The Incoherence of Turning Social Justice Into an Aspirational Statement
Injecting the social justice requirement into the 2010 AOTA Code of Ethics has created various conceptual problems. The result has been a requirement that becomes more incoherent the more one learns about it.
One of the pieces of information pointing to greater incoherence regarding the social justice requirement is that it was meant to be an aspirational requirement, and that it may be changed to an aspirational requirement in the next version in Code, which will be voted on in 2015.
An aspirational statement in a code of ethics is radically different from what can be called a must-follow rule which is enforceable. In such a context, an aspirational statement is a “do-it-if-you-like-it” statement. Such a statement need not be followed and will not be deemed enforceable due to a violation.
The problem with this is that it is the complete opposite of what has already been written and established in various documents. In AOTA’s 2010 Reference Guide to the Code of Ethics and Ethics Standards social justice is explicitly listed as a “must follow” concept (p. 49). AOTA has also created procedures for enforcing violations of the Code of Ethics, including the social justice requirement, which are explained in the document Enforcement Procedures for the Occupational Therapy Code of Ethics and Ethics Standards. On top of this, AOTA has developed a document known as The Model Practice Act which is meant to be used by state boards to develop their laws regulating the practice of occupational therapy. There, in section 4.01 describing “Grounds for Disciplinary Action” the document says that states may adopt AOTA’s Code of Ethics as the source for determining violations of professional conduct. This includes the social justice requirement. To change a “must follow” and enforceable social justice requirement to an aspirational “do it if you like” statement is incoherent. Such a radical change is not a matter of “being off by a few inches.” Such a move would signal that either the previous Ethics Commission made a serious mistake when it listed social justice as an enforceable must-follow rule, or that the current Ethics Commission is making a serious mistake by overlooking the reasons why the previous Ethics Commission found it necessary to label something a “must follow” enforceable rule.
The move from a must-follow rule to a do-it-if you-like statement would raise the question, Why was this listed as a must follow rule in the first place? Why would something so important that it was listed as an enforceable rule that could potentially jeopardize licensure be made voluntary? There must have been some important reason for such a decision. People approaching the subject using informed, logical, contextualized, and conceptual thinking would have asked and answered these questions so that there would be no issue regarding flipping back-and-forth between a must-follow rule and an aspirational statement. Flipping back and forth between radically conflicting ethical categories (must-follow versus aspirational) suggests a problem.
When the material is not approached in an informed, logical, contextual and conceptualized manner, what you are left with is choosing your words on whether they sound good, on whether people will like what is being said; the result is that words and categories are selected not on the basis of conceptual integrity, but on the basis of whether they seem to sound pleasant and are agreeable to the presumed audience.
But that is not how a code of ethics should be written. Whatever goes in or out of a profession’s code of ethics should be guided by one standard: is this necessary for the ethical practice of the profession. It is not whether it makes people feel good, or whether P.T. is doing it or nursing is doing it or psychology is doing it. The only relevant question is whether a rule is necessary for the ethical practice of occupational therapy. That is the only standard that will give the work of the Ethics Commission any integrity. Using this standard for evaluating the contents of the Code, and approaching the material in a conceptual and contextualized manner, would solve the problem of having to go back and forth between must-follow rules and aspirational statements.
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