Ethics : Professional and

Environmental
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by: Monika
[email protected]
9459001418
Professional Ethics

 Content

 What are Professional Ethics?
 Examples of Professional Ethics
 Professional Ethos
 Types of Professional Ethics 
 How to teach Professional Ethics to your Workforce?
 Code of professional Ethics
 What are Professional
Ethics? 

Professional Ethics are the guiding principles that are to
be followed by or expected to be followed by the people
 in that profession.
These principles in any company or group can be termed
as ethics.
Similarly, professional ethics are to be applied by the
people of a particular profession if they can be based on
the duties that they have to follow, their skills and
specific knowledge.
Every profession has its particular rules, regulations, or
you could say principles.
A person when choosing a job must know that specific

profession. Ethics means principles of something. In
different roles, they have ethics according to their
knowledge about the situation, how people belonging to
that profession should behave.
Professional ethics is guidance for people working in a
particular profession that tells them what they supposed
to do and what they are not supposed to do while
working there.
A particular profession has its specific behavior, and
everyone must follow them.
Be it engineering, medical or health industry, or
law or any other profession.
You are supposed to behave the way a person

should according to what your professional ethics
says. It shows how much you know about the job,
your passion for your work.
Now that every person has a choice for a specific
profession, they need to what some basic facts
about ethics related to occupations. To know
about professional ethics in detail, continue
reading the whole article.
 Examples of professional
ethics

 Professional Ethics’ best example can be the one Doctors take. The Hippocratic
Oath, taken by doctors when they are rewarded the degree in medicine. This oath
is one of the ethics that have to follow before practicing medicine. And, every
ethics differs depending upon the type of profession a person has.
 It becomes easier to understand something when somebody describes it with a
commonly seen example. Professional ethics might sound critical to understand,
but it is not. A common cause can explain the whole thing.
 Almost everyone knows that students who persuaded medical studies or health-
related studies or you can say would he doctors, nurses, etc. take an oath before
joining as a professional. Now the oath they take is what they will be doing for
the rest of their lives. It is a promise they make that they will never harm a
person; they will give the best treatment possible to their patients, etc. What they
say during the oath is the ethics of their profession. Those are the principles or
guidance they are bound to follow.
 There is a broader field of ethics in the area of profession.
 It can be about the media and their ethics, the judicial and legal
ethics, the medical code of conduct, the ethics of realtors, the


Engineer’s ethical code, and several others. People from different
professions have to follow different ethics, and they have to abide by
the rules. Any violation of laws and ethics can harm their position in
that profession.
 Professional is about delivering essential services and making
commitments.
 For instance, let’s think about a professor; his profession is to serve
the students and solve their problems. It requires a special
relationship between the place, the trade, and the student. Everything
runs based on ethics.
 Professional ethos

1. Striving for excellence
2. Motivation of service
3. Sense of responsibility
 Types of Professional Ethics 

 Every profession has its way of dealing and making the profession
work.
 Although ethics differ in every profession, some principle ethics
are universal.
 They are followed by each profession, which is being honest in
their work and serving the people along with trustworthiness,
respecting others, honesty, accountability, abiding by the rules and
avoiding harming anyone.
 Generally, the rules mentioned above are followed by every
professional.
 
 And, if anyone fails to do so, s/he becomes unworthy of
being in that profession. Some particular associations
around the world and nation determine the ethics of a
specific profession. And it has to be followed by the
people with full honesty.
 Types of Professional Ethics 

 1. Media and their Professional Ethics 
 2. Judicial and Legal Professional Ethics
 3. Engineer’s Professional Ethics 
 4. Medical Professional Ethics 
 5. Codes of Conduct 
 Media and their Professional
Ethics 

 Journalists or anyone related to media has a great responsibility for
transparency.
 No one in the media should be biased regarding any happenings around
the world. The job of journalists is fierce and terrifying because they are
always in the target. If any journalist gives news related to a criminal
s/he has a chance that they can be harmed.
 But journalists have to be honest and unbiased while reporting the news.
Any news that is about making people aware of their surroundings.
Therefore, ethics in media is crucial and is about sticking to the facts
instead of presenting their opinions. In short, we can say that media
ethics are about “seeking truth and reporting it.”
 Judicial and Legal Professional
Ethics

