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Moral Risks in Social Work
Author(s) -
HOLLIS MARTIN,
HOWE DAVID
Publication year - 1987
Publication title -
journal of applied philosophy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.339
H-Index - 30
eISSN - 1468-5930
pISSN - 0264-3758
DOI - 10.1111/j.1468-5930.1987.tb00211.x
Subject(s) - luck , face (sociological concept) , economic justice , moral responsibility , law and economics , work (physics) , sociology , moral disengagement , social psychology , law , psychology , political science , epistemology , philosophy , social science , mechanical engineering , engineering
Social workers must often decide whether a child, at possible risk from its parents, should be removed from home. Each year some children, left at home, are abused or killed. If the procedures have been duly followed, is a bad result to be put down to incompetence or to bad luck, and, if to the latter, does that cancel moral responsibility? We examine the claim that the case is one of ‘moral luck’ and argue that the system licences greater risk than is morally justified. This is because it embodies conflicting imperatives of welfare and justice. Anyone who becomes a social worker must face a constant risk to moral integrity [1].