PSY611 Quiz Updated

Historical and Philosophical Grounding

Richard T. G. Walsh Wilfrid Laurier University

I introduce 4 diverse position papers on ethics in psychology in which the individual authors present critical reflections on the standard ethical discourse in North American psychology and 3 commenters offer individual commentaries on these papers. After defining key terms in ethics in psychology I give a historical overview of the Codes of Ethics and their subsequent editions that have been adopted by the American Psychological Association and the Canadian Psychological Association respectively. Then I summarize 5 approaches to moral philosophy that have been applied to ethics in psychology generally and the Codes in particular. Although the 2 Codes differ in some respects historically and philosophically, they are quite similar in other respects. I conclude with a brief preview of the position papers and the commentaries.

Keywords: approaches to moral philosophy, critical positions on ethics, history of ethics codes

Ethical issues, as well as ethical problems and dilemmas, are applicable to all our activities qua psychologists, including scientific and educational practices. The literature suggests that ethical issues often are multifaceted, potentially posing significant intellectual, emotional, interpersonal, and societal challenges to us (e.g., Rossiter, Walsh-Bowers, & Prilleltensky, 2002). In addition, it is likely that the potential to act unethically and cause harm is present in all psychologists, not just, as the cliché goes, “a few rotten apples that spoil the barrel.” Although we might take for granted that our scientific and professional activities, by definition, are fruitful or helpful, sometimes they are not. Accordingly, to prevent any unethical action and harm that we might perpetrate, we should name and discuss the ethical issues that arise in workaday practice. The literature also suggests that our awareness of ethical values, principles, and standards facilitates sound ethical decisionmaking and practice, while ethical lapses result from our lack of consciousness or neglect (e.g., Pope & Vasquez, 1991). The expectation in our discipline is that we practice ethical reasoning to inform and guide our conduct. But the moral goals of raising consciousness concerning ethical conduct and preventing harm to others might be better achieved by centralizing in our conditions of work both a social climate of communicative ethics (i.e., an intersubjective process of ethical reflection in open dialogue with trustworthy colleagues) and a commitment to social responsibility and social justice (Walsh, 2015, p. 90). Within the spirit of critical psychology (Teo, 2015b), broadly speaking, the articles in this issue on ethics in psychology—four position papers and three commentaries on them— address ethics as understood and practiced in North American (i.e., Canadian and U.S.) psychology. The papers and commentaries are timely in light of recent publicity concerning psychologists’ involvement in activities related to national security, including torture of detainees, as well as emergent areas of practice such as coaching, use of digital technology, and “responding to complex international humanitarian disasters” (Behnke & Jones, 2011, p. 71). The term “ethics,” however, has several meanings. Typically, ethics refers to a set of certain, aspirational moral values and principles that are intended to guide ethical conduct. A “code of ethics” represents the application of ethical “principles” and “values,” which are prescribed in concrete, enforceable behavioral “standards” for ethical action. An ethics code organizes into an accessible framework a given Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Richard T. G. Walsh, Department of Psychology, Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, ON, Canada N2L Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology © 2015 American Psychological Association 2015, Vol. 35, No. 2, 69–77 1068-8471/15/$12.00 national organization’s expectations for ethical conduct in all aspects of a discipline. “Ethical guidelines,” however, are distinct from standards, as guidelines only represent recom- mended action (Pettifor, 1996; Truscott & Crook, 2013). Philosophically, normative ethics deals with basic issues concerning an individual’s moral obligations and duties, moral values, moral rights, and notions of justice (i.e., equity and fairness) and with the development of normative ethical principles from such explorations, whereas applied ethics deals with the application of those principles (Kitchener & Kitchener, 2011). Over recent decades some psychologists, exercising effective leadership, have done the discipline and the public an important service by fostering ethical relations in psychological research, education in psychology including student supervision, and applied and professional services and interventions. Yet, from diverse critical perspectives on the discourse on ethics in psychology, some persistent and unresolved issues have led the authors of the four position papers and the commentators on them to call into question not just past ethical discourse but current discourse as well. Given the contributors’ critical orientation, some historical and philosophical context for the issues that the contributors raise might be helpful concerning the American Psychological Association’s Code of Ethics (American Psychological Association [APA], 2010b; hereinafter, the APA Code) and the Canadian Psychological Association’s Code of Ethics (Canadian Psychological Association, 2000; hereinafter, the CPA Code).

A Historical Perspective on Codes of Ethics

It is customary in recent decades for psychologists to celebrate the practice of ethics as a moral endeavor that purports to show respect for human dignity and protection of human rights. However, our discipline flourished for nearly 70 years before the first statement of ethics from any organization of psychologists was produced by APA in 1953, and many nations with national associations of psychologists did not have a code of ethics until recently. Although the U.S. literature on ethics concentrates almost entirely on U.S. publications and APA policies and practices, psychology organizations elsewhere, such as Canada, also have developed ethics codes and complementary literatures. In addition, a Universal Declaration of Ethical Principles for Psychologists was promulgated in 2008 to encourage nations, whose associations of psychologists did not have a code of ethics, to develop their own to guide conduct by universal moral principles (Gauthier, Pettifor, & Ferrero, 2010).

