Professional Ethics
Professional ethics are areas of ethics that relate to specific professions. Medical ethics, legal ethics, journalistic ethics, and advertising ethics are examples.
Although these professionals are most affected by the specific ethical dilemmas, these choices affect all of us.As with other ethical categories, professional ethics overlap with areas of business, politics, and technology.
Conflicts usually occur when the interests of a profession are at odds with other values, such as transparency and opportunity. Also, whole professions or categories can be at odds (medical vs. legal, legal vs. business, political vs. journalism, etc.).
Every profession has specific ethical problems associated with it. Too often, however, people apply ethical principles to their professions, then abandon these principles when operating outside of their profession. This is known as "compartmentalization" and lacks ethical integrity.
Medical ethics - In a local emergency room, a heroin addict arrives with a compound fracture in his arm, causing great pain.
How much pain medication should the doctor prescribe, or under what conditions?
Legal ethics – A defense lawyer, hired by a known drug-dealer, is paid in cash for his services. Should the lawyer take the payment, even though the cash is likely to be drug money?
The F. Lee Bailey cases provide examples.
Ethics in Journalism
Should a reporter be prosecuted for not revealing a source? (Valerie Plame affair)