Using Neutrality as a Means of Promoting Inclusiveness in AOTA's Code of Ethics
I would like to address an argument made by some who support keeping the social justice requirement in the AOTA Code of Ethics. This is the argument that removing social justice from the Code of Ethics would be promoting one party's political beliefs over another. In other words, it is assumed that there is no choice but to push one's politics, and the only choice when dealing with the Code of Ethics is for one side to force its view on the other. This position represents a misunderstanding of the issues involved in the debate over the social justice requirement in the AOTA Code of Ethics. What it overlooks is the concept of neutrality. This post will show how neutrality can be used to promote inclusivity in the AOTA Code of Ethics. To understand this, however, we must first know the purpose served by ethics as well as the purpose served by a profession’s code of ethics.
The purpose of ethics is to identify values that allow us to establish rules of proper conduct. We want to know what is the good and we want to use this knowledge to act to achieve the good. The purpose of a profession’s code of ethics is to outline those values that are necessary for the ethical practice of that profession. Professions such as occupational therapy comprise individuals with various political and philosophical beliefs, along with various individual identities relating to their ethnicity, religion, romantic orientation and other characteristics. By definition, a code of ethics cannot be neutral regarding the idea of values in general. If a code of ethics is going to serve its purpose, it must say that certain values and conduct are right, and that other values and conduct are wrong. But, that a code of ethics itself cannot be neutral in the realm of values does not mean it cannot be neutral regarding certain issues. In fact, to have any usefulness and legitimacy, a profession’s code of ethics must remain neutral on a whole host of issues.
Religion, for example, is an issue where a professional code of ethics must remain neutral. People of various faiths, or those who have no faith at all, can engage in the ethical and empathetic practice of occupational therapy. There is no need to favor any one faith (or the lack of faith) in our profession’s Code of Ethics. And in a plural society where people have different beliefs on the matter, injecting religion into the profession’s ethical code would be divisive and discriminatory. The way a code of ethics keeps its neutrality on the issue is very simple: it says nothing to favor or disfavor anyone’s views on the matter.
But now imagine that religion is injected into a profession's code of ethics. Specifically, imagine that in 2010 the Ethics Commission created the Principle of Working for Mercy. The Principle of Working for Mercy is actually a part of Catholic doctrine. It requires charity, including visiting prisoners, performing proper burial ceremonies and other religious rituals. Although Working for Mercy includes many values most think are morally correct, including such a principle in our Code of Ethics would clearly be discriminatory, as many AOTA members are not Catholic. And, if members brought a motion to remove the Principle of Working for Mercy, they would not be asking to have their religious beliefs put in place of the Catholic doctrine, but merely asking that the document return to its previous state of neutrality regarding religion.
That is the analogous position we are in regarding the motion to remove social justice. Those of us who oppose the social justice requirement in the Code of Ethics are not asking that it be replaced with some other concept promoting our view of government. We are simply asking that the document become neutral on that issue. No one is asking to have their political beliefs brought in, but simply to have the political beliefs that have been put in taken out. And the reality is that those of us who support removal do not even share the same political ideology. Aside from agreeing that social justice should be removed from the Code, there is not much else that those who oppose the requirement would agree on in political matters. This is why the argument that removing the social justice requirement would mean substituting one set of political views for another is false. What those who make this argument are not realizing is that there is a large and robust set of values that are required for the effective and empathetic practice of occupational therapy that would be acceptable to all regardless of religious or political views. That will be the subject of my next post: Creating a politically neutral Code of Ethics that is valuable to all members.”
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