AARL

Ethical principles and information professionals: theory, practice and education

Livio Iacovino

Abstract: This article focuses on ethical concepts and thinking processes, their application to professional issues, and to the information professional in particular. Information professionals, like other professionals, have developed codes of ethics which as regulatory mechanisms may not in themselves nurture ethical attitudes. At the same time traditional professional relationships are being altered by the introduction of a business view of the client-professional relationship. Ethical attitudes need to be inculcated into information professional practice via educational programs by drawing from a number of ethical theories and practice models within a notion of an ethical community of common interests which can also apply in a virtual environment.

Discussion on ethical practices for professions often centres on analysing cases of unethical professional behaviour. Although case studies serve to highlight dilemmas, it is more important to introduce ethical thinking into the education (core and continuing) of all professionals, so that they can develop the necessary analytical tools to respond to ethical situations as and when they arise. Two models that information professionals in particular can adopt as frameworks for ethical decision-making are the practice skills and the professional-client relationship models. The latter is favoured as it focuses on the professional's wider public interest responsibilities. Other approaches to ethical practices include professional codes and the use of role models. Professionals also need to be aware of the limitations of ethical action within the wider political, economic and technological environment in which they work.

Part 1: Ethics for professionals

What are ethics?
Ethics are best defined as the study of the principles of human conduct or human actions. These actions must serve a purpose, which constitutes part or the whole of the moral agent's intention in doing what he or she does. Ethics are about the way we behave and the values that we hold. [1] John Charvet, in The Idea of an Ethical Community, considers that 'ethical life depends on the sharing by a collection of persons of authoritative norms.'[2]

Ethical decision-making is considered a peculiarly human activity due to our ability to reason, to rationalise and to analyse what we do, to see ourselves as part of a social group and, in the modern world, as a member of society at large. The moral agent is a feature of all rational moral discourse. Thus ethics are not just how we 'feel' about something; it is a reasoned process. It may become habitual or intuitive once we have a set of values to apply consistently.

Meta-ethics is the conceptual analysis of why we should be concerned with ethics. Meta-ethical theories or fundamental ethics are the overarching principles and perspectives arising from the conceptual analysis of ethical questions. Western 'meta' theories sit behind applied ethical approaches. Applied ethics are normative ethics which aim to guide conduct; the analysis of specific practical issues using ethical discourse and meta-ethical theories. However, the distinctions between pure and applied ethics are somewhat artificial, as the application of ethics has always flowed from a particular conceptual viewpoint.

Ethics are often considered as specific to a discipline, religion or geographic location, for example, professional ethics, Christian ethics, bioethics, environmental ethics, and business ethics. The 'histories' of these areas of ethics reveal much about the justification of human conduct in specific organisational contexts.

Why are ethics relevant to professionals?
Ethics have re-appeared on the agenda of social institutions in the United States and in Australia in recent years. This is evidenced by the establishment of ethics education programs in schools and universities, in research, the formation of the Australian Association of Professional and Applied Ethics, and in the widespread development of professional codes. [3] The rekindling of interest in ethics has developed partly as a perceived alternative to the legal regulation of businesses and the professions. [4]

Whether ethics is a preferable way to induce professionals to behave as expected by society and their peers depends on a complex interplay of law and morality. Law is insufficient as an ethical system. Codified law focuses on actions and outcomes rather than values. The process by which legislation comes into force is different from ethics; that is, the legislative process via parliament. This is not to deny that that there is a moral authority to the law. The law has an important role to play in enforcing minimum standards of what is right and what is wrong and enforcing breaches, but rules can be misused. We could have a society in which observing rules replaced social morality. It is unlikely that we could have rules for everything.

The legal and ethical aspects of actions are not easy to disentangle, and will in fact often overlap. However, law and ethics need not be in opposition; they can and should complement each other as a system of control over human behaviour. Ethics, unlike law, are also about choice of behaviour. Our freedom to choose may be limited by our genes, our environment, our education and our cultural context. The ambit of free choice is a philosophic question in its own right. The attempt to balance rules and what is 'right' is found in applied ethics, in particular the codification of ethical standards.

Immanuel Kant, the great German moral philosopher of the eighteenth century, did not see rules as the only defining aspect of ethics. Roger J Sullivan, in An Introduction to Kant's Ethics, states,

The appreciation to which Kant refers comes down to an attitude that should lie behind and encompass all our more specific duties. Rules cannot totally define our lives. In government and business, for example, an unjust person will always be able to find loopholes in even the most carefully stated professional or civil codes. Kant knew this, and for that reason he held that above all we need an underlying commitment to the moral law that will, as it were, fill in the legislative loopholes. [5]

