Remarks of prof. dr. Valentin Mureşan
on the
Codes
of various
Evaluation Societies
The purpose of ADER project is to establish „ethical practice in evaluation in Romania”.
Therefore, its objective is the ethics management at the level of the Evaluation Societies, in
particular, of the Romanian one. The single guide of this complex enterprise is an ethical code.
My question is if this will be a living ethical code or a dead one. Most ethical codes are dead
from the beginning and this is the reason why the discussion is discretely moved towards
professional questions, on quality and efficiency. Usually, ethics if forgotten; the main
explanation of this is the wrong approach of ethics management.
A survey over various national evaluation societies shows the same shortcomings that
are usual in the art of building ethical codes. Essentialy, there is a tendency to hide the ethical
character of a code (by its name, by mixing it with professional codes under the name of „codes
of conduct”, by the neglect of largely recognized ethical principles, generally by a confuse
grounding of the code). From the codes I consulted, 2/3 do not refer to „ethics” at all and 1/3
do. So, what do we want? Clearly, one says that here, in Romania, we are looking for an Ethical
Code for Evaluators. But most part of the similar enterprises do not look for such a code
although they are put in the same ball with the societies ethically oriented. Shortly, my feeling
is that the professional scrupulousness of the ethical expert is lacking in the community of
evaluators. By contrast, the Canadian case can be taken as a good example of looking for an
ethical framework. Let’s see my doubts in some detail:
1. Ethical or non-ethical?
- As we saw, both forms of code are present. Some are explicitely ethical
codes (e.g. Canada), some are a good mixture of ethical and non-ethical
(Japan), some are a bad mixture (Australasian E.S.) and some are not ethical
codes at all (USA, France, Germany, England etc.).This is not only a question
of a vague language, but also one of willingly refuting the ideea of „morality”
perceived as a new set of restrictions on the institutional behavior without
any compensating gain.
2. If ethical, what’s that?
– in other words, what makes an ethical code ethical?
- somewhere, sometimes, such a topic was subject of public debate. It is
subject of scientific study.
3. What is its contents?
- A code is not only a system of ruels. It includes Moral Values, Moral
Principles, Moral Rules, Rights, Moral virtues, Ethical decision making
procedures, Ethical routes.
4. How shall we choose the moral principles and the specific moral rules?
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-
One needs a Preliminary Ethical Diagnoze of the organization or professional
group (the field of application).
- The result is a hierarchy of immoral types of acts and their risks (a risk study).
- The expansion of the code is done following a criterion of coherency and os
specification.
5. How should I morally assess a new public policy (intervention)?
- if the code of ethics has rules which refers to the new case, then we assess
each relevant aspect of the new case using the provisions of the code (e.g.
the prohibition of human cloning).
- if the Ethical Code does not refer to the new case, what shall we do? We
have to update the Code with new provisions.
- Who has the right and competence to do this? An Ethical Commission,
perhaps. Does it need some logistics? You don’t mention anything of this
kind.
- A code of Ethics has to be flexible (never a juridical law).
6. Most codes are a combination of ethical and efficiency rules (business codes, codes
of conduct). Let accept them. In what conditions? It may be reasonable to set up
joint offices of Ethics & Quality Assurance;
- But this association could be done in various ways: by melting the two
components (wrong) or by putting them to collaborate independently (right).
- Shortly: for morally guiding the evaluators inside their professional
organisation one needs good professional rules, but if we speak about ethics,
we need an „ethical infrastructure” not only an „ethical code”. On the long
run, I give no chance to the minimal solution of introducing only an isolated
ethical code, expecially when the code is not quite ethical („code of
conduct”). We need to speek in terms of „ethical infrastructure” or of
„system of ethics management”.
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