Premium
Professional and personal hierarchies of ethical principles
Author(s) -
Landau Ruth,
Osmo Rujla
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
international journal of social welfare
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.664
H-Index - 47
eISSN - 1468-2397
pISSN - 1369-6866
DOI - 10.1111/1468-2397.00007
Subject(s) - hierarchy , perception , engineering ethics , social work , rank (graph theory) , professional ethics , sociology , psychology , social psychology , political science , law , engineering , neuroscience , mathematics , combinatorics
We explore social workers’ perception of the importance and rank ordering of ethical principles. Do they have a generally agreed upon hierarchy of ethical principles? Do they apply similar hierarchies of ethical principles when facing different cases? Are their professional and personal hierarchies of ethical principles similar? The findings based on a structured questionnaire indicated that while social workers attach high importance to most ethical principles closely associated with social work, they do not hold a universal hierarchy of ethical principles. Social workers change their ethical hierarchies in different professional situations but there is no difference between their professional and personal ethical hierarchies. Implications for practice and education are discussed.