Kant believed that certain acts such as lying had to be wrong because if everyone lied there would be no way of knowing the truth. If everyone were false how would anyone have trust in anything? Thus truth telling is a universal duty. Humans live in communities. The need for assumed trust and truth is essential for social groups to survive. To make life within a community of benefit to everyone a shared understanding of what is good or bad or unjust or just makes the community work within specific goals. In other words, communities cannot exist without some compliance with moral rules. [6]

A business argument that is often made for the irrelevance of ethics is that it is just 'good business' to take advantage of everyone. In this sense this is the ethic of the business in question. It may also be viewed as a very narrow understanding of business needs. Fiona Ritchie, in Finishing First with Ethics: Bringing Good Business Principles and Sound Ethics together for Greater Profits and a Better Future, argues that business ethics put into practice give an organisation a distinct competitive advantage, increases profitability, provides stable management and improves staff morale. [7]

The legal argument for the relevance of ethics centres on the notion of unethical behaviour as the failure of duty of care and potential negligent action in professional practice. The legal motivation for encouraging ethical behaviour is often that unethical behaviour leads to illegal behaviour and could contribute to a company being sued. [8]

Meta-ethical debates and professional ethics
Major ethical debates underlie how professional ethics are approached. How we ensure compliance with appropriate professional ethical behaviour depends on whether ethics is considered a set of rules, moral codes or norms imposed by a community or a system of personal choice of conduct, or both. A community of common interest, such as a professional grouping, can make unethical behaviour unattractive to its members in a number of ways. The punitive approach to enforcing moral behaviour is often set through professional codes, and as argued later in this paper, is not the most effective means of ensuring ethical behaviour.

Social, political, scientific and economic context of ethics
The social context of ethics is concerned with the following questions. Do we need a particular kind of social system and institutions for ethics to work? Are we born with sets of values, such as innate knowledge of what is good and evil or are they 'learned'?[9] This is the argument of 'self-evident' morals or common sense which has been a legitimate moral position. [10]

The ethicist Peter Singer has applied modern Darwinian thinking to our consumer society which is based totally on competition. Both competition and reciprocal altruism, defined as cooperation, can coexist. The cooperative aspects of our nature can be encouraged. Public policy can appeal to the need to belong to a community, rather than simply rely on the rhetoric of competition. In this respect modern Darwinism can be compatible with nurturing a moral community which supports the cooperative aspects of evolved behaviour. The cooperative model needs a community to prosper, thus it could also be applied to a professional community. [11]

Can ethics be universalised?
The universalism-relativism debate is a central ethical issue which has a particular relevance to professional ethics. Universalism or universality refers to ethical behaviour that transcends time and place. [12] It has been linked to Kant's view of universal ethics that remain the same everywhere and for everyone, a theory based on the moral unity of the human species in which cultural forms are secondary (see rule-based ethics below). On the other hand, a relativist position determines right and good in relation to social and cultural context and differs in time and place. It has a 'post modern' flavour to it in that the idea of a universal truth or a unitary view of the world is rejected. For example, a relativist explanation has been given for the differing national views on intellectual property.

The importance of community values should not be confused with crude versions of cultural relativism which may be used to justify any practice as acceptable within a given community. However, relativist positions can lead to universal norms. One need only to consider the histories of specific areas of ethics such as medicine, which have been tied up with their portrayal through Greek, Roman, Judeo-Christian and eventually secular ethics but are now considered universal. [13] Thus relativism and universalism are not necessarily in opposition.

Ethical principles and professional relationships
nterpretations of ethical questions centre on the ethical grounds or principles which are adopted. Ethical principles enable us to reach normative judgments. They guide our thinking by providing us with a basis for determining how we should act when an ethical issue arises. They do not provide definitive answers; only answers that can be justified by way of argument depending on the ethical viewpoints adopted, and the decision-making models and processes employed.

Most ethical theories fall between the following types: rule-based ethics which focuses on actions and duties, also known as the deontological tradition according to which duty is primary. It is better described as 'duty-based' and 'right' based ethics as Kant himself distinguishes duties from rules. In Kant's version of 'duty-based' ethics the intrinsic duty to act is our duty to do what is right. Duty is not contingent on the outcome, although it is not totally ignored. We may not want to obey the moral law; for this reason all moral laws appear to us as imperatives. Moreover because nothing can justify disregarding our moral obligations, they obligate us absolutely, or categorically. eg do not kill or do not lie. Consequently, in the Foundations Kant called the ultimate moral norm the 'categorical imperative'. [14]

The notion of the rational autonomous agent is an important Kantian contribution. The dignity of each person is based on his/her own reason and on the doctrine of autonomy, that is each person has control over his/her own destiny. Any individual maxim must be able to be translated into a universal law. All obligations are binding on any rational being. The moral worth is not in what will be accomplished but in the agent's intention. A person of good moral character is one who not only does what is right but also does so from the specifically ethical motive of dutifulness.

