ETHICS FOR THE SAFETY AND HEALTH PROFESSIONAL:
APPROACHES AND CASE STUDIES
Jan K. Wachter
Nancy M. McClellan
1
PREFACE
This book has been written for our fellow safety and health professionals to aid in ethical decisionmaking. We have found that many of our friends and colleagues in the safety and health profession
have been discouraged, dismayed, disheartened, distressed, distraught, disappointed, depressed,
disillusioned, and/or dejected concerning the ethical dilemmas they have encountered in the workplace!
Often, speaking from personal experiences, safety and health professionals feel alone and confused
when navigating through these ethical dilemmas and challenges, especially when the ethical road
appears difficult and winding and the end destination unclear or unknown.
There has been relatively little written about the ethical dilemmas and challenges that safety and health
professionals face. There has even been less written about the philosophical approaches and
frameworks for safety and health professionals to use to resolve the dilemmas and challenges once they
are identified and confronted.
However, this is not a philosophy book. This is a guidebook. But major philosophical principles have
been appropriated in this book for use by those generally unfamiliar with philosophy and its terminology.
The philosophy information was largely gleaned from that available on the internet confirmed through
multiple sources. Where specific safety and health-oriented information and data are cited, references
have been incorporated in this book.
In order to make this book more relevant and readable to safety and health professionals, we have
taken some liberties in explaining, simplifying, and applying philosophical principles for use in ethical
decision-making. One of the major excursions from traditional philosophical understandings is that we
have incorporated safety and health professionals’ duties to obey regulations, standards, and
professional codes of conduct under the deontological (rule-based, duty-based) approach to ethicaldecision making, which is an expansive inclusion from what is normally covered under deontologicalbased approaches. There are many other instances in which we have been creative in our philosophical
appropriations – but always to aid in the goal of providing useful guidance for applied ethical decisionmaking for safety and health professionals.
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Table of Contents
CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................................... 6
What Is Ethics? .......................................................................................................................................... 6
Are These Ethical Values Universal? ......................................................................................................... 8
What Is the Other Orientation? ................................................................................................................ 9
Is Ethics and Legality the Same Thing? ..................................................................................................... 9
What Are Some Common Ethical Misconduct Issues Confronting Safety and Health Professionals?
What Are the Reasons for This Misconduct?.......................................................................................... 11
Areas of Misconduct ........................................................................................................................... 11
Reasons for Misconduct...................................................................................................................... 13
How Are Safety and Health Professionals Decision-Makers? ................................................................. 14
Is There a Business Case for Safety and Health Ethics? .......................................................................... 15
CHAPTER 2 USING REASON: THREE MAJOR PHILOSOPHICAL APPROACHES TO ETHICAL DECISIONMAKING....................................................................................................................................................... 18
Background ............................................................................................................................................. 18
Moral Principles: Actions, Duties and Character Traits .......................................................................... 19
Consequentialism.................................................................................................................................... 22
Basic Theory ........................................................................................................................................ 22
Utilitarian Theories ............................................................................................................................. 24
Other Related Theories ....................................................................................................................... 28
Problems with Consequentialism-Based Theories.............................................................................. 30
Consequentialism and Other Normative Ethical Theories Reconsidered ........................................... 30
Deontological Ethics................................................................................................................................ 31
Basic Theory ........................................................................................................................................ 32
Patient-Centered Deontology ............................................................................................................. 33
Divine Command Theory..................................................................................................................... 34
Problems with Deontological Ethics ................................................................................................... 34
Deontology and Consequentialism Reconsidered .............................................................................. 35
Virtue Ethics ............................................................................................................................................ 35
Basic Theory ........................................................................................................................................ 36
Problems with Virtue Ethics ................................................................................................................ 38
Virtue Ethics, Deontology, and Consequentialism Reconsidered ....................................................... 39
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CHAPTER 3 USING INTUITION: ETHICAL DECISION-MAKING APPROACHES BASED ON THE HEART, GUT
AND HUNCHES ............................................................................................................................................ 40
CHAPTER 4 USING APPLIED CONSEQUENTIALISM-BASED APPROACHES FOR ADDRESSING ETHICAL
DECISION-MAKING ...................................................................................................................................... 42
CHAPTER 5 USING APPLIED DEONTOLOGICAL APPROACHES FOR ADDRESSING ETHICAL DECISIONMAKING....................................................................................................................................................... 46
Duty ......................................................................................................................................................... 46
Laws and Regulations.............................................................................................................................. 48
The Golden Rule / Care-Based Ethics...................................................................................................... 48
Codes of Conduct .................................................................................................................................... 49
Organizational Codes of Conduct ....................................................................................................... 49
Safety and Health Professional Codes of Conduct .............................................................................. 50
CHAPTER 6 USING APPLIED VIRTUE ETHICS APPROACHES FOR ADDRESSING ETHICAL ISSUES ................. 63
CHAPTER 7 USING FRAMEWORKS FOR ETHICAL DECISION-MAKING ......................................................... 66
Frameworks for Making Right versus Wrong Decisions ......................................................................... 66
Hierarchical / Sequential Frameworks for Making Right versus Wrong Decisions ............................. 68
Frameworks for Making Right versus Right Decisions ............................................................................ 72
CHAPTER 8 USING ETHICAL FRAMEWORKS FOR RESOLVING INFORMATION/DATA COLLECTION,
ANALYSIS, INTERPRETATION AND PRESENTATION ISSUES ......................................................................... 74
Biases ...................................................................................................................................................... 75
CHAPTER 9 CASES STUDIES ......................................................................................................................... 77
CHAPTER 10 DISCUSSION OF CASE STUDIES ............................................................................................... 78
REFERENCES ................................................................................................................................................ 79
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List of Tables
Table 1 Questionable Ethical Behavior Related to Data Misrepresentation Observed by Survey
Participants in Two Studies ......................................................................................................................... 12
Table 2 Moral Principles Translated into Actions, Duties and Character Traits ...................................... 20
Table 3 Right versus Wrong Tests for Moral Temptation........................................................................ 40
Table 4 Example Factor Scores for Two Actions ...................................................................................... 43
Table 5 ABIH Industrial Hygiene Code of Ethics ...................................................................................... 53
Table 6 Joint Industrial Hygiene Association Member Ethical Principles ................................................ 55
Table 7 Industrial Hygiene Canons of Ethical Conduct ............................................................................ 57
Table 8 Principles and Character Traits Represented in the Codes of Ethics/Professional Conduct from
Representative Professional Safety, Health and Industrial Hygiene Associations ..................................... 60
Table 9 Types of Bias Related to Data Collection, Data Interpretation and Experimental Design .......... 75
5
CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION
“A man without ethics is a wild beast loosed upon this world.”
Albert Camus, author, journalist and philosopher
Is ethics currently an “in thing”? Evidence suggests that it is! There are numerous seminars, speeches,
conferences, articles and training events on ethics, perhaps due to the large number of high-profile
breaches of business ethics stories featured in the news. Ethics officers and ethics ombudsmen have
been appointed by many organizations – a testimony to the popularity of and need for ethics in business
settings. There have been many serious and repeated attempts to write business ethics into the law,
such as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, which was the U.S. Congress’s major response to the ethical
business scandals of that time.
Professional ethics is important for safety and health practitioners to have since safety and health
professionals as decision-makers are not exempt to the need for making ethical decisions. They are part
of the business community affecting the lives of the people with whom they interact. Safety and health
professionals, as business people, are subject to the external environment and face situations where
values and priorities may conflict. Maybe more importantly, the safety and health profession, being
similar to the medical profession in its end goals (protecting health), has certain ethical expectations of
behavior. These ethical expectations of behavior are often contained in “codes of ethical conduct” –
which is one of the marks of being considered a profession. The vulnerability of the reputation of the
safety and health profession is intensified by ethical missteps given the health-oriented and protective
business that safety and health professionals are in.
This book is meant to serve as a safety and health professional’s guidebook for ethical decision-making
especially when confronted with ethical dilemmas (both common and unique) found in the workplace.
Philosophies, approaches and frameworks for ethical decision-making are provided along with case
studies that have applied these philosophies, approaches and frameworks. This book is largely oriented
toward the ethics of the individual safety and health professional, although some organizational-level
safety and health ethics is discussed.
Before the ethical decision-making approaches and frameworks are presented in later chapters, let’s
answer some basic questions regarding ethics. Thus, Chapter 1 acts as a general primer to this whole
area of ethics – especially ethics related to the safety and health profession.
What Is Ethics?
“A president’s hardest task is not to do what is right but to know what is right.”
Lyndon B. Johnson, U.S. President
“The single largest problem in ethics is the inability to recognize ethical issues.”
Rushworth M. Kidder, ethicist and author
Association Management (October 1999)
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“Let me give you a definition of ethics: It is good to maintain and further life; it is bad to damage
and destroy life.”
Albert Schweitzer, theologian, physician, philosopher and medical missionary
Ethics is a branch of philosophy that deals with right and wrong. More specifically, ethics is the
discipline of dealing with what is good and what is bad under the context of what is right and wrong in
light of one’s moral duty and obligation to do what is good and right. Some might even go so far and say
that ethics is the major mechanism by which humans overcome their natural instinct for selfpreservation and selfishness.
For many, it is difficult to define what ethics is exactly. A typical response is “I don’t know precisely what
ethics is, but I know it when I don’t see it.” This type of response reinforces the mistaken notion that
ethics is defined by illegalities (what is wrong), rather than what is right. Ethics is about doing what is
right. The fundamental concept behind this directive is morality. Ethics is all about conforming to moral
standards or standards of conduct with the distinction being made between what is right and wrong.
Morality refers generally to values that are subscribed to and are fostered by society. The origin of these
values may be societal, cultural, political, personal (e.g., family, experiences, reflection), educational or
religious. Most likely these values are formed from a combination of these and other sources. In a
nutshell, morality is knowing what is right.
Ethics attempts to apply reason for the most part in determining the rules of human, professional and
organizational conduct that translate morality into everyday behavior. Thus, ethics is applied morality.
In particular, ethical values are basic concepts of proper conduct (personal, professional and
organizational) toward other people and/or the environment based on the influences of morality. These
ethical values embody those that a person, profession or organization feel are important. These ethical
values serve as fundamental building blocks for operationally defining what is right and what is wrong in
the real world. These values guide people in making choices about their behavior and conduct in
everyday and professional settings.
Ethical principles are rules of conduct derived from these ethical values. These values are translated
often into ethical principles in the form of “do’s and don’ts.” For instance, the value of honesty could
lead to ethical principles such as: tell the truth, be upfront and candid, do not be deceive, and do not
cheat.
Ethics involves making actual choices and decisions when confronted with life’s unique situations and
circumstances. Ethics is related to people choosing or deciding to do what it right within the context of
their own experiences, situations or circumstances – and having the courage of their convictions.
Distinctively, ethics is real and concrete – taking specific courses of action, exhibiting certain behaviors,
embracing groups of standards, and/or defining performance expectations, based on these values. But
this in not easy! Making ethical decisions can be very complex because in many situations there are
winners and losers involved with varying levels of impact (Taback and Ramanan). Thus, ethics is about
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the difficult task of reducing morality into practice through personal decisions and actions – where the
moral rubber hits the ethical bumpy road.
Are These Ethical Values Universal?
“Relativity applies to physics, not ethics.”
Albert Einstein, theoretical physicist
Many people think that ethical values are universal – that there is a set of ideal ethical values which is
unchanging over time and across cultures. Similarly, some would contend that these ideal ethical values
are known innately by all of us from birth. As evidence, they would cite that ethical norms are so
commonplace that they appear now as merely commonsense.
But in reality there are indeed many disagreements – people may recognize some common ethical
norms, but individuals interpret, evaluate, apply, synthesize and balance these norms in different ways
in light of their own values and life experiences. Also, difficult cultures may have different cultural
norms which could impact these ethical norms. In terms of operating within the global marketplace, a
safety and health professional needs to be sensitive to these local values and norms. But even though
cultural sensitivity and awareness are important to understand, it is equally important that such
sensitivity and awareness are not taken as licenses for moral and ethical ambiguity (Ouimet et al.). In
addition, what is in terms of ethical behavior is not necessarily what ought to be (Josephson). Thus,
ethics is not about the way things are but rather the way things should be – so even if consistent types
of behavior are being evidenced in different settings and cultures do not necessarily translate to being
appropriate ethical behavior.
This “ought” view of ethics describes how people should behave based on specific values and principles
that define what is right and proper as well as providing a means for understanding and resolving ethical
dilemmas. However, these principles may not dictate a single ethical response (Taback and Ramanan).
Thus, given its applied nature, ethics tends to be more situational, contextual and gray than morality –
and this is what makes ethics such a difficult topic to understand and to nail down. This is why
approaches and frameworks are provided for ethical decision-making that can operate in environments
painted largely in shades of gray, rather than relying on back-and-white behavioral mandates requiring
absolute and restrictive courses of action (e.g., laws and regulations).
Therefore, ethics attempts to draw individual, professional and organizational lines of appropriate
behavior in the shifting sands of context. This difficult delineation is necessary because ethics is more
than vaguely doing the right thing – it is about determining norms of specific conduct that distinguishes
or differentiates between acceptable and unacceptable behavior and choosing between right and wrong
on a defendable and reasonable basis in a world that is increasingly competitive, changing, and
challenging.
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What Is the Other Orientation?
“Our very lives depend on the ethics of strangers, and most of us are always strangers to other
people”
Bill Moyers, journalist and public commentator
Much of ethics seems to be relational in its identity – involving an individual’s choices and decisions and
their impact on others (which is basically the foundation of the consequentialism-based approach to
ethical decision-making which is described further in Chapter 2). There are doers and there are
receivers. Therefore, a substantial part of ethics is trying to understand how the actions of doers impact
receivers. Realistically due to human finitude there are limits to understanding how actions will impact
receivers or even who those receivers are or will be – and this reality very well may impact the
conservatism of decisions and actions. For instance, in terms of collecting, analyzing, interpreting and
presenting safety and health data and information, receivers cannot always be predicted (especially
those in the distant future). As a result, for safety and health professionals, caution and conservatism in
data interpretation and representation should be the rule, rather than the exception. Similarly, if the
uncertainty in available data is high when making decisions, then outcomes and their impacts on
receivers are often unknown or unforeseen. If safety and health professionals are operating under such
conditions of uncertain outcomes, they should also make conservative decisions applying the
precautionary principle. The precautionary principle states that if an action has a suspected risk of
causing harm (e.g., to the worker, public or to the environment), in the absence of scientific consensus
that the action is harmful, the burden of proof that it is not harmful falls on those initiating the act.
Thus, ethics is cognizant of the fact that actions and inactions have impacts on receivers, doers, and
potentially the world around them. By its very nature then, ethics forces safety and health professionals
to have “the other” orientation, which is synergistic with the fundamental orientation of the safety and
health profession itself – protecting the health and safety of others.
Is Ethics and Legality the Same Thing?
“In civilized life, law floats in a sea of ethics.”
Earl Warren, jurist and politician
“Ethics are not necessarily to do with being law-abiding. I am very interested in the moral path,
doing the right thing.”
Kate Atkinson, author
“Ethics is not about the way things are; it is about the way things ought to be.”
Michael Josephson, ethicist and attorney
It is interesting to note that ethics officers and ethics ombudsmen being appointed by many
organizations are attorneys reporting to general counsel. Their major job duties include assessing
corporate compliance with regulations that institute ethics into business settings. These duties are
understandable since it is assumed by most that laws and regulations are expressions of “a broad moral
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consensus.” But is legality (compliance with laws and their regulations) and ethics really the same thing?
If we only equate ethics with compliance, is the bar set high enough for society’s, organizations’ or
professional associations’ satisfaction and expectations with respect to what constitutes ethical
behavior?
First, there are fundamental differences between laws and ethics. Ethical norms tend to be broader and
more informal than laws. Laws embrace enforceable rules and their fulfillment is measured through
their compliance – a checklist-based process. Laws do not inspire and people must adhere to its
mandates. Ethics on the other hand provides a set of principles to guide choices to act responsibly
(Taback and Ramanan). Ethics tends to deal with values, is self-regulated, typically not enforced, is
largely voluntary, is adaptive, and can be inspirational.
Second, just because a person’s behavior, choice or decision conforms to the law, regulation or standard
(i.e., legal) does not necessarily mean it is ethical. It is not uncommon for individuals caught in the
practice of questionable or unethical behavior to use the “Judge, I didn’t do anything illegal” defense.
Also, something that is illegal may be ethical in certain instances, such as civil disobedience in order to
establish civil liberties (e.g., race riots in America in the 1960s).
Laws and regulations function largely as societal constraints: you shall not do something! Thus, laws are
typically formulated in the negative. Laws tend to be reactive, protecting us from someone or
something or personal loss. However, in the vast majority of cases, if something is illegal it is probably
unethical. But ethics should be more than just avoiding illegalities – it should inform us as to what
should/ought to be done from a positive, proactive perspective. Thus, illegality determines in part what
constitutes unethical behavior. But legality does not necessarily determine what constitutes ethical
behavior – what should be done. Thus, for safety and health professionals, looking for “what is legal” or
“what is illegal” is not necessarily fully sufficient for determining “what is ethical.” Ethics should be
about doing the right thing, not about not doing the wrong thing.
Based on the information above, adopting a solely legalistic approach to safety and health management
may not be the most ethical management approach. After the passage of the Occupational Safety and
Health Act in 1970 in the United States, the prominent approach to safety and health management
involved attaining regulatory or legal compliance. This approach still prevails predominantly today
especially for smaller companies whose size and monetary constraints dictate using such a narrowly
defined approach. However, a major problem with adopting this regulatory approach in general is that
many hazards and risks are not covered or controlled adequately through existing regulations. Thus,
regulations may not be optimal to control risk or to provide due care for workers. In addition, adopting a
strict regulatory approach to safety management can often lead to organizations operating near the
boundaries of the regulatory playing field – which may eventually result in non-compliances (e.g., going
beyond the white lines). Another issue is that safety and health professionals may have to elect to
perform regulatory compliance activities at the expense of dealing with more pressing safety and health
workplace issues.
10
On a professional career level, safety and health professionals, often acting as regulatory compliance
officers for organizations, may be paid in part (either wittingly or unwittingly) to serve as “designated
felons” for their organizations – the people to blame if regulatory compliance has not been achieved
(often discovered by independent auditors investigating severe or fatal incidents). This is a potential
unethical aspect of organizations implementing this regulatory approach.
The current trend in the safety and health profession is acknowledging that the ethical approach is to go
beyond regulatory compliance. Tort cases and various court decisions reflect continued moral duties to
provide safety and health to others above and beyond what is afforded by regulations. Worldwide there
also is an overriding morality among people to provide safe and healthy environments for workers and
the public beyond regulations. Numerous safety organizations, boards, councils and associations have
formed over the last hundred years all without regulatory drivers.
Therefore, ethics and legality are different from both philosophical and practical perspectives. However,
it should be noted that many frameworks used for ethical decision-making first look at whether the
decisions or acts would violate regulations and standards. If there are potential violations (which
indicate that actions or decisions are unethical due to their illegality), then evaluations of whether
actions or decisions are ethical are not needed.
What Are Some Common Ethical Misconduct Issues Confronting Safety and
Health Professionals? What Are the Reasons for This Misconduct?
Areas of Misconduct
Sims offers a list of 12 encounters of misconduct commonly seen in corporations. This list was compiled
based on reviewing dozens of Wall Street Journal articles. Types of misconduct included stealing, lying,
fraud, influence-buying, hiding or failing to protect data, cheating, working below par, not complying
with legal requirements, noticing an act of noncompliance and not reporting it, and arbitrarily choosing
one option when faced with ethical dilemmas. However, there are relatively few studies documenting
the ethical issues confronting safety and health professionals. Two key studies that were conducted
many years ago involved investigating ethical issues associated with the industrial hygiene profession in
the United States (New Jersey) and Great Britain.
In a study conducted by Goldberg and Greenberg in 1993, members of the American Industrial Hygiene
Association’s (AIHA’s) New Jersey Section were surveyed to determine their personal observations of
unethical behavior in the industrial hygiene profession. In addition they were asked for their
perceptions of the causes of this observed ethical misconduct. At least 25% of survey respondents
observed at least once unethical behavior by industrial hygienists in the following categories:
deliberately overstating positive or understatement of negative results, refraining from reporting
unethical conduct, failing to share publication credit, deliberately failing to acknowledge data limitations,
and holding back findings to avoid negative results. To a slightly lesser degree, plagiarism, data
destruction, and data fabrication were reported by the survey respondents.
In reviewing the results of this study, instances of questionable ethical behavior related to data
collection, analysis, interpretation and presentation or experimental design were also observed. Table 1
11
(American Study) shows the percent of respondents who observed unethical behavior at least once by
industrial hygienists in the broad category of data misrepresentation. The reason why this category is
being highlighted here is that the industrial hygiene profession is data-intensive which could serve as a
breeding ground for less than ethical behavior.
Table 1 Questionable Ethical Behavior Related to Data Misrepresentation Observed by Survey
Participants in Two Studies
Questionable Ethical Behavior Related to Data
Misrepresentation Witnessed by Survey Respondents
American Study
Percent
Respondents
Observing
Behavior at
Least Once*
British Study
Percent
Respondents
Observing
Behavior at
Least Once**
Deliberately overstating positive or understating negative results
35.7
---***
Deliberately failing to acknowledge data limitations
25.7
---
Holding back findings to avoid negative results
25.4
19
Deliberately failing to control data quality
20.9
---
Failing to protect confidential data
20.2
37
Designing research (or sampling strategy) to favor a specific
result
17.5
11
Fabricating data
17.3
25
Releasing so much data that key results are hidden
16.5
---
Destroying data that contradict thesis/desired outcome
15.2
7
* Goldberg, LA & Greenburg, MR (1993). Ethical issues for industrial hygienists: Survey results and
suggestions. Am. Ind. Hyg. Assoc. Journal, March, 54:127-134.
**Burgess, GL & Mullen, D. (2002). Observation of ethical misconduct among industrial hygienists in England.
Am. Ind. Hyg. Assoc. Journal, March/April, 63:151-154.
***Lack of information in various categories in British Study compared to American Study is due to survey
design considerations, rather than behaviors in these categories not being observed by survey respondents.
In a later study in 2002, Burgess and Mullen distributed a similar survey to estimate the nature and
prevalence of ethical misconduct observed within the United Kingdom’s occupational hygiene
professions over a five year period. Nearly 80% of the questionnaire respondents had witnessed
activities of potential misconduct in at least of one of nine categories contained in the survey.
Occupational health professionals responding to the survey witnessed at least one incident of
misconduct in the following categories: plagiarizing (51% of the time), failing to protect confidential data
(37%), failing to share credit on a report of publication (27%), fabricating data (25%), criticizing the
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ability or integrity of another hygienist for own gain (23%), and holding back or disguising data (19%).
The results of these two studies show that unethical behavior is not an exclusive concern for and/or
characteristic of politicians and financiers – it is an important consideration for the safety and health
professionals as well.
Reasons for Misconduct
These two studies also surveyed their respondents requesting them to provide possible reasons for the
observed questionable ethical behaviors. In the Goldberg and Greenberg study, the top two causes
were on-the-job pressure (which included having too many responsibilities) and pressure caused by
economic implications of the resulting data or information. Both of these reasons were cited as being
extremely important for explaining the observed behaviors by over half of respondents (56% for on-thejob pressure; 53% for pressure caused by economic implications of the results). Lack of experience
(~47%); pressure caused by professional implications of results (~42%), poor design of study (~40%);
friendship related to whistle blowing (~40%); competition with peers (~39%); lack of training in ethics
(~36%); poor implementation of design (~35%); lack of communication skills (~33%), and pressures not
related to job (~15%) ranked 3rd through 11th in terms of causes. In the Burgess and Mullen study,
economic pressure was believed to be the leading cause of ethical dilemmas with ~42% of the
occupational health professionals responding in this manner.
Similarly, AIHA et al.’s Joint Industrial Hygiene Ethics and Education Committee (JIHECC) reported that
various factors increased the likelihood of ethical misconduct for safety and health professionals, such
as heightened competitiveness in business. But the Committee also cited changing social values,
globalization and decentralization of business, technological advances, and less oversight as additional
reasons. Other investigators (Schneid, for instance) also suggest that ethical or professional misconduct
for safety and health professionals results from lack of knowledge, lack of awareness, work pressures
and stress, peer pressure, use of controlled substances or outside pressures or stress.
It is not surprising that many of the factors believed to be responsible for safety and health professionals’
misconduct are similar to those which incite organizations and corporations to commit unethical acts,
such as increased competitiveness, low firm profits, and industry financial hardship. In organizations,
financial strain is hypothesized to be the major motivator for engaging in illegal behavior. In addition,
decentralization has been purported to be a cause for unethical conduct in organizations, since
decentralization (often due to globalization) allows employees greater freedom and flexibility in
decision-making with less oversight. In decentralized operations, accountability is reduced and
fragmented as more people at lower levels participate in decision-making. Many safety and health
professionals perform their functions with high degrees of autonomy, allowing for decentralized and
independent decision-making.
Whenever there is an economic downturn, there are increase pressures on safety and health
professionals – with commensurate increases in the potential for ethical lapses. As a direct result there
are increases in the temptation to practice outside (or at least at the fringes) of a safety and health
professional’s area of expertise. To complicate the situation, there could be a lack of good science at
these fringes which leads to uncertainty which can further fuel misconduct. In more desperate times
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there can be a greater tendency to make decisions and conclusions with a lack of good science and good
data.
Also in recent years, emerging areas of the safety and health professional practice are being driven less
by laws and regulations and more by common law, litigation, and liability concerns. This can lead to
being in situations where practice in some areas is based on technical discussions and some industry
consensus, without the benefit of laws and regulations to serve as minimum baselines for ethical
behavior. As a result, there are greater opportunities for confusion arising out of different
interpretations of general industry practices – and this confusion can give license to better rationalize
unethical behavior. In support of this, Ouimet et al. state that professions may be the most vulnerable
to not correctly recognizing potential ethical breaches as well as ethical malfeasance when practicing in
professional areas that are not well defined, in areas of unfamiliar professional territory, and where
extensive professional judgment and interpretation are necessary.
The need for safety and health professionals to continually justify their profession, their worth and value,
their programs, and their expenditures in organizations can lead to less than ethical approaches and
behavior. For instance, it is not atypical that safety and health professionals have to prove their
organizational worth via low accident statistics. Safety and health professionals may have ethical lapses
and not record or classify accident events appropriately in order to show lower than actual accident
rates, thereby increasing their perceived organizational worth.
How Are Safety and Health Professionals Decision-Makers?
One of the main reasons that ethics is important for safety and health professionals is that they are
decision-makers that impact human health – and dilemmas will arise in their roles as decision-makers
where ethical challenges often come into play. Kohlberg (1984) has determined that decision-makers
(and their responses to dilemmas) can be categorized according to those major criteria being used in
making these decisions: ego/self-interest (level 1), conformity to society (level 2), or the principle of
respect (level 3).
A decision or action is often motivated by self-interest in order to prevent some sort of pain or other
negative consequence from occurring to the decision-maker (e.g., legal prosecution or supervisor’s
admonishment). A decision or action is motivated by conformity where the decision-maker wants to fit
in (e.g., with management or the work group). A decision or action is motivated by respect when
decision-makers are cognizant of the moral duties placed on them and/or respectful of those impacted
by their decisions or actions (e.g., motivated by the professional and moral responsibilities placed upon
them when they enter their profession). Safety and health professionals can operate in all three
categories depending on the circumstances, but need to balance these criteria (self-interest, social
expectations, human dignity) when making ethical decisions. However, the highest claim should be to
make decisions that promote human dignity.
Safety and health professionals make their decisions as both individuals and as members of
organizations. As individuals, safety and health professionals having (1) a strong set of professional
knowledge and skills (e.g., respected by their peers for technical proficiency), (2) an acute sense of
14
personal security (e.g., have confidence in their ability to seek and find employment or other careers if
they were to lose their job; have strong support from family and friends to do the right thing), and (3)
professional pride and respect for the social responsibility entrusted in them by virtue of their
profession (e.g., not motivated by material or short-term gains) are likely to be willing and able to standup against ethical or legal challenges (Patankar, Brown and Treadwell) thereby promoting and
embodying level-3 decision-making.
Ethical decision-making also appears to be affected by three qualities: competence in identifying issues
and evaluating consequences, self-confidence in seeking different opinions and deciding what is right,
and willingness to make decisions when the issue has no clear solution (Taback and Ramanan). The
development of these qualities in safety and health professionals depend on their ethical education,
personal situations and personalities.
Since organizations are often susceptible to economic pressures, organizations tend to be level-1
decision-makers. For instance, safety and health programs may be supported because they are required
by laws and regulations, and organizations fear penalties and sanctions if caught failing to meet these
requirements – as opposed to supporting these safety and health programs because they respect their
employees and it is the right thing to do. The ability of organizations to consistently support ethical
decision-making is heavily influenced by its financial stability and its market share, in addition to the
commitment by its top leaders (Patankar, Brown and Treadwell).
Is There a Business Case for Safety and Health Ethics?
“More often there’s a compromise between ethics and expediency.”
Peter Singer, moral philosopher
There are reasons that organizations should adopt and emphasize ethics-based approaches to safety
and health management beyond an imperative to support their social and moral responsibilities. (It
should be noted that organizations seem to have a tendency today to better and/or more visibly
support their social and moral responsibilities in the environmental area, rather than the safety and
health area.)
As an outgrowth of adopting an ethical basis for safety and health management, people (both
employees and external stakeholders) feel good about their organization that understands and does the
right thing from a safety and health perspective – and this can motivate workers to be safer, more
ethical and more engaged in the workplace.
Evidence suggests that an organization’s ethical environment influences workers’ decisions to comply
with safety rules and participate in safety-enhancing initiatives. Thus, corporate ethics can affect
personal safety ethics. As such the organization’s ethical environment can also influence safety and
health professionals’ decisions to comply with their personal or professional ethical codes of conduct.
Most people would agree that good feelings that are generated from doing good things are great
outcomes to aspire to and achieve! As a consequence of adopting ethics-based approaches to safety
and health management, safety and health becomes a true organizational value and cannot be
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constrained by or reduced to factors such as compliance, cost-benefit determinations, risk analyses,
metrics, or human error and behavior. This in turn reinforces ethical behavior on the part of workers,
including safety and health professionals, because leaders and managers are basing the bottom line on a
set of values that value them from dignity and respect perspectives. Conversely, if leaders and
managers in organizations must be constantly convinced to take the ethical high road, this suggests that
major management system deficiencies exist (Ouimet et al.).
There are certain admirable characteristics of organizations that use ethics-based approaches to
managing safety and health, such as safety and health is valued and openly discussed; a set of
obligations is shared by employer and employees (including duty of care owed to the employee, duty of
mutual loyalty and respect, right of the employee to be informed of risk, and right of the employee to
refuse work where the risk is believed to be unacceptable); and a formal code of ethical conduct is
established by management, where everyone is held accountable for behavior against those ethical
standards.
From a pragmatic perspective, if safety and health professionals want to do the right thing in their
workplaces, these professionals need to yoke themselves to organizations that will allow them to do the
right thing within their management systems. Establishing good effective management systems is an
important way for organizations to insure consistent, reproducible ethical behaviors and practices.
These systems identify proper behaviors and establish mechanisms to ensure these behaviors are
followed (Ouimet et al.).
Nonetheless there is an undeniable tension at times between business goals and implementing the
many ethical decisions in the area of safety and health that may arise, since the latter often involve
capital and time expenditures. However, ethical safety and health culture can be viewed perhaps as
“commodities” that positively impact the quality of the workers’ and stakeholders’ lives. The desire for
the presence of these commodities can drive the economic engine which can then generate capital to
further support the manufacturing of the commodity. In the final analysis, prosperity generates an
environment where proactive safety and health perspectives and ethical behavior are affordable,
whereas desperation often creates an environment for increased risk taking and unethical behaviors.
There are other questions related to business and ethics interactions to ponder: Are business-based
safety and health ethical perspectives disingenuous or insincere on most occasions? Are there profit
motives lurking behind the scenes when organizations do the ethical thing because this is what
stakeholders and the public value and want the organizations to do? Do organizations elect to do the
ethical thing in order to influence stakeholders and the public to buy their goods and services and
ultimately increase market share? Perhaps a better question to ask is this: Does it matter if intentions
are disingenuous, insincere, or based on enlightened self-interest if ethical behaviors and ethical
performance result ultimately?
If you think it matters, you are more likely to support deontological and virtue approaches to ethical
decision-making. If you don’t think it matters, you probably support a consequentialism-based
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approach to ethical decision-making – the ends justifying the means. These general approaches are
discussed in Chapter 2.
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CHAPTER 2 USING REASON: THREE MAJOR PHILOSOPHICAL
APPROACHES TO ETHICAL DECISION-MAKING
There are two primary paths to traverse for understanding ethical dilemmas and ethical decision-making:
a set of approaches based on reason (a “thinking” person’s approach) and those based on intuition (a
“feeling” person’s approach). This chapter deals with those approaches based on applying reason to
determining what is right and what is wrong for the safety and health professional. These approaches
have their origins in Greek philosophy. For instance, Aristotle is often cited describing unethical
behavior as when man’s rationality is overcome by his desires.
Background
“Action indeed is the sole medium of expression for ethics.”
Jane Addams, public philosopher, sociologist, author, and leader in woman suffrage and world
peace
Normative ethics is the study of ethical action. Normative ethics examines the standards for the
rightness and wrongness of these actions. Currently there are three predominant normative ethical
theories that are used to frame ethical decision-making through the lens of reason. These three
approaches are consequentialism, deontology and virtue ethics.
The first two, consequentialism and deontology, are considered action-based theories of morality. They
focus upon the actions which a person, like a safety and health professional, performs. In short, they fall
within the domain of moral theories that guide and assess choices as to what ought to be done. So
these systems tend to answer questions like: “What should I do?” “Which actions should I choose?”
When actions are judged morally right based upon their consequences, this is called consequentialism.
When actions are judged morally right based on how well they conform to some set of moral rules or
duties, this is the deontological-based ethical theory.
On the other hand, virtue ethics asks questions like “What sort of person am I?” “What sort of person
should I be?” Virtue ethics does not judge actions as right or wrong, but rather judges the character of
the person doing these actions. The person, in turn, makes moral decisions based on those actions that
would make the person considered to be a good, virtuous person.
A good way to illustrate initially the differences among these three theories is to see how each theory
would approach this situation in terms of ethical decision-making: An employee at your place of work is
in need of your expert help in your role as a safety and health professional and the worker should be
helped – so you help the worker. Is this a good course of action to undertake?