APA Code

Before World War Two, APA had declined to develop a code, even though professional psychologists had initiated one in 1933, because scientific psychologists had been averse to addressing applied psychologists’ practices (Joyce & Rankin, 2010). After applied psychologists rejoined a reorganized APA after the war, development of a code proceeded, as complaints to the APA ethics committee motivated psychologists to protect the public from quackery, charlatanism, and false advertizing perpetrated by some applied colleagues. In 1948, APA initiated a Committee on Ethical Standards for Psychology to develop a set of guidelines for ethical conduct (Pope & Vetter, 1992). The committee took the position, not surprisingly for U.S. American psychologists during the heyday of neobehaviorism (Walsh, Teo, & Baydala, 2014), that ethical standards derived from empirical research would yield a more practicable statement and more likely increase the probability of ethical behavior than a declaration of ethical principles and guidelines by a small group of APA members. Thus, the committee surveyed a representative sample of the APA membership regarding their professional activities and critical incidents involving ethical issues. The critical incident procedure, which some U.S. psychologists had employed in military research during the war, apparently lent the ethics project scientific credibility (Joyce & Rankin, 2010). APA members contributed more than a thousand examples of positive and negative ethical choices, which subsequently were factor-analyzed. The survey findings led to the original Code, which contained brief statements about ethical standards for specific issues, such as confidentiality and informed consent, mainly concerning the conduct of research. Each area of content contained specific examples from the incidents submitted. Thus, psychologists’ first code of WALSH ethics was the result of a survey of APA members’ behavior that represented disciplinary consensus on best ethical practices (Fisher, 2013), evidencing rather pragmatic and utilitarian foundations. In subsequent editions the Code’s specific guidelines for ethical conduct were increasingly elaborated regarding research and professional practice; balancing costs and benefits of one’s conduct was the prescribed behavior. However, the scientific-professional context also played an influential part in the emergence of the original Code in 1953. The APA document followed codes created by other professional and scientific associations in the wake of the revelations from the Nuremberg war trials concerning the crimes against humanity committed by Nazi-affiliated scientists and physicians. The development and promulgation of codes were intended, in part, to ensure public confidence in the competency, integrity, and social legitimacy of the presumably beneficial work in which biomedical scientists and medical professionals, for instance, engaged (Hobbs, 1965). By the 1992 edition the Code constituted a significant shift from the original version and its subsequent revisions in that at this point APA introduced six General Principles that represented moral aspirations along with practical Standards representing enforceable rules of conduct (Fisher, 2013). However, the ethical values that appeared in the 1992 Code— autonomy, beneficence, nonmaleficence, and justice—originated in the development of federal regulatory regimes for the ethical conduct of biomedical research (Kitchener & Kitchener, 2011). In the 2002 revision of the Code the Principles were revised and reduced to five: Beneficence and Nonmaleficence, Fidelity and Responsibility, Integrity, Justice, and Respect for People’s Rights and Dignity. The Principles were organized alphabetically, not hierarchically, because, as the 2010 Code explained, only the Standards should be the basis for ethical decision-making (APA, 2010b). Nevertheless, the conclusion of the Preamble stated:

The development of a dynamic set of ethical standards for psychologists’ work-related conduct requires a personal commitment and lifelong effort to act ethically; to encourage ethical behavior by students, supervisees, employees, and colleagues; and to consult with others concerning ethical problems. (APA, 2010b, Preamble) The 2010 revision amended two sections – 1:02, Conflicts between Ethics and Law, Regulations, or Other Governing Legal Authority, and 1:03, Conflicts between Ethics and Organizational Demands. The final sentence of each section now reads “Under no circumstances may this standard be used to justify or defend violating human rights” (APA, 2010a, p. 493). The context for the amendments was the debate on psychologists’ participation in torture (see Teo, 2015a, p. 78). By 2009 APA ruled any justification of such participation is indefensible (see Behnke & Jones, 2011, for a more detailed account of recent developments re: the APA Code).

CPA Code

Canadian psychologists had no ethics code until 1963, when CPA formally adopted the APA Code (Truscott & Crook, 2013). Although previous attempts to develop a Canadian Code had been unsuccessful, in 1978 a CPA committee restarted the development of a code for Canadian conditions, which was published in 1986 (Sinclair & Pettifor, 2001; Dunbar, 1998). The committee asked CPA members to explain in written form their responses to a questionnaire concerning hypothetical ethical dilemmas that were derived from the extant APA Code (Sinclair, 2011). The 59 psychologists who participated responded to six reflective questions for each of any two dilemmas that they selected from 37 diverse situations that depicted conflicting ethical principles. Content analysis of the written responses yielded four categories that were—and remain—interpreted as allencompassing ethical principles: I: Respect for the Dignity of Persons, II: Responsible Caring, III: Integrity in Relationships, and IV: Responsibility to Society, as they subsume common ethical values of compassion and justice. The resultant Canadian Code of Ethics for Psychologists and its revised versions describe a set of values and corresponding standards for specific ethical issues within each principle (CPA, 2000). In the CPA Code, the hierarchy of the four ethical principles begins with Respect for the Dignity of Persons, which emphasizes the foundational point that the moral rights of individuals is the first principle to invoke when considering applications to particular situations