The advantage to this approach is that duties coupled with rights bond human relationships. The problem is that it does not help resolve conflicts between duties. If two duties conflict consequences cannot in theory be considered. An example of applying this approach includes questions such as: Is my duty and the action taken universally acceptable to those directly affected by it? Could I inform others about my decision? For example, balancing objectives of profitability with producing a safe product. [15]

Rights-based ethics or contractarianism is based on a right defined as an entitlement, in which moral rights, unlike legal rights, cut across all notions of legal jurisdiction. For example the right to privacy is seen as necessary for autonomy. Its application includes questions such as whether an act violates a person's rights, and which rights are violated. [16]

Another ethical tradition is ends-based or goal-centred theory. It is also known as the teleological or consequentialist tradition in which goals or purposes of actions and their consequences are fundamental. One considers the good from the decision, ie the consequence; so the end justifies the means. Consequentialism is a modern form of this theory. Its best known form is utilitarianism which focuses on the social good and social harm of actions. In the classic utilitarianism or ethical universalism of Jeremy Bentham the good or end (telos) is the happiness or the greatest happiness for the greatest number. Singer's cooperative model fits here.

The problem with utilitarianism is that it is not possible to predict all the consequences of an action, that is, what will be the best outcome for the greatest number of people. The minority is often sacrificed. Utilitarianism may be applied in cost benefit analyses by selecting an approach that maximises the benefit for all parties or stakeholders affected by the decision; that is, the greatest net benefit approach. How the ends are achieved is secondary and individual rights are often ignored. It can be used to rationalise unethical behaviour, for example, monitoring staff performance for maximising staff productivity. [17]

Agent-based ethics, also known as virtue ethics, is sometimes included within teleological approach, and has its origin in a revitalised version of Aristotelian ethics. The emphasis is on the qualities of a person which will ensure that he/she will make the right decisions. Virtues such as integrity, honesty, fidelity, and probity are motives for the right actions. In its modern version it is tied to ethics of a community, a form of communitarianism, originally defined as universal virtues. It is useful for character building, for education, for application to professional ethics. Virtue ethics offers a strong set of principles for professional practice. The problems in this approach revolve around virtues that may conflict.

Ethical theories that operate on responding to the 'demands' that arise in human relationships in specific situations are also agent-centred. The 'ethical demand' is a response to another human being's needs which presupposes that all interaction between human beings involves a basic trust. The demand is not derived from any rule and trust is part of what it means to be human. [18] One takes care of the life which trust has placed in our hands, so exploiting a person would be unethical. The motive for actions is not central. The emphasis is on person to person relationships, thus emphasising that ethics is a question of personal responsibility, which is essential to professional decisions.

Ethical collectivism is a form of discourse ethics which insists that the correct conclusion about ethical matters is a collective achievement, a consensus constructed out of the diverse points of view of the participants in the discourse. The collective agreement is the closest individuals at that time and place can come to the truth. [19] Professional ethics is also a form of discourse ethics as it reflects a consensus view of a profession at a point in time.

In summary, a number of ethical principles, including Kantian duties, consequential actions, virtues, the ethical demand, and rights-based theories, can be adapted to professional relationships. Within professional and other relationships rights and corresponding obligations such as privacy or confidentiality can be respected via ethics, as distinct from legal protection, in terms of the moral agency of role, a notion also found in virtue ethics. Ethical duties in various 'roles' form part of social relationships; the obligations and rights between parties based on mutual respect and trust rather than through legal pressures of sanctions drawn from the 'demand' position. Concepts of trust are central to the nature of professionalism.

Part 2: Professional ethics and information professions

Although professional ethics are often considered a twentieth century form of applied ethics, they are in fact the oldest form of Western ethics. [20] The notion of duty evolved from doing one's vocational duty. In Aristotelian ethics, the notion of the virtuous person was embedded in the way one discharged allotted social functions, which today we would call occupations. As the social order changed the evaluative predicates of a just king, or a courageous warrior came to refer to personal attributes relatively independent of social function. [21]

In more simple terms professional ethics are ethics specific to professions and/or to a specific profession. Professional ethics are within the field of normative ethics and concern professional behaviour, judgment and choices in one's professional life.

Professional ethics are usually considered one of the hallmarks of a profession. But there is an ongoing debate both within professions and society at large as to the effectiveness of ethics in regulating professional behaviour or conduct. Professionalism also involves the acceptance of a number of legal responsibilities, including duty of care.

Divinity, law and medicine have historically been the 'classic professions'. [22] The word 'profession' in its Latin form meant a public declaration or vow. The notion of a vow to be 'faithful for something' (special expertise) 'to someone' (client) for his or her benefit and not for one's own, has continuing resonance for what it means to be a professional. [23]

The characteristics of a profession have generally included its exclusivity, highly developed skills and theoretical or specialised knowledge of a specific domain, several years of formal education and training in a related domain, service to society or a public benefit, governance by code of ethics or conduct laid down by the profession, and a professional association.