A consequentialist would point to the fact that the consequences of helping the worker would
maximize everyone’s well-being. That’s a good thing!
A deontologist would point to the fact that in helping the worker, the safety and health
professional would be acting in accordance with the moral rule: “Do unto others as you would
do unto them.” That’s a good thing!
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
A virtue ethicist would point to the fact that helping the worker would be charitable or
benevolent on the part of the safety and health professional and reflects one of the character
traits that safety and health professionals should have. That’s a good thing!
From a slightly more descriptive perspective, consequentialism bases the morality of an action upon the
consequences of the outcome and determines the desirability of an action by the net amount of
happiness (or some other surrogate parameter) it brings, the number of people it brings it to, and the
duration of happiness (or some combination of these factors). Deontological ethics, sometimes referred
to as duty ethics, places the emphasis on adhering to ethical rules, principles or duties. Deontology also
postulates the existence of some kind of moral imperative that makes an action obligatory, regardless of
circumstances and consequences. Virtue ethics insists that it is the character rather than the
consequences of actions or the rules that are followed that should be the focal point.
A succinct summary contrasting these three approaches is provided below. In this summary, an “agent”
is the person, such as a safety and health professional, who is making a decision, choosing and/or
performing an action, or whose character is being assessed or impacted.
Consequentialism – derives the rightness or wrongness of an agent’s conduct from the consequences
of the agent’s action.
Deontology – derives the rightness or wrongness of an agent’s conduct from the intrinsic character of
the behavior/action itself often described through rules, laws, and duties and is independent of the
good or bad generated by the action.
Virtue ethics – focuses on the character of the agent rather on the nature of the behavior/action or
the consequences of the action.
Moral Principles: Actions, Duties and Character Traits
There are a number of moral principles upon which safety and health professionals’ judgments (e.g.,
actions, duties and character development) can be based. These moral principles can be used to assess
if the consequences of one’s actions or decisions reflect these moral principles (consequentialism
approach), if one’s duties are driven by these principles (deontological approach), or if one’s character
traits embody these moral principles (virtue ethics approach). Judging consequences, duties or
character traits using these moral principles can be considered as different sides of the same “moral
triangle.”
Josephson states that American culture is built on a solid foundation of ten values: honesty, integrity,
respect, caring, fairness, promise-keeping, the pursuit of excellence, civil duty, accountability, and
loyalty. Similarly, the following table (based on the works of Humphreys, Josephson, Taback and
Ramanan, and Beabout and Wennemann) lists nine major moral principles and their translation into
duties, actions and character traits. The list represents a hierarchical order, placing the most important
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principle (respect) first with the other principles being subordinate to the principles of respect (Beabout
and Wennemann).
Table 2 Moral Principles Translated into Actions, Duties and Character Traits
Moral Principle
Corresponding Action
(Consequentialism
Approach)
Corresponding Duty
(Deontological Approach)
Respect (includes
courteousness,
punctuality, and
the right of selfdetermination)
Nonmaleficence
Action respects the
autonomy of others (i.e.,
each person’s freedom or
right of selfdetermination)
Action does not harm
people
Action promotes the
well-being of others
Treat every human being, others
and yourself, with the respect
befitting the dignity and worth
of a person
Action does not
intentionally deceive;
action discloses all
relevant information in
an honest and intelligible
fashion
Action is fair and just
Caring (includes
beneficence,
goodwill, kindness,
generosity, and
compassion)
Integrity (includes
honesty, sincerity,
dependability,
trustworthiness,
truth-telling, and
promise-keeping)
Justice / Fairness
(includes openmindedness and
willingness to
admit error)
Responsibility
(includes pursuing
excellence,
competence, and
self-constraint)
Civic virtue and
citizenship
(includes social
action, public
service, and
opposition to
injustice)
Utility
Action is well conceived
and thoroughly and
thoughtfully analyzed
given available
information
Action supports social
action and social justice
when and where it is
appropriate
Action provides the
greatest benefit for the
greatest number of
Corresponding
Character Trait
(Virtue Ethic
Approach)
I am respectful
and courteous
Inflict no harm on others
I am kind
Do or promote the good of
others
I am kind,
generous and
compassionate
Maintain personal standards of
conduct befitting a professional;
respect yourself in all decisions
so as to be worthy of living a
fulfilling professional life
I am truthful,
honorable, candid,
sincere, decent,
upright and
dependable
Treat others in a manner that is
appropriate to them as human
beings; be fair, treating people
equally; give others what is
owed or due to them; give
others what they deserve
Provide others with quality
services and recommendations
I am fair, just,
open-minded and
impartial
Perform actions that have a
broader purpose that just selfinterest (e.g., serving myself and
my clients)
I am socially
responsible and
just
Choose the course of action that
produces the greatest benefit
for the greatest number of
I am
knowledgeable
and oriented to
I am competent,
qualified, capable,
efficient and
pursue excellence
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Double Effect
people
people
Action’s foreseeable
intended good must be
proportionately greater
than the foreseeable
unintended harm from
that action
Make sure that there are no
foreseeable bad side effects that
are disproportionate with the
good of the main effect;
exercise due diligence in
foreseeing harmful side effects
of one’s decisions and actions
maximally helping
others
I am discerning,
reasonable, and
balanced
There are specific ramifications for safety and health professionals when applying these moral principles
to their work. Some of these ramifications are listed below (adapted from Taback and Ramanan):









When a safety and health professional makes a written or oral statement (e.g., a report, letter,
oral presentation, verbal report), the receiver/client should be able to rely on its accuracy and
completeness. Any areas of uncertainty in the information need to be disclosed including
limitations in interpreting and applying findings and conclusions.
Safety and health professionals need to disclose the whole truth, clarifying the difference
between fact and opinion.
Bait and switch activities (e.g., changing expertise levels of those working on projects versus
those proposed) are prohibited unless these activities are disclosed and approved upfront.
Safety and health professionals fully implement contractual agreements (both verbiage and
intent) and do not manipulate contractual loopholes to their advantage.
Safety and health professionals allow others that they work with to perform to the best of their
abilities.
Safety and health professionals need to quickly admit to their mistakes upon discovery.
Safety and health professionals do not take claim for work they did not personally perform.
Safety and health professionals must realize they cannot be proficient in all aspects of their field
and it is not possible to keep pace with the state of the art in all areas – thus, they should not
practice outside their areas of expertise.
Safety and health professionals must carefully identify all stakeholders affected by their
decisions, consider alternative solutions, and choose the one that will achieve the overall
greatest benefit and the least amount of harm.
The role of professional codes of conduct often includes institutionalizing the adherence to the above
moral principles and/or highlighting/forbidding commonly encountered situations that represent nonadherence to these moral principles.
In the sections below, the three normative ethical theories based on reason are described in greater
detail. As the information is read, try to address how the information can be applied for making ethical
decisions in the safety and health profession especially based on the moral principles discussed above,
your own value priorities and factoring in your own experiences.
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Consequentialism
If you are a safety and health professional oriented toward adopting a consequentialism-based ethical
framework for decision-making, some key questions you would ask yourself include:




