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professional role

Pandemic Ethics: How Much Risk Should Social Care Workers and Their Families Be Expected to Take?

By Doug McConnell

Recently many of the staff at an aged-care home in Sydney, Australia called in sick the day after the report of a CoVid-19 outbreak at that facility.1 Upon investigation of these absences, one of the reasons the workers gave was that they were concerned about protecting their own families. They didn’t want to act as a vector transferring the disease from the aged care home to their own homes.  So how much risk should social care workers and their families be obliged to take when responding to infectious diseases like CoVid-19?Read More »Pandemic Ethics: How Much Risk Should Social Care Workers and Their Families Be Expected to Take?

Professional roles and private lives: How separate are they?

The Daily Mail likes to ‘out’ teachers as porn stars. It did so again last week. The standard response to the discovery that a teacher stars in adult films or ‘moonlights’ as a stripper is to sack him or her, even if (as in one case) two decades have elapsed since involvement in the adult entertainment industry. The thing is, as is frequently noted in these teachers’ defense, they haven’t done anything illegal. Moreover, what they were doing was done in their own time. So, what can be the justification for dismissal? Are they still in the role of teacher at home?

I think there are three possible avenues for justifying dismissal: character assessment, capacity to fulfill role, and duty to be a role model. Personally, I’m not sure if I am convinced by any of them and am keen to hear what you think.Read More »Professional roles and private lives: How separate are they?