Professionals maintain that their specialist knowledge and education gives them an understanding of their field that is not shared outside the profession. Apart from the expertise, service orientation, and altruistic motivation of public duty, ethical standards are usually expected to be higher than for the general community. A distinguishing characteristic of professionals is that they are meant to act differently from a business person in dealing with clients. The element of trust is essential if the profession is to be seen not merely as a monopoly.

The nature of professionalism has been much debated, including whether it differs from a 'vocation'. McDowell Banks, in Ethical Conduct and the Professional's Dilemma: Choosing Between Service and Success, says:

Mere occupations do not claim a special commitment to the welfare of their customers. The professional asks for a relationship of trust. The concomitant ethical obligation is what really distinguishes the professional from other occupations. In my analysis, these twin requirements of possessing a special expertise not easily understood by lay people and of being ethical and trustworthy in relationships with clients and the public are what distinguish professions from other occupations. [24]

In addition to the external marks of a profession, Banks refers to the internal dimension, the character of a professional as the individual choice or commitment to aspire to the highest competence and to serve others. The duty of service to the client can run to fellow professionals, to others who stand in some relationship to the client such as family members or business associates, or even to bystanders, and on occasion to the community as a whole. The dilemma occurs when the interests of a particular client clash with the broader interest of the public, or some part of it. Most importantly the commitment not only to the client but also to public service is part of the tradition of all professions. [25]

Conflicts for professionals
It is important to remember that many professionals are not self-employed but find themselves working for large corporations or institutions. 'Ethics of agency' is a view that professional responsibility is tied to the role the professional plays in an institution. This approach has detractors, who see a frequent conflict with a professional view of what for example the government or the organisation should be doing and what it is doing. [26] As Ann Picot states, 'one thing which distinguishes the role of a professional in the workplace is the requirement to exercise professional judgment even if this conflicts with the policy directions given by management'. [27]

Conflict between professional and organisational ethics need not only be seen as a negative force but also as a means of highlighting a professional issue. In the corporate sector protecting the organisation is uppermost, so attempting to link professional ethics with corporate ethics may not improve the ethical behaviour of the corporation. In fact organisations and professions learn to behave compassionately from individuals rather than the other way around. [28]

Regulatory mechanisms and the professions: relevance to ethical behaviour
Traditionally professions have used a number of techniques to uphold their professional status, such as limiting membership, requiring continued education, licensing and enforcing codes of conduct.

There is a substantial difference between professions such as the information professions and highly controlled professions such as medicine and law where a loss of membership (being 'struck off') may also imply a loss of the right to practice. Regulation and sanctions are highest in professions which can take away the livelihood of its members for unprofessional conduct. Unethical behaviour can therefore lead to the loss of one's livelihood. Many illegal activities, eg fraud, corruption, abuse of people's rights are also professionally unethical, thus acting ethically contributes to overall legal compliance. Unprofessional behaviour is unethical behaviour.

Should ethical obligations be legal ones? There is controversy over codes and rule-based/deontological approaches to ethical compliance. The codification of ethics into a normative system and a legal conception of ethics are rejected by virtue ethicists. Ian Freckelton believes that for a profession to maintain its bone fides it must impose penalties for non-compliance with a provision of a code. [29] This is the 'legal' approach to ethical behaviour and has limitations as a professional may follow the letter but not the spirit of an ethical code.

As Banks states,

When standards carry legal sanctions, the professional has difficulty in predicting the exact content that these terms will be given by the administrative agencies or courts charged with their enforcement. The professional who wants to be sure to comply will then be led to very cautious practice that is unquestionably within the boundaries of the guidelines. The undesirable consequence of either rule-specific norms or flexible guidelines if they carry serious legal sanctions is more routinized performance and less innovative or risky practice. [30]

The real risk of relying on codes to make professionals ethical is that they may absolve themselves from responsibility for determining their own duty. In a climate that challenges the autonomy of the professions, codes have attempted to accommodate consumer demands, thus they have become more outward looking.

There is little evidence that codes of ethics have in themselves nurtured ethical practices or made professionals more ethical. They are often flagrantly ignored. One need only consider the example of the New England Journal of Medicine which failed to follow its own ethical guidelines regarding disclosing the names of the drug companies that provided financial support for a large number of articles published on drug tests. [31] It can also be argued that the very existence of the code revealed that it had been transgressed and thus the code served the purpose of disclosure.

A set of professional ethical standards developed by a professional community that is prepared to critically revise them can provide the individual professional with ethical guidance, may assist new professionals or those still studying, assist in the revision of professional thinking and play a part in the regulatory controls over consistent professional practice.