What will be the consequences of my action? Who will be impacted?
What will be the consequences of my inaction? Who will be impacted?
What are the some of the key alternative actions and their consequences that should be
considered?
How do I measure and weigh the harm (bad) against the benefits (good) of my intended action
and its alternatives?
Basic Theory
Do you believe or endorse the following statement? Judgments for safety and health professionals
often boil down to thinking through the consequences of decisions and actions in the workplace and
doing what in the end is believed will bring about the greatest good considering all of the parties
potentially affected by their decisions and actions, such as workers, management, company
stakeholders, fellow safety and health professionals, and the public. If you have this orientation, then
you embrace consequentialism.1
Safety and health professionals adopting a consequentialism-based system for decision-making need to
understand/predict/determine what will happen based on their decisions and actions, as well as
alternatives to their decisions and actions. Safety and health professionals’ decisions and actions may
then be viewed as being right and correct if the outcomes or consequences reflect (the most) good or
are (the most) desirable. Similarly, under a strict application of this ethical system, when safety and
health professionals perform actions or make decisions which will result in non-optimum consequences,
safety and health professionals are acting immorally. Therefore, the basic orientation behind this system
focuses on the good or bad resulting from actions with the purpose of moral judgment being to bring
about and maximize what is good in the world and to avoid what is bad or evil.
However, consequentialism theories can actually differ on the specific nature of the ends (consequences)
that decisions and actions need to promote. What exactly is “the Good?” Theories all tend to agree
that the morally right choices are those than increase (either directly or indirectly) this thing termed
1
Some philosophers equate consequentialism with or classify consequentialism under what is called teleological ethics or
teleology (from the Greek telos meaning “end” or “aim” and logos meaning “science” or “or study of”). Thus, from its Greek
origins, teleology means “the study of ends.” A teleological-based moral system is interested in understanding and achieving
certain end goals related to man as a human being (e.g., self-actualization, contentment), including the cultivation of virtue –
ends that should guide all other actions. This is different than consequentialism that holds that the consequences of a
particular action form the basis for valid moral judgments about that action. For this reason, the concepts of teleology and
consequentialism (as well as teleology and utilitarianism) are kept separate in this book, although it is understood and
understandable that many philosophers have attempted to strongly connect and/or conflate these two ends-oriented
approaches.
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“the Good.” The correct consequences are often determined to be those which are most beneficial to
humanity, promoting things like human happiness, pleasure, desire satisfaction, survival or simply the
general welfare of humans.
But in more specific contexts there are some different options for gauging whether an action is right or
wrong in terms of the good or bad consequences that result from it. For instance, from a religious
perspective, some might say that a decision or action is right if it leads to greater concordance with
God’s wishes for the created world. Or from a community perspective, some may argue that the action
is good if the general state of community welfare increases by one’s decisions and actions. For a safety
and health professional, “the Good” could be the decision or action which leads to the most healthy and
productive workforce, the safest workplace, or the greatest absence of risk.
These theories can also differ on how people assess and balance the various possible consequences. Is it
just the maximization of the Good? Or do you have to subtract the Bad to generate a “Net Good?” Or is
it acceptable if what maximizes the Good for the masses might result in what’s very Bad for a few? In
reality it gets fairly complicated since few decisions and actions are unequivocally positive or good – and
this means it is necessary to figure out how to arrive at the correct balance of good and bad in what
safety and health professionals do. In addition, some consequentialists, called pluralists regarding the
Good, believe that how the Good is distributed among people is itself part of the Good, whereas
conventional consequentialists might add or average each person’s share of the Good to calculate the
total Good. Most consequentialists would insist that the principles of equality be applied to the
interests of the objects (i.e., those people affected by decisions and actions) of moral concern. One’s
own interests, or the interest of people within one’s own social or personal group, are not normally
given a favored status in consequentialism-based models.
It should be noted that most consequentialism-based theories hold that a deliberate action is no
different than a deliberate decision not to act (inaction) if the consequence is identical. This is in
contrast with the Acts and Omissions Doctrine which is upheld by some medical ethicists and some
religions. This latter doctrine asserts that there is a significant moral distinction between actions and
deliberate non-actions which lead to the same consequence. For instance, a person exercising pure
consequentialism would see no moral difference between allowing a patient to die by withholding food
(inaction) versus actively killing them with harmful drugs (action) since the consequence is exactly the
same (death). Those who support the Acts and Omissions Doctrine would disagree.
Some consequentialists believe that the actual doing or refraining from doing certain kinds of specific
acts is an intrinsically valuable consequence which can constitute the Good in part. An application of
this idea is the notion of rights not being violated as part of the Good to be maximized – this is called the
“utilitarianism of rights.” For instance, safety and health professionals under a utilitarianism of rights
model would not proceed with decisions and actions that maximize “the Good” for their workers if
workers’ rights would be violated.
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There are sufficient philosophical differences among consequentialism-based theories on the nature of
the ends (that decisions and actions need to promote) and how the ends should be judged that further
discussion is provided below under various consequentialism-based theories.
Utilitarian Theories
Utilitarianism is the general public’s most commonly understood form of consequentialism: an action is
deemed to be right or correct if it is the action which leads to the greatest happiness for the greatest
number of people. Classical utilitarian thinkers (such as Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill) argue
that the proper moral criterion (end) is happiness, and that happiness can be understood as the
presence of pleasure and the absence of pain (or more precisely as the maximization of pleasure and the
minimization of pain). According to these thinkers, people are driven by both their interests and fears.
But their interests take priority over their fears, and their interests are executed in accordance with how
people view the consequences that might be involved with their interests. This view is sometimes more
specifically called hedonic utilitarianism, a form of utilitarianism that holds that what matters is the
aggregate happiness – the happiness of everyone – and not the happiness of any particular person.
Many utilitarians now use the term “utility” to refer to the degree to which an action produces good
and/or avoids bad.
Some would say that happiness, however, despite it seeming to be the most obvious contender for any
ethical system’s basis, needs to be scrutinized a little more closely, especially when dealing with specific
situations. As stated before, for the safety and health professional, perhaps it is the notion of the
degree of being “healthy” or “safe” or “risk-free” (which would then lead to states of happiness) which
should be used as the most important criteria to use to judge the goodness of an outcome (and
therefore the rightness of the action) for the safety and health professional.
Why do people support a utilitarian approach to ethical decision-making? In principle, advocates of a
utilitarian ethical system would state that it can provide answers to any situation that safety and health
professionals would find themselves. There is no ethical dilemma where a good thing is not possible.
The safety and health professional simply (!) needs to calculate (perhaps through applying a variety of
algorithms) the various amount(s) of “happiness” (or some closely related construct) which would result
from the alternatives presented before them and then select and perform the action that leads to the
greatest happiness for the greatest number of people. Using this approach, intentions behind the
actions taken by safety and health professionals do not count significantly.
In terms of how specific moral objects (i.e., people affected by one’s decisions and actions) are treated
within utilitarianism, the general claim is simply that the priority or weight given to individual or group
interests by safety and health professionals during moral deliberations ought to be functions of the
degree to which those interests are affected by the decisions and actions under evaluation (e.g., impact
distribution), and not on the basis of who has those interests.
A fundamental distinction can be drawn between utilitarian theories which require that the moral
agents (e.g., safety and health professionals) be disconnected from their own interests when choosing
ends (called agent-neutral), and theories which permit agents acting for ends in which they have some
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personal interest or motivation (called agent-focused). Agent-neutral theory is based on the premise
that personal goals do not count any more than anyone else’s goals in evaluating what actions safety
and health professionals should take. On the other hand, agent-focused utilitarianism focuses on the
particular needs of safety and health professionals. Safety and health professionals might be concerned
with general welfare, but he/she may be more concerned with the immediate welfare of himself/herself,
friends and colleagues.
These two approaches could be reconciled by acknowledging the tension between a safety and health
professional’s interest as an individual and as a member of various groups, including professional groups,
and seeking to somehow optimize among all of these interests. For instance, it may be meaningful to
speak of an action as being bad for someone as an individual (a safety and health professional’s career)
but good for them as a member of their work organization (a safety and health professional rigorously
supporting the interest of workers under his charge).
Within utilitarianism, there are two additional basic moral systems that are differentiated by ethicists.
The first focuses on specific acts and their specific consequences and is usually referred to as actutilitarianism. The second type, rule-utilitarianism, focuses on rules of conduct which lead to performing
acts having optimum consequences.
Act-Utilitarianism. Act-utilitarianism offers a straightforward way of applying the utilitarian criterion
to moral judgment. The merit of act-utilitarianism is in its simplicity: in any circumstance the safety and
health professional would choose to do what maximizes utility – to seek to produce the greatest
possible balance of good over evil, or the least possible balance of evil over good, for all who will be
affected by the safety and health professional’s actions. And this choice of action would be the right
thing to do.
Determining the moral value of an action according to act-utilitarianism requires a consideration of all
available alternatives to the safety and health professional and the obligation to seek any and all
available evidence or information that is relevant to determining the probable consequences of these
alternatives. The key to moral judgment is to compare and weigh the relative utility among alternatives.
Thus, an action that produces good consequences can, upon examination, could be morally wrong or
impermissible if there is some alternative that produces a greater amount of utility.
The responsibility of a safety and health professional adopting an act-utilitarian model is to be informed.
From an act-utilitarian perspective it is important that a judgment be made in light of the information
available at the time. In fact it could be argued that there is a moral imperative for a safety and health
professional to inform himself/herself as much as possible about the situation before judging the
appropriate course of action. A better-informed safety and health professional is able to bring about
better consequences. However, it would be unfair to judge a safety and health professional’s actions
based on information that was unavailable at the time decisions are being made – information that
comes to light only at a later date.
But the pragmatic issue that needs to be addressed when adopting act-utilitarianism is how can safety
and health professionals act as informed individuals and identify and evaluate the consequences of
25
every possible action before they act? It appears to be somewhat impractical. So from a realistic
perspective, what should safety and health professionals do when faced with moral dilemmas? The
answer is that safety and health professionals should do that which, in light of all readily available
evidence and information, safety and health professionals determine, in their best judgment, is the
reasonable morally right action – the action that will produce the best consequences for all concerned.
Safety and health professionals can never be certain, given less than perfect foresight, of what the
consequences of their actions will be. However, act-utilitarians would argue that reasonable predictions
can be made, and although such judgments will always be uncertain, they can still be rendered
reasonably.
In addition, for resolving many ethical dilemmas – especially those related to the industrial hygiene
profession – accurate and/or sufficient data will not be available. Here safety and health professionals
will need to rely on a less precise, intuitive sense of consequence probabilities (somewhat like applying
Bayesian statistics to analyze industrial hygiene data). Though intuitive assessments of probabilities are
imprecise, they still can be reasonable, especially if made on the available evidence of past or related
experience.
Now what is wrong with act-utilitarianism other than the general difficulty in assessing numerous
alternative actions and their consequences? In certain situations act-utilitarianism may justify actions
that from a common sense perspective are regarded as immoral and/or stupid, although these actions
can turn out to have the best consequences overall. Here’s a hypothetical example. Let’s say a safety
and health manager is a closeted act-utilitarian and works in a funds-constrained environment. She
decides to eliminate regulatory-required lock out/tagout and confined space programs (that apply to
only a few employees at her organization) and instead sponsors a wellness program and facility (that
would benefit the 200 people working in the organization). The wellness facility would be staffed with
two exciting, attractive and expensive fitness instructors. The safety and health manager determines
that without these regulatory-based programs, there is still a rather low probability that workers will get
hurt, and it is likely that many workers will become fitter and more invigorated through this wellness
program. She believes that her action is the most ethical action. But the safety and health manager
should be broader in her scope of analysis! Even though the consequences of this individual act of
regulatory non-compliance may be arguably favorable in this specific case, the overall consequences of
the practice of regulatory non-compliance may not be favorable and should be considered in decisionmaking. Thus, one of the failings of act-utilitarian approach (which could also be considered its strength
in some circles) is that it provides a direction to take in developing a moral argument for not following
(e.g., granting an exception to adhering to) generally acceptable and warranted rules, regulations,
standards, and laws. Would regulatory exceptions, if allowed, itself undermine the authority of valuable
societal laws, rules or policies which generally have “good” outcomes? Rule-utilitarianism, described
below, offers a potential response for not justifying exceptions under act-utilitarianism.
Rule-Utilitarianism. Rule-utilitarianism argues that it is almost impossible to foresee the outcome of
every act and therefore, it is more desirable to apply rules that are likely to generate the greatest
benefit (good) for the greatest number of people. Rule-utilitarianism also argues that focusing only on
the consequences of the action in question can lead people to occasionally commit outrageous actions.
26
Thus, rule-utilitarianism adds the following provision: imagine that your action was to become a general
rule. If following such a rule overall would result in bad consequences, then it should be avoided even if
it would lead to good consequences in this one instance. This stance is somewhat similar to Kant’s
deontological categorical imperative (which will be explained later).
General practices within our society are governed and controlled by rules. Some rules are codified into
laws and regulations by our governments. Some other rules are adopted formally within some specific
social group to govern the practices of members of the group (professional societies). For instance,
many professional organizations have adopted codes that govern the general practice of people working
within those professions.
Since general practices are governed by rules, and their consequences determine the moral value of
actions, for rule-utilitarians then the consequences of generally adopting and observing certain rules
must be considered when determining the moral status of actions. Thus, rule-utilitarians would say that
it is possible to devise rules which, if followed, would lead to maximizing utility (good consequences)
over the long run. Safety and health professionals should act according to those rules for an action
which, if generally adopted, would produce the greatest possible balance of good over bad, or the least
balance of evil over good, over a period of time. However, an important point to also consider from a
rule-utilitarian perspective is that it is not only the immediate consequences of implementing certain
social rules that must be considered, but the long-range consequences as well.
In applying rule-utilitarianism, as with act-utilitarianism, the aim of moral deliberation is for safety and
health professionals to make the most informed and intelligent assessment of possible outcomes, and
base moral decisions on these assessments. However, rule-utilitarianism can still lead safety and health
professionals to performing actions which taken alone may lead to bad consequences. It is argued then
that the overall situation is that there will be more good than bad when people overall follow the rules
derived from a utilitarian’s considerations.
The appeal of rule-utilitarianism is fairly straightforward: it gets safety and health professionals out of
the jam of having to consider all of the consequences of all alternative actions before during
deliberation. It allows safety and health professionals to more simply adopt a rule (which probably has
already been vetted previously through society, regulatory bodies, professional societies, etc. showing
its utility) to be used in decision-making. It also acknowledges that people are rule-following beings of
habit – people are constantly seeking and applying general principles by which to function. Finally, ruleutilitarianism has intuitive appeal since it often rests ethical behavior directly on the shoulders of society
as a whole – a society that generates both specific and general rules, such as treating others as we
would wish them to treat us.
However, it should be noted that the rule-utilitarian is not necessarily claiming that the existing rules
adopted within society determine the moral status of actions. There is no guarantee that the rules that
are currently in place would produce the best consequences for all. Rather, what safety and health
professionals need to consider in moral judgment is what rules or sets of rules would produce the best
outcomes. Thus, an action that violates accepted forms of practice is morally justified under rule27
utilitarianism if new or revised rules governing the action would lead to better consequences if adopted
than currently accepted practices. The issue is not really what would happen if individual safety and
health professionals would do “this and that,” but what would happen if everyone in the safety and
health profession as a rule would do “this and that,” as compared to other forms of accepted practice.
As an example, in the United States, OSHA has generated a list of permissible exposure limits (PELs) for
worker exposures to hazardous chemicals. The general rule would be to follow these regulations to
ensure worker health and safety because it leads to good consequences (e.g., worker protection).
However, it is generally recognized that these standards are “outdated” due to the long regulatory and
political process for revising and/or issuing new standards. Thus, the safety and health professional
could decide to follow “newer” rules (e.g., following Recommended Exposure Limits [RELs] issued by
NIOSH) because these would be more protective and lead to more utility if every organization would
implement them in the United States.
As with act-utilitarianism, rule-utilitarians must also deal with prediction uncertainty – in particular
predictions concerning the effects of the social institution of rules. Rule-utilitarians will presume that
such assessments can be made reasonably. This is not an unreasonable assumption for existing rules,
since lawmakers and regulators and groups that issue consensus standards and codes of conduct
generally assess the probable outcomes of their actions from a general community perspective including
the long-term. In applying rule-utilitarianism, as with act-utilitarianism, the aim of moral deliberation is
for safety and health professionals to make the most informed and intelligent assessment of possible
outcomes, and base moral decisions on these assessments.
But what does the rule-utilitarian refer to when judging whether to follow one rule rather than another
one – especially when rules are in conflict or are being applied to very complex situations? Also, what
about the situation in which safety and health professionals are choosing among “good” actions by
following different rules? Since the consequences of acts resulting from following rules cannot be
known in sufficient detail in many cases, it looks like safety and health professionals could follow their
intuitions (which will be discussed in the next chapter). Also, what happens if the situation or dilemma
for moral evaluation is so unique that it is difficult or impossible to articulate a rule that could apply over
a sufficient number of cases so that the consequences of its implementation can be assessed? The
utilitarian would probably then adopt a more act-utilitarian perspective.
Combining Act- and Rule-Utilitarianism. There’s another approach to use when safety and health
professionals are confronted with rules that conflict. Safety and health professionals can adopt different
levels of thinking when deciding what to do. For instance, the general everyday level could be to behave
in a rule-utilitarian sort of way – obeying the rules that are likely to lead to greatest utility. However,
when safety and health professionals sometimes find there are conflicts among rules, then safety and
health professionals can adopt an act-utilitarianism approach and do what they judge will lead to the
greatest utility.
Other Related Theories
Eudaimonist Theories. Eudaimonist theories (Greek eudaimonia for “happiness,” “well-being” or
“human flourishing,” depending on the translation) objectively characterize a well-lived life and tend to
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emphasize cultivating virtue or excellence. Eudaimonia (also eudaemonia or eudemonia) consists of
exercising the characteristic human quality – reason – as the most proper and nourishing activity to
cultivate these virtues.
For safety and health professionals, under this approach, virtue would be considered the “end” of all
actions. These virtues could be classical virtues, such as courage, temperance, justice and wisdom (that
support the Greek ideal of a man as a rational animal) or the theological virtues, such as faith, hope and
love (which distinguishes the ideal man being created in the image of God).
These theories are teleological in character and are somewhat similar to a normative theory of ethics
called virtue ethics which will be discussed later. The chief problem with eudaimonist theories is
showing that leading a virtuous life will also be accompanied by happiness.
Ethical Altruism. Ethical altruism can be seen as a consequentialism-based ethic which prescribes that
safety and health professionals take actions that have the best consequences for everyone except for
them. Advocated by Auguste Comte who coined the term “altruism,” this type of ethics can be summed
up in the phrase “live for others.” This philosophy is synergistic with what the safety and health
profession tends to be all about: to ensure a safe and healthy work environment for others.
One common tactic among consequentialists committed to ethical altruism is to employ this notion of
an ideal, neutral observer from which moral judgments can be made. Consequentialism-based theories
that adopt this paradigm hold that right action is the action that will bring about the best consequences
from this ideal neutral observer’s perspective.
Ethical Egoism. Conversely, the ethical egoist makes this fundamental normative claim: all moral
decisions should be made on the basis of considering what serves the interests of the safety and health
professional – the person who is making the decision. However, given the fact that very often what is
good for others is also good for safety and health professionals, it is probable that safety and health
professionals who act as ethical egoists would do things in most circumstances that promote the
interests of others. Nevertheless, in the safety and health profession, the “otherness” orientation is so
fundamental in what safety and health professionals do that it makes ethical egotism seemingly
incongruent to the very nature of the profession.
Ethical egoism is supported by this notion of psychological egoism which claims that in fact all voluntary
actions are motivated by the fundamental aim of achieving some good for oneself. According to
psychological egoism, actions appearing altruistic always turn out, upon closer examination, to be
motivated by self-interest.
Negative Consequentialism. Most consequentialism-based theories focus on promoting some sort of
good consequences. However, one could equally well lay out a consequentialist theory that focuses
solely on minimizing bad consequences. Negative consequentialism may only require that safety and
health professionals avoid bad consequences. In many aspects, the safety and health profession is
largely interested in minimizing the negative consequences of workplace exposures and stressors. A
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slightly alternative theory (negative utilitarianism) considers the reduction of suffering (e.g., for the
disadvantaged) to be more valuable than increases in pleasure (for the affluent or luxurious).
Problems with Consequentialism-Based Theories
There are a number of criticisms associated with the theories based on consequentialism described
above. Utilitarian theories must answer the general charge that the ends just do not justify the means.
The problem arises in these theories because they tend to separate the achieved ends (consequences)
from the action by which these ends were achieved. In other words, the moral duty of a safety and
health professional is derived from a set of circumstances lacking any inherent moral component. As an
example, when an ethical system declares that decisions are moral if they enhance worker protection, it
isn’t being argued that “worker protection” is intrinsically moral itself. Nevertheless, a choice which
enhances worker protection is deemed to be moral.
Since some critics accuse consequentialism-based moral systems being just complicated ways of saying
the ends justify the means, it is possible that if enough good would result from one’s actions, then some
intuitively horrible behavior could be justified. For example, a consequentialism-based moral system
might be able to justify the torture and murder of a child who is innocently visiting his mother at her
workplace at a convenience store and becomes embroiled in a workplace violence hostage situation
involving an intruder. If the torture and murder of this child by the intruder would somehow lead to the
release of the 10 other workers at the convenience store, the action would be morally justified using
consequentialism-based principles.
Consequentialism typically requires moral agents to take a strictly impersonal view of all actions, since it
only the consequences, and not who produces them, that is said to matter. Thus, consequentialism has
been accused of being alienating because it requires moral agents to put too much distance between
them and their own ideas, values, projects, investments and commitments and their resulting actions.
Consequentialism is also viewed as being too demanding since it requires the analysis of consequences
from intended and related actions. How is it possible to determine and analyze easily the full range of
consequences any action will have? Consequences may reach far and wide in ways the safety and
health professional cannot anticipate or comprehend – especially in the long term. In addition, there is
much disagreement over how or even if different consequences can really be quantified in the way
sufficient for some moral algorithms to be applied for calculations to be made. Just how much “good” is
necessary to outweigh “evil” and why is this so? What moral algorithms are acceptable to determine
these answers? Lastly, rule-utilitarianism has some formidable objections in that some critics say it
cannot call itself utilitarianism at all, since devising rules refers more to deontological principles of
justification (which are described later).
Consequentialism and Other Normative Ethical Theories Reconsidered
Rule-consequentialism is generally seen as an attempt to reconcile deontology and consequentialism.
Like deontology, rule-consequentialism holds that moral behavior involves following certain rules.
However, like general consequentialism, rule-consequentialism chooses rules based on the
consequences selecting those rules have, rather than rules being morally right or wrong.
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Theories based on consequentialism are often discussed in opposition to deontological ethical theories,
the latter holding that acts themselves are inherently good or evil, regardless of the consequences of
these acts. But consequentialism-based and deontologist theories are not necessarily mutually exclusive.
Some philosophers like T.M. Scanlon advance the idea that human rights, which are considered
deontological concepts, can only be justified as deontological concepts with reference to the
consequences of having those rights. Robert Nozick argues for a theory that is mostly consequentialist
(let’s look at maximizing the good/utility of one’s actions), but also includes sacrosanct “side-constraints”
which restrict the sort of actions agents, like safety and health professionals, are permitted to perform
(e.g., a worker’s rights cannot be violated). Thus, Nozick holds that a certain set of minimal rules are
necessary to ensure appropriate action under a system based on consequentialism.
Nozick’s approach supports this notion of two-level consequentialism. The two-level consequentialism
approach involves the safety and health professional engaging in critical reasoning when feasible and
considering the possible ramifications of his or her actions before making ethical decisions (actutilitarianism), but reverting to generally reliable moral rules when the safety and health professional is
not in the position to sufficiently stand back and examine the situation as a whole (rule-utilitarianism).
This equates to adhering to act-consequentialism when the safety and health professional is in a
position to reason on a more critical level and rule-consequentialism when the safety and health
professional can only reason on a more intuitive level. Thus, this position can be described as
reconciling act-consequentialism – in which the morality of an action is determined by that action’s
positive outcomes – and rule-consequentialism – in which moral behavior is derived from following rules
that lead to positive outcomes.
In addition, consequentialism and virtue ethics need not to be understood as being antagonistic.
Consequentialism-based theories can consider a person’s character in several ways. For example, the
effects on the character of the agent or any other people involved in an action may be regarded as a
relevant consequence of one’s action. A consequentialist theory may aim at maximizing a particular
virtue or set of virtues. One might adopt a sort of consequentialism that argues that virtuous activity
ultimately produces the best consequences.
Deontological Ethics
If you are a safety and health professional oriented toward adopting a deontological ethical framework
for decision-making, some key questions you would ask yourself include:





