Ethics and Professionalism

8. Charters, Contracts, and Covenants

Os CHARTERS, CONTRACTS, AND COVENANTS We now turn to the normative issues with which this study is primarily concerned. In this chapter and the next, we examine elements in the structure and ideology of professions that ought to be preserved and possibilities of change in those that ought to be reformed. In the following chapter we will examine professional codes in two lights, as instruments of the institutions discussed in prior chapters and as expressions of ethical norms, which are discussed in the last chapters of the work. We have, then, two things to consider, proposals for the reconstruction of professions as institutions (Part III) and the ingredients of the professional ideal that is the lasting legacy of the professions whatever their fate as distinctive institutions (Part IV). The Normative Contribution of the Models of Profession The sociological-philosophical inquiry of the first part of this work was designed to prepare the ground for practical proposals in the last part. A realistic picture was sought of the social and intellectual context in which the norms and ideals of professionalism must be put into effect. Unfortunately, a realistic picture proved hard to come by. Popular ideas and the functionalist model proved to be ideological. They distort the nature of professions under pressure of competition for social goods. Distortion is a relation between a picture and reality in which elements of the picture corresponding to elements of reality are 158 STRUCTURAL CHANGE altered for special effect. To discover the key to the distortion, one must not only discriminate elements in the picture; one must have independent access to the reality depicted and the motives of those responsible for the distortion. But what if one's only access is through other pictures with their own distortions? We utilized the model provided by conflict theorists to provide us the key to the distortions of the functionalist model. Now we must play functionalism off against the conflict model to expose the latter's distortions. As it turns out, this leads us directly into normative issues. Both models purport to be descriptions of social life rather than prescriptions for conducting it. However, like all social theories, they are underdetermined by empirical data. There is no way to decide between the two models by simply arraying facts and statistics for and against them. We are forced to choose between sophisticated versions of the two, versions equally adapted to the hard and indisputable facts, on the basis of the value judgments each makes possible. Indeed, the construction of each model is controlled by implicit evaluations. The functionalist model represents professions as measuring up to a certain ideal-they are depicted as something like moral organisms, as these were defined in Chapter 3-and the model emphasizes the traits that justify this judgment. The conflict model criticizes professions precisely for falling short of that ideal and emphasizes the traits that justify this contrary judgment. The ideal will be taken as our point of departure. That is, elements actually in professions or that could be developed to bring them nearer to the ideal will be sought, and the ideal tailored to make it attainable or more nearly attainable under existing circumstances. Conflict theorists, no more than functionalists, make explicit the value judgments that control their analyses. For example, the closest Larson comes to expressing personal feelings about the professions are brief comments on the first and last pages of her book. At the outset, she explains how she came to undertake her inquiry out of puzzlement at the reluctance of lower-strata professionals to organize and strike on an occasion in which they had so much to gain. What made professors and architects-not to mention physicians, lawyers, and engineers-feel that the tactics and strategy of the industrial working class would deprive them of a cherished identity? 159 CHARTERS, CONTRACTS, AND COVENANTS What is there, in the attributes of a profession, that compensates for subordination, individual powerlessness, and often low pay!' At the end of her book, she asserts abruptly, Dissatisfaction with the structural limitations of one's work and the social uses of one's productive activity need not remain a private crisis of conscience .... To separate the progressive human meaning of one's work from the ideological functions inscribed in one's role is a task of personal salvation. This questioning has been attempted and is taking place today, however silently, however timidly, in schools...