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'What is professional ethics?'

Nursing Ethics: An International Journal for Health Care Professionals

Published online on

Abstract

The very term `professional ethics' is puzzling with respect to what both `professional' and `ethics' might mean. I argue (1) that professionalism is ambiguous as to whether or not it is implicitly committed to ethical practice; (2) that to be `professionally' ethical is at best ambiguous, if not in fact bizarre; and (3) that, taken together, these considerations suggest that professional ethics is something to be avoided rather than lauded.