Professional ethics

THis is a special branch of applied ethics, a set of norms and rules that regulate the behavior of a specialist on the basis of universal moral values, taking into account the specifics of his/her professional activity and a particular situation. It regulates those kinds of professional activity, consequences or processes of which have special influence on lives and destinies of other people or mankind. There are traditional kinds of EE, such as pedagogical, medical, legal, scientist’s ethics, and relatively new ones, appearance or actualization of which are connected with the increasing role of “the human factor” in this type of activity (engineering ethics) or with the strengthening of its influence and role in the society (bioethics). Professional ethics have a number of features.

1. Higher moral values, while preserving their universal significance, acquire special features in them (good and evil in medicine).
2. Specific professional moral norms and values, characteristic only (or especially) for this kind of activity, are formed in the depths of a particular specialty.
3. In the sphere of professional communication, equality of interacting parties is violated, which is caused by dependence on the actions of a specialist (doctor) of other people, their life and health.
4. A characteristic feature of Professional ethics - Its corporativeness.
5. Content and specificity of a particular profession are mainly reflected in moral codes of this specialty (Code of Medical Ethics).

Situational ethics

This is a branch of applied ethics, the purpose of regulation of which is moral problems in specific life situations; Situational ethics develops practical recommendations and possible variants of norms and rules of solving them. and also possible variants of norms and rules of solving them. Situational ethics operates in different spheres of human life and communication - both intimate (interpersonal) and public (mass). Intimate includes such types of interpersonal relations as friendship, love, family and sexual situations. The development of this direction requires close “cooperation” of ethics with psychology, medicine, biology, etc. Among the public ethics are the ethics of political public actions, mass gatherings, etc. The most “situational” element of ethics is etiquette.

Environmental ethics

This is a branch of applied ethics, the subject of which is the most fundamental principles and problems of moral interrelations within the triad “Man - Nature - Society”. All the participants of this interaction are regarded as autonomous and equal moral subjects, and within which the new environmental consciousness, that includes the whole nature - the living and the non-living - in the circle of its concern, attention and reciprocity is being formed.

Iatrogeny

(from Greek jatros - doctor and gennao - generated)

1. disease resulting from the doctor’s erroneous actions or misinterpreted medical prescriptions or medical literature;
2. the way of examination, treatment or preventive measures, as a result of which the doctor causes harm to the patient’s health.