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Moral Aspects of Professions and Professional Practice

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International Handbook of Research in Professional and Practice-based Learning

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Abstract

Professions are usually defined as occupations that require expert training at an academic level and are built on a set of standards that have to be met by members of a given profession. These standards not only apply to certain kinds of expert knowledge that are expected of professionals but also ethical standards in relation to the usage of this expert knowledge. However, apart from possible failures to meet these requirements, professionals, like anybody else, normally do not always act according to one guideline alone. Their actions are rather tuned to different situational cues. The article explores what kind of situations can be distinguished on a theoretical basis, how far such differentiations are acceptable or even appropriate and where they are not, and how situational adaptation works. The paper ends with deriving implications for professional practice and vocational education and training.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Kohlberg first introduced these forms as “sub-stages” (see e.g. 1984), but played them down later and spoke of “types”, because he noticed anomalies in the developmental sequence (Colby and Kohlberg 1987). From the point of view of the neo-Kohlbergian taxonomy, however, these anomalies are integrated and therefore constitute no systematic problem anymore.

  2. 2.

    In some earlier presentations of the taxonomy the stages were called levels and numbered only 1–3 recursively (following the hierarchically integrated dialectical structure; see Minnameier 2000). However, in order to make the main relations to Kohlberg’s stages more salient, they are numbered 1 through 9 here. This also indicates that there are forms of ethical reflection that are not included in Kohlberg’s stages at all and that go beyond his framework (for more details and the explication of stages and differences to Kohlberg’s view see Minnameier 2000, 2001).

  3. 3.

    To be sure, Kohlberg and Candee’s account is not free from inconsistencies that are revealed and discussed in Minnameier (2013).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Business Ethics and Business Education, Goethe University, Frankfurt am Main, Germany

    Gerhard Minnameier

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  1. Gerhard Minnameier
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Correspondence to Gerhard Minnameier .

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  1. School of Education and Professional Studies, Adult and Vocational Education, Griffith University, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

    Stephen Billett

  2. Institute of Educational Science, University of Paderborn, Paderborn, Germany

    Christian Harteis

  3. Institute of Educational Science, University of Regensburg, Regensburg, Germany

    Hans Gruber

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Minnameier, G. (2014). Moral Aspects of Professions and Professional Practice. In: Billett, S., Harteis, C., Gruber, H. (eds) International Handbook of Research in Professional and Practice-based Learning. Springer International Handbooks of Education. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-8902-8_3

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