions, in which practitioners occupy a difficult space (a ‘dilemmatic space’), involving: care and protection of people regarded as vulnerable control of those regarded as dangerous and empowerment of people regarded as disadvantaged.
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#VIRTUES AND VICES LIST OF INTELLECTUAL ACTIVITY PROFESSIONAL#
… many latter day professional failures or ‘scandals’ …… would appear to have been attributable more to personal weakness, irresolution, greed, self-serving and sometimes just plain folly of individual practitioners: in short, to failures of personal moral character.įor those working in the field of social work, this is a provocative statement.
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The rationale for the conference includes a statement, which suggests that: It will consider what are the benefits and challenges of a character-based ethics for social work. This presentation will explore the place of character in social work, with a focus on the character of the professionals (as opposed to service users). The programme detailing presentations made at the conference is available below:Ībstracts of conference papers can be found below.Ĭharacter in Context: the dilemmatic space of social work Nancy Sherman, Professor of Philosophy (including military ethics), Georgetown University, USA Justin Oakley, Professor in the Centre for Human Bioethics, Monash University, Australia Geoffrey Moore, Professor of Business ethics, University of Durham Sarah Banks, Professor of Applied Social Sciences, University of DurhamĪnn Gallagher, Professor of Ethics and Care, University of Surrey This conference brought together the work of scholars from different disciplines to bear on issues of how best to educate moral character for the professions and featured keynote addresses from the following distinguished speakers: New projects have begun researching the professions of the British Army, nursing, and business, as well as work on developing teaching interventionsto put into higher education courses. Such work has been conceived by the Jubilee Centre as a significantly interdisciplinary enterprise to which a broad range of disciplines – including psychology, sociology and theology as well as philosophy – have indispensable contributions to make. Working in the spirit of a neo-Aristotelian virtue ethics, which takes virtuous character to be something that may be developed or enhanced by appropriate education or teaching, the Jubilee Centre has been researching various possible approaches to character education in a variety of human occupations and professions, and has published reports on the professions of law, medicine, and teaching. Thus, while institutions and agencies of professional education and training have recently and rightly sought to promote deeper appreciation of the principles of just professional engagement on the part of professional practitioners, it would seem that the no less urgent matter of helping them to acquire the moral qualities of integrity, courage, self-control, service, selflessness and so on for the robust pursuit of such just practice has received less attention. From this viewpoint, many latter day professional failures or ‘scandals’ in such contexts of public concern as (for example) politics, law, medicine, social work, education and commerce would appear to have been attributable more to the personal weakness, irresolution, greed, self-serving and sometimes just plain folly of individual practitioners: in short, to failures of personal moral character. However, such codes seem insufficient to guarantee conformity to them of individual practitioners.
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Most publicly significant professions, vocations and other human occupations in civil and civilized societies have more or less formal codes of conduct or ‘professional ethics’ designed to ensure good or just practice and to protect clients from bad or unjust practice. Character and Virtues in the Professions: An Interdisciplinary Conference, University of Birmingham, June 2th-4th, 2016