Moral development or moral decline? A discussion of ethics education for the health care professions

Ethics education curricula in professional programmes are often confused and ineffective. They focus on traditional conceptions of professional ethics as rules supplementary to the law, and, it is claimed, contribute to tension and conflict in professional relationships, particularly with authority. This paper presents, first, a contemporary conception of the relationship between law and ethics that reinstates morality as a core component; it informs professional ethics and together they contribute to the law. Second, the paper describes the educational philosophy of two programmes in rehabilitation science where the ethics education component is being analyzed. Finally, research, that is currently under way, is described which will demonstrate the different effects of traditional and enhanced ethics education effort upon the moral reasoning processes that students use in reaching moral judgments.