  Anyone who is in the field of law and justice is required to abide
by its rules and ethics.
 Here, the lawyers or anyone in the legal area should balance their
duty to prosecute criminals and defend the clients. It should be
under the obligation of ethics to uphold the law and be truthful
regarding it.
 People from the Legal field are to maintain the confidentiality of
their clients and avoid conflicts. Everything should be balanced,
and they should be honest about their duty. The most important
thing is that they should not make their clients fools. If any

lawyer is unable to convince their clients then s/, he should drag
themselves away from the case.
 In the judiciary, field balance is a must. This balance is the
primary principle of their profession. A person involved in a legal
or judicial business, must defend their clients or prosecute the
criminal with honesty. It’s not always winning the case but being
honest with the laws. They cannot force anyone to say something
even if they know it’s a lie, but they can make them confess the
truth with tricks.
 Engineer’s Professional
Ethics 

 Engineers also have specific ethical codes that they have to
follow anyhow.
 There is so much responsibility on the shoulders of
Engineers. They are the one building houses, dams,
highways, any gadget or even a car. They have to be honest
enough while designing and making them.
 National Society of Professional Engineers created an ethics
code for engineers to make sure that engineers know that in
their profession, they need to be honest and responsible. Being

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fair, taking care of public health and their safety should be
their priority as a professional. This code is the principle they
follow.
 The ethical code of engineering was created to facilitate the
tenets of impartiality, equity, honesty and fairness in their
work. When they are to conduct any building making or
designing, they have to do it with full sincerity to decrease the
risk of harm. For the highway, people use it very often, and it
should be safe. Therefore the one making it should be honest.
 Medical Professional Ethics
 

 People of medicine have to take an oath about promising and
serving the people who are in pain.
 The Hippocratic Oath is one of the prominent ethical codes
which almost people know.
 Other than this oath, the nurses and doctors are advised to
respect the patient’s dignity, respect the human right. The
Hippocratic Oath is the most famous ethical code, yet not the
only system that shows the moral standard of the medical field.
 Doctors and nurses should always respect their patient’s dignity,
honest, helpful to their patients. They must maintain their
patients confidently. Any major fault or mistake can ruin the

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entire professional life of a person. They need to be very careful
with the principles.
 Being honest and treating everyone equally is very much
required in the medical field. Just like the ethics in media, here
the doctors can’t be biased towards the patients. Everyone has
equal rights. Therefore, s/he has the full power of being treated,
and their confidentiality should be maintained.
 Codes of Conduct 

 There are many industries; it can be about medical and legal
fields or any institution.
 Every company, group or administration has a particular code of
conduct that is to be followed by the people there. This is often
organized by the Association that looks on the legal field. This
helps in creating and modifying the rules.
 This can build confidence among people. Also, it creates
transparency with the clients and makes it easier to take decisions
accurately. Any person who is unable to follow the ethics of their
profession can be disbarred and making them no longer practice
their business, it can be medical or law.
 Conclusion

 Professional Ethics is essential in our life because it is one of the
ways of living.
 Just imagine a profession without ethics, it will look bizarre. No
rules and regulations make a profession disoriented and poorly
organized. The name “code of Ethics” in itself said a lot about the
discipline.
 Every profession has its way of organizing and avoiding any use
of unfair means.
 By the above explanation, we can conclude that standard ethics is
a need in every profession. Honesty and trustworthiness is an
approved code of ethics in every profession.
 
Environmental Ethics

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 Introduction

 Ethics are the moral principles which lets us distinction
between right and wrong or good and bad
 Environmental ethics have been described as having a
conscience or moral that reflects one’s commitment and
responsibility towards the environmental as well as the
present and the future generation of people
 It also refers to human societies living in harmony with the
other natural world on which they depend for survival and
wellbeing.
 Environmental ethics is the subset of philosophy which
reflects on the “Ethical Relationship between Human

beings and Natural Environment
 The basic resource of food and shelter have been provided
by us by Nature.
 Mineral , raw material, elements of nature and every other
by product of nature has helped humans to progress and
build civilized and developing societies
 Thus it is important for humans to learn to live in harmony
with the nature
 Definition

 Ethics or moral philosophy is the branch of philosophy
that involves systematizing, defending, and
recommending concepts of right and wrong conduct
 Environmental ethics is the discipline in philosophy that
studies the moral relationship of human beings to, and also
the value and moral status of, the environment and its non-
human contents
 They are moral principles governing the human attitude
towards the environment, and rules of conduct for
environmental care and preservation.
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 Human Role in
Environment

