International Journal of Applied Philosophy

Volume 31, Issue 2, Fall 2017

Moral Development and Professional Integrity

We rely on doctors, accountants, engineers, and other professionals to be committed to the basic values of their professions and to exercise their ex­pertise in competent, reliable ways, even when no one is watching them do their work. That is, we expect them to have professional integrity. Children obviously do not yet have professional integrity, even if someday they will become professionals. Nevertheless, the moral development of children who will become professionals plays an important role in the eventual emergence of their professional integrity. We will discuss both what this integrity involves and how the basic moral development of children contributes to its emergence in professional life.