Lecture Notes - Psychological Ethics

Psychological Ethics - Colleges
Lecture 1 – Introduction to the course
Psychology
Psychologist: working with people  benefit them (as patients,
clients, employees, citizens, participants)
Psychology: ‘the helping profession’
Psychology according to Neill:
- Psychology has become the default way in which we
conceive of ourselves
- Was born in the late 19th century
- Wants to be a science. However, the psyche, the thing it
wants to study isn’t something we can access and measure
- The object of psychology and the agent hoping to explore
that object are categorically the same. Whatever truths
psychologists uncover or posit as to the mind of behaviour
of human beings, there is no escaping the fact that they
themselves are one of the category they would seek to
explain
Ethics and psychology
Faced with ethical questions
- Should we intervene in clients’ lives against their will?
- Is it morally right for a psychologist to deceive a research
subject/patient?
- Can I share confidential information of my client with someone
else (when I think it is necessary to benefit the client or avoid
harm to another)?
- Is it okay to hug a client (or e.g., to touch them by the shoulder)?
Two famous experiments
The Milgram experiment
- Taught us that everyone can become a monster?
- Teaches us something about responsibility?
The Stanford Prison Experiment (Zimbardo)
- Taught us that people are capable of everything in certain
situations when they are put in certain roles with power?
- Tells us something about the power of roles, group identity,
dehumanization and deindividuation?

The Zimbardo experiment appears to alert us to the face that we
need to be protected from psychologists. The Milgram

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, experiment perhaps tells us that we need to protected from
psychology itself ~ Calum Neill
Introduction to ethics
Acculturation & ethical environment
Culture and acculturation (Handelsman et al.)
- What culture am I entering into?
- What is this group?
- Who is this ‘we’?
Ethical environment (Lloyd & Hansen)
- Ethical environments change over time
- Exploring the ethical basis for a law or rule can be used as a
way to understand the ethical environment within which the
law operates
- “Whereas the natural environment dictates what is possible,
the ethical environment selects out the many possibilities
those that ought and ought not to be done”
Psychological Ethics
This course is about
- Recognizing normative aspects of psychology and psychological
practice
- Learning about the ethical theories, principles and codes of
conduct for psychologist (and their limitations)
- Identify and reflect on ethical issues & dilemmas (in
psychological practice)
- Getting to know your intuitive morality and get to a reflective,
critical level
Three levels, three roles
- Personal level (as a human being, a daughter, mother, etc.)
- Disciplinary level (as a professional)
- Societal level (as a citizen)
Ethics & morality
Ethics or moral philosophy
- Systematic reflection (beyond the intuitive) on
morality  critical evaluative
- As a discipline: theoretical, normative and
practical science
- Guiding, improving, developing and evaluating
morality


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, Systematic reflection on ethical rules and principles will ultimately
become part of our redefined intuitive sense
Ethos or morality
- Ethos (= ‘custom’, ‘habit’)
- The guiding ideals, attitudes and habits that characterizes a
person or community
- Gut-feelings (based on culture, upbringing, religion, gender, etc.)
and also biases
- Immediate, pre-reflective response
Three main areas of ethics
Metaethics
- Reflection on ethics itself
- How should we think about ethics?
- Foundations, concepts, assumptions, e.g., what defines ‘good’?
- Taking a step back
- What is the status of morality?
- Are moral standards relative or absolute?
- Are we egoistic or altruistic by nature? Etc.
Normative ethics
- Reflection on morality & moral behaviour
- Seeks to set criteria to separate the morally right from the
morally wrong: what is the right thing to do? How should I live
my life?
- Classical theories: consequentialism. Deontology (Kant), Virtue
ethics
- Contemporary theories: pragmatic ethics, care ethics
Applied ethics
- Reflection on morality within a specific discipline, area,
profession
- Concerns the practical application of ethics in a specific
discipline such as
- Medical ethics
- Psychological ethics
- Bioethics
- Animal ethics: some argue that this is a form of normative
ethics
- Environmental ethics
Metaethics
Moral relativism


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, Subjectivism: a certain conviction or value that someone has as a
individual
Cultural relativism: certain conviction that a culture/group has
Right or wrong is relative to an individual or a certain culture. Noting is
right or wrong on itself.


Advantages:
- It can explain moral diversity without arguing that the one is
better than the other
- It can explain the existence of moral disagreement and the
existence of ethical biases
- It can recognize multiple ethical systems as legitimate and
explains why it is hard to explain these disciplines
Disadvantages
- Prejudices/biases that are part of a certain culture or that a
individual has, can turn into moral truths
- We can not legitimise our own ethic system because there is no
outside source that argues which is right and which is wrong so
there is no room for moral progress
Moral universalism
Moral absolutism: these
are the rules you have to
obey. Certain actions are
intrinsically wright or
wrong in all times, places
and situations,
independent of situations
Moral objectivism: an
internal source, grounded
in human rationality. All
humans are rational beings and from this rationality come certain
principles, values or convictions that we would all agree upon. They
are dependent of situations.
Ethical dilemmas
Contradicting morals
e.g., the value
freedom vs. safety.




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