 Humans both the problem and solution for the
environmental crisis
 Human values can play a great role in solving
environmental issues
 Values can show a path to not exploit the environment
beyond the limits
 Famous Gandhi quote - 'There is enough for everyone's
need but not everyone’s greed’

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 Environmental Ethics -
History

 When environmental ethics emerged as a new sub-discipline
of philosophy in the early 1970s, it did so by posing a
challenge to traditional anthropocentrism
 The questioning and rethinking of the relationship of human
beings with the natural environment over the last thirty years
reflected an already widespread perception in the 1960s that
the late twentieth century faced a human population explosion
as well as a serious environmental crisis
 Among the work that drew attention to a sense of crisis was
Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring (1963)

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 Intrinsic & Instrumental
value

 Instrumental value -- the value of things as means to further some
other ends
 Intrinsic value - the value of things as ends in
themselves regardless of whether they are also useful as means to
other ends
 A certain wild plant may have instrumental value because it
provides the ingredients for some medicine or as an aesthetic object
for human observers. But if the plant also has some value in itself
independently of its prospects for furthering some other ends such
as human health, or the pleasure from aesthetic experience, then the
plant also has intrinsic value 28
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 Importance of
Environmental
 ethics
 The over exploitation of resources due to the increasing human
population has distorted the natural balance.
 The environmental, due to the process of development and economic
growth, has undergone many changes that ultimately lead to ecological
problem .
 The economic growth had been achieved at an enormous cost to the
nature which can be seen by the growing pollution, loss of biodiversity
and critical shortage of basic resources .
 Thus, it would help to assess the effects and consequence of various
development activities like deforestation ,draining and wetland etc.
 There is a need to preserve our environment ,there is many ethical
decisions that human need to make in relevance to the environment
 for example:- should one continue to cut forest? Or for how
long will we consume fuel which pollute our environment ?
Or do we have the right to indulge in activities which lead to

extinction of the other species? Or what are our obligations
towards environment for the future generation ?
 it expert influence on a large range of disciplines including
law, sociology, theology, economics ,ecology and
geography .
 it forces you to think and get answer to the important issues
which focus around the following question
i. are human more important than wildlife ?
ii. do animal enjoy any right ?
iii. what is the Responsibility of human towards animals and
the environment?
 Types of Environmental
Ethics

 Anthropocentrism
 Biocentrism
 Ecocentrism

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 Anthropocentrism is the idea that the earth and its resources
exists for human consumption. People who hold this view believe
that we ought to protect the earth for future generations.

Anthropocentrism often focuses on fixing the problem of limited
resources through the use of technology rather than a reduction in
consumption.
 Biocentrism views animals as important beings. Stereotypically,
biocentrics are against harming other life forms for their own ends
- many of them are vegetarian’s or vegans
 Ecocentrism holds that humans are only one part of the
complicated system that is the earth. Ecocentrism believes that
everything has intrinsic value and emphasized the
interconnectedness of all life.

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 Anthropocentrism

 Anthropocentrism is the position that humans are the most
important or critical element in any given situation; that
the human race must always be its own primary concern
 Western tradition shows bias for humans when
considering environmental ethics
 Many argue that all environmental studies should include
an assessment of the intrinsic value of non-human beings

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 Anthropocentrism/
Homocentrism

 Homocentrism holds that only humans have intrinsic value
 For homocentrists, the environment only has value insofar as
it is useful to us. The environment has no value of its own,
only that which is derived from its value to humans
 What brings together ideas of the homocentric camp is the
belief that humans and human interests have a privileged
moral status and value higher than the environment

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 Biocentrism

 Biocentrism, on the other hand, holds that all natural things have
intrinsic value
 The environment is seen as an end in itself, and not valued only
as a means to human ends
 In the biocentric view, we have a moral duty to protect the
environment and living things even when they do not affect our
welfare or benefit our interests
 What sets the biocentrist apart from the homocentrist is the belief
that humans are not inherently superior to other living things, and
that human interests do not take precedence over the natural
world.
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 Biocentrism in a political and ecological sense, is
an ethical point of view that extends  inherent value  to all
living things. Biocentric ethics calls for a rethinking of the


relationship between humans and nature

 The four main pillars of a biocentric outlook are:

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 Ecocentrism/Holism

 People who ascribe to an ecocentric philosophy believe in
the importance of an ecosystem as a whole
 They attribute equal importance to living and non-living
components of ecosystems when making decisions regarding
their treatment of the environment
 It is a holistic school of thought that sees little importance in
individuals; ecocentrists are concerned only with how
individuals influence ecosystems as a whole
 The primary difference between ecocentric and biocentric
philosophies lies in their treatment of the abiotic environment
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 The ontological belief denies that there are
any existential divisions between human and non-human
nature

 Ethical claim is for an equality of intrinsic value across
human and non-human nature
  It comprehends the Ecosphere as a Being that transcends
in importance any one single species, including humans

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 Environmental Ethical
Approaches:
According
toMarshall
 Alan Marshall developed a postmodern version of the
Human–Nature relationship, one that throws into doubt
the very concepts of 'Humanity' and 'Nature
 According to Marshall, three general ethical approaches
have emerged over the last 40 years: Libertarian
Extension, the Ecologic Extension and Conservation
Ethics

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 Marshall – Libertarian
Extension

 Marshall’s Libertarian extension echoes a civil liberty
approach (i.e. a commitment to extend equal rights to all
members of a community)
 In environmentalism, though, the community is generally
thought to consist of non-humans as well as humans

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 Marshall-Ecologic
Extension

 Ecologic extension places emphasis not on human rights but on the
recognition of the fundamental interdependence of all biological
(and some abiological) entities and their essential diversity
 Whereas Libertarian Extension can be thought of as flowing from
a political reflection of the natural world, Ecologic Extension is
best thought of as a scientific reflection of the natural world
 Ecological Extension is roughly the same classification of Smith’s
eco-holism, and it argues for the intrinsic value inherent in
collective ecological entities like ecosystems or the global
environment as a whole entity.

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 Conservation ethics is an extension of use-value into the non-
human biological world


 It focuses only on the worth of the environment in terms of its
utility or usefulness to humans
 It contrasts the intrinsic value ideas of 'deep ecology', hence is
often referred to as 'shallow ecology', and generally argues for the
preservation of the environment on the basis that it has extrinsic
value – instrumental to the welfare of human beings
 Conservation is therefore a means to an end and purely concerned
with mankind and inter-generational considerations

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 Feature of Environment
Ethic

1. Interdisciplinary
2. Plural
3. Extended
4. Global issue
5. Revolutionary
 Interdisciplinary

 Interdisciplinary with overlapping concerns and area of
many different fields of environmental, environmental
politics, environmental economics, environmental
sciences and environmental literature, the distinctive
perspective and methodologies of these disciplines
provide important inspiration for environmental ethics. It
offers value foundations for these discipline moreover
they reinforce, influence and support each others.
 Plural

 Environmental ethics has been an area in which different ideas
and the perspectives compete with each other while
anthropocentrism, animal rights theory, biocentrism and
ecocentrism all provide unique and in some sense reasonable
ethical justifications for environmental protection, their
approaches are different ,but their goal are more or less than
the same. The basic idea of the environmental ethics also find
support from and embodied in various well-established
cultural traditions the pluralism of the theories and the
multicultural perspectives is critical for environmental ethics
to retain its importance.
 Extended

 Traditional ethics mainly concerned with the intra human
duties among the contemporaries. however,
environmental ethics extend the scope of ethical concerns
beyond one’s community to include not only all people
everywhere but also animals and the whole of nature to
take care of the present and the imminent future to include
future generations.
 Global issue

 As environmental pollution and other environmental issues
are increasing the importance of environmental ethics has
started to take precedence making its global issue. as this
issue do not respect National boundaries, no country is
sufficiently equipped to tackle it alone. to cope with the
global environmental crisis human being must reach some
value consensus and co-operate with each other at the
personal, National, regional, multinational and global level .
it thus, depends on global governance. it is therefore
typically a global ethics with the global perspective
 Revolutionary

 Environmental ethics challenges in dominant and deep
rooted anthropocentrism of modern mainstream ethics and
extend the object of our duty to future generation and non
human beings. also environmental ethics forcefully
critiques the materialism , headonism and consumerism
accompanying modern capitalism. it searches for an
economic arrangement that is sensitive to earth’s limits to
and the concerns for quality of life. it call on us to think
and act locally as well as globally.
 Future of Environmental
Ethics

 Greater the crisis more the urgency for Environmental ethics
 Environmental ethics needs to be informed by the politics to
ameliorate environmental problems
 The effectiveness of states and governments in “getting
there” will affect the types of ethics that emerge
 For example, the Kyoto Protocol might be regarded as the
first real global attempt to deal with the problem of climate
change but caught up in politics 

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