The issue of cultural relativism versus universal principles, as introduced earlier, is particularly relevant to professional ethics. Within one profession there may be divergent views of professional practice because of religious, cultural or national differences. Universalising one professional ethic within a profession can only be achieved by ongoing dialogue. Through its experienced practitioners problematic rules can be interpreted. This is a good example of virtue ethics in practice, as practice takes place in specific environments. How is uniformity achieved world-wide? One has to accept that the more culturally diverse professional members are, the more difficult it will be for them to share standards. [32] This is particularly relevant in the online environment where professionals and their clients will be from all parts of the globe and have divergent political, legal and ethical views.

Information professions
There is a blurring in the rigid definitions of profession as new ones emerge. This is particularly the case in the computing and information professions, which are often seen exclusively within a business context and have therefore not developed the ideal of professionalism that has nurtured the established professions in which public service was as important as financial rewards. [33] This can be partially attributed to the fact that the information professions have developed in a period when consumerism and competition policy within a global market have become ascendant and the ideal of community service over and above paid service that lay at the core of professionalism is almost dead. [34]

Information professions comprise many groups which have their own ethical traditions; that is, there is not one set for the profession. Librarians, archivists and records managers have different interests from computing professionals, even though the distinctions are blurring. A recordkeeping professional is particularly concerned with illegal destruction of records or inadequate evidence; preserving records over time; protecting personal data from inappropriate disclosure; and providing access to material equally. For web content providers censorship is more important. There are a number of legal and ethical areas that are common to all of them, for example, intellectual property and data protection. However, differences between information professions may require the development of a set of ethical principles incorporating interests common across all fields.

How do we apply ethics to information professionals?
Models that assist ethical decision-making for information professionals are only useful if meta-ethical theories, summarised earlier in this article, are also introduced.

The practice skills model
The practice skills model for a professional rests on their activities and their professional duties.

Professional responsibility (as opposed to legal liability) will depend on one's position and competencies. Both the organisation and its executives and individuals may be responsible for particular activities. What kind of information will be gathered and stored, who will have access, and how it will be protected from unauthorised disclosure are both ethical and legal issues. These can be broken down into:

• Capture of data and its purpose. What information should be collected and how should it be used or shared. Privacy and confidentiality are the most common concerns.
• Processing of data: its timeliness, relevancy, completeness, and accuracy. Providing information that has not been checked or validated, upon which decisions by others are made, could lead to poor decision-making in an organisation and expose it to legal liability, as well as limit individual rights.
• Ownership of data: intellectual property rights in particular may need to be protected. An ethical approach includes the concept of 'stewardship', that is, the obligation to look after property that belongs to another, including customer information, its security, its misuse or re-use.
• Access and dissemination of information: who has access to what, including access authorisation data. [35]
• Reliable and authentic evidence: maintaining its integrity for evidential purposes; avoiding the destruction of data and records without authorised procedures.
• Reliability of the system (liability for system failure).
• Other socio-technical issues: computer system and people failure; equipment control; technological obsolescence; accessing old data or records; maintaining standards; system development issues; other computer system risks, for example, security in networks, tampering; computer fraud and security risk management.

Mason, Mason, and Culnan in Ethics of Information Management consider major social responsibilities common to all professionals. [36] These include how they monitor themselves, set standards for acceptable practice, maintain their body of knowledge, educate their public about their practices and educate and train professionals. Other professional responsibilities additional to general social responsibilities include exhortations to do no harm, to be competent, maintain independence, avoid conflicts of interest, match client expectations, maintain fiduciary duties, safeguard client and source privacy, protect records, safeguard intellectual property, provide quality information, and avoid selection bias. Additional professional responsibilities include further duties to a specific profession. Finally there is a need for professional judgment.

The professional-client relationship model
Professional obligations arise from relationships not only between the information professional and the client, but also professional to professional, business to business relationships or professional to manager or employer relationships, and with a range of third parties, which include obligations to society at large (the public interest component). Each relationship has its own ethical and regulatory context, but stands in relation to the others, for example, doctor-patient, employer-employee and student-academic. This is where conflicts of interest often arise, for example the lawyer who owns shares in the company she is representing in a court case.

The business context in which one works, that is, the nature of the information one works with, forms part of the regulatory and ethical environment. Ethical issues of collecting information are critical to areas such as medical care. Other professionals involved in the collection of data and creation of records will themselves be bound by professional ethics contributing to a web of responsibility in information ethics.

Organisational and professional culture is largely determined by standards of acceptable behaviour within specific environments. In addition, the concept of reasonable behaviour and duty of care which form part of the law of negligence in the common law system are re-enforced through professional ethics and professional practice, for example, confidentiality which forms part of every transaction between a patient and a doctor is an important part of medical ethics. The ethical dimension of professional relationships is underpinned by records as evidence of ethical or unethical behaviour, including what is destroyed to cover up unethical or illegal behaviour. [37]

The focus on the nature of each relationship brings us back full circle to ethical theories and ethical duties in various 'roles' (professional, personal, citizen, or customer). The ethical demand and the cooperative community concepts introduced earlier also support this model. A corporation will also have a fiduciary responsibility to shareholders but is itself a moral agent within 'a web of relationships'. Professional roles cannot be divorced from social responsibility and the wider impact on family life, the environment, and social justice.

