George Murphy wrote:
> Tom Pearson wrote:
>
> > 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