Despite an increased awareness concerning the role of values in psychology, psychologists lack clear guidelines to appraise the moral implications of their work To address this discrepancy, the author proposes a framework for examining the moral dimensions of psychological discourse and practice The framework contains 3 central elements: values, assumptions, and practices These components may be used to articulate and to challenge the ethical, social, and political implications of theories and practices To illustrate its applicability, the framework is used to evaluate the moral propositions of traditional, empowering, postmodern, and emancipatory communitarian approaches The author concludes with a vision for addressing the shortcomings of predominant models by proposing for psychology an emancipatory communitarian approach that promotes the emancipation of vulnerable individuals and that fosters a balance among the values of self-determination, caring and compassion, collaboration and democratic participation, human diversity, and distributive justice

Values, assumptions, and practices: assessing the moral implications of psychological discourse and action.

As health care has become of great importance to both individual citizens and to society, it has become more important to understand medicine's relationship to the society it serves in order to have a basis for meaningful dialogue. During the past decade, individuals in the medical, legal, social sciences, and health policy fields have suggested that professionalism serves as the basis of medicine's relationship with society, and many have termed this relationship a social contract. However, the concept of medicine's social contract remains vague, and the implications of its existence have not been fully explored. This paper endorses the use of the term social contract, examines the origin of the concept and its relationship to professionalism, traces its evolution and application to medicine, describes the expectations of the various parties to the contract, and explores some of the implications of its use.

Expectations and obligations: professionalism and medicine's social contract with society.

Calls for the expansion of ethics education in the business and accounting curricula have resulted in a variety of interventions including additional material on ethical cases, the code of conduct, and the development of new courses devoted to ethical development [Lampe, J.: 1996]. The issue of whether ethics should be taught has been addressed by many authors [see for example: Hanson, K. O.: 1987; Huss, H. F. and D. M. Patterson: 1993; Jones, T. M.: 1988–1989; Kerr, D. S. and L. M. Smith: 1995; Loeb, S. E.: 1988; McDonald, G. M. and G. D. Donleavy: 1995]. The question addressed in this paper is not whether ethics should be taught but whether accounting students can reason more ethically after an intervention based on a discrete and dedicated course on accounting ethics. The findings in this paper indicate that a discrete intervention emphasising dilemma discussion has a positive and significant effect on students’ moral reasoning and development. The data collected from interviews suggest that the salient influences on moral judgement development include: learning theories of ethics particularly Kohlberg’s theory of cognitive moral reasoning and development; peer learning; and moral discourse. The implications from the findings in this study suggest that moral reasoning is responsive to particular types of ethics intervention and educators should carefully plan their attempts to foster moral judgement development.

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Making a Difference with a Discrete Course on Accounting Ethics

This essay positions contemporary “professionalism” as a contested term and a nexus of important theoretical and practical concerns for communication scholars, including, for example, those engaged in the empirical, interpretive, and critical examinations of culture and the self. We advance communication-based understandings of the meanings and practices of professionalism as a complement to the predominantly sociological conceptions of the rise and place of the professional in modern industrialized societies. We are deliberately playful with the term professionalism in demonstrating the power of its ambiguity for reflecting, shaping, and indexing particular kinds of social relations and expectations for them. Part of our argument concerns the complex interplay of symbolism and materiality in the domains of interaction and artifacts surrounding “the professional,” and especially its embodiment in work and other settings. This brings us directly to an examination of the “intersectionality” of aspects of difference in the world of the professional (and by implication, the nonprofessional), including race, gender, and class, and to observe a broad-based cultural dialectic of the civilized and the primitive. Finally, we briefly consider extensions as relevant to domains of communication studies beyond the accustomed domain of organizational communication.

Considering “The Professional” in Communication Studies: Implications for Theory and Research Within and Beyond the Boundaries of Organizational Communication

The need to maintain the public trust in the integrity of the accounting profession has led to increased interest in research that examines the moral reasoning abilities (MRA) of Certified Public Accountants (CPAs). This study examines the MRA of CPAs practicing in small firms or as sole practitioners and the factors that affect MRA throughout their working careers.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/25072994.pdf

Factors that Influence the Moral Reasoning Abilities of Accountants: Implications for Universities and the Profession

John Kultgen explores the ways morality and professional ideals are connected. In assessing the moral impact of professionalism in our society, he examines both the structure and organization of occupations and the ideals and ideology associated with them. Differing from standard treatments of professional ethics, "Ethics and Professionalism recognizes that it is the practices within the professions that determine whether rules and ideals are used as masks for self-interest or for genuinely moral purposes. "This book provides a functional analysis of what it means to be a profession or a professional society."--"Journal of Mass Media Ethics

John H. Kultgen

Papers

Ethics and Professionalism