Legal, economic, technological and socio-cultural issues for professionals
Information professionals, and professionals in general, need to be aware of current legal, economic, technological and socio-cultural issues that constrain ethical action.

Change in the nature of professional relationships
Although on the one hand self-regulation and autonomy have re-enforced claims to professionalism, on the other hand the advance in knowledge and technology and how we receive services have reinforced consumers' sense of rights. This has led to a view that the consumer has a right to be involved in professional decisions. It is been supported by consumer rights in product liability law, and cases of professional negligence have strengthened consumer demands over professionals. Professional negligence has been on the rise and professions are being regulated more and more externally.

Exclusive control over an area of business activity has been fundamental to professionalism. [38] The right to provide a service exclusively is in conflict with Australian national competition policy, and world-wide trends. [39] Competition policy through the anti-competitive provisions of Part IV of the Trade Practices Act threatens professional exclusivity which is seen as creating a monopoly. Even codes of ethics may have illegal provisions. [40] Essentially competition policy is concerned with efficiency, not with whether an action is ethical or unethical.

Competition policy has other ramifications, in particular its emphasis on the business element of professional relationships, in particular the introduction of a third party into the relationship, who does not have a direct ethical or legal obligation to the client, for example, a contracted provider, typical of purchaser-provider agreements. [41]

Technological context
The delivery of electronic services via the Web has implications for professional practice, which include the greatly increased risk to privacy, the fraudulent manipulation of data, and the ease with which records can be reproduced without attribution. Other issues include applying ethics globally in the networked environment, and whether virtual corporations will engender loyalty. Despite recent legislation from copyright digital agenda, privacy and electronic transactions acts, the legal system tends to trail technology and thus ethical guidance is the only solution to a new problem.

The implications for human development from a physically-centred world to a 'virtual' world, together with the use of contracted service providers, means that professionals will have less and less personal contact with their clients. Confidentiality and privacy will have to be protected more by technical means, but mediated trust involving humans is unlikely to be completely superseded.

Part 3: Approaches to promoting professional ethical thinking

Importance of ethics in the education of professionals
Professional ethical attitudes should be nurtured through vocational and continuing education in information management and systems courses. [42] Their success depends on certain assumptions. Can students be taught to be ethical? Can professionals learn to be relatively detached, and notice when self-interest takes over? Understanding internal motivation requires developing ethical virtues in the students that will help them make ethical judgments. If ethical obligations are treated as legal rules, there is an assumption that no ethical issue exists. [43]

Andrew Morris, in 'Effective Information Management: A Question of Ethics?' argues the need for Information Systems practitioners to be educated in the areas of privacy, intellectual property, and access control; in particular the properties of information, inherent rights of privacy and ownership and to have status to formulate an adherence to strict information policy. He adopts the utilitarian view that any situation that implies harm or benefit to others has an ethical component, and that this is basic for the development of information systems that emphasise benefit, including minimising harm. [44]

Ethical thinking can assist information professionals in making considered judgments about information risks. Neither the law nor the marketplace provides sufficient guidance for managing information ethically. The ethical theories introduced earlier can be applied to information technology. The importance of human values, the Kantian principle of treating people as ends and not as means and Jeremy Bentham's valuing actions that promote happiness and diminish misery are some ethical principles that are of general application. [45]

'Learning organisations'
Organisations can change even if they are conditioned by facts that are difficult to change. Reality should be perceived as both immediate and long term. You may not be able to change this year's budget or a government policy but you can work towards goals that promote the ethical outcomes sought.

Role models
Role models are often underrated as a means of promoting ethics. Firstly, academics should be role models for their students. This requires academics to improve their own research ethics standards. The teacher-scholar should be the conscience of the profession. Responsibility to conserve the traditions and history of the profession and contribute to its development are core duties of the academic. If the teacher only teaches the technicalities he/she bears some of the responsibility for the amoral attitude of the profession. However, academics face conflicts of interest that may limit them as role models, for example, the academic as an educator, researcher, and practitioner (in a 'not for money role') and the pressure to teach students for entry into a vocation rather than for education broadly. With university courses moving more to a full fee basis, students are more concerned with vocational training, and the freedom of academics to direct the curriculum has been reduced.

Senior practitioners can provide role models and be involved in mentoring schemes. They should be profiled in professional literature, but more importantly in the media at large. Lastly, continuing professional education should integrate ethical judgments into the changed situations, and professional issues should be discussed at professional fora. Once a professional is in the workforce the role of the professional association and workplace ethics take on a prominent role in maintaining ethical standards.

