CODES AS CONTRACTS

Perhaps one of the most useful ways of looking at a code of ethics is as a profession's contract with the society it serves rather than, as some people may like to believe, a cookbook to thumb through when looking for the answer to a dilemma.

The preface to IABC's Code of Ethics for Professional Communicators sets up this contractual arrangement in this way:

Because hundreds of thousands of business communicators worldwide engage in activities that affect the lives of millions of people, and because this power carries with it significant social responsibilities, the International Association of Business Communicators developed the Code ^{[ 2]}

This statement sets up the expectation that practitioners of these communication disciplines will recognize their power to influence (their job) and will provide these services in a particular way (their promise). In this way they articulate a contractual arrangement of sorts with society. If you examine codes of ethics in this light, they seem to make a certain amount of sense. The code makes a kind of promise about what behaviour can be expected. But there is a fundamental lingering question here. Is this the least we can expect, or perhaps the most?

^{[ 2]} International Association of Business Communicators [accessed 26 June 2001] Code of Ethics for Professional Communicators . http://www.iabc.com/ members /joining/code.htm