Human Resource Management: Ethics and Employment

ETHICAL BASIS FOR HRM PROFESSIONALISM 155

Human nature’s ends/goods

as ethics identifies these.

Abstract/ideal principles,

rules, virtues

Ethically driven

constitutional politics. This

assigns powers, goals, and

boundaries to public,

professional, and private

sectors

Constitution, institutions, and social policies of a given

political economy, e.g. State-Welfare-Capitalism

Public goods

Worthy goods

required by every

citizen

Tax-based funds

Obligatory legal +

public sector norms

Professional goods

Goods needed by most at

some time

Fee-based funds. Medical or

legal aid up to threshold of

minimum care

Professional standards and

codes bind professionals

Private/business

goods

Permitted worthwhile goods,

most not needed by

everyone

Market price/donation-

based funds

Private sector norms

Figure 9.1From human goods and needs to embodying social arrangements

Ideally the state partly determines professional authority, funds infrastruc-
ture and sites like courts and hospitals (Daniel 1990) and this is the reflec-
tion of the fact that the professional sector is purportedly oriented towards
public goods and needs satisfaction and the private sector towards at least
the ethically permissible. The arrows in Figure 9.1 are intended to indicate
the direction of practical rational determination. Given the priority of ends
over means in practical reasoning, the model calls for the normative priority
of ethically warranted goods to be facilitated within ‘welfare capitalist’ social
policy settings including corporate law. That is, ethically warranted human
ends enjoy primacy over more specific sectoral means and their institutional
embodiments. Nevertheless, the vertical arrows in Figure 9.1 linking the
boxes in both directions indicate that practical organizational arrangements,