Chapter

1
Ing. Jennifer Yépez, MSc.
Dra. Fernanda Jiménez, Mgst. Edu.
Universidad Politécnica Salesiana
To learn philosophical background
and importance about Deontology
1. Professional Deontology: definition,
types and characteristics.
2. Importance of studying Deontology
3. Difference among Professional Ethics,
Deontology and Morality
4. Axiology and its relation with
Deontology
• Do you think you know the difference
between right and wrong?
• Should I deliberately mislead a client
about the need or benefits of a product
for my financial gain?
• Should I embezzle money from my
employer so that I may buy a new car?
• Should I fabricate billable hours to a
client to generate greater profits for my
firm?
• Act-utilitarianism considers that people
evaluate each action as an action taken:
• i.e. some particular act performed on a particular
occasion that has some particular consequences.

• According to all form of deontology, people can

evaluate an action as falling under some
general rule.
• Deontology (in general) determines an act as
right or wrong due to:

• It belongs to a particular category

• There is a general duty to perform (or avoid)
that act
Prima Facie Duties by W.D. Ross

• An action can be part of several categories of

moral, and this act can be either right or wrong
according to these categories.
• For Ross, some characteristics that can make
an action right (or wrong) may conflict with
other characteristics that can make the same
act wrong (or right).
Prima Facie Duties by W.D. Ross

• People must carefully weigh all duties before

doing an action.
• Intellectual intuition should guide moral
decisions.
• To do a right action, people should choose the
duty that seems to them most important.
Kant and Ethics of Respect for Persons

• According to Kant, people evaluate if an action

is right or wrong considering:
• If the action is an efficient manner to achieve the
desired goal.
• If the action is right (or wrong) even when it is
taken in itself (not only on account of leading to a
particular goal).
Kant and Ethics of Respect for Persons

• Kant categorises two kinds of imperatives:

• Hypothetical imperatives: these are rules that
apply to people only if they have some goal,
linking actions with desirable goals.
• Categorical imperatives: according to these
imperatives, some actions are absolutely and
unconditionally necessary.
Kant and Ethics of Respect for Persons

• Kant maintains that people can act on principle

considering different rules.
• People can choose and commit themselves
which rules to follow.
• Kant calls “maxim” to the internal (or
subjective) principle that people follow when
they have to do it.
Kant and Ethics of Respect for Persons

• Kant Principle No. 1: “An act is morally right if

and only if this act is based on a maxim that
may become universal (moral) law (that you
may rationally become such a law)”
Kant and Ethics of Respect for Persons

• Kant Principle No. 2: ”An act is morally right if

and only if the agent does not treat any person
(any rational being) merely as a means but also
as an end in itself.”
• “Professional code of ethics” (Robert & Collins
dictionary)
• Term ignored by the Cambridge Advanced
Learner’s Dictionary.
• ”An empirical study of different duties in
particular professional fields” (French
definition)
• Other words related with deontology:
• Code of conduct, code of ethics, guidelines,
charter, code of fair information practices, code of
professional conduct,…
According to J. Holvast:
1. To make the professionals responsible.
2. To supplement legal and political
measures.
3. To awaken the awareness of the public.
4. To harmonise differences which can
emerge between countries.
According to M. Frankel:
1. To help professionals to evaluate
alternative courses of action and to
make more informed choices.
2. To socialise the new professionals by
sharing experience, knowledge and
values.
3. To monitor the profession by acting in a
deterrent to unethical behaviour.
According to M. Frankel:
4. To support professionals in resisting
pressures from others (clients,
employers, bureaucrats).
5. To help legislative, administrative and
judicial bodies
Extra functions:
1. To serve as a source of public
evaluation.
2. To enhance the profession’s reputation
and the public trust.
3. To preserve entrenched professional
biases.
• Deontology is related to a professional
body, and to rules that govern it.
• These rules come from
• The experience of the past.
• The request of the present.
• It is not only rules. It refers to values
• In the late 70s and early 80s the Council of
Europe has tried to elaborate a document
on the ethics of data processing.
• In the end, they suggested more legally
constraining “Recommendations” in
different sectors, such as police, social
security, health, medicine.
• So, which is the link between deontology
and the law?
• “Ethics is the aim of a good life with and for
the other, in just institutions” (Paul Ricoeur)
• Ethics includes the means of solidarity such
as culture, habits and customs, i.e. what is
contingent and relative.
• Ethics is more contingent and related to
cultures.
• It has to favour a good life with and for the
others, it is by essence social and collective.
• Morality (of a person, or act, or behaviour)
or moral is defined as including at least a
set of principles of judgment and action
which imposes itself upon individual
conscience founded on the imperatives of
“the good”.
• It is more on the side of principles and
norms.
• The conscience acts by duty.
• It is more linked to the individual.
• According to the traditional mediaeval
philosophy, the field of morality has four
moral virtues:
• Prudence
• Justice
• Temperance
• Fortitude
• The object of the law was justice, and no
more.
• Morality would miss its collective
dimension if it is considered only from the
individuals.
• There is an intrinsic link between ethics,
moral and the law: the aim to define the
validity of social practices.
 Subject Object Normativity Enforcement

Ethics All Convictions Quasi-nil No

and Principles coercion
morality Moral
Good à
Legitimacy
of social
practices

Table 1
Relationships and differences between Ethics, Morality, Codes and Law
by Berleur
 Subject Object Normativity Enforcement

Deontology Profession Dignity of Depending upon the From warning

Codes of profession degree of to exclusion
ethics / Behaviour institutionalisation (depending
conduct following on the
the ethical organization
principles of the
Specialized profession)
fields
Emergence
of issues

Table 1
Relationships and differences between Ethics, Morality, Codes and Law by
Berleur
 Subject Object Normativity Enforcement

Law, All Common Maximal Sanction

Conventions, God à
Treaties Legality of
social
practices

Table 1
Relationships and differences between Ethics, Morality, Codes and Law by Berleur
Martin, C., Vaught, W., & Solomon, R. (2010). Ethics
across the professions (1st ed.). New York: Oxford
University Press.
Sencerz, S. (2011). Professional Ethics | Philosophy.
Philosophy.tamucc.edu. Retrieved 22 March 2017, from
https://philosophy.tamucc.edu/prof_ethics_lecture5?d
estination=node%2F815