> But I'm convinced that the development of models for helping professionals
> -- in science, engineering, communications, business, medicine, law, and the
> like -- make sound moral judgments in these circumstances is vitally
> important. And, so far as I can tell, traditional "Christian ethics" simply
> does not equip folks working in these domains adequately for making those
> judgments.
> I would be interested in hearing what those of you on this list
> actually do in ethically conflicted situations in your professional
> contexts. What resources do you draw on? How do make these decisions?
I can't offer much experiential response - theoretical physics
doesn't present lots of ethical dilemmas, & as a pastor I'd better have
some coherence between my religious & "professional" ethics. But a few
general points -
1) I wonder what you mean by "traditional Christian ethics".
Certainly the type of relatively simple deontological ethics which many
Christians learn in Sunday School may not be helpful in many situations
of modern science & technology. Perhaps that indicates a need for
training in more satisfactory Christian ethics.
2) Professional codes of ethics may not be connected explicitly
with religion, but they need not be incompatible. The requirement of
honesty in business dealings is the same whether derived from the 7th
Commandment, Confucius, or a purely pragmatic ethic. Of course this is
why some notion of natural law seems plausible.
3) Formulations of explicitly Christian ethics may provide a
foundation but not detailed prescriptions for the specific issues of
engineering, medicine, &c. Christians in these fields need not try to
trace every aspect of the ethical codes of their professions back to
explicitly Christian principles. But they should, at some point, try to
see if those codes are generally consistent with, e.g., "You shall love
your neighbor as yourself."
3) There may be professional codes which are _not_ consistent
with Christianity. The implicit code of professional ethics for Nazi
medical research is an example. (I recognize the danger of appealing to
extreme cases, but _reductio ad absurdum_ is a valid form of argument.)
Thus a Christian should not simply check his or her religiously based
ethics at the door when entering a profession.
George L. Murphy
gmurphy@imperium.net
http://www.imperium.net/~gmurphy