What is my moral duty and obligation as a safety and health professional?
What rules do I have to follow as a safety and health professional?
Are there codes of conduct for my profession that I have to follow?
How do I weigh one moral duty, obligation or rule against another?
In the absence of known rules and obligations, what is my intuition telling me to do?
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Basic Theory
Deontological ethics or deontology is the normative ethical position that judges the morality of an action
based on the action’s adherence to a moral rule(s). The word deontology is derived from the Greek for
duty (deon) and science (or study of) (logos) – the study of rules. It attempts to answer these questions:
“What are my moral duties?” “Which choices are morally required, permitted, or forbidden?” It is
sometimes called rule-, duty-, or obligation-based ethics because rules “bind you to your duty.” In many
ways, these duties and obligations require agents (e.g., safety and health professionals) to treat objects
(e.g., workers) in certain ways by virtue of them (e.g., workers) being persons.
Thus, deontology studies moral obligation – a “duty for duty’s sake” philosophy. In deontological ethics,
it is the right or wrong of the action itself that defines it (i.e., some characteristic of the action itself), not
the good or bad of its consequences. In this sense, under deontology, the Right is said to have priority
over the Good. If an act is not in accord with the Right, it may not be undertaken, no matter the Good
that it might produce. Deontological ethics argues that it is the “means” that are important, rather than
“the ends justifying the means” which is the perspective under utilitarianism.
Since deontological moral systems are characterized primarily by a focus on adhering to independent
moral rules or duties, safety and health professionals have to understand what their moral duties are
and what correct rules exist which regulate those duties in order to make the correct moral choices.
When safety and health professionals follow their duty, they are behaving morally. When safety and
health professions fail to follow their duty, they are behaving immorally. In a deontological-based
system, duties, rules and obligations are determined typically by God or some other authority (e.g.,
society, regulators, or professional societies). Being moral is thus a matter of obeying the authority’s
rules. In deontology, morals principles are separated from any consequences which following those
principles might have – and often take on the tone of being absolute. Thus, if you have a moral duty not
to lie, then lying is always wrong – even if executing that duty would result in great harm to others. For
example, a person would be acting immorally if that person had lied to the Nazis about where the
French Resistance was hiding during World War II.
The strengths of deontological approaches lie in their categorical prohibition of actions like the killing of
innocents and in permitting each agent to pursue his/her own missions and undertakings free of any
constant demand that he/she shapes those missions and undertakings so as to make everyone else
happy or well off. Deontological ethics leaves space for safety and health professionals to give special
concern to their families, friends, projects, beliefs, and workers they provide service to. Deontological
ethics, therefore, avoids the overly demanding and alienating aspects of consequentialism and accords
more with modern conventions of what people believe to be their moral duties. Also, deontological
theories possess the advantage of being able to account for strong, widely shared moral intuitions about
duties better than consequentialism.
Deontological theories, unlike consequentialism-based ones, have the potential for explaining why
people, like safety and health professionals, have moral standing to complain about and hold
accountable those who breach moral duties of the profession. The moral duties typically thought to be
characteristically deontological are typically duties to particular groups of people (e.g., workers that
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safety and health professionals serve), not duties to bring about consequences that no particular person
has an individual right to have realized.
Deontological ethics is often based on the works of German philosopher Immanuel Kant who saw the
moral law as a “categorical imperative” – an unconditional demand – and believed that its content could
be established solely by human reason. Kant claims that people achieve good will when they act out of
respect for the moral law. People act out of respect for the moral law when they act in some way
because they have a duty to do so. So the only thing that is truly good in itself is a good will, and a good
will is only good when the moral agent (e.g., safety and health professional) chooses to do something
because it is that person’s duty to do so.
Kant’s two significant formulations of this moral imperative are:


Act only according to that maxim by which you can also will that it would become a universal
law (or putting it more descriptively act only if a particular rule can be applied universally
without having a negative effect on society and/or you are willing to permit everyone else to
adopt it)
Act in such a way that you always treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person
of any other, never simply as a means.
The categorical imperative generally supports the “Golden Rule” of Christianity, Judaism and other
religions (“do unto others as you would have them do unto you”).
However, many deontologists are moral absolutists, believing that certain actions are absolutely right or
absolutely wrong, regardless of the intentions behind them as well as the consequences. Similarly, most
deontologists believe that duties and obligations should be determined as objectively and absolutely as
possible, not subjectively. There is little room in many deontological systems for subjective feeling.
Thus, many deontologists criticize subjectivism and relativism.
Just like theories based on consequentialism, there are a number of “variations on the theme” when it
comes to deontology or deontology-sounding approaches. These are presented below.
Patient-Centered Deontology
In patient-centered deontology, actions are rights-based rather than duty-based. These rights refer to
the rights that people have against being used by another for the other’s (or someone else’s) benefits.
The scope of strong moral duties is thus jurisdictionally limited and does not extend to resources for
producing the Good that would not exist in the absence of those being intruded upon (their bodies,
labors or talents). Thus, it is wrong to throw an obese person in front of a train to derail it in order to
save the lives of five people trapped in an automobile stuck on the tracks. Under patient-centered
deontology you do not have the right to use that obese person’s body as a means to achieve an end. In
short, a patient-center deontologist’s obligation is aligned with a “Do unto others only that to which
they have consented” philosophy. So you can’t use others as a mere means to your end.
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Divine Command Theory
There exists the divine command theory which is related to deontology. The set of moral obligations is
derived from God. The divine command theory states that actions are right (morally correct) if God has
decreed them to be right – but correct intentions also need to be present. For instance, if God
commands people (like safety and health professionals) not to work on the Sabbath, then safety and
health professionals act rightly if they do not work on the Sabbath because God has commanded that
they do not do so. If they do not work on the Sabbath because they have slept all day because they were
partying the night before at a safety and health conference and exposition, then their actions are not
truly speaking “right,” even though the actual physical actions performed result in the same thing. Thus,
in deontological-related moral systems, the reasons as to why (i.e., intent related to fulfilling one’s duty)
certain actions are performed are stressed. Simply following the correct moral rules is often not
sufficient; instead, safety and health professionals need to have the correct motivations and intentions.
Problems with Deontological Ethics
A common criticism of deontological moral systems is that they provide no clear way to resolve conflicts
between competing moral duties (e.g., telling the truth versus being loyal). A popular response would
be to simply choose the “lesser of two evils” but that means relying on which of the two has the least
evil consequences, and, therefore, the moral choice is being made using consequentialism-based
methods rather than on a deontological basis. Also, for many safety and health professionals, the moral
dilemma is normally about choosing among two “good” actions (good versus good). Deontological
systems are not that well equipped to handle this situation and would probably have a consequentialist
retort: choose the option having the greatest good consequences.
Deontologists spend a lot of time attempting to explain how and why certain duties are valid at any or
all times. Thus, a related criticism is that deontological moral systems do not easily accommodate gray
areas where the morality of an action is questionable. Deontological systems are typically based on
absolutes - black versus white. In real life, moral questions more often involve gray areas for the safety
and health professional. Safety and health professionals have conflicting duties, interests, and issues
that contribute to difficult decision-making.
There is also a veil of paradox in asserting that deontological duties are categorical in character – to be
done no matter the consequences (black versus white mentality), since deontologists also assert that
some of these duties are more stringent than others. How can there be degrees of wrongness among
intrinsically and absolutely wrong acts?
Some critics argue that deontological moral systems are, in fact, undercover consequentialism-based
moral systems. Under this criticism, duties and obligations set forth in deontological systems are
actually those actions which have been demonstrated over long periods of time to have the best
consequences. Eventually, the actions become preserved in law, regulations, customs, duty, and codes
of conduct. People stop giving them or their consequences much thought. They are simply assumed to
be correct and right.
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Also, there is the issue about adopting deontologist norms when one is confronted with great evil with
potentially disastrous consequences. Inducing torture to solicit information is not allowed under
deontological systems – since it is morally wrong to torture. But what if a terrorist who is undergoing
interrogation knows (and is responsible for) the location of a bomb which is to detonate in 5 hours and
could kill thousands of people? Is it morally wrong then to torture that person? In response to this
common criticism, there exists a theory called threshold deontology.
Threshold Deontology. A threshold deontologist holds that deontological norms (moral rules) govern
up to a point despite adverse consequences, but when the consequences become so dire that they cross
a stipulated threshold, consequentialism takes over. Threshold deontology attempts to save
deontological morality models from the charge of extremism and fanaticism.
There are some variations to threshold deontology theory. A fixed threshold approach states that there
is awfulness beyond which morality’s categorical norms no longer have their overriding force. This
threshold is fixed in the sense that it does not vary with the specifics of the categorical duty being
violated. On the other hand, there could also be sliding scale threshold deontology. In this theory, the
threshold varies in proportion to the degree of wrong being done. For instance, killing is wrong, and
stepping on an ant is killing, but there is a moral difference between that action and stepping on a
puppy and killing it and stepping on an infant and killing her.
Deontology and Consequentialism Reconsidered
The perceived weaknesses of deontological theories have led some to consider how to eliminate or at
least reduce those weaknesses while preserving deontology’s advantages. The answer may be to
embrace both consequentialism and deontology – combining them into some kind of hybrid theory,
such as threshold deontology, as described above. Another way of combining deontology with
consequentialism is to assign to each a jurisdiction that is exclusive of the other.
Many deontologists now stress the point that their action-guiding rules cannot reliably be applied
correctly without having and demonstrating the virtue of practical wisdom – because correct application
of rules requires situational appreciation. Also, what seems to be missing from both the utilitarian and
deontological approaches is fully incorporating another human attribute: the way people feel about
certain types of behavior – an affective lens to ethical decision-making.
The ethical system based on reason which has emerged as a rival to these other two systems, and which
seeks to help us to a deeper understanding of how to behave, is called virtue ethics. It is both a very
new and very old normative theory of ethics.
Virtue Ethics
If you are a safety and health professional oriented toward adopting a virtue ethics framework for
decision-making, some key questions you would ask yourself include:


What sort of safety and health professional do I want to be or to be known for?
What virtues are characteristic of the safety and health professional that I want to be?
35



What actions will cultivate the virtues that I want to possess as a safety and health
professional?
What actions are characteristic of the sort of safety and health professional I want to be?
Are my motivations and intent appropriate and do they reflect virtuous characteristics?
Basic Theory
Virtue is its own reward! This is essentially the basis of the normative ethical theory called virtue ethics.
Virtue ethics emphasizes the role of one’s character and the virtues that one’s character embodies for
determining or evaluating ethical behavior. Virtue ethics focuses upon being rather than doing. Virtuebased ethical theories place less emphasis on which rules people should follow (rules by themselves may
give guidelines, but they cannot make good people according to virtue ethicists!) and the consequences
or outcomes (concern with consequences is important but without a reform of people, society is not
likely to see sustaining results according to virtue ethicists!) and instead focuses on the kind of person
who is acting – and in helping that person develop good character traits, such as practical wisdom,
truthfulness, generosity, respect and kindness. These traits will in turn allow a person to make correct
decisions in life.
Virtue ethics can be used to determine the rightness or wrongness of an act by relating the choice to
admirable character traits. A decision or act is morally right if in carrying out the act, one exercises,
exhibits or develops a morally virtuous character. The decision or act is morally wrong to the extent that
by performing the act or making the decision exhibits or develops a morally vile character trait. Intent is
also important to consider in the virtue ethics model. A truthful person will usually tell the truth, and
she will do so because it is the right thing to do, not because she fears the negative consequences of
being ratted out.
What is primary here is whether or not the person performing the act is expressing good character
(moral virtues). Character traits can be good, bad, or somewhere in between. They can be admirable or
not. The admirable character traits, the marks of perfection in character, are called virtues. Virtue
theorists also emphasize the need for people to learn how to break bad habits of character, like anger,
jealousy and greed. These vices stand in the way of becoming a good, virtuous person. But, realistically,
possessing a virtue is a matter of degree. Most people who can be described as fairly virtuous still have
their vices that occasionally emerge.
A person’s character is the totality of his or her character traits. Character traits are dispositions or
habit-like tendencies and are deeply entrenched or engrained. But these traits are not innate – people
are not born with them. These character traits are formed over time as a result of more or less freely
selecting actions of a certain kind. These character traits are like muscles being built over time through
exercising! For instance, people are not born honest, but people become so by repeatedly telling the
truth. People are not born generous, but people become so by repeatedly giving of themselves.
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Thus, to possess a virtue is to be a certain sort of person with a complex orientation and personal history.
Hence attributing a virtue to a person based on any single action is not that appropriate. People
develop moral dispositions – virtues and vices – through repeated activities and experiences over time –
and should be judged accordingly. Thus, virtue ethics is more concerned about a way of being that
would cause the person exhibiting the virtue to make certain “virtuous” choices consistently and
repeatedly – versus evaluating the virtue of any particular decision or act at any particular time.
Moral virtues/character enables us to act in accordance with reason. Persons who are not morally
virtuous are sometimes governed by their appetites or passions. Emotions may get in the way of doing
the reasonable thing or even recognizing what the reasonable thing is to do. Moral virtues enable us to
feel appropriately and have the right intention. To apply virtue ethics to a given situation, safety and
health professionals should reflect on which character traits are relevant and on the kind of actions,
attitudes, intentions and feelings that go along with the situation. Codes of ethics for the safety and
health profession are often oriented toward describing these virtues and desirable characteristics as
well as vices and undesirable characteristics. Practical wisdom is a character trait that may be especially
important for safety and health professionals to possess. Given that good intentions are orientations to
acting well or “doing the right thing,” many may say that practical wisdom is the knowledge or
understanding that enables safety and health professionals to do just that in any given situation.
Virtue ethics dates back to the ancient Greek thinkers. It is the oldest type of ethical theory in Western
philosophy – although it had been de-emphasized over the ages in favor of consequentialism-based and
deontological philosophical approaches. Plato discussed four key virtues: wisdom, courage,
temperance and justice. The first systematic description of virtue ethics was written in Nichomachaen
Ethics by Aristotle who stressed virtue as being central to a good life. According to Aristotle, a moral
virtue is a disposition to act as the morally reasonable person would act (according to reason) and to
feel emotions and desires appropriately. Aristotle believed that when people acquire good habits of
character, they are better able to regulate their emotions and their reason. This helps people reach
morally correct decisions when they are faced with difficult choices. Aristotle categorized virtues as
being intellectual and moral. Aristotle identified nine intellectual virtues, the most important one being
wisdom. The other eight moral virtues include prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance.
Aristotle argued that each of the moral virtues was a mean between two corresponding vices, one of
excess and one of deficiency. For instance, the virtue of courage lies between the vice of recklessness
and the vice of cowardice. A coward has too much fear. The reckless person has too little fear or
excessive confidence. The courageous person has just the right amount of fear and confidence. Thus,
according to Aristotle, moral virtues are orientations towards the mean, rather than the extremes (vices
relate to extremes).
Virtue ethics has reemerged as an important contribution to understanding morality in recent years.
One reason is that it emphasizes the central role played by motives and intent in resolving ethical
dilemmas. To act from virtue is to act from some particular motivation, intention or orientation; thus to
say that certain virtues are necessary for correct moral decisions is to state that correct moral decisions
require correct motives and intent. Neither consequentialism nor deontological moral theories require
37
motives or intent to play a major role in evaluating ethical decisions – but demonstrating correct
motivations and intentions is very often a key component in implementing the codes of ethics for safety
and health professionals. Thus, virtue ethics may be an important model for safety and health
professionals to embrace when it comes to ethical decision-making.
Another reason why virtue theories have become so attractive is that the other moral theories share a
common difficulty in dealing with the complicated moral mental calculations over what action (among
actions) to undertake from a consequence perspective or which rules or duties to emphasize. Virtue
theories assure that once individuals are successful in creating the sort of person they want to be,
arriving at the correct ethical decisions will come naturally and effortlessly.
Problems with Virtue Ethics
The reality is that virtue ethics is not as simple as described above. Although many common moral
decisions may indeed come more easily to a safety and health professional of “virtuous” moral character,
the fact is that many ethical dilemmas require a great deal of careful reasoning and thinking. Simply
having the right character may not be enough to make the right decision likely, much less certain,
especially in a complicated and gray world of the safety and health professional.
Another problem with virtue-based ethical systems is the question of what exactly the “right” sort of
character a person should have. Many virtue theorists have treated the answer to this question as selfevident. However, one person’s virtue may be another person’s vice, and a vice in one set of
circumstances may be virtuous in another. Also, different people, cultures and societies often have
vastly different opinions on what constitutes a virtue. There may be several, some conflicting, virtues
within a given culture. For instance, in some Asian cultures it is virtuous to uphold relationships with
dear old friends at almost any cost, while in western culture being upfront and honest is a highly valued
virtue. Let’s say an industrial hygienist in Asia (named Ben) discovers his best friend (Len), also an
industrial hygienist, may be falsifying his records in order to maintain his industrial hygienist certification.
Ben would think it extremely offensive to confront Len concerning Len’s falsification of records or even
worse to turn his friend into the ABIH professional society for falsification of records, even though the
ABIH professional society would deem this disclosure as a virtue under its code of ethics. In this case,
being loyal may trump being truthful.
Another objection to virtue theory is that it does not focus on what sorts of actions are morally
permitted and which ones are not, but rather on what sort of qualities someone ought to foster in order
to become a good person. Some virtue theorists might respond to this overall objection with the notion
that a “bad act” would be an act characteristic of vice. That is to say that those acts that do not aim at
virtue or stray from virtue would constitute “bad behavior.”
A more recent objection to virtue ethics based on work in the field of social psychology indicates that
there may be no such things as character traits in the first place and therefore there are no such things
as virtues borne out of character traits. Without character traits, there are no virtues under a virtue
ethics approach.
38
Virtue Ethics, Deontology, and Consequentialism Reconsidered
Virtue ethics actually may not be in conflict with deontology or consequentialism – those two latter
viewpoints deal with those actions a person should take in any given scenario, whereas virtue theorists
argue that developing morally desirable virtues for their own sake will help aid moral actions when such
decisions need to be made. Eudaimonia generally belongs to the tradition of virtue theories. But it also
has been appropriated by teleological and related theories like consequentialism (let’s maximize
eudaimonia!). For the virtue theorist, eudaimonia describes that state achieved by the person who lives
a proper human life, an outcome that can be reached by practicing virtues.
The difference among these three approaches to morality and ethical decision-making tends to lie more
in the way each approaches moral dilemmas, rather than the conclusions which are actually reached.
For example, a consequentialist may argue that lying is wrong because of the negative consequences
produced by the act of lying – though a consequentialist may allow that certain foreseeable
consequences might make lying acceptable. A deontologist might argue that lying is always wrong,
regardless of any potential “good” that might come from lying, because a liar violates a Biblical principle:
“Thou shall not lie.” A virtue ethicist would focus less on lying in any particular instance and instead
consider what a decision to tell a lie or not to tell a lie says about one’s character and moral behavior.
Thus, the same act (not lying) or duty (not to lie) or character trait (truthfulness) could be chosen and be
validated by using any or all of the three normative ethical theories.
39
CHAPTER 3 USING INTUITION: ETHICAL DECISION-MAKING
APPROACHES BASED ON THE HEART, GUT AND HUNCHES
The preceding chapter outlined the three major philosophical approaches for ethical decision-making.
All of these approaches are entrenched in Greek philosophical thought, and, as such, rely heavily on
using the human mind to apply reason for making ethical choices. Through reason, safety and health
professionals are able to identify and evaluate their consequences, their moral duties, and the virtues
they want to possess and exhibit.
The second distinct approach to ethical decision-making is the intuitive approach. In this approach,
decision-makers use their intuition as a basis for making their ethical decisions. Intuition could be based
on what your heart and “gut” are telling you to do or what your overall hunches are toward resolving
the dilemma at hand or making the choice or decision before you.
This approach assumes that your intuition is tapping into something like an internal moral system of
what is right or wrong (like a subliminal deontology). When you are making good ethical decisions, you
feel good about yourself. When you are making bad ethical decisions, you feel uneasy or bad about
yourself. Perhaps what the person is feeling is some innate physiological response to the decision being
made or maybe in the case of bad ethical decisions it is a psychological response that is attempting to
alert the person of the cognitive dissonance that is being experienced between what is right and what is
wrong.
Some would say that this intuitive approach is actually a version of the deontological approach to ethical
decision-making. What is actually happening from a deontological perspective is that the decisionmaker is attempting to abide by some hidden or unconscious moral rule or duty. Intuition is the
manifestation of this condition.
Tests largely based on intuition have been developed for use by safety and health professionals and
others in determining what is right versus wrong in terms of ethical decision-making. These tests are
not that useful when safety and health professionals are faced with choosing among two or more good
alternatives. These tests purportedly work by tapping into individuals’ moral and social consciousness
(which in turn is based on a core set of ethical values) primarily via one’s feelings. However, many of
these tests may also tap into an understanding of the consequences and ramifications of one’s actions
(e.g., embarrassment, imprisonment) which supports more of a consequentialism-based approach to
ethical decision-making. These tests – sometimes collectively called the “Tests for Moral Temptations” –
include the following tests shown in Table 3.
Table 3 Right versus Wrong Tests for Moral Temptation
Intuition-Based Right
versus Wrong Tests
Morning–after test
Description
Asks, “If I make this choice, how will I feel about it tomorrow morning?”
40
Intuition-Based Right
versus Wrong Tests
Description
Front page test
Encourages you to make a decision that would not embarrass you if printed
as a story on the front page of your hometown newspaper. “What would my
family, friends or neighbors think of my actions?” “Would I be feel
embarrassed?”
Mirror test
Asks “If I make this decision, how will I feel about myself when I look in the
mirror?”
Role reversal/reciprocity Requires you to trade places with the people affected by your decision and
test
view the decision through their eyes. “How would I feel if I were them?”
Asks you to consider what your role-model (parent, teacher, pastor, etc.)
would say to you regarding your decision. “Would an individual I really
Role model / mother / respect avoid behaving in this way?” “Would someone who cares deeply
pastor / wise person test about me want me to avoid behaving this way?” “Would I be embarrassed if
my role-models know about my decision?” Think of the wisest person you
know. “What would he or she do in this situation?”
Common sense/ gut feel Requires you to listen to what your instincts and common sense are telling
test
you. If it feels wrong or makes you feel uncomfortable, it probably is.
Stench test
Does the action seem uncomfortable to you or just plain wrong. If so, it
probably is.
Source: adapted from Barbi and Orr.
41
CHAPTER 4 USING APPLIED CONSEQUENTIALISM-BASED APPROACHES
FOR ADDRESSING ETHICAL DECISION-MAKING
Under a consequentialism-based approach, what consequences would safety and health professionals
look for and analyze as a basis for choosing the most ethical course of action? The consequences that
would be looked for and analyzed are really situation-specific influenced by the particular dilemma,
issue, decision, action, and affected parties (and many other aspects as well!) being encountered.
However, one can formulate a general list of consequences that could be applicable to many situations
facing safety and health professionals for use in determining the desirability of a course of action. Some
potential consequences/factors to be analyzed resulting from the action or decision could include
anticipated impacts like:
-
-
Level of resulting risk
Number of hazards or unsafe conditions eliminated from or added to the workplace
Any increases or decreases in safety factors
Level of satisfaction or degree of happiness of those impacted by the action or decision
Level of hazard control
Level of quality
Degree of accuracy or precision associated with information resulting from the action or
decision
Level of prevention or level of reactivity associated with the action or decision
Number and magnitude of virtues being supported by the action or decision, including the
degree of truthfulness and honesty, objectivity, reciprocity, fairness, openness, transparency,
selflessness, or integrity (for example)
Degree of regulatory compliance
Degree of conformance to professional codes of conduct
Degree of conformance to applicable consensus standards
Degree of conformance to standard industry practice
Degree of technical correctness associated with the action.
In addition, the anticipated number of people affected by the action or decision and the duration of the
potential impacts could also be determined for each consequence in order to be factored into the
decision-making process.
The above list attempts to make the analysis of consequences for safety and health professionals as
quantitative (objective) as possible. However, getting precise and accurate information on these
criteria/consequences could be difficult to obtain due to availability of information or how much time it
would take to gather the information. To resolve this issue, the safety and health professional could
rate the anticipated consequences associated with each of the above factors applicable to the ethical
dilemma, for instance, on a scale of 1 to 10 – with 10 representing a “good” response and 1 representing
a “bad” response. Safety and health professionals would make reasonable guesses as to these scores.
Unique algorithms could then be generated by safety and health professionals for determining the
42
overall goodness of the action, using each consequence factor and its individual “goodness” score, the
number of people impacted by the action or decision, and the duration of that impact (as an example).
For instance, let’s say hypothetically that the safety and health professional is deciding between two
“good” actions (Action 1 and Action 2) to implement in the workplace (good versus good dilemma) and
wants to determine which action would be considered the most ethical action. The safety and health
professional scores the various consequences/factors and generates the information shown in Table 4.
Table 4 Example Factor Scores for Two Actions
Anticipated Consequences
Factor (Applicable to Situation)
Range of Possible Scores
Action 1
Score
Action 2
Score
Level of resulting risk
1 (low/least good) to 10 (high/most good)
7
6
Safety factor impacts
1 (low/least good) to 10 (high/most good)
8
7
Level of satisfaction or
degree of happiness of those
impacted
1 (low/least good) to 10 (high/most good)
9
8
Degree that action supports
pre-determined list of virtues
1 (low/least good) to 10 (high/most good)
6
5
Degree of regulatory
compliance
1 (low/least good) to 10 (high/most good)
10
8
Degree of technical
correctness
1 (low/least good) to 10 (high/most good)
9
7
Number of workers impacted
Actual number
15
30
Overall duration of impacts
from consequences (duration
score)
1 = short-term (less than a month);
2 = medium-term (more than a month, but
less than a year);
3 = long-term (more than a year)
2
2
Upon reflection, the safety and health professional develops an appropriate algorithm to use in order to
quantify and compare the total “goodness” of these two actions. The safety and health professional
decides on the following algorithm based on the priority he/she decides to apply to the various
anticipated consequence factors and their interaction:
Goodness =
2 × (Level of resulting risk score × duration score × number of workers impacted) +
1 × (Safety factor score × duration score × number of workers impacted) +
5 × (Level of satisfaction score × duration score × number of workers impacted) +
100 × (Virtue score) +
2 × (Regulatory compliance score × duration score × number of workers impacted) +
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1 × (Technical corrective score × duration score × number of workers impacted).
Based on this algorithm, Action 1 would be scored as follows:
Goodness score = 2(7)(15)(2) + (1)(8)(15)(2) + (5)(9)(15)(2) + 100(6) + 2(10)(15)(2) + 1(9)(15)(2) = 3,480
The score for Action 2 would be:
Goodness score = 2(6)(30)(2) + (1)(7)(30)(2) + (5)(8)(30)(2) + 100(5) + 2(8)(30)(2) + 1(7)(30)(2) = 5,420
Based on the consequence scores for the various factors and applying the algorithm developed, the
safety and health professional would decide to implement Action 2 as being the most ethical course of
action, since its total goodness score was 5,420 for Action 2 versus Action 1 which had a goodness score
of 3,480. Thus, Action 2 was associated with more than a 30% higher goodness score than Action 1. It is
interesting to note that Action 1 scored higher in terms of individual “goodness” for most of the
consequence factors; however, Action 2’s consequences impacted twice as many workers when
compared to Action 1, resulting in a higher total goodness score for Action 2 according to the algorithm
used.
Just like risk-scoring algorithms, how these goodness algorithms would be developed is at the discretion
of the individual scorer (the safety and health professional) or the scorer’s organization. The developer
needs to be able to defend his/her scoring methodology and algorithm. The scoring methodology and
algorithm needs to be reasonable (e.g., can be defended by using reason) and should be consistently
applied and scored to choose the most ethical course of actions among options over time in order to
support its validity.
This quantitative approach in which “goodness” is treated much like “risk” in terms of developing factor
scoring methodologies and algorithms may resonate strongly with safety and health professionals
familiar with using risk-based equations to assess an organization’s risk status. In fact, the safety and
health professional could go one step further and based on the total goodness score determine if the
action would be viewed as being acceptable (proceed; action is above a goodness threshold level) versus
unacceptable (do not proceed; action is below a goodness threshold level) much like how total risk
scores are used for authorizing activities through risk matrices.
This goodness scoring approach has all the advantages and disadvantages typically associated with the
using risk-based scoring methods, algorithms, and matrices for assessing risk levels. Even if safety and
health professionals develop rigorous goodness-scoring methodologies and algorithms and use them
consistently through time, this approach can still be time-consuming based on how many options are
being considered for analysis and the number of consequence factors. The approach would be
considered both a subjective (opinion-based; characterized by imprecision/guesses for some factor
scores) and objective (data driven; characterized by precision for some factor scores) analysis. But the
approach can translate complex impacts/consequences for a series of actions into simple scoring sheets
and equations, resulting in a single quantitative score for each action being considered. These total
scores for the various actions could be compared against each other to determine the most ethical
44
course of action and/or against an absolute goodness score in order to decide which actions would be
considered acceptable (above or below a threshold).
The above methodology can be adapted to incorporate the financial costs associated with implementing
the decision or action as a component of the algorithm. In this respect, costs could be viewed as a “bad”
factor in the “goodness” equation, in which lower costs would score a higher value than higher costs (if
this factor is being added to the total goodness score). Conversely if the cost factor is a negative factor
in the equation being subtracted from the goodness score, then higher costs would have higher scores.
In this manner, the algorithm could be changed into a cost-goodness equation (like a cost-benefit
equation).
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CHAPTER 5 USING APPLIED DEONTOLOGICAL APPROACHES FOR
ADDRESSING ETHICAL DECISION-MAKING
This chapter discusses further and applies the deontological philosophies presented in Chapter 2 to the
ethical dilemmas that safety and health professionals may experience. In this Chapter, a broad
interpretative approach has been used in applying deontological-like principles to ethical decisionmaking for safety and health professionals.
Duty
Under deontology, it is important to understand the concept of “duty” – what safety and health
professionals are being called to be and do. Using a deontological approach, safety and health
professionals have a moral duty to provide care to workers and clients, including promoting a safe
workplace. This moral obligation of care may be ancient. It is contained in the Code of Hammurabi, the
writings of Aristotle, and the Old Testament. It is written in Deuteronomy 22:8: “When you build a new
house, make a parapet around your roof so that you may not bring the guilt of bloodshed on your house
if someone falls from the roof.”
One of the real ethical problems that safety and health professionals have is determining how far to go
in reducing risks to fulfill this duty. What are the safety and health professional’s duties/obligations with
regards to preventing occupational injuries and illnesses? At what point does this moral obligation stop?
The philosophical answer may be “never,” but the practical answer may be “it depends on the situation.”
Safety and health professionals should do the best that they can in living up to their moral obligations
given the situation.
There are some general principles that should preside when contemplating what safety and health
professionals’ obligations are with respect to occupational injuries and illnesses. These include:



The concept of the worker as a human with dignity deserving respect, not merely as a means of
production;
Acknowledgement of fundamental human rights – including the right to employment that does
not endanger workers’ physical welfare or jeopardize their moral integrity, and
The capacity to find a balance between absolute moral and ethical principles and concrete
reality through which fair and just determinations of acceptable risk are made.
The acceptable risk for an organization is largely determined by the yardstick of regulatory compliance
(what the law dictates), conformance with organizational directives (what the organization dictates), the
need to achieve a balance between losses and safety costs (as determined by the organization), and the
willingness to take risks (often determined by the organization). The last three items are typically
management’s prerogatives.
Perhaps the duty of safety and health professionals is to first ensure compliance with and conformance
to regulations and standards and then to continually try to reduce risk and to prevent occupational
injuries and illnesses from occurring. The major duty for safety and health professionals may be to
inform management of ideas for continually improving safety and health performance. As for
implementing these ideas, it may be beyond the control of safety and health professionals to decide and
46
choose which ideas actually get put into action. The ethical obligation of safety and health professionals
may be to inform decision-makers of “the right thing to do” – to make their views and concerns
understood and insist that worker safety and health are protected when clearly threatened. Safety and
health professionals should not have the burden of seeing themselves as the only hope for an
organization in terms of ethical safety and health behavior. They should never feel pressure to be the
sole ethical angels hovering over their organizations.
As stated by Ouimet et al., the chances for safety and health professionals to improve workplace
conditions increases significantly when they demonstrate effective leadership skills and credibility,
communicate effectively and persuasively with decision-makers as well as workers, and take every
opportunity to educate and inform both management and labor regarding workplace hazards and their
control. Perhaps safety and health professionals have a duty to develop these skills, since ethical lapses
on the part of management sometimes occur due to lack of understanding of the issues or when
judgment becomes clouded in the pursuit of goals such as profit.
One of the ethical burdens for safety and health professionals is not being able to fully execute their
perceived ethical responsibilities for caring for others and for removing hardships in the workplace.
There could be personal ramifications related to this burden. It could cause cognitive dissonance and
emotional distress to safety and health professionals. Safety and health professionals could fear
becoming a burden to the organization, management and even workers if choosing to push the
implementation of this ethical perspective. They could fear being considered not a team player or a part
of the inner circle. Reacting to this fear and burden could then be a catalyst for unethical behavior on
the part of safety and health professionals. This is why the main duties for safety and health
professionals may be in the areas of planning, strategizing, consulting and informing activities and not
necessarily implementing.
Safety and health professionals not being able to do the right thing is often an organizational choice –
based in part on the differences in acceptable level of risk defined by management versus that
determined by the safety and health professional. The reality is that management determines a spoken,
written or implied limit with which safety and health professionals must work. This often conflicts with
the perceived moral obligation/duty on the part of the safety and health professional to provide a safe
workplace, as outlined in their professional or personal ethical codes of conduct.
Given constraints in terms of what safety and health professionals may be able to do in the workplace,
what roles or duties – that may be considered to be “management proof” – can safety and health
professionals adopt to help achieve an ethical climate in an organization? They can view their roles as
planners, strategists, educators, and informers. But safety and health professionals can also serve as
ethical examples by exhibiting and modeling virtuous behavior. They can also act as ethical consultants
and cheerleaders by encouraging ethical behavior and helping managers and workers identify the
ethical choices when facing ethical questions, and helping managers and workers follow through and
actually undertake the ethical option. In many cases, safety and health professionals can help to
institutionalize ethics by developing “ethics-based” policies, procedures, processes and systems that
47
involve people beyond themselves for implementation. Decision points can be embedded in procedures
and processes which ask: “What is the right thing to do?”
The above statements relate to safety and health professionals being unable to do the right thing. But
safety and health professionals not doing the right thing when able to do so are personal choices and
these unethical choices represent a lack of moral courage. What is moral courage? Kidder refers to
moral courage when discussing the ability to act as needed in response to ethical challenges. Kidder
describes three requisites to acting with moral courage: a commitment with moral principles, an
awareness of the danger in supporting those principles, and a will to endure that danger (Ouimet et al.,
ref 6).
Laws and Regulations
There are many philosophical management approaches to running safety and health functions within
organizations. After the passage of the Occupational Safety and Health Act in 1970 in the United States,
the prominent approach to safety and health management involved attaining “regulatory compliance.”
Attaining regulatory compliance is still the major goal of most organizations as well as safety and health
professionals and is still the cornerstone for most safety and health programs.
As such, the safety and health profession is strongly deontological-like in its orientation: there is a set of
duties based on a set of laws and regulations that must be followed. It is assumed that these safety and
health laws and regulations were developed and issued to be protective of worker and community
safety and health. Thus following these laws and regulations would be a “good thing” (which also
supports a rule-consequentialism-based ethical approach). As such, it is the strong understanding by
society and the profession that it is the moral duty for safety and health professionals to follow the law
when they perform their work. Decisions and actions need to be made in light of this understanding.
Decisions and actions which would achieve regulatory compliance would be viewed as being the right
decisions and actions to take – as a minimum.
Compliance with safety and health laws and regulations may represent only the minimum standard of
acceptable performance which needs to be achieved. It may be the moral duty for safety and health
professionals to be at least compliant with laws and regulations – but is it the moral duty to go beyond
regulatory compliance when necessary to achieve a safe and healthy workplace? The preceding section
makes the argument that safety and health professionals should continually try to reduce risk and to
prevent occupational injuries and illnesses from occurring – even beyond provided by laws and
regulations.
The Golden Rule / Care-Based Ethics
Is there some general universal law or rule (beyond those issued by governments) that demands safety
and health professionals to go above and beyond the call of (regulatory) duty? Perhaps there is. Maybe
the most essential rule to follow is “the Golden Rule” also known as the “law of reciprocity”: treating
others as you would like to be treated. This Golden Rule has various formulations: “Do unto others as
you would have them do unto you;” “Do not unto others as you would not have them do unto you;” and
“Love your neighbor like yourself.” This is a common principle for most religions: Buddhism, Baha’i faith,
48
Christianity, Confucianism, Hinduism, Islam, Jainism, Judaism, Sikhism, Taoism, and Zoroastrianism.
Arguably this rule – the duty to care for others – is the most essential basis for the modern concept of
human rights and ethics. This rule establishes a moral level of care for others that is not constrained by
and could go beyond regulatory compliance. This rule establishes a moral level of duty not to be
inherently self-serving and self-preserving. This rule is the basis for care-based ethics. Using this rule, a
decision is evaluated based on reciprocity: whether the action would be acceptable to the safety and
health professional if the safety and health professional was the recipient of the action.
Codes of Conduct
In terms of the degree that rules and standards influence professional behavior and duty, there is a
spectrum: from total regulation to total freedom (or free will). Codes of conduct/codes of ethics fall
somewhere in the middle: they offer obedience to a set of guidelines which are typically non-enforced.
Codes of conduct provide guidelines for business and professional ethical behavior and act as a means
to set a baseline standard of practice. However, these codes should never act as a sole replacement for
a safety and health professional’s own good judgment. But codes of conduct can provide a basis for
general “rules” and “duties” to be adopted by safety and health professionals when applying
deontological-like approaches to ethical decision-making. These codes of conduct also provide a basis
for virtues to nurture when using the virtue-ethics approach.
For safety and health professionals, codes of conduct are issued by applicable professional societies or
work organizations. Some safety and health professionals may view these professional codes as the
“law” especially if holding certifications from professional organizations that use unethical behavior as a
basis for censure against holders of these certifications. Thus, in these cases, codes of ethics are
enforceable, although in reality few censures are actually handed out by safety and health professional
organizations to its certificate holders.
Organizational Codes of Conduct
In organizations in which safety and health professionals’ work, ethical codes of conduct are often
cornerstone components of their ethical compliance programs. A characteristic of organizations
adopting an ethical approach to management is that these organizations establish formal codes of
ethical conduct where managers and workers are held accountable for their behaviors against these
ethical standards. An ethical code for an organization can be thought of as “the private laws of a private
state.” They detail what is considered to be right and wrong actions in a given organizational setting.
These codes can contain general principles or they can address and mandate/forbid specific practices.
Ethical codes are arguably one of the most popular vehicles used by organizations to set ethics-related
objectives and to communicate expectations about legal and ethical behavior to workers. Ethical
compliance programs in organizations have normally two purposes. The first purpose is to prevent
behavior that is thought to be criminally or morally defective. In order to accomplish this, these
programs establish rules, monitor behavior, and punish transgressions. Thus, a code of ethics usually
specifies the requirement to obey the law and prescribes the limits of discretionary decisions and
actions. The second purpose of ethical programs is to create a commitment to shared values, to
develop worker’s capacity to engage in moral reasoning, and to create an environment that enables
49
responsible conduct. However, many ethical compliance programs are primarily designed to instruct
people about legality and to offer them rules to follow (the first purpose), rather than help them
exercise moral judgment (the second purpose).
For publicly traded companies, legislation, such as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, has been passed
which requires the creation of ethical codes of conduct in order to control unethical corporate behavior.
Some research has found that the presence of ethical codes and corporate policies is significantly
related to higher standards of ethical behavior and has helped workers avoid ethically compromising
situations. In addition, best-practices ethics programs may help employees feel that they do not need to
act unethically in order to survive in the competitive marketplace.
But there is also evidence to the contrary – that having codes of ethics in place for organizations may be
meaningless or ineffective. It has been argued that ethical codes are not effective for a number of
reasons. One reason is that people know right from wrong and thus are indifferent to codes – so
establishing rules of conduct do not automatically guarantee compliance. Another leading and related
contention against adopting organizational ethical codes is that individuals’ underlying assumptions may
determine their core beliefs, values and patterns of behavior – and codes are unlikely to change these
fundamental entrenched orientations and assumptions. Further, codes may do more harm than good
because if something is not specifically covered in a code, then it may give license for “cherry-picking”
non-compliance to that which is not covered. In addition, some believe that the goal of a strong
corporate culture capable of shaping individuals’ behavior can also be dangerous because it fosters the
notion that individual employees are not responsible for their actions.
In support of the above information, a major study by McKendall et al. failed to support the assumption
that the types of corporate ethical compliance programs advocated by the 1991 Uniform Sentencing
Guidelines would result in less organizational illegality and more positive behavioral changes by
employees. Over 100 large corporations were studied to determine whether organizational ethical
codes, communication about ethics, ethics training, and incorporating ethics into human resources
practices (e.g., inclusion of ethics in performance appraisals, selection processes, job descriptions, audits,
hotlines, and suggestion systems) would result in fewer OSHA violations. The results of their analyses
indicated that ethical compliance programs are not working successfully in their most restrictive sense in
that they did not even discourage people from violating the law. Ethical compliance programs may not
work because they seldom address the root causes of illegal or unethical conduct. These results
supported the findings of earlier larger scale studies that found that codes or other ethical compliance
practices did not exert any main effects on corporate illegality. In fact, one significant finding suggested
the possibility that ethics programs may only serve as “window dressing” to deflect attention and/or
culpability resulting from illegal actions.
Safety and Health Professional Codes of Conduct
Members of a profession typically and rather autonomously set their own standards of practice,
regulate entry into their profession, discipline their own members, and function with fewer constraints
than others (Ouimet et al.) in the workplace. In return for this autonomy, society has set high ethical
expectations for members of professions (Ouimet et al.) as well as expectations that the profession
50
adequately regulates and disciplines itself. Thus, notwithstanding the mixed findings and beliefs related
to the effectiveness or usefulness of organizational ethics compliance programs (including organizational
codes of conduct), most safety and health professional associations have developed codes of ethical
conduct believing that such codes and canons help their members behave more ethically. Professional
safety and health codes of ethics clarify for their members that a uniform standard of care and
guidelines have been set to elevate the profession, thereby acting as a unifying basis for practice.
Other general characteristics of these professional codes of ethics include: going beyond only the
statement of ideals; serving and promoting the public good and the interests of those served by the
profession; being specific, honest and not self-serving, and being semi-regulative in that they are
enforceable and are actually being enforced. The codes should also address those aspects of the
profession that create the greatest opportunity for its members to act unethically or in a manner
inconsistent with the public good.
For safety and health-related professions, there are a number of reasons for having Codes of
Professional Conduct. Reasons include clarifying values and rules; conforming to common set of values;
highlighting compliance requirements; describing expected behaviors; providing guidance on
challenging or specialized ethical issues; facilitating group cohesion; instilling public confidence, and
giving safety and health professionals the power to act appropriately in difficult situations. In addition,
globalization of the marketplace across national borders requires shared ethics for safety and health
professionals to have. These markets depend on a core shared ethical framework to make things work
effectively and efficiently. Safety and health professional codes of conduct assist in this effort. Codes
may also be required to resolve tensions between the rights of the employees and those of the
employer and to deal with the changing scope of work and definition of safety and health practices.
However, compared with other health-related professions (e.g., medicine, nursing, pharmacy), the fields
of safety, health and industrial hygiene are much less clearly defined or legally recognized. But there is
growing evidence that industrial hygiene and safety and health associations are increasingly conscious of
the legal and professional implications of their members’ actions and have as a result developed ethical
standards as well as procedures for enforcement. Thus, these codes of ethics may be needed for the
safety and health profession to aid in the pursuit of this professional recognition (since codes of ethics
are associated with what are considered to be “professions”). The concept of professional recognition is
related to professional liability (legal assignment of responsibility for a given act or omission) which
having a code of ethics would support. But questions to ask regarding the link between codes of ethics
and professional liability include these: Do these codes of ethics act like contracts? Are duties and
responsibilities for safety and health professionals appropriately and sufficiently described in these
codes of ethics? Do these codes of ethics act to assign professional liability? The answers to these
questions are evolving.
The bottom line is, irrespective of this professional liability issue, many occupational safety and health
professional associations have developed ethical codes of conduct and specify activities considered as
ethical misconduct, believing that such codes help their members behave more ethically. These codes
provide a list of rules that under a deontological-like approach can be used for determining the rightness
51
and wrongness of safety and health professionals’ actions. These codes of ethics act as guides of
expected conduct for their members based on the ethical values the group or professional organization
holds or aspires to. These codes state how the professional organization “does things around here.”
Professional safety and health organizations, such as the AIHA, the American Board of Industrial
Hygienists (ABIH), the Board of Certified Safety Professionals (BCSP), the American Society of Safety
Engineers (ASSE), the Canadian Registration Board of Occupational Hygienists (CRBOH), the Board of
Canadian Registered Safety Professionals (BCRSP), the National Safety Council (NSC), and the
International Commission on Occupational Health (ICOP), provide codes of professional conduct for
their members. Related organizations, such as the National Society of Professional Engineers, also
provide a code of ethics for its engineers. The ABIH requires a minimum of 2 hours of ethics training
during each five year maintenance cycle to maintain its certifications.
BCSP’s Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct (2002) sets forth its code of ethics and professional
standards to be observed by holders of documents of certification conferred by their Board (e.g.,
Certified Safety Professional [CSP]). These professional standards contain a number of standards of
behavior (including obligations, duties and virtues) for its certificate holders to uphold, such as (only
partial list is presented below):






Holding paramount the safety and health of people, the protection of the environment and
protection of property in the performance of professional duties and exercising their obligation
to advise employers, clients, employees, the public, and appropriate authorities of danger and
unacceptable risks to people, the environment, or property.
Being honest, fair and impartial; acting with responsibility and integrity.
Adhering to high standards of ethical conduct with balanced care for the interests of the public,
employers, clients, employees, colleagues and the profession.
Avoiding all conduct or practice that is likely to discredit the profession or deceive the public.
Issuing public statements only in an objective and truthful manner and only when founded upon
knowledge of the facts and competence in the subject matter.
Avoiding deceptive acts that falsify or misrepresent their academic or professional qualifications.
The ABIH in 2007 issued its revised Industrial Hygiene Code of Ethics. This revision of the code made the
standards more enforceable. The ABIH through examination issues certifications for its professionals
(Certified Industrial Hygienist [CIH] and Certified Associate Industrial Hygienist [CAIH]). Much of the
ABIH code deals with conflicts of interest, appearances of impropriety, and accurate representations of
one’s education, experience, competency and ability to provide professional services. The ABIH’s Code
contains 19 sections divided into two broad areas: (1) responsibilities to the ABIH, the profession, and
the public, and (2) responsibilities to clients, employers, employees and the public. The second
responsibility set is further divided into performance of professional services (including competency and
education), conflicts of interest, and public health and safety.
When the revised ABIH Code of Ethics was issued, mechanisms by which ABIH could enforce the code
for certified professionals were also issued. The ABIH 2007 Industrial Hygiene Code of Ethics is
presented below in Table 5.
52
Table 5 ABIH Industrial Hygiene Code of Ethics
ABIH Industrial Hygiene Code of Ethics (Effective Date: May 25, 2007)
Preamble/General Guidelines

The ABIH is dedicated to the implementation of appropriate professional standards designed to
serve the public, employees, employers, clients and the industrial hygiene profession. First and
foremost, ABIH certificants and candidates give priority to health and safety interests related to
the protection of people, and act in a manner that promotes integrity and reflects positively on
the profession, consistent with accepted moral, ethical and legal standards.

As professionals in the field of industrial hygiene, ABIH certificants and candidates have the
obligation to: maintain high standards of integrity and professional conduct; accept
responsibility for their actions; continually seek to enhance their professional capabilities;
practice with fairness and honesty; and, encourage others to act in a professional manner
consistent with the certification standards and responsibilities set forth below.
Section I. Responsibilities to ABIH, the profession and the public.

Certificant and candidate compliance with all organizational rules, policies and legal
requirements.
o Comply with laws, regulations, policies and ethical standards governing professional
practice of industrial hygiene and related activities.
o Provide accurate and truthful representations concerning all certification and
recertification information.
o Maintain the security of ABIH examination information and materials, including the
prevention of unauthorized disclosures of test information.
o Cooperate with ABIH concerning ethics matters and the collection of information
related to an ethics matter.
o Report apparent violations of the ethics code by certificants and candidates upon a
reasonable and clear factual basis.
o Refrain from public behavior that is clearly in violation of professional, ethical or legal
standards.
Section II. Responsibilities to clients, employers, employees and the public.

Education, experience, competency and performance of professional services.
o Deliver competent services with objective and independent professional judgment in
decision-making.
o Recognize the limitations of one’s professional ability and provide services only when
qualified. The certificant/candidate is responsible for determining the limits of his/her
own professional abilities based on education, knowledge, skills, practice experience
53
o
o
o
o
o
o
and other relevant considerations.
Make a reasonable effort to provide appropriate professional referrals when unable to
provide competent professional assistance.
Maintain and respect the confidentiality of sensitive information obtained in the course
of professional activities unless: the information is reasonably understood to pertain to
unlawful activity; a court or governmental agency lawfully directs the release of the
information; the client or the employer expressly authorizes the release of specific
information; or, the failure to release such information would likely result in death or
serious physical harm to employees and/or the public.
Properly use professional credentials, and provide truthful and accurate representations
concerning education, experience, competency and the performance of services.
Provide truthful and accurate representations to the public in advertising, public
statements or representations, and in the preparation of estimates concerning costs,
services and expected results.
Recognize and respect the intellectual property rights of others and act in an accurate,
truthful and complete manner, including activities related to professional work and
research.
Affix or authorize the use of one’s ABIH seal, stamp or signature only when the
document is prepared by the certificant/candidate or someone under his/her direction
and control.

Conflict of interest and appearance of impropriety.
o Disclose to clients or employers significant circumstances that could be construed as a
conflict of interest or an appearance of impropriety.
o Avoid conduct that could cause a conflict of interest with a client, employer, employee
or the public.
o Assure that a conflict of interest does not compromise legitimate interests of a client,
employer, employee or the public and does not influence or interfere with professional
judgments.
o Refrain from offering or accepting significant payments, gifts or other forms of
compensation or benefits in order to secure work or that are intended to influence
professional judgment.

Public health and safety.
o Follow appropriate health and safety procedures, in the course of performing
professional duties, to protect clients, employers, employees and the public from
conditions where injury and damage are reasonably foreseeable.
This Code of Ethics is complimented by the Joint Industrial Hygiene Associations’ Member Ethical
Principles (Guiding Principles) document (see Table 6); member associations include AIHA, ACGIH (the
American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists), AIH (American Academy of Industry
Hygiene), and ABIH. This document focuses on setting expectations and standards for association
members, educating members and the public, and helping industrial hygiene practitioners to
understand their ethical responsibilities (Ouimet et al.). Its principles are not enforceable. These
principles are discussed further in the applied section on virtue ethics.
54
Table 6 Joint Industrial Hygiene Association Member Ethical Principles
JOINT INDUSTRIAL HYGIENE ASSOCIATIONS MEMBER ETHICAL PRINCIPLES
(Approved by the ACGIH® Board of Directors on April 30, 2007, and by the AIHA® Board of Directors
on May 21, 2007)
The AIHA and AIH are dedicated to the promotion of healthy and safe environments by advancing the
science, principles, practice and value of industrial hygiene and occupational and environmental health
and safety.
AIHA members are expected to give priority to health and safety interests related to the protection of
people, and act in a manner that promotes sound scientific principles, integrity and reflects positively on
the profession, consistent with accepted moral, ethical and legal standards.
As practitioners in the field of industrial hygiene, AIHA members have the obligation to: maintain high
standards of integrity and professional conduct, follow recognized sound scientific principles, accept
responsibility for their actions, continually seek to enhance their professional capabilities, practice with
fairness and honesty, and encourage others to act in a professional manner consistent with the member
and ethical responsibilities set forth below.
I. Responsibilities to the Professional Organizations, the Profession and the Public.
A. In order to satisfy organizational and legal policies and rules, members should:
1. Comply with laws, regulations, policies, and ethical standards governing professional practice of
industrial hygiene and related activities, including those of professional associations and
credentialing organizations.
2. Provide accurate and truthful information to professional associations and credentialing
organizations.
3. Cooperate with professional associations and credentialing organizations concerning ethics
matters and the collection of information related to an ethics matter.
4. Report apparent violations of applicable professional organizations’ ethical standards to
appropriate organizations and agencies upon a reasonable and clear factual basis.
5. Refrain from any public behavior that is clearly in violation of accepted professional, ethical or
legal standards.
6. Promote equal opportunity and diversity in professional activities.
7. Support and disseminate the association’s ethics principles to other professionals.
II. Responsibilities to Clients, Employers, Employees and the Public.
A. In order to provide ethical professional services, members should:
1. Deliver competent services in a timely manner, and with objective and independent professional
judgment in decision-making.
2. Recognize the limitations of one’s professional ability, and provide services only when qualified.
The member is responsible for determining the limits of his/her own professional abilities based on
education, knowledge, skills, practice experience, and other relevant considerations.
3. Provide appropriate professional referrals when unable to provide competent professional
assistance.
4. Maintain and respect the confidentiality of sensitive information obtained in the course of
professional or related activities unless: the information pertains to an illegal activity; a court or
governmental agency lawfully directs the release of the information; the client/employer expressly
55
authorizes the release of specific information; or, the failure to release such information would likely
result in death or serious physical harm to employees and/or the public.
5. Properly use professional credentials and provide truthful and accurate representations
concerning education, experience, competency and the performance of services.
6. Provide truthful and accurate representations to the public in advertising, public
statements/representations, and in the preparation of estimates concerning costs, services, and
expected results.
7. Recognize and respect the intellectual property rights of others, and act in an accurate, truthful,
and complete manner, including activities related to professional work and research.
8. Affix or authorize the use of one’s seal, stamp or signature only when the document is prepared
by the certificant/candidate or someone under his/her direction and control.
9. Refrain from business activities and practices that unlawfully restrict competition.
B. In order to satisfy organizational policies and legal requirements concerning possible
conflicts of interest and similar issues, members should:
1. Disclose to clients or employers significant circumstances that could be construed as a conflict of
interest, or an appearance of impropriety.
2. Avoid conduct that could cause a conflict of interest with a client, employer, employee, or the
public.
3. Assure that a conflict of interest does not compromise legitimate interests of a client, employer,
employee, or the public and does not influence/interfere with professional judgments.
4. Refrain from offering, or accepting inappropriate payments, gifts, or other forms of compensation
or benefits in order to secure work, or that are intended to influence professional judgment.
C. In order to satisfy organizational policies and legal requirements concerning public health
and safety, members should:
1. Follow appropriate health and safety procedures in the course of performing professional work to
protect clients, employers, employees, and the public from conditions where injury and damage are
reasonably foreseeable.
2. Inform appropriate management representatives and/or governmental bodies of violations of
legal and regulatory requirements when obligated or otherwise clearly appropriate.
3. Make reasonable efforts to ensure that the results of industrial hygiene assessments are
communicated to exposed populations.
The special topic of gifts and honoraria which is discussed here. In terms of the general rules related to
accepting gifts and honoraria, the acceptance of gifts should not influence decision-making. The
industrial hygienists should avoid those items that are misnamed gifts but are actually compensation
exchanged for benefits. In any event, safety and health professionals should follow their employer’s
own policy regarding gift value limitation and prior to acceptance of any gifts the safety and health
professional should consider rebutting the presumption/accusation that the gift created influence. If it
cannot be easily rebutted, the gift should not be accepted. With respect to honoraria, employer
approval may be required prior to acceptance. It may not be appropriate to accept an honorarium if the
donor is under contract or expected to seek contracts from the safety and health professional or his/her
organization, is under investigation by a regulatory agency, or is reasonably expected to seek or oppose
adoption of rules or policy contrary to applicable professional code of ethics.
56
The AAIH, AIHA, ABIH and ACGIH had previously issued its Industrial Hygiene Canons of Ethical Conduct
in 1995. The document contains six canons of conduct with interpretive guidelines. These interpretive
guidelines – a mixture of ethics and etiquette – were intended to be a living document, and not to be all
inclusive in terms of the issues covered and the guidance provided. The intent of these canons was to
promote establishing a standard of behavior that was higher than what the law requires. The ABIH
canons are provided below in Table 7, along with their guidelines for interpretation. Although not
enforceable and now superseded by other documentation, these excellent guidelines can still serve the
individual safety and health professional in their ethical deontological decision-making process.
Table 7 Industrial Hygiene Canons of Ethical Conduct
Industrial Hygiene Canons of Ethical Conduct (1995)
CANON 1: Industrial Hygienists shall practice their profession following recognized scientific
principles with the realization that the lives, health and well-being of people may depend upon
their professional judgment and that they are obligated to protect the health and well-being of
people.
CANON 1 INTERPRETIVE GUIDELINES:
-
-
-
Industrial Hygienists should base their professional opinions, judgments, interpretations of findings
and recommendation upon recognized scientific principles and practices which preserve and
protect the health and well-being of people.
Industrial Hygienists shall not distort, alter or hide facts in rendering professional opinions or
recommendations.
Industrial hygienists shall not knowingly make statements that misrepresent or omit facts.
CANON 1 BEHAVIOR AT WORK: Stick to the facts; use established methods, procedures and
protocols; tell the truth; keep in mind the consequences of your actions.
CANON 2: Industrial Hygienists shall counsel affected parties factually regarding potential health
risks and precautions necessary to avoid adverse health effects.
CANON 2 INTERPRETIVE GUIDELINES:
-
Industrial Hygienists should obtain information regarding potential health risks from reliable
sources.
Industrial Hygienists should review the pertinent, readily available information to factually inform
the affected parties.
Industrial Hygienists should initiate appropriate measures to see that the health risks are effectively
communicated to the affected parties.
Parties may include management, clients, employees, contractor employees, or others dependent
on circumstances at the time.
CANON 2 BEHAVIOR AT WORK: Stick to the facts; use reliable sources; strive to be communicative
of your findings to all affected parties.
CANON 3: Industrial Hygienists shall keep confidential personal and business information
obtained during the exercise of industrial hygiene activities, except when required by law or
overriding health and safety considerations.
57
Industrial Hygiene Canons of Ethical Conduct (1995)
CANON 3 INTERPRETIVE GUIDELINES:
-
-
Industrial Hygienists should report and communicate information which is necessary to protect the
health and safety of workers and the community.
If their professional judgment is overruled under circumstances where the health and lives of
people are endangered, industrial hygienists shall notify their employer or client or other such
authority, as may be appropriate.
Industrial Hygienists should release confidential personal or business information only with the
information owners’ express authorization, except when there is a duty to disclose information as
required by law or regulation.
CANON 3 BEHAVIOR AT WORK: Communicate findings to all affected parties; be diligent in
keeping authorities informed as legally required under the circumstances; hold confidences close
to your chest.
CANON 4: Industrial Hygienists shall avoid circumstances where a compromise of professional
judgment or conflict of interest may arise.
CANON 4 INTERPRETIVE GUIDELINES:
-
Industrial Hygienists should promptly disclose known or potential conflicts of interest to parties that
may be affected.
Industrial Hygienists shall not solicit or accept financial or other valuable consideration from any
party, directly or indirectly, which is intended to influence professional judgment.
Industrial Hygienists should advise their clients or employer when they initially believe a project to
improve industrial hygiene conditions will not be successful.
Industrial Hygienists shall not offer any substantial gift, or other valuable consideration, in order to
secure work.
Industrial Hygienists should not accept work that negatively impacts the ability to fulfill existing
commitments.
In the event that this Code of Ethics appears to conflict with another professional code to which
industrial hygienists are bound, they will resolve the conflict in the manner that protects the health
of affected parties.
CANON 4 BEHAVIOR AT WORK: Be truthful and upfront; look before you leap; be open about
your professional, business, and when warranted, personal relationships; avoid improprieties;
look out for the “other guy;” don’t overstretch yourself.
CANON 5: Industrial Hygienists shall perform services only in the areas of their competence.
CANON 5 INTERPRETIVE GUIDELINES:
-
-
-
Industrial Hygienists should undertake to perform services only when qualified by education,
training or experience in the specific technical fields involved, unless sufficient assistance is
provided by qualified associates, consultants or employees.
Industrial Hygienists shall obtain appropriate certifications, registrations and/or licenses as
required by federal, state and/or local regulatory agencies prior to providing industrial hygiene
services, where such credentials are required.
Industrial Hygienists shall affix or authorize the use of their seal, stamp, or signature only when the
document is prepared by the Industrial Hygienist or someone under their direction or control.
CANON 5 BEHAVIOR AT WORK: Know yourself; be honest; don’t be boastful or puffed up.
58
Industrial Hygiene Canons of Ethical Conduct (1995)
CANON 6 CODE: Industrial Hygienists shall act responsibly to uphold the integrity of the
profession.
CANON 6 INTERPRETIVE GUIDELINES:
-
-
-
-
Industrial Hygienists shall avoid conduct or practice which is likely to discredit the profession or
deceive the public.
Industrial Hygienists shall not permit the use of their name or firm name by any person or firm
which they have reason to believe is engaging in fraudulent or dishonest industrial hygiene
practices.
Industrial Hygienists shall not use statements in advertising their expertise or services containing a
material misrepresentation of fact or omitting a material fact necessary to keep statements from
being misleading.
Industrial Hygienists shall not knowingly permit their employees, their employers or others to
misrepresent the individual’s professional background, expertise or services which are
representations of fact.
Industrial Hygienists shall not misrepresent their professional education, experience, or credentials.
CANON 6 BEHAVIOR AT WORK: Be truthful; be complete; be accurate; strive for communicating
the truth; be professional.
Note: Canons and interpretative guidelines are taken directly from the ABIH Canons of Ethical Conduct.
Listed behaviors supportive of these canons are those of the authors. It should also be noted that ABIH’s
Code of Ethics which is more detailed than these canons of ethical conduct is the enforceable standard of
conduct.
There is also an International Code of Ethics for Occupational Health Professionals which provides a
more globally-based view of ethical considerations for safety and health professionals. This code has
been established by the International Commission on Occupational Health and is lengthy, nonenforceable, and broad in scope compared to the American codes of ethics for safety and health
professionals.
It is interesting to note that while various professional safety and health organizations have codes of
ethics, no professional safety and health professional organization appears to have a system or process
in place (such as a membership hotline, bulletin board, or mentoring program) to assist safety and
health professionals in evaluating ethical issues.
A summary of principles or character traits that are embodied in the codes of ethics or professional
conduct from a variety of professional safety, health and industrial hygiene associations is shown in
Table 8. As shown in this table, there are many common moral principles and character traits that are
being valued by safety and health professional organizations issuing these codes. The principles/traits
that are most common include: integrity and standard compliance, honesty and truthfulness,
enhancement of capabilities, responsibility, fairness and impartiality, confidentiality, no conflicts of
interest, objectivity, respect and being free from bias and discrimination. Safety and health
59
professionals need to factor in these principles and character traits in their ethical decision-making
processes and frameworks.
Table 8 Principles and Character Traits Represented in the Codes of Ethics/Professional Conduct from
Representative Professional Safety, Health and Industrial Hygiene Associations
Principle or
Character Trait
Integrity and
standard compliance
Responsibility (for
actions)
Fairness, impartiality
and balanced
behavior
Honesty,
truthfulness, truthful
and accurate
representations (of
oneself and one’s
products, including
limitations)
Enhancement of
knowledge, skills and
abilities / technical
competence
Cooperation
Confidentiality
Respect
No conflicts of
interest
Honor
Objectivity
Free of bias or
discrimination
Civic engagement
Fidelity
Civility
Independence
Communication
ABIH
Code
of
Ethics
Professional Safety, Health or Industrial Hygiene Association
Joint
Canadian
Board of
Industrial
Registration
Canadian
BCSP Code
ASSE Code
Hygiene
Board of
Registered
of Ethics and
of
Associations
Occupational
Safety
Professional Professional
Member
Hygienists
Professionals
Conduct
Conduct
Ethical
Code of
Code of
Principles
Ethics
Ethics
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
As stated before, even though professional codes from organizations like BSCP and ABIH are “voluntary,”
in actuality these codes become mandatory for holders of certifications because of the possibility of
disciplinary actions from BSCP and ABIH when respondents have been found to have violated one or
60
more provisions of their Code of Ethics. For instance, ABIH evaluates ethics allegations for potential
censure or revocation of its diplomates’ certifications (CIHs or CAIHs) using criteria that include:





Misrepresentation with intent to deceive
Fraud in the examination or recertification process
Unethical practice
Activities which discredit the profession
Conviction of a felony.
Thus, the ABIH code is enforceable and binding upon all CIHs as well as applicants seeking to take the
CIH exam (Ouimet et al.).
It is understandable that enforcement of codes of ethics is almost always associated with certificate
holders through certificate-issuing organizations. The rationale is that the profession itself is in the best
position to know how its members should behave, to know the areas where ethical lapses can occur,
and most likely to become aware of violations of the standards it sets (Ouimet et al.). In terms of
enforcement of codes of ethics for safety and health professionals, negligence and malpractice are often
lumped together with ethics. There are typically very few ethics complaints or ethics violations brought
to the attention of safety and health professional associations for resolution.
In 2002, the functional utility of the ABIH cannons of ethics and their sufficiency was addressed by a 12
question survey issued by the AIHA et al.’s Joint Industrial Hygiene Ethics and Education Committee
(JIHEEC). This ethics survey contained twelve questions regarding experience with ethical issues. Results
from that survey indicated that 75% of the respondents have been asked or directed to conduct
themselves contrary to canons of ethics; 58% referred to canons of ethics for assistance in their dilemma,
while 42% had not been involved in an ethical dilemma. Fifty percent of respondents believed the
canons of ethics were not deficient. The majority (83%) responded that the focus on ethical conduct
within the industrial hygiene community needed to be enhanced, but the majority (75%) was not willing
to have dues increased for ethics enforcement. There were surveys questions related to the perceived
“positive” consequences of behaving within the ethical code. The positive consequences included
increasing the level of trust between industrial hygienists and clients/management (81% of survey
respondents attested to this consequence); increasing the level of trust between industrial hygienists
and workers and the public (87%); increasing job satisfaction (81%), and increasing professional pride
and self-esteem (85%).
However, having professional codes or canons of ethics may not be good not enough. Some believe
that safety and health professionals who are presented with potential conflicts or ethical issues should
establish their own personal codes of conduct to identify and establish personal parameters. Safety and
health professionals do not make decisions in a vacuum (Kapp) – personal safety ethics are something
that have formed over a lifetime and something that safety and health professionals bring to the
workplace.
For instance, an individual code of conduct related to sampling and data analysis/presentation could
include “self-directives” such as:
61





I will always tell the truth
I will never provide materially false statements
I will never deliberately fail to disclose material facts or documents
I will never falsify any documents or statements
I will never engage in conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit, or misrepresentation.
This viewpoint and approach are supported by safety and health professional organizations. For
instance, the AIHA states that the ability to behave in an ethical manner is most strongly influenced by
the individual.
62
CHAPTER 6 USING APPLIED VIRTUE ETHICS APPROACHES FOR
ADDRESSING ETHICAL ISSUES
In virtue ethics, the primary focus is developing and exhibiting virtues over the long term that would
promote ethical decision-making. So the question is, what are some of the core values that safety and
health professionals should have?
For safety and health professionals, there could be a number of core ethical values shaping ethical
behavior and influencing decision-making. Many societal ethical norms promote the aims of the safety
and health professional’s conduct of work, such as knowledge, truth and avoidance of error. Even the
desire to do good work – no matter what the profession – is in itself a human value.
Other values, such as trust, accountability, mutual respect, and fairness, are essential to collaborative
work. Schneid mentions that the following values could be important virtues for safety and health
professionals to possess: impartiality, candor, fidelity to trust, dignity, compassion, and courage.
Some core values/virtues along with their supportive behaviors in the workplace include (adapted from
Resnik, except where noted):







Respect: allowing other employees to share their ideas; using appropriate language in the
workplace; treating workers and clients with dignity.
Honesty: always telling the truth and keeping promises; striving for truth in all scientific
communications; honestly reporting data, results, methods and procedures, and publication
status; not fabricating, falsifying, or misrepresenting data.
Objectivity: striving to avoid bias in experimental design, data analysis, data interpretation, peer
review, expert testimony, etc.; avoiding or minimizing bias or self-deception.
Carefulness: avoiding careless errors or negligence; carefully and critically examining your own
work and that of your peers.
Deliberateness: steering clear of “off the cuff” or “shooting from the hip” decision making
(Schneid).
Personal responsibility: admitting when a mistake is made; speaking up if you believe you have
something valuable to add.
Reciprocity: doing to others as you would like to be treated.
The last of the core ethical values on this list is the ethics of reciprocity as described previously, also
known as “the Golden Rule.” The application of a care-based ethics approach grounded in this notion of
reciprocity has important implications in the workplace, especially for safety and health professionals,
such as (1) workers have a right to just and equitable treatment, (2) safety and health professionals have
a responsibility to ensure justice and equality for others, (3) employers and employees, including safety
and health professionals, should treat all people with consideration, especially since there is dignity
inherently associated with labor, and (4) there is a moral imperative for safety and health professionals
to care for others, including removing hardship.
63
Since workers have a right to just and equitable treatment, safety and health professionals have a
responsibility to ensure that the right to employment does not endanger workers’ physical welfare for
all employees. Since there is inherent dignity associated with labor and workers deserve dignity and are
not merely means of production, safety and health professionals should treat all people with
consideration. Since there is a moral imperative for safety professionals to care for others, safety
professionals are required to at least to attempt to remove hardship (such as informing management of
these hardships), regardless of the cost.
Application of the Golden Rule in the workplace guides the safety and health professionals’ behavior in
the same general ways that they want others to act to others. In this latter manner, safety and health
professionals can act as ethical role models, and perhaps even as ethical cheerleaders, for the
organization or clients they serve. So the virtues of cheerfulness and joyfulness – not the first traits
typically associated with safety and health professionals – may be important to possess.
The ABIH Codes of Ethics issued in May 2007 for its industrial hygienists was based on a number of
ethical principles which could be translated as virtues or characteristics that industrial hygienists should
possess. These principles (virtues) (which are applicable to all safety and health professionals) include
the following:







Selflessness. Industrial hygienists act in the public’s interest and avoid making any decision in
order to gain benefit for themselves or other persons. Thus, industrial hygienist should not
make decisions in order to gain financial or other benefits for themselves, their family, or their
friends. Industrial hygienists may not use their position to secure special privileges or to grant
exemptions to benefit them, family members, or other persons.
Integrity. Industrial hygienists do not place themselves under any financial or special obligation
to outside individuals or groups that may influence them in the performance of their public
duties.
Objectivity. In carrying out public business, industrial hygienist’s choices should be made on the
merits.
Accountability. Industrial hygienists are accountable for their actions and decisions and agree to
accept whatever public scrutiny is appropriate to their position.
Openness and Transparency. Industrial hygienists must practice open and accountable services.
They should be as open as possible about their decisions and actions, but also protect truly
confidential information. The public has a right to know the reasons for industrial hygienist’s
actions and decisions. Industrial hygienists should restrict information only when the wider
public interest demands them to do so.
Honesty. Industrial hygienists have a duty to declare any private interests that relate to their
public duties and to take steps to resolve any conflict in a way that protects the public’s interest.
Stewardship. Industrial hygienists have a duty to conserve public, client, employer and
employee resources and funds against misuse and abuse.
There also exist the 5 P’s of ethical power which are applicable to the safety and health profession.
These can be considered to be characteristics or virtues that safety and health professionals could
64
embrace which would promote action-oriented ethical behavior. Safety and health professionals should
have:





Purpose: Safety and health professionals see themselves as ethical people who let their
conscience be their guide – they want to feel good about themselves and their profession.
Pride: Safety and health professionals apply internal guidelines and have sufficient self-esteem
to make decisions that may not be popular.
Patience: Safety and health professionals believe right will prevail in the long run and they are
willing to wait when necessary.
Persistence: Safety and health professionals are willing to stay with an ethical course of action
once it has been chosen and see it through to a positive conclusion.
Perspective: Safety and health professionals take the time to reflect and are guided by their
own internal barometer when making ethical decisions.
In Chapter 2, under Moral Principles: Actions, Duties and Character Traits, there were a number of moral
principles upon which safety and health professionals’ judgments (e.g., actions, duties and character
development) can be based. Many of these moral principles can be translated as character traits that
safety and health professionals should endeavor to acquire and demonstrate:
















Having integrity
Being honest
Being dependable
Being trustworthy
Keeping promises
Being respectful and courteous
Showing care and compassion
Being kind and generous
Being fair, just, impartial and objective
Pursuing excellence
Being knowledgeable
Being responsible and accountable
Being socially responsible and just
Being loyal
Having self-constraint
Being discerning, reasonable and balanced.
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CHAPTER 7 USING FRAMEWORKS FOR ETHICAL DECISION-MAKING
This chapter attempts to pull together the information from the previous chapters to arrive at step-wise
frameworks for helping safety and health professionals make ethical decisions.
It is noted that ethical decision-making can be very stressful, overwhelming and/or emotionally charged.
A second set of eyes (typically from a trusted and experienced colleague in the profession) is often
useful to aid the safety and health professional in applying these frameworks and making decisions. A
second opinion often brings valuable insights and can lead to better and more robust ethical decisionmaking. Two heads are better than one!
Frameworks for Making Right versus Wrong Decisions
“It is curious – curious that physical courage should be so common in the world, and moral
courage so rare.”
Mark Twain, Author
Moral temptations reflect two choices that may on the surface appear attractive – but on closer
inspection selecting one of the two choices would result in actions against core moral values or virtues,
an unfulfilled duty or responsibility, violations against professional codes of conduct, actions against a
company’s policies or procedures, and/or illegal activity (against the law). These moral dilemmas are
termed “right versus wrong” decisions.
Sometimes the safety and health professional’s personal dilemmas involve these type of “right versus
wrong” decisions, where the ethical choice is set against the unethical choice and where moral courage
(or its lack) may be at center stage. This type of dilemma is often flamed by the fuel of professional or
financial gain (greed), the fear of the repercussions if results were accurately evaluated and reported
(e.g., loss of employment), and/or personal ego.
When facing an ethical dilemma, the following are some general questions that the safety and health
professional might consider answering to arrive at a final decision in “right versus wrong” scenarios:





Which decision or action could stand up to further publicity and scrutiny?
Which decision or action could be lived with and defended?
Which decision or action would be most just, fair or responsible?
Which decision or action is consistent with the overall values set forth in professional codes of
ethics and/or the company’s corporate policies?
Which decision or action would potentially have the least direct or indirect negative
consequences for the company?
Some of these questions have been expanded into a variety of standard ethical tests that safety and
health professionals can apply when facing ethical dilemmas to assist in their “right versus wrong”
decision-making. These tests are largely based on individuals’ moral and social consciousness (which in
turn is based on a core set of ethical values). These tests include the morning-after test, the front page
test, the mirror test, the role reversal test, and the common sense test, as described in Chapter 3 (Table
66
3). By applying these tests (sometimes called “Tests for Moral Temptations”), an ethical framework for
the safety and health professional is being used.
The law and organizational and professional codes of conduct can also assist the safety and health
professional in making ethical decisions in “right versus wrong” situations. Adopting various
philosophical models (and hybrid models) of moral decision making (e.g., virtue-based,
consequentialism-based, deontological-based) can assist the safety and health professional in making
the most optimal decision in “right versus wrong” situations.
In terms of an accepted framework for assessing right versus wrong decisions, there exists the Blanchard
and Peale test which is probably one of the most popular and simple ethical framework that safety and
health professionals can apply to their work. In the Blanchard and Peale test, the safety and health
professional would ask these questions:



Is the choice/decision illegal?
Is it fair and balanced to all involved?
How does it make me feel about myself?
If the potential course of action is not legal (a deontological-type perspective), then it probably is not
ethical – so no further consideration of the action is in order. If the potential course of action is fair and
balanced to all involved (supported by consequentialism-based and virtue ethics perspectives), then it is
a just action and it is probable that good is being generated without harming any individual or groups of
individuals. A course of action that will leave safety and health professionals feeling good (supporting
deontological, consequentialism-based and intuitive approaches) is one that is in keeping with their own
moral structures. It is a decision in which all parties affected by the decision can probably be proud of.
The Blanchard and Peal test is similar to the Rotary International Code of Ethics adopted in the 1940’s
which asks these four questions: Is it truthful? Is the fair to all concerned? Will it build goodwill? And
will it be beneficial to all concerned?
Ideally safety and health professionals making decisions to resolve ethical dilemmas should be able to
justify their decisions to themselves as well as others who might be affected by these decisions. They
should be able to articulate reasons for their conduct and should be able to explain how the decisions
were rationally arrived at.
In the final analysis, it is up to the safety and health professional as an individual to be ethical in his or
her work situations, relations, and decisions. The ability of the safety and health professional as an
individual to stand up to ethical challenges rests on the feeling of his/her individual security – which
rests on personal confidence in survival against the odds, detachment from the quest for material
benefits, and a deep sense of loyalty toward personal and professional responsibility (Patankar, Brown
and Treadwell).
Personal ethical core values/virtues such as honesty, integrity, respect, justice, seeking to improve, and
trustworthiness can assist safety and health professionals in this pursuit of ethical excellence. Exhibiting
67
behaviors such as transparency, objectivity, fairness, and showing concern for others (compassion)
translate these values into concrete actions. These values and behaviors ultimately lay the ethical paths
of a safety and health professional’s life and career.
Hierarchical / Sequential Frameworks for Making Right versus Wrong Decisions
To order to assist the safety and health professional in making stepwise ethical decisions, the questions
to be asked related to making right versus wrong decisions can be arranged in hierarchical or sequential
frameworks as shown below. A number of slightly different frameworks are provided for comparison
and use. Based on these frameworks as examples and guidance, the safety and health professional can
generate their own unique framework for ethical decision-making.
Hierarchy / Sequence Model 1: Laws, Standards, Practices (Deontology) and then
Consequences (Consequentialism). The following series of questions would be asked in this model.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
What do existing laws and regulations say on this issue?
In the absence of any laws or regulations, are there any consensus standards that provide
guidance?
If there are no laws, regulations or consensus standards, what is the standard industry practice?
In the absence of laws or regulations, consensus standards and general industry practices, what
is the most technically correct approach?
In cases of conflict among rules or if rules are not sufficient, does the action protect the health
and well-being of working people and the public from health hazards present at, or emanating
from, the workplace?
In this model, conflicts are resolved by choosing the action that provides the greatest protection to
public health (a consequentialism-based perspective) – but you arrive at this point by narrowing
down your options and asking first rule-based type (deontological-like) questions. The answers that
provide the greatest protection of the public health are, by definition in this model, the most ethical
approach. It is not that uncommon for the most ethical approach to be in conflict with the legal or
best business approach.
Hierarchy / Sequence Model 2: Colored Zones. This second framework uses a “zone” approach –and
asks the safety and health professional: “Which zone are you operating under?” The basic deontological
principle being exercised here is that safety and health professionals have a duty to properly use
resources and funds for the betterment of health and to protect against misuse and abuse. The zones
represent various level of rigor related to deontological-based rules. However some of the questions
asked are also consequentialism-based in character.
Questions to ask include:
1. Will my work result in added injury or any other disadvantage to the public, client, my employer
or employees? (negative consequentialism approach)
2. Am I using resources wisely to prevent harm to the public and/or personnel? (virtue ethics,
deontological and consequentialism-based approaches)
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3. Am I confident that my judgments use objective criteria in compliance with laws, regulations,
policies and ethical standards of conduct? (deontological-like approach)
4. Are resources being used for purposes that could be embarrassing for my profession, employer,
client, government, or family if reported publicly? (intuitive and consequentialism-based
approaches).
The Zones:
Green Zone: These are duties that protect the health and safety of the public, clients, employers and
employees. These include any actions that protect health and safety, comply with laws, regulations,
policies, and codes of ethics, and are reasonably related to professional expertise. In these actions,
there is an absence of conflicts of interest, appearances of impropriety, and inappropriate personal gain
at the expense of the public, clients, employer, and fellow employees.
Yellow Zone: These are duties that comply with laws, regulations, or policies, but are not consistent with
the best health and safety procedures or standards of practice.
Red Zone: These are actions that have reasonably foreseeable adverse health and safety impacts or are
prohibited by law, regulation, policy or code of ethics. Examples include: using false certification
maintenance points for recertification; disclosing sample results to enforcement agencies prior to
providing them to clients who paid for them; and conducting paid political lobbying during employment
hours.
Hierarchy / Sequence Model 3: Intent, Motive and Circumstance (Deontology/Virtue Ethics and
then Consequentialism). This structure (from the work of Beabout and Wennemann, 1994, as
described in Patankar, Brown and Treadwell, 2005) is based on understanding how intention, motive
and circumstance can be used to resolve ethical challenges. If the intention is good, the motive is good,
and the circumstances warrant a specific action, then that action is ethically permissible according to
this model.
Intent: In order to determine whether an act is morally permissible, its intention must be measured
against the principle of respect. Intent attempts to answer the question “what?” concerning an action
(e.g., what is the purpose of this action?). If the intent is deemed to be morally good, then the action’s
motive (e.g., why is one doing this action?) will need to be examined next. If the intent is not morally
good, then the decision or act should be abandoned in lieu of another one and be re-analyzed for intent.
Motive: Motive attempts to answer the question “why” concerning an action (e.g., Why am I
performing this action?). If the motive is driven by ego or self-interest (Level 1 decision-making) or the
drive to fit in (Level 2 decision-making), then the decision or act should be abandoned in lieu of another
one and be re-analyzed for intent.
Circumstance: The next step in the analysis is to determine whether or not circumstances warrant the
action. For instance, were there other alternatives that could have been considered that had more
noble intent or motives?
69
Decision: Depending on the situation, it may be necessary to discuss all the factors associated with the
dilemma and make a decision as a committee, rather than as an individual. Consideration of the final
decision should involve the impact of the decision, including legal and moral perspectives, in order to
help ensure that decision-makers (e.g., safety and health professionals) are prepared to accept the
consequences of their decisions and actions.
Action: Taking action is the final conscious step in the moral decision-making process.
Outcome: Typically there are multiple effects resulting from decisions. According to the principle of
double effect, the foreseeable and negative side effects should not be disproportionate with the
intended good of the main effect. Every reasonable effort should be made to minimize the
consequences of these negative side effects. Whether a given outcome is foreseeable or unforeseeable
depends on the level of certainty in the available data and information – the greater the certainty, the
greater the ability to foresee outcomes.
The outcomes can be analyzed according to these moral principles (Patankar, Brown and Treadwell,
2005):




The principle of respect requires that the foreseeable, unintended bad outcomes of a decision
not be disrespectful to a particular minority or a violation of human dignity.
The principle of utility seeks to encourage decisions that provide the greatest good to the
greatest number of people.
The principle of double effect requires that decision-makers acknowledge the possible
unintended, bad side effects of their decisions.
The principle of proportionality requires the decision-makers to weigh the relative advantages
or merits of the good of the intended outcome versus the bad of the unintended outcome. It
should be noted that the obligation to foresee unintended bad side effects of a morally
permissible action is a matter of due diligence expected from safety and health professionals.
Hierarchy / Sequence Model 4: Comprehensive 12-Step Process for Decision-Making Based on
Philosophical Approaches. The following model attempts to synthesize much of the information
presented in the previous chapters into a sequential model. This approach starts off with applying
(negative) deontological-like approaches to decision-making and then progresses to applying additional
philosophical (consequentialism-based, intuition and virtue-ethics) approaches. One may also elect to
traverse this model through a parallel approach based on the major three ethical approach categories.
Step
1
Questions/Actions
Philosophical
Approach
What are the facts? Gather facts to determine the leading decision or
action that you want implement.
Ask these questions if relevant as part of the information-gathering
process:
- What exactly is the ethical issue being encountered?
- Who will be impacted by the decision or action?
- What services and outcomes are expected to be performed?
70
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
- What are the technical issues involved in the decision or action?
- What are the expectations and relationships of the various parties
involved in the decision or action?
- Is there a common understanding of these expectations and
relationships?
Determine likely alternatives to that decision or action and repeat Step
1.
Does the decision or action violate a law, regulation or standard? If so,
choose an alternative decision or action and repeat the above steps.
Does the decision or action violate a principle or standard contained in
an applicable code of professional or organizational ethics? If so,
choose an alternative decision or action and repeat the above steps.
Does the decision or action violate what is considered to be a morallybinding law, rule or duty? Would the decision or action not likely to be
applied universally? Is the decision or action contrary to the golden
rule? If the reply is “yes” to any of these questions, choose an
alternative decision or action and repeat the above steps.
Does the decision or action violate the rights of workers or the public?
If so, choose an alternative decision or action and repeat the above
steps.
Does the decision or action fail a test of moral temptation (e.g., the
morning-after test, the front page test, the mirror test, the role reversal
test, and the common sense test)? If so, choose an alternative decision
or action and repeat the above steps.
Are there virtues (e.g., honor, compassion) associated with the decision
or action (and its alternatives) that could/should be nurtured and
promoted? If so, the decision or action may be appropriate – continue
with the following steps. If not, reconsider another decision or action
and repeat above steps.
What are the short-term and long-term consequences of the decision
or action (and its alternatives?) Of all the alternatives, will this decision
or action generate the most “good” (such as lowest amount of risk;
highest degree of health protection) for the greatest number of people?
If so, proceed with the next step. If not, perhaps investigate other
alternatives and repeat the above steps.
More specifically, are the consequences consistent with the moral
principles of respect, non-malevolence, benevolence, integrity, justice,
fairness and double effect. If the consequences are not inconsistent
with these moral principles, proceed with the next step. If not, perhaps
investigate other alternatives and repeat the above steps.
Deontology and
Consequentialism
Deontology (negative)
Deontology (negative)
Deontology (negative)
Deontology and
Consequentialism
(Two-Level
Consequentialism)
(negative)
Deontology and
Intuition-based Ethics
(negative)
Virtue ethics (positive)
Consequentialism
(positive)
Consequentialism and
virtue ethics (positive)
Can the decision or action be defended using reason if brought before a
court or peers? If it can be defended, proceed with decision or action.
If not, consider other alternatives and repeat the above steps.
Still can’t decide? Get a second opinion from a trusted, experienced
71
colleague with a strong commitment to the profession and begin at
Step 1 again.
Frameworks for Making Right versus Right Decisions
Often the safety and health professional’s dilemmas are not black versus white. They are more gray,
subtle and/or difficult than good versus bad or right versus wrong dilemmas. There are many instances
in which safety and health professionals need to choose between multiple “right” courses of action.
These ethical dilemmas involve choices of one right path over another right path, thereby potentially
causing a clash in personal core ethical values. For the safety and health professional, the ultimate goal
in making a “right versus right” decision should be to protect human health and safety.
What do you do when confronted with a circumstance where good values conflict? There is no single
and universally recognized answer. There is a variety of resolution approaches for these “right versus
right” dilemmas. But in applying these approaches, the safety and health professional needs to consider
that there could be additional influences impacting ethical judgment. For instance, there may be unique
facts and circumstances that influence one’s decisions. There may be personal roles and relationships
which influence the decision-making process. As an example, these roles and relationships could
possibly pit the safety and health professional’s desire to be loyal against his or her desire to be truthful.
Kidder and then Barbi and Orr present a system of modeling ethical dilemmas for “right versus right”
decisions and organize these ethical dilemmas into four paradigms:




The desire for truth versus the desire for loyalty
The impacts/benefits to the individual versus impacts/benefits to the community
The short-term effects versus long-term effects, and
The need to be just versus the need to be merciful.
In making “right versus right” decisions, safety and health professionals attempt to balance these
various needs which may be in conflict.
One approach to resolve these good versus good dilemmas is to look at the consequences of one’s
actions using a consequentialism-based approach. The focus is to determine the potential impacts of
these decisions on workers and the public. Decisions that net the greatest overall benefit or the least
overall harm would be the ones selected.
Another approach would be to use the deontological rules-based approach, in which the safety and
health professional attempts to apply rules and codes to resolve a given situation regardless of the
consequences. Safety and health professionals would select the duty or obey the rule that has the
highest moral priority in their minds, guts or hearts (Is being truthful more important to me than being
loyal?). This approach basically attempts to get at how safety and health professionals would want the
world to act and reflects the world in which they would want to live.
72
A third approach would be for safety and health professionals to choose the good action (among good
actions) which would reflect the greatest amount of virtue or the best type of character they would like
to embody and be known for.
Moral issues such as choosing among good courses of action can be complex for the safety and health
professional to deal with. In addition, novel moral situations arise that may require new and creative
approaches to ethical deliberation and decision-making. As with any complex set of issues, although
rules of thumb or intuition or consequences are often very useful for making choices, and might be
useful for decision-making in the majority of cases, safety and health professionals must always be open
to the possibility that these approaches may not work precisely, in which case they have to shepherd
the best of their creative energies to deal with the ever surprising, and at times troubling, perplexities of
a safety and health professional’s work life.
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CHAPTER 8 USING ETHICAL FRAMEWORKS FOR RESOLVING
INFORMATION/DATA COLLECTION, ANALYSIS, INTERPRETATION AND
PRESENTATION ISSUES
The ethical collection, analysis and presentation of information and data managed by safety and health
professionals are frequently encountered topics for the profession. For instance, questions seem to
continually arise regarding the ethical treatment of sampling and monitoring data, especially outlier or
spurious data. Understanding the limits of observational and analytical accuracy is another issue, along
with comprehending the borderlines between honest error, negligent error, and misconduct when
collecting, analyzing, interpreting and presenting data and information.
In the realm of data collection and interpretation, there are errors of commission and omission. Errors
of commission would involve things like falsifying test results or covering up known or suspected
problems with data collection and analysis. Errors of omission include a failure to adequately collect
and analyze the data in the first place. Both provide grounds for ethical misconduct.
It should be noted upfront that scientific results are subjective and inherently provisional. Safety and
health professionals (or anyone else) can never prove conclusively that they have described aspects of
the physical world with complete accuracy. Also, a view that science is totally objective is a myth,
ignoring the human element of inquiry, evaluation and interpretation. Interpretation is never
completely independent of a safety and health professional’s beliefs, preconceptions or theoretical
commitments. From this perspective, all scientific inquiries and results must be treated as being
susceptible to error and fuel for interpretative bias or ethical abuse.
First, errors can arise out of human fallibility. Safety and health professionals do not have limitless
knowledge, skills and abilities, time to work, or access to unlimited financial and manpower resources.
Even the most responsible safety and health professionals can make honest errors due to their
limitations. However, safety and health professionals who make acknowledgements of error promptly,
openly and humbly are rarely condemned by their professional colleagues and clients.
However, mistakes made through negligent work are and should be treated more seriously. Any number
of faults, such as carelessness, inattention, laziness, and haste, can lead to work that does not meet
standards demanded by science in general and the safety and health profession in particular. If safety
and health professionals cut corners, they place their reputation, the work of their colleagues, and the
public’s confidence in the safety and health profession in general at risk. But most importantly,
negligent work can place the health and welfare of workers and the public in jeopardy.
A third category of errors exist beyond honest error and negligent error. These errors involve deception,
including fraud – clearly representing a breach of ethics. The difference between fraud and an honest
mistake is a matter of intention. Fraud is done intentionally; a mistake is done by accident. Normally
these fraudulent deceptions are related to data fabrication, data falsification, and plagiarism. Other
examples include trimming outliers from a data set without discussing the reasons and using
inappropriate statistical techniques in order to enhance or alter the significance of research or findings.
Fabricating data or results, changing or misreporting data or results, and using the ideas or words of
74
another person without given appropriate credit all attack the core values on which science is based –
the pursuit of truth. These acts of scientific misconduct undercut the entire set of values on which the
scientific enterprise rests. The consequences of this type of misconduct can be significant because it can
harm (sometimes unpredictably, inadvertently, and unknowingly) individuals outside the workspace and
the scientific community.
There may be clear intentional and ethical distinctions between error, fraud and misconduct, but the
consequence of all three acts are the same in that someone is led to disbelieve something that is
actually true or to believe something that is actually false. In reality, it may make little difference to the
search for truth or the protection of the worker whether the error was intentional or not.
Biases
The experimental design and data/information collection and analysis processes are never totally
objective or completely independent of a safety and health professionals’ convictions, attitudes,
judgments or deficiencies. Biases can invariably creep into the safety and health professional’s
judgment. Therefore, results do not speak for themselves and must always be interpreted for quality
and likelihood of error, including bias.
There are a number of biases associated with experimental design and data/information collection and
analysis that can creep into safety and health professionals’ decisions. These biases may or may not be
intentional. A list of common biases is shown in Table 9. However, it should be noted that biased
interpretations are defensible under some conditions, so long as those conditions are explicitly known.
In addition, from a statistical point of view, some biases are obviously compatible with a subjectivist or
Bayesian framework that formally and necessarily incorporates previous beliefs/biases into the
calculations or predictions of probability. Bayesian models are being increasingly used to analyze
industrial hygiene and sampling data and in making determinations on regulatory compliance and
acceptability of exposure dose.
Table 9 Types of Bias Related to Data Collection, Data Interpretation and Experimental Design
Type of Bias
Description
Naïve realism
Bias: Assuming your own views of the world are objective, thereby
inferring that subjectivity (e.g., due to personal ideology) is the most
likely explanation for opponents’ conflicting perceptions.
Biased assimilation
effect
Bias: More favorably evaluating information/research supporting
your initial views, irrespective of research methodology; readily using
evidence to bolster the very theory or belief that initially “justified”
the processing bias.
Confirmation bias
(similar to biased
assimilation effect)
Bias: Evaluating evidence that supports one’s prior belief or
preconceptions differently from that apparently challenging these
convictions.
75
Rescue bias
Bias: Discounting data by finding selective faults in the experiment.
Auxiliary hypothesis
bias (form of rescue
bias)
Bias: Introducing ad hoc modifications to imply that an
unanticipated/unexpected finding would have been otherwise had
the experimental conditions been different, instead of discarding
contradictory evidence by seeing fault in the experiment itself.
Mechanism bias
Bias: Being less skeptical when underlying science furnishes credibility
for the data; more easily accepting evidence when it is supported by
accepted scientific mechanisms.
“Time will tell” bias
Bias: Needing varying amounts of confirmatory evidence to feel
satisfied among different scientists.
Orientation bias
Bias: Introducing prejudices and errors in the hypothesis itself which
becomes a determinate of experimental outcomes; conviction may
affect the collection of data.
Note that all of these biases (except for orientation bias) occur after data have been collected.
In terms of options for correcting and accepting bias, many experimental techniques – such as statistical
tests of significance – have been designed to minimize the influence of individual bias. Increased
incentives for demonstrating accuracy, holding safety and health professionals accountable for their
judgments, and enhancing outcome feedback from stakeholders could act as a corrective for minimizing
bias. The general consensus is that collective judgment can overcome individual error, such as peer
reviewing, replication of sampling or experiments, and statistical aggregation of results across studies
(e.g., meta-analysis). It is noted that many ethical values related to the ethical treatment of data and
information are contained in the various ethical codes of conduct promoted by the safety and health
professional associations as well as corporate ethical codes of conduct.
A reasonable balance between loyalty to the facts and loyalty to a client’s interests needs to be
somehow struck by safety and health professionals. There are two extremes: objective safety and
health professionals distancing themselves from clients/customers by letting the data “speak for itself”
by avoiding recommendations and safety and health professionals exploiting ambiguity in data or
experimental design by being the client’s advocate. Ethics plays a major role in determining the
balancing point on this operational fulcrum for the safety and health professional and within the safety
and health profession itself.
It is the role of ethics and institutional programs that assist in managing or promoting ethics (e.g., such
as programs sponsored by organizations and professional associations) to ensure that “right” decisions
are made by safety and health professionals so that these errors of negligence and deception are
minimized. If safety and health professionals are making decisions based on approved data, accepted
scientific principles, and sound logic, they are likely to be acting professionally as well as ethically.
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CHAPTER 9 CASES STUDIES
77
CHAPTER 10 DISCUSSION OF CASE STUDIES
78
REFERENCES
ABET (2009). Criteria for accrediting applied science programs. Baltimore, MD: ABET, Inc.
American Industrial Hygiene Association (AIHA) et al.’s Joint Industrial Hygiene Ethics and Education
Committee (2005). Ethical practice of industrial hygiene (a status report), modified by Robert D. Soule.
AIHA Yuma Pacific Southwest Meeting, January 20, 2005, 46 pages.
American Industrial Hygiene Association (AIHA) (2009). Liebowitz, A. J., Roskellwy, D. C., Barbi, G. J. ,
Throckmorton, J. V. & Ouimet, T.C., presenters. Professional ethics, doing what is right in the practice of
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