Conclusion

Information professionals need to re-evaluate their own ethical standards in a period in which the nature of professionalism is being re-assessed. Ethical behaviour can minimise the possibility of negligent conduct and assist legal compliance, but that makes ethics another form of regulation. More importantly codes should be used to focus on professional duties and virtues, and as a collective consensus of professional values.

Understanding the corporate culture within the wider social context is long-sighted, not short-sighted. Knowing how much to accept the givens and where there is manoeuvrability for improved ethical standards is a professional goal. Assistance and support of peers through professional associations and networking are avenues for professional solidarity. Each professional community needs to create a climate of ethical awareness and a sense of consensus through debate and discussion.

Ethical frameworks need to be applied to specific issues: retrospective (case studies real and/or hypothetical) and prospective (being prepared to act when an ethical question arises); to consider the role of a professional in terms of the nature of the relationship which arises with the client within a web of obligations; each communication or encounter has an ethical dimension based on trust. It has been the shift in the balance of power from the professional to the client that has altered the relationship. We have to somehow retain the special aspects of the professional-client relationship, in order to retain professionalism and its ethical dimension. This is not going to be an easy course of action in the current social and economic environment.

Professionals can marry a number of the principles enunciated in ethical theories to professional ethics. This includes cultivating virtues of integrity and honesty, balancing the rights of and the duties to the client, to society and to fellow professionals, as well as consideration of the 'other person' as a fellow human being. Through role models, education and professional discussion, ethics should become an essential part of professional best practice of all information professionals.

