The ethics of practical reasoning—exploring the terrain

ABSTRACT

Social work has been under sustained scrutiny regarding the quality of decision-making. The assumption is that social workers make poor quality decisions. And yet our knowledge and understanding of how social workers make decisions is, at best, partial. In our view, examination of practitioner decision-making will be enhanced by considering the role that ethics plays in practical judgement in practice. Although there has been significant work regarding the role of values and ethics in practice, this work tends to idealize morality, setting up external standards by which practice is judged. In this paper, we will argue that ethics in practice needs to be understood as more than simply the operationalizing of ideal standards. Ethics also entails critical engagement with social issues and can challenge idealized statements of values. We outline the idea of the ethical dimension of practical reasoning, consider its relationship to professional discretion, judgements and decision-making and argue that this opens up an area of investigation that can illuminate the interaction between practice and ethical thinking and reflection in novel and – for social work, at least – unconventional ways.

KEYWORDS:

• Ethics
• practice research
• decision making
• professionalism and discretion

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Tony Evans practised as a mental health social worker. He is Professor of Social Work at Royal Holloway University of London. His research explores the intersection of policy, professional practice and ethics. His published work has focused on the analysis of professional discretion in the context of managerialized public services, moral economies of practice, professional expertise and judgement. His most recent book is ‘Policy and social work practice’ (edited with Frank Keating).

Dr Mark Hardy is lecturer in social work at the University of York. He is author (with Tony Evans) of ‘Evidence and knowledge for practice’ (Polity Press 2010) and ‘Governing risk: Care and control in contemporary social work’ (Palgrave Macmillan 2015). He is associate editor of the journal ‘Qualitative social work’ and with Ian Shaw (York) and Jeanne Marsh (Chicago) has recently edited the Sage major work in ‘Social work research’ (Sage 2016). Currently, he is editing: ‘Mental health social work: the art and science of practice’ (with Martin Webber, Routledge). His practice experience entailed work with young and adult offenders and in forensic mental health, and he retains research interests in both of these areas.

Notes

1. Hume, while he is known primarily as a philosopher, was at the time better known for his work as an historian and what is evident from his work is a rich sense of ethical thinking grounded in an historical and social understanding of ethical commitments and motivation.