Ethical Safety Practice

We have met many great safety professionals over our careers, and some have made an impression upon us. What makes them great? We believe it was how they approached and solved problem.

The style is purely based on how they ethically approach decisions. Safety is an area that deals with technical, culture, legal, people, equipment, and the environment. It can be in the form of administration, communication, documentation, or observation that aid with identification and analysis of risks; so that, we can recommend controls to prevent an accident.

Safety professionals are to articulate a concern or report an issue to mitigate risk so people react / act to change the status quo so the risk is lowered or eliminated, and the work can be done safely and in a timely manner.

Ethics plays a key part of a safety professional’s drive, approach and conscientiousness for uncovering and highlighting risks to our stakeholders.

We all approach problems in an individual manner that differ from each other and the outcomes vary between safety professionals.

To understand the types of approach, we must first discuss the four types of ethical theories[1]:

Utilitarianism: Utilitarianism is a theory of morality, which advocates actions that foster happiness or pleasure and opposes actions that cause unhappiness or harm. When directed toward making social, economic, or political decisions, a utilitarian philosophy would aim for the betterment of society as a whole. All persons count equally in the analysis, but it is possible that individuals may be sacrificed for the greater good.

Kantianism: Often viewed as a duty-based theory but can be expressed in a rights form. Rights emerge from the duty to treat others with respect. Under Kantianism, one decides if an act is right or wrong without looking at the consequences, so it is an approach that contrasts with utilitarianism. An act is moral if it was done to fulfill a duty – just for the sake of the duty and not because the fulfilled duty brought the actor any benefits.

Virtue ethics: Virtue ethics assumes a person of good character will choose the right action in the circumstances and act as a virtuous person. A virtue is a good character trait – benevolence, justice, loyalty, friendliness, courage, honesty, integrity – whereas a vice is a bad character trait. Professional codes of ethics specifically refer to virtues. If you are a professional, you are a particular kind of person because you must nurture certain virtues more carefully than a non-professional.

Natural rights: Human beings, by their very nature, sense that certain things are ‘good’ – life, health, knowledge, play and friendship. These goods are worth engaging in or protecting in and of themselves, not because they are means to some other end. Human life is not measurable in its value – “life is priceless.”

Which one are you?

To be successful and to reduce risks, we need to be all four types. However, each situation needs to be evaluated to determine which ethical approach would best control the hazard.

When dealing with a legal compliance issue, Kantianism ethics could be best suited. Because it deals with people’s rights, the OHS legislation in Canada is based on the IRS (internal responsibility) system, which involved people’s rights to safety in the workplace. 

When dealing with equipment and material damage, we need to consider the Natural Rights approach. Because it bases its decisions on a cost benefit analysis.

When dealing with production we need to exercise virtue, since we are leaders over people, and we are held to high standards.

When dealing with the environment, we need to consider Utilitarianism, since we are looking a greater good of all things.

As a safety professional, we encounter many different types of situations and it is prudent to know how to act and respond to these types of circumstances; loss control ensures our employees, our government, and our society coexist in harmony and it makes us feel good about the decisions that we recommend.

Lambton College offers a great course on ethics:

https://www.lambtoncollege.ca/custom/lambtonapps/parttime/courses/Course.aspx?id=RSTH-2000

Prepared by Roger Belair and Trace Lane.  

[1] Dr. Peter Strahlendorf, Ryerson University, Ontario, Canada, Ethical Theory Explained.