Notes

1. Adapted from A MacIntyre A Short History of Ethics 2nd ed Notre Dame University of Notre Dame Press 1997 p85
2. J Charvet The Idea of an Ethical Community Ithaca New York London Cornell University Press 1995 p1
3. See H Whitton, 'Rediscovery of Professional Ethics for Public Officials An Australian Review', in N Preston (ed) Ethics for the Public Sector Education and Training Annandale (NSW) Federation Press 1994 pp39-59. An example of the relevance of ethics to modern organisations includes appointing Probity Officers, and establishing anti-corruption bodies and ethics committees both within and outside organisations, eg Police Ethical Standards Committee.
4. C A Coady 'On Regulating Ethics' in M Coady and S Bloch (eds) Codes of Ethics and the Professions Carlton South Melbourne University Press 1996 pp 269-287
5. R J Sullivan An Introduction to Kant's Ethics New York Cambridge University Press 1994 p95
6. F Leal 'Ethics is Fragile Goodness is Not' in K S Gill (ed) Information Society New Media Ethics and Postmodernism London Springer 1996 pp78-89
7. F Richie Finishing First with Ethics Bringing Good Business Principles and Sound Ethics Together for Greater Profits and a Better Future Sydney Business and Professional Publishing 1996
8. B Sharpe Making Legal Compliance Work North Ryde NSW CCH Australia 1996 p6
9. We tend to forget that issues such as whether we can 'educate' people to act ethically were considered at least as early as the seventeenth century by Montesquieu. MacIntyre pp183-185
10. MacIntyre p177
11. P Singer A Darwinian Left Politics Evolution and Cooperation London Weidenfield and Nicholson 1999. A scientific model for human behaviour is offered by Social Darwinism. The model is predicated on the notion of human beings as 'evolved human' animals who are genetically predisposed to behave in a particular way which limits their ability to modify evolved behavioural characteristics. Some evolutionary psychologists and biological determinists consider ethics as irrelevant on these grounds. Peter Singer rejects this version of Darwinism because it deduces values from observed facts. He believes that evolution is not necessarily 'good' or 'bad'. We cannot infer what is 'right' from what is 'natural'. Wealth for example is not an evolutionary instinct. Self-interest includes economic interest. Unfortunately Darwinism has been used as a reason for accepting many of the negative aspects of our society, including our purported 'innate' nature to exploit. In the end Singer's suggestions for changing behaviour are by legal regulation, for example, tax incentives.
12. Universalism or universality is also called objectivism and pluralism which is very confusing when pluralism is also used for relativism!
13. I Siggens 'Professional Codes Some Historical Antecedents' in Codes of Ethics and the Professions pp55-71
14. Sullivan p43, footnote 1
15. R Spinello Case Studies in Information and Computer Ethics Upper Saddle River NJ Prentice Hall 1997 Part 1
16. Ibid Part 1 Chapter 2
17. Spinello p 28
18. K E Logstrup The Ethical Demand Notre Dame London University of Notre Dame Press 1997. In the business context, the importance of trust is well researched, but less so in ethics. Knud Ejler Logstrup, in his exposition of the ethical demand, is at odds with both Kantian and utilitarian accounts of morality, and the quarrels between them that hinge on issues that are taken as moral rules or on doing something for the sake of something further. In ontologically-defined ethics it is the concrete immediate situation which needs action. Logstrup was influenced by his experiences in German-occupied Denmark in WWII. Ethical action required quick responses.
19. J Thompson Discourse and Knowledge Defence of a Collectivist Ethics London Routledge 1998
20. In Europe professional ethics has a history from Greco-Roman times, from the Catholic Church's control over it, its secularisation through education and the craft guilds. See I Siggens 'Professional Codes Some Historical Antecedents' in Codes of Ethics and the Professions pp 55-71
21. This is the author's interpretation of MacIntrye's notion of what we would now consider 'professional' arising from what was a unified concept of personal-public duty, later separated into distinct personal and professional domains, with a concomitant division of personal and professional duty.
22. A non-religious association is claimed by those that argue that a profession originally meant an occupation. Prestigious trades were classed as either 'liberal' or 'learned'. When the epithet was dropped, the more prestigious occupations such as the clergy, the law, and medicine laid claim to professionalism exclusively. Profession came to mean an occupation so controlled that it did not have to act as a trade union. See H Perkin The Rise of Professional Society England Since 1880 London New York Routledge 1989 p23
23. The terminology of profession has always had religious overtones. For example the Catholic Church bequeathed to the legal profession the ethical orientation of balancing the advocate's duty to fight for the represented person with a wider duty to society, the law and the truth. Siggens p62 pp55-71
24. M Banks Ethical Conduct and the Professional's Dilemma Choosing Between Service and Success New York Quorum Books 1991 pp16-17
25. Ibid pp17-18
26. J Uhr 'Managing the Process of Ethics Training' in Ethics for the Public Sector Education and Training p167
27. A Picot 'Ethical Meltdown Accountability and the Australian Recordkeeping Profession' Archives and Manuscripts, vol 28 no 2 Nov 2000 p124
28. C W Palmiter 'Personal and Social Ethics amid Technological Change', in J M Kizza (ed) Social and Ethical Effects of the Computer Revolution Jefferson NC McFarland 1996 pp230-247
29. I Freckelton 'Enforcement of Ethics' in Codes of Ethics and the Professions pp130-165
30. Banks p138
31. The Age 25 February 2000 p3
32. J Jackson 'Common Codes Divergent Practices' in R F Chadwick (ed) Ethics and the Professions Brookfield Aldershot 1994 p122
33. D Gotterbarn 'Computer Practitioners Professionals or Hired Guns?' in Social and Ethical Effects of the Computer Revolution pp219-229
34. Perkin p290
35. Mason and Spinello p7
36. R O Mason F M Mason and M J Culnam Ethics of Information Management Thousand Oaks California Sage 1995
37. The 'Heiner affair' in Australia is an example of 'legal' but unethical destruction of records related to an aborted inquiry into the John Oxley Centre, Wacol, Queensland and its manager which included evidence of child abuse. See C Hurley 'The Heiner Shredding An Appreciation' http://www.caldeson.com/RIMOS/heiner.html [accessed June 2001]
38. The Trade Practices Commission undertook reports on selected professions in 1992 mainly in the area of price competition, see Study of the Professions Final Report TPC Canberra 1992 as quoted in P Clarke and S Corones Competition Law and Policy Melbourne Oxford University Press 1998 p230
39. Competition is defined as the 'striving or potential striving of two or more persons or organisations against one another for the same or related objects'. Clarke and Corones p111. The goal of competition policy is to increase efficiency.
40. Independent Committee of Inquiry Towards A National Competition Policy 'Hilmer Report' AGPS Canberra 1993 as quoted in Clarke and Corones p14 singled out the cost to consumers of the anti-competitive practices of professions such as lawyers. It was found that professional and industry codes often contain restrictions on competition, for example restrictions on advertising, fee competition and working with non-members. Restrictions of this kind are likely to contravene s. 45 of the Trade Practice Act 1974 (Cth) unless they are exempt from the Act or authorisation is obtained.
41. The purchaser-provider agreements between medical insurance funds and hospitals as well as hospital day facilities are an example of the effect of competition policy on the medical profession. D Mendelson 'Devaluation of A Constitutional Guarantee The History of Section 51 (xxiiiA) of the Commonwealth Constitution' Melbourne University Law Review vol 23 no 2 1999 section VIII The Purchaser-Provider Agreements pp331-340
42. J M Kizza 'Can Education Solve Society's Computer Ethics Problems?' in Social and Ethical Effects of the Computer Revolution pp45-52
43. Banks Chapter 3
44. A B Morris 'Effective Information Management A Question of Ethics?' in Social and Ethical Effects of the Computer Revolution pp32-44
45. J L Fodor 'Human Values in the Computer Revolution' in Social and Ethical Effects of the Computer Revolution p258

Livia Iacovino is a lecturer in the School of Information Management and Systems, Faculty of Information Technology, Monash University. She is also a principal researcher in the School's Records Continuum Research Group and the Monash Enterprise Information Research Group. E-mail: livia.iacovina@sims.monash.edu.au.nospam (please remove the '.nospam' from the address).