Difference Between Personal and Professional Ethics
. What is your perception of personal ethics Vs professional ethics? If different, can you explain the difference? A brief definition of personal ethics according to me would be an individual’s belief about morality or conscience . It defines our stand on what is right or wrong. This branch of ethics gradually develops since our childhood and tend to emulate the things which are set as an moral value to us by our parents or guardians in the family. It can heavily be influenced from any major incident in our life.
Again I believe every individual may have its own definition of code of personal ethics. It can overlap at times or it may conflict with one another as well e. g a vegetarian may find eating non veg food as a crime. Personal ethics can influence all different areas of life such as family,finances,religion or relationship. Here the individual has the liberty and the freedom to choose his/her own set of rules if his concience conflict with that of the sorrounding’s. Professional ethics defines adherence to rules and regulation .
Here the individual is expected to follow religiously, the code of ethics framed by the organization . It can be heavily influenced by the culture of the organization but it cannot change as frequently as the personal ethics. There may be at times where our personal ethics can conflict with our professional one ,for instance, when a judge enforces a death sentence on a criminal as per our law even if he is personally against death penalty. So by setting out expected behaviour in the form of professional ethics,professionals try to uphold a good reputation.
On the other hand,professionals are also expected to be honest and respect the code of ethics by not getting involved in any conflict of interest. A conflict of situation may occur if an individual tries to achieve personal goal while at profession which ultimately leads to corruption. Coming across various range of people in personal and professional life , I generally find people carrying the same attitude in both sphere of life. In short ,there is definitely a line between personal and professional ethics,but that line to me is very thin and fine
