Professional Ethics and Governance cheat sheet

Key terms

Ethics

The branch of philosophy concerned with what is right and wrong conduct, and the study of the moral principles that should govern behaviour.

The good as the last end

The classical idea that every human action aims at some good, and that these goods are ultimately ordered toward a final, complete good, the reason an action matters beyond its immediate result.

The common good

The good shared by, and accessible to, every member of a community, as opposed to a private benefit captured by one person at others' expense.

Ethical norms

Shared standards of acceptable conduct that a community or profession expects its members to follow.

Morality

The broader system of beliefs about right and wrong that a person or society holds, of which professional ethics is one applied domain.

Values

The underlying beliefs about what is worthwhile or important that shape which norms a person accepts.

Ethical conduct

Behaviour that actually conforms to accepted ethical norms and values, as distinct from merely holding the right beliefs.

Conscience

An individual's internal sense of right and wrong, which prompts guilt or discomfort when a person acts, or considers acting, against it.

Levels of conscience

Conscience operates from a pre-reflective sense of unease, through a reasoned judgement about a specific act, to a settled character-level disposition that makes ethical action habitual rather than effortful.

Business ethics

The application of ethical principles to commercial decisions and relationships: how a firm treats its customers, competitors, employees and the market it operates in.

Corporate ethics

The values and standards of conduct an organisation formally adopts and expects its people to follow, typically codified and enforced through internal policy rather than left to individual judgement alone.

Code of ethics

A statement of the profession's core values and aspirational principles, integrity, competence, fairness, the 'why' behind expected behaviour.

Code of conduct

The specific, actionable rules that operationalise those principles into concrete required and prohibited behaviour, the 'what' a member must actually do.