Ethics and Professionalism in Pharmacy Profession
CHAPTER
3
Ethics and Professionalism
Michael Montagne, PhD Robert L McCarthy, PhD
The quest to construct systematically an ethical framework for Western civilization was begun over 2000 years ago by Socrates. He approached ethics as a science, as being “governed by principles of universal validity, so that what was good for one was good for all, and what was my neighbor’s duty was my duty also.”1 However, acceptance of the Socratic approach has proved burdensome. After 2000 years of effort, humankind universally adheres to not even one ethical principle. No set of ethical principles, no matter how carefully thought out or how well constructed, can provide the individual professional with guidance for each decision about clients, peers, or society. There are people who believe that because each situation is different, each decision requires separate analysis of possible outcomes from different actions and the weighing of right and wrong. Regardless of one’s stance or approach, however, the health professional in today’s society needs continual selfexamination of professional duties and ethical principles to be prepared for the conflicts and dilemmas they will face.
“They may at least act as rules-of-thumb for handling easy cases. They may at least summarize ethical reasoning that has gone before by others who have found themselves in somewhat similar situations. They may at least serve as guidelines for formulating thinking about the problem at hand.”4
BEING PROFESSIONAL
In this discussion, professional ethics is used only to denote “the profession’s interpretation of the will of society for the conduct of the members of that profession augmented by the special knowledge that only the members of the profession possess.”2 In other contexts, the term might be used to denote those ethical principles to which society believes any individual claiming professional status should subscribe. What is to be gained by development of a set of ethical principles,
3
Ethics and Professionalism
Michael Montagne, PhD Robert L McCarthy, PhD
The quest to construct systematically an ethical framework for Western civilization was begun over 2000 years ago by Socrates. He approached ethics as a science, as being “governed by principles of universal validity, so that what was good for one was good for all, and what was my neighbor’s duty was my duty also.”1 However, acceptance of the Socratic approach has proved burdensome. After 2000 years of effort, humankind universally adheres to not even one ethical principle. No set of ethical principles, no matter how carefully thought out or how well constructed, can provide the individual professional with guidance for each decision about clients, peers, or society. There are people who believe that because each situation is different, each decision requires separate analysis of possible outcomes from different actions and the weighing of right and wrong. Regardless of one’s stance or approach, however, the health professional in today’s society needs continual selfexamination of professional duties and ethical principles to be prepared for the conflicts and dilemmas they will face.
“They may at least act as rules-of-thumb for handling easy cases. They may at least summarize ethical reasoning that has gone before by others who have found themselves in somewhat similar situations. They may at least serve as guidelines for formulating thinking about the problem at hand.”4
BEING PROFESSIONAL
In this discussion, professional ethics is used only to denote “the profession’s interpretation of the will of society for the conduct of the members of that profession augmented by the special knowledge that only the members of the profession possess.”2 In other contexts, the term might be used to denote those ethical principles to which society believes any individual claiming professional status should subscribe. What is to be gained by development of a set of ethical principles,
References: Weinstein B. Ethical Issues in Pharmacy. Vancouver, WA: Applied Therapeutics, 1996.