In recent years, deception, dishonesty, and bluffing have become increasingly prevalent in the professional realm. By examining current corporate practices, it is easy to see why today’s society is more skeptical about seeking professional service, whether in law or medicine, than ever before. As Ellin asserts, is it ethically appropriate to engage in deception in specific situations concerning the professional-client relationship? According to certain theorists, such as Ellin, lying and withholding information are sometimes permissible and even desirable. These claims, on the other hand, are difficult to back up ethically. Contrary to common opinion, more rational ideas advanced by theorists like Bayles, Gorovitz, and Kant demonstrate that misleading practices employed in professional-client interactions are almost never ethically justified since they infringe on clients’ fundamental rights and autonomy. Even though Ellin argues that deception is morally acceptable, Kant, Bayles, and Gorovitz more convincingly show that these tactics only hurt clients’ trust or limit their freedom and basic rights, not help them.
In his works, Ellin proposes two theories of professional morality in anticipation of a conflict between special morality and ordinary morality. According to Ellin (75), “ordinary morality” refers to the values that ordinary people should or would have if they were adequately thoughtful. On the other hand, the concept of “special morality” only applies to people who hold a unique position or work in specific professions (Ellin 75).In his view, the manifesting differences between these two concepts can be addressed by rational thinking, which he calls “ordinary reflective morality,” which he defines as the minimum moral standard for educated practitioners in any unique field that separates them from ordinary people (Ellin, 75). According to Ellin’s definition of ordinary reflective morality, those who choose to overlook ethical difficulties will fail to meet the standards of ordinary reflective morality. So, the significance of the ordinary versus special morality debate should not be overlooked.
Ellin later argues that the “parallel view” and the “priority view” both do not object to the fact that “ordinary moral rules” exist, which are applicable to educated practitioners, and that in such circumstances, separate codes of conduct should apply. However, the “parallel view” and “priority view” diverge when it comes to determining the association between the “ordinary rules” and the “special rules,” particularly when it comes to the ethical codes of conduct that should be applicable to educated practitioners. According to Ellin (86), “priority view” hypothesizes that special rules that direct how educated practitioners behave in their professions should subsist. Such rules should enforce obligations that are not consistent with the obligations enforced on each person in ordinary life. The “parallel view,” on the other hand, proposes that moral duties exist that do not necessarily stem from “ordinary morality” but rather from the uniqueness of their professions (Ellin, 76). At the heart of the “priority view” is that no matter the existence of special duties or stark differences, morality should be determined by “ordinary moral considerations” (Ellin 76). He further asserts that when it comes to priority views, such differences may occur since ordinary morality offers no means for reconciliation. Of the two views, Ellin seems to favour the “parallel view.” He agrees with it in an implicit manner. Ellin’s fundamental thesis is that the moral values of ordinary people vary from those of professionals, who require certain ethical privileges. Professionals are much like the rest of us ordinary people, but the tension between their personal and professional lives has given birth to the notion of “unique” professional morality. Under special morality, Ellin believes that there is a justification for deception in certain scenarios when educated practitioners are faced with an ethical dilemma and seek to protect the best interests of their clients. This is what Ellin contemplates as being a fiduciary relationship. According to Ellin (76), any fiduciary relationship (between a client and a professional) creates a contradiction between ordinary and professional ethics. This statement supports the Parallel View of Special Professional Morality, which believes that professional and ordinary morality are two distinct sets of principles that may contradict each other. Ellin’s argument is based on the notion that lying is more morally reprehensible than deception. Correspondingly, deception in a fiduciary relationship, he claims, is permissible in certain scenarios.
Ellin interrogates the link between “professional morality” and “ordinary morality,” concentrating on the difference between lying and deception. His arguments clearly favor “professional morality,” given that it corresponds with the “parallel view.” When considering the function of veracity in professional–client relationships, Ellin believes that the “parallel view” is superior to the “priority view” when it comes to protecting the interests of the client. He believes that professional ethics allows for deception within the fiduciary paradigm as long as it is necessary to protect the client’s interests. In such scenarios, Ellin feels educated professionals have a different ethical code than ordinary people on the streets. According to him, these professions indeed have separate ethics, but they differ in degree rather than type, and they place a higher value on individual ethics than societal or substantive ethics. Ellin (82) then claims that in fiduciary relationships, such as those between public relations practitioners and clients, the educated professional wants to serve the interests of the person who has hired him or her. Ellin’s fiduciary model is similar to Bayles’ (5), which he believes is optimal for professional-to-client interactions. Both agree that the educated professional should take the client’s interest into consideration in his decision-making process. However, Ellin leaves a very critical model of autonomy, which Bayles (5) asserts. According to Bayles (71), whether the client is a person, a large corporation, or a government agency makes no difference since professionals have obligations to third parties – such as the public – that limit their capacity to act in the client’s best interests. Hence, client’s autonomy should always be respected in any fiduciary relationship. While Bayles’ point of view is understandable given professionals’ high esteem and authority, it is also worth emphasising that if this were not the case, educated professionals would have little obligation to respect the client’s autonomy. According to Bayles (177), there is a possibility of conflict due to the multiple obligations assigned to various parties. All professionals face conflicts between their own interests and those of their clients, which arise from the tension between role-related responsibilities to clients and general obligations toward third parties (Bayles 129). Ellin’s interpretation of the fiduciary model ignores the client’s values, limiting the client’s ability to make independent judgments. Instead, his fiduciary model takes on a paternalistic model, in which the professional has complete authority over the interests of the client.
At first glance, Ellin seems to be questioning whether professional behaviour is governed by a set of standardized principles. Ellin distinguishes between what he refers to as “professional morality” and “ordinary reflective morality.” The former establishes the ground rules for everyday interactions, both routine and irregular. On the other hand, professional morality is a system of values suited to the demands of a particular profession to protect a client’s interests. For this reason, Ellin makes a strong case that professional ethics, particularly veracity, should govern fiduciary relationships. For whatever reason, fiduciary relationships place a higher value on deception than on lying, according to Ellin (81), since lying is a greater danger to the trust between a professional and a client. Accordingly, professional-client relationships work best when all parties agree to interact ethically, that is, when all parties work together in the best interests of each other.
Overall, Ellin primarily conveys the argument that ordinary people and specialists or educated practitioners have separate moral standards that allow them the privilege to deceive their clients into preserving their fiduciary relationship. He opines that professionals are exactly like the rest of the public, but the complexities that exist between their personal lives and their working lives have given rise to the concept of “special” professional morality. Ellin then advances three crucial points: first, common morality and particular professional morality are distinct; second, lying is distinct from deception; and third, deception is ethically justifiable. He constructs his case in such a manner that, although lying is unacceptable, deceit is permitted due to this “unique” professional morality.
On the other hand, Ellin’s “ordinary morality” argument can be criticized based on how he uses it to develop the “parallel view” to support deception by educated practitioners in an attempt to support their client’s interests. However, his view is not ethically and morally justifiable. Ellin advances fallacious arguments since the fact that professions exist to achieve specific goals does not answer the issue of whether professionals must achieve those goals, even if doing so contradicts widely accepted moral norms. While analyzing particular moral dilemmas, the morality of the situation as a whole must be examined rather than merely that of the situation with a client. The foundation for a specific morality’s existence is its contribution to universal morality. First, what is ethics? Engaging in ethics is engaging in a comprehensive and critical examination of fundamental moral principles to arrive at or defend a stance on a moral problem or quandary. Ethical reasoning and problem solving both make use of normative statements. It is via this method that the profession itself develops standards and expectations against which its members’ work may be judged. Without foundation in basic values and views shared by members of the profession, it is inappropriate to have a debate about moral dilemmas without a basis in the profession’s core values and beliefs. People may arrive at different ethically right conclusions while discussing the same issue. Hence it is important to have a standardized approach to ethics with a focus on the public interest. Different discourses might lead to not just varied but also contradictory and conflicting opinions regarding what is the most ethically correct behavior. It is impossible for the profession to maintain its moral standards and paradigms if they are based on inconsistent and contradictory findings about what is ethically good. Expecting moral discourse to be grounded in profession-wide standards and aims does not limit consideration of the specific peculiarities of each case, which may play a vital role in critical analysis and reasoning about the ethically appropriate course of action. Hence, Ellin’s arguments are ethically and morally wrong.
Next, in promoting the “parallel view,” Ellin is also visibly wrong in his take on the fiduciary relationship between an educated practitioner and a client. Ellin seems to forget that by promoting the “parallel view,” the educated practitioner may be tempted to deceive for his own direct interest or the profession’s interest, rather than the interest of the client and the public. The basis on which Ellin adopts the “parallel” view to the detriment of the “priority view” is erroneous. This is clearly what Ellin seems to have failed to contemplate in typical scenarios where an educated practitioner will be forced to evaluate a client to determine whether to deceive or not. This does not imply that in a typical relationship that is anchored in trust, the practitioner can willfully apply his expertise to attain the client’s objectives. Rather, it points to the divergence between the client’s seeking to attain the most desirable results using any means possible. Indeed, Ellin should be chastised for claiming that there is no need for trust in an agency relationship because the client is rational enough to determine whether the educated practitioner is acting in the desired manner. This is misleading, as not all clients can be rational. Critically, if the ethical codes are not based on universal morality, they are weak since they are solely relevant to the job of the profession they are derived from. If ethical rules were based on Ellin’s parallel view, people in special professions would only have to deal with them if they were self-sufficient. A lack of uniformity in professional standards makes the justification for the existence of ethical rules more challenging.
