WHO NEEDS CODES, ANYWAY?

Even if you think about a code of ethics as a kind of contract that sets out, in very general terms, acceptable moral behaviour, there is still considerable disagreement about whether professions (not just public relations and communication professions ) ought to have codes at all.

The primary argument against the requirement for professional codes of ethics is the belief that there need not be any special code of ethics apart from the moral guidelines within a given society, for example the Ten Commandments in a Christian society. This position suggests that members of any specific profession are not special and different in any way from anyone else in society and therefore have no extraordinary duties , responsibilities or even rights. Try telling that to physicians who have been clinging to a higher code (at least in their own minds it is higher) since the time of Hippocrates.

Another argument against the value of professional codes of ethics takes the position that it is possible that some practitioners might interpret a code of ethics so literally as to think that this is all they need to make moral decisions ”that this code is the extent to which they believe they ever need to think about ethics at all. This is a frightening thought, especially in light of our contention that perhaps these codes set out only minimum standards of acceptability. Minimally ethical practitioners crowding a field such as public relations hardly bode well for the continual improvement of ethical standards, especially given our spotty history and reputation.

It is this spotty history and less-than -spotless reputation that public relations holds within society that make some sceptics believe that our codes of ethics are nothing more than a PR exercise ”one designed to impress those who say we have no ethics, yet completely unenforceable in any case.

A code of ethics is one of the ways by which sociologists (at least) decide whether or not a particular occupation is a formal ˜profession or not. Codes of ethics for public relations practitioners have been viewed by their critics as nothing more than an attempt to professionalize an unprofessional occupation.

Whereas there might be some substance to this commentary on our field of practice, the bottom line remains that a code of ethics at the very least provides a point of departure for discussions about what constitutes unethical behaviour in any field. It is probably true that if we had a collection of individuals whose own moral standards were high, we would need to worry less about creating codes, but since that is likely never to happen in PR or any other field, perhaps these codes might help to guide our discussion at least.