1 On Being a Professional Although there are many lists of criteria for what is and is not a profession, the following is widely accepted. A professional is one who: Has extensive tertiary training and/or education Practices an art that requires significant intellectual development Provides an important service to the public Is certified or licensed by the state Has an organization that practices self-regulation and controls entrance to the field Receives power from the state in return for a commitment to the public good Belongs to an organization that has a code of ethics

2 On Being a Professional Using this list as a guide, certain vocations are clearly not professions. Barbers, for example, provide a useful service to society and in some jurisdictions licensed by the state, but they do not have extensive training in a field that requires significant intellectual development. The fields that clearly meet these criteria are medicine, law, theology, engineering, nursing, accounting, pharmacy, and perhaps a few others. Among those that do not, somewhat surprisingly, is college teaching—most professors have no training in how to teach. Perhaps the most interesting feature of profession that the state gives special power to professionals, medicine, for example, physicians are empowered perform certain actions (such as surgery) that are not permitted to others. Pharmacists, likewise, are permitted by the state to dispense drugs—an action that would land the rest of us in jail if caught. Similarly, engineers are licensed, exclusively, by the state, to put their seal of approval on engineering plans and specifications.

3 Limitations of Codes of Ethics Misnomer: A “Code of Ethics” involves careful deliberation of the right and wrong thing to do in a given circumstance – so cannot necessarily be reduced to a code. Codes are lists of guidelines: Guide to respectable conduct Admonitions and requirements: e.g: ASCE: Engineers should keep current ….