Thinking Professionally
WHAT IS PROFESSIONALISM?
We start with the idea of a division of labor in society: different people take up different tasks and specialize in them. They acquire an expertise (knowledge and other skills) and then spend most of their time and energies applying that particular expertise in the appropriate areas (e.g., a doctor cures ailments of the body; a shoemaker makes shoes). Because of the division of labor-- necessary because there is more to do and to know than any one person can master--we have a society in which each person exercises a special expertise for the good of many other persons and, of course, receives the help and benefits of those who have a different expertise (the doctor gets his clothes from the tailor).
The professional, then, exercises his expertise primarily for the good of others. This is built into the very idea of a division of labor: the idea of service is intrinsic to the idea of profession. On the other hand, the person who receives the service from a professional usually does so because he himself lacks that particular professional expertise. Because he lacks it, he ultimately has to trust the professional; in the end he simply cannot judge whether the advice of the professional is good or not (even a second opinion requires trust in the second expert). So this relationship of service-trust is intrinsic to professional life.
The relationship of service/trust generates a number of obligations on the part of the professional. To name a few: the obligation to be well formed and possess adequate expertise; the obligation to seek the good of the client/patient/student/etc.; the obligation not to exercise his profession where he does not have adequate knowledge of the facts (avoid casual advice), and so on.
SERVICE THROUGH EXPERTISE
A professional, whether doctor, lawyer, architect, teacher, is a person who has a definite expertise, a definite body of knowledge or a specific set of skills. This expertise allows the professional to assist those who do not possess that expertise—most people—in the area of his expertise. Lacking the expertise themselves, those who need assistance (the client, patient, student, etc.) implicitly trust the professional. They trust that the professional actually has the expertise he claims, and, more importantly, that the professional will use his expertise for their good. This relationship calls for a basic attitude of service. The true professional views the exercise of his profession as primarily service to the rest of the community.
A good professional, for example a doctor, uses his expertise for the good of the person he is serving, the patient. The same is true for lawyers, for architects, for carpenters, for teachers. In each case, the profession is exercised well when the professional seeks to do what is best for the client. Obviously the professional needs to be remunerated for his service, but if he puts that remuneration ahead of service to the need of the client, he will end up abusing the client, i.e., acting in a way that is not really in the interest of the client. Similarly, a good professional looks to the good of the larger community, usually in the form of following the law as it touches upon his professional activities. Here again, if the professional takes personal gain to be primary, he will easily end up acting in a way that is harmful to the community.
Because those who come to him are not experts, a professional always faces the possibility of using his expertise, not primarily for the good of the other persons, but as a means to further his own interests at the expense of those other persons. Taken alone, expertise is neutral with regard to how it will be used. Whether the professional will use his expertise for the good of the others or primarily for his own personal interests depends on qualities in him that go beyond mere expertise. These qualities are certain traits of character. Consequently, to be a good professional requires states of character—virtues—which will dispose the expert to use his expertise for the service of others. A good professional combines expertise and character (virtue).
PROFESSIONAL INNOVATION
A good professional wants to contribute to the advancement of his own profession. This occurs, first of all, in trying to make technical improvements in the area of his own professional expertise, such as a doctor discovering a new, better technique for curing a disease. Second, he will collaborate with others in his profession, so that the profession as a whole adopts professional standards that promote and protect the particular service offered by that profession. E.g., an engineer will work to have accepted standards that adequately protect the users of the products they design. Also, he will work to ensure that the standards of the profession respect ethical norms (this is particularly important for professions like medicine). To this