- 01/03/2013
- Posted by: essay
- Category: Free essays
Deontological traditions in ethics mean the existence of general moral obligations, which are valid in every time and country, independently on possible consequences. They go back to the religious codes of conduct, and place in the central place general rules.
Under the deontological traditions all the actions can be determined good or bad, right or wrong, because ethical rules should hold under all circumstances (Mattison, 2000).
Deontological traditions make the work of social worker easier, because he can from the stage of gathering information to the stage of decision making without thinking about possible consequences. Mattison offers the professional code of ethics as the decision base on the ethical dilemmas, which can help to select the decision and then justify it.
Teleological traditions are concentrated on the consequences which any action might have. The main idea of these traditions is that correct moral choice can be done with the full understanding of possible consequences. Teleological thinker puts consequences on the central place facing with every ethic dilemma. custom term paper
The main problem of teleological traditions is the vague definitions of any term related to morality. Besides, very often moral choice has different consequences for different people. Sure, social worker should take into consideration the possible harm of his or her actions, but it is almost impossible to consider all the consequences.
Thus, the decision to take the child away from the mother usually is made for the good of child, but new circumstances can make the moral side of this action very arguable – as in the case of two-years-old Zak Hessey, who was put into foster care for four months because his parents refused to give him junk food (Brooke, 2009)
References
Lovat, Terence and Gray, Mel, Towards a Proportionist Social Work Ethics: A Habermasian Perspective. British Journal of Social Work, Vol. 38, Issue 6, pp. 1100-1114, 2008.
Mattison, M. (2000) ‘Ethical Decision Making: The Person in the Process’ Social Work Vol.45(3), pp.201-212.
Brooke, Chris “Boy, two, is snatched by social workers after mother refused doctor’s advice to feed him junk food” on MailOnline, 03rd December 2009.
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