9

The ethical basis for

HRM professionalism

and codes of conduct

David Ardagh

Introduction

In this chapter the extent, feasibility, and desirability of the professionalization
of HRM and HRM professionalism are discussed. It is argued that there are
three broad marks of a profession. First, it meets a human need. Second, it
applies knowledge to this need, and third, a profession has a social grant of
authority. More specific criteria can be found in the literature, for example,
one condition of full professionalization is a self-enforced code of ethics and
conduct. The question of feasibility and desirability of professionalization is
explored using the more specific criteria and the ethical framework of Neo-
Aristotelian Virtue Ethics (NAVE). The chapter explores how HRM presently
lacks some professional features but advocates pursuit of the professional-
ization of HRM via adoption of the ‘concessional’, constitutional model of
corporations (Bottomley 1990, 1997; Dine 2000, 2005) and the addition of
some features to reflect the monitoring role and contribution of HRM as
corporate ‘conscience’.

Neo-Aristotelian virtue ethics and needs

First, I want to address the idea that the mark of a profession is that it meets
a human need. What are such needs? NAVE isolates one normative meaning
of need: needs as ethically justified wants for those ‘goods’ which are needed
for at least threshold operation of a human capacity. The ideal object and end
of all human capacities is, from a NAVE perspective, ‘well-being’ or ‘eudai-
monia’, abstractly conceived as ‘living and acting well’ (Ardagh 1979; Austin
1967). This Aristotelian idea of basing ethics on actualizing capacities and
perfecting virtues is found today in the works of analytic Neo-Thomists like
Geach (1978) and Haldane (1998) and Neo-Aristotelians such as Foot (1978),
Nussbaum (1993), and Nussbaum and Sen (1993). For them, the perfecting
end or goal of a natural capacity is a good, and our pursuit of this good (and