Virtue Ethics and Professional Roles
1st Edition
Published on 28. January 2005
978-0-511-03196-0 (ISBN)
Description
Professionals, it is said, have no use for simple lists of virtues and vices. The complexities and constraints of professional roles create peculiar moral demands on the people who occupy them, and traits that are vices in ordinary life are praised as virtues in the context of professional roles. Should this disturb us, or is it naive to presume that things should be otherwise? Taking medical and legal practice as key examples, Justin Oakley and Dean Cocking develop a rigorous articulation and defence of virtue ethics, contrasting it with other types of character-based ethical theories and showing that it offers a promising new approach to the ethics of professional roles. They provide insights into the central notions of professional detachment, professional integrity, and moral character in professional life, and demonstrate how a virtue-based approach can help us better understand what ethical professional-client relationships would be like.
Reviews / Votes
'The great achievement of this book is that it renders virtue ethics plausible ... It certainly offers a new and constructive way of viewing the meaning and the purpose, the roles and the goods of professional life.' Heythrop Journal ' ... there have been relatively few theoretical contributions of this caliber to the literature on virtues and the professions, this book will be a welcome addition to the field.' Jennifer Welchman, Philosophy in Review 'This excellent volume has something for everyone ... It is a thought-provoking read [and] ...offers a significant contribution to the ethics literature' Derek Sellman, Nursing PhilosophyMore details
Language
English
Place of publication
Cambridge
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Cambridge University Press
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Illustrations
Worked examples or Exercises
File size
1,04 MB
ISBN-13
978-0-511-03196-0 (9780511031960)
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Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Justin Oakley | Dean Cocking
Virtue Ethics and Professional Roles
Book
11/2006
Cambridge University Press
€67.50
Shipment within 15-20 days
Justin Oakley | Dean Cocking
Virtue Ethics and Professional Roles
Book
10/2001
Cambridge University Press
€129.00
Shipment within 15-20 days
Persons
Dean Cocking is Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics, Charles Sturt University, Canberra, Australia. He has published a number of articles in journals including Ethics and The Journal of Philosophy. Justin Oakley is Director of the Monash University Centre for Human Bioethics. His publications include Morality and the Emotions (1992) and a number of journal articles.
Content
Preface; Acknowledgements; Introduction; 1. The nature of virtue ethics; 2. The regulative ideals of morality and the problem of friendship; 3. A virtue ethics approach to professional roles; 4. Ethical models of the good general practitioner; 5. Professional virtues, ordinary vices; 6. Professional detachment in health care and legal practice; Bibliography; Index.