Lastly, Ellin fallaciously claims that deception is a typical element of the fiduciary model. However, he seems to confuse the paternalist model with the fiduciary model. As far as Ellin’s argument for the “parallel view” is concerned, it is unclear who should have authority over the public interest. He appears to believe that educated practitioners should hold that authority. Ellin’s arguments are, therefore, fundamentally based on a paternalistic model and not a fiduciary model. In a paternalistic model, the educated practitioner makes decisions on what is right for a client with no regard to the client’s explicit consent or agreement. However, the paternalistic model should be criticized for being deceptive since it is fallacious to claim that an individual should be assigned absolute authority to figure out what benefits the client and who should make decisions about those benefits. Paternalism, whether in law, ethics, or everyday public behavior, must be backed up by universally accepted ethical reasoning, such as client autonomy. There is a lot of scholarly debate on whether a professional’s relationship with a client is paternalistic or fiduciary (Bayles, 1988). Unlike Ellin, Bayles (5) argues in favour of the fiduciary, ethical paradigm and rejects paternalism as a foundation for ethical decision-making. According to Ellin, experts should prioritise the interests of their clients or those they intend to serve above their own and those of others in their field. Bayles further contends that since the fiduciary relationship is established on trust, the professional’s greater skill is recognized, but the client retains substantial decision-making authority or autonomy. This contrasts with Ellin’s “parallel vision,” which would essentially remove the client’s ability to make decisions. Clients have the right to as much autonomy as is practical in all professional-client interactions, whether medical or commercial. The professional’s role should be to use his expertise and present the consumer with sufficient particulars to make an educated decision. Like Bayles, Gorovitz (177) also argues in favour of the public interest. In his view, a professional’s commitment to a specific client or patient has limits when it comes to giving precedence to the public interest. Therefore, each professional’s commitment to a specific client or patient has limits; nonetheless, it is uncommon for that point to be explicitly defined when the public good should take precedence over individual interests and for this standard to guide professional behaviour. In return, society grants professions and their members a degree of autonomy, allowing them to work for the greater good of the community. As a result, professionals would have to balance their near-absolute dedication to an individual client or patient in favour of a stronger sense of responsibility to the wider good. Professionals’ obligation to promote the common welfare of society may be best accomplished by public debate of the advantages and services given by their professions (Gorovitz 192). Professionals, according to Ellin, will use deception to convince clients to pick the option they feel is preferable. This, however, is unethical as it denies clients autonomy to choose what they think is best in their interest. According to Gorovitz’s “Informed Consent and Patient Autonomy,” patients’ rights to informed consent and autonomy” are critical. Kant’s approach seems to place the most emphasis on autonomy. We may argue that Gorovitz takes a Kantian approach to his reasoning. Respecting people indicates that we care about them. According to Kant, this is a manifestation of moral law. We should perceive other individuals as an end in and of themselves, rather than as a means to our own goal. Building on this reasoning, Gorovitz argues that a client’s freedom of choice is unaffected by the likelihood of making the wrong decision. The golden rule for the public interest is logically supported by Kant’s categorical imperative, which asserts that what is right for one person is also right for all. Therefore, the conduct of a professional should only be assessed on whether or not we are concurrently attempting to create universal morality. Yet, Ellin’s parallel view seems to contradict universal morality. The ability to universalize true moral responsibility is the litmus test. There must be an unbreakable moral code, just as there must be unbreakable physical principles like gravity. The higher truths, alluded to by Kant, are superior to a professional’s finite reason to deceive to protect the client’s interest. All-natural and socially accepted norms must be abandoned to follow Kant’s categorical imperative. As a result, Kant’s ethics are considered more motivating than the subjective procedures promoted by Ellin that may be explained simply by fleeting experiences.
Despite Ellin’s assertion that deception and bluffing are morally legitimate and even necessary in professional-client interactions, it is evident that these strategies only harm clients or restrict their basic rights. He primarily conveys the argument that ordinary people and specialists or educated practitioners have separate moral standards that allow them the privilege to deceive their clients into preserving their fiduciary relationship. In truth, his view is not ethically and morally justifiable. Deception, as Bayles and Gorovitz clarified, only impedes the client’s ability to make life-altering decisions. Professionalism is not a game where deception or bluffing can be allowed and should not be treated like one. All professions, including business, have a duty of honesty to their clients and customers. Deception, lying, and bluffing have all been used by professionals and clients in the past, but this does not mean they should continue to do so. What is also clear is that Ellin’s argument is based on paternalism rather than the superior expertise of the professional. As a result, even if the patient and the physician share the same goal, the patient may still make an educated choice despite the physician’s greater expertise. As a result, a professional – such as a physician – has a duty to inform his clients about all of their options and to enable them to make their own decisions without the use of deceptive practices. Ellin is also wrong, as he does not seem to share the ethical perspective that clients have a right to autonomy and knowledge regardless of whether or not they are disabled. The professional owes it to his patients to provide as much information as possible, depending on their level of understanding. Only in the most difficult and limited situations may paternalism be applied. The less the paternalism model is needed, the better the client’s capacity to understand, the greater his or her ability to choose freely, and the greater the client’s autonomy.
Works Cited
Bayles, Michael. Professional Ethics. Wadsworth Publishing Company, 1989.
Ellin, Joseph. “Special Professional Morality and the Duty of Veracity.” Business and Professional Ethics Journal, vol. 1, no. 2, 1982, pp. 75-94.
Gorovitz, Samuel. “Professions, Professors, and Competing Obligations.” Ethics, Trust, and the Professions, edited by Edmund Pellegrino, Robert Veatch and John Langan, Georgetown University Press, 1991, pp. 177-192.
Michael D. Bayles. Professional Ethics. Wadsworth Inc., 1981.