Virtue-based Approaches to Professional Ethics: a Plea for More Rigorous Use of Empirical Science

Abstract

Until recently, the method of professional ethics has been largely principle-based. But the failure of this approach to take into sufficient account the character of professionals has led to a revival of virtue ethics. The kind of professional virtue ethics that I am concerned with in this paper is teleological in that it relates the virtues of a profession to the ends of this profession. My aim is to show how empirical research can (in addition to philosophical inquiry) be used to develop virtue-based accounts of professional ethics, and that such empirically well-informed approaches are more convincing than traditional kinds of professional virtue ethics. The paper is divided into four sections. In the first, I outline the structure of a teleological approach to virtue ethics. In Section 2, I show that empirical research can play an essential role in professional ethics by emphasizing the difference between conceptual and empirical matters. Section 3 demonstrates the relevance of virtues in professional life; and the last section is concerned with some metaethical issues that are raised by a teleological account of professional virtues.Keywords: Empirical ethics; professional ethics; professional virtues; science-based ethics; teleological virtue theory; virtue ethics This article concerns itself with the application of virtue theory to professional ethicsthat is, in short, to the ethics of professionals who are members of a particular profession such as medicine, law, teaching, or social work. Until recently, professional ethics was largely principle-based and virtues were deemphasized. Ethical conduct of professionals was commonly portrayed as consisting in adherence to ethical codes of conduct that had been adopted by professional associations. But critics have pointed out the limitations of this approach, e.g., the abstract nature and rigidity of principles and their failure to capture the richness and complexity of moral life. It is now widely acknowledged that not everything that is important in professional life can be captured by codes of conduct and that professionalism goes beyond ethical principles. This has led to an attempt to enrich principle-based ethics by including virtues to professional ethics. http://dx.doi.org/10.5007/1677-2954.2017v16n1p15 16 ethic@ -Florianópolis, Santa Catarina, Brasil, v. 16, n. 1, p. 15 -34. Jul. 2017 SPIELTHENNER, G. Virtue-Based Approaches to Professional EthicsThere is, however, a great variety of virtue theories, which differ both in terms of their aims and how they define the virtues (see Swanton 2013, for discussion). The most often employed approach to professional virtue ethics is the neo-Aristotelian type, according to which virtues are grounded in a purpose or end (telos).2 In Aristotle's ethics, this is the end of human beings; and in a neo-Aristotelian version of professional ethics, it is the end of a profession. That is to say, the kind of professional ethics that I am concerned with in this paper is teleological (but not consequentialist) in...

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