Faculty Lecture Series- The Outsourcing of Ethical Thinking

The teaching of professional rules, procedures and standards, as well as the existence of ethics committees and legal advisors to achieve desired behaviors for a given profession, produces an unforeseen byproduct of altering the way individuals relate to ethics. The institutionalization of a moral voice, a kind of artificial conscience for the legally defined “artificial person,” tends to do the ethical thinking for the individual who thinks being moral means following the professionally approved rules. Professionalism is becoming a substitute for internal moral discourse and personal responsibility, despite the belief that we are becoming more morally responsibly through professional behavior.

Jack Simmons and Erik Nordenhaug
Languages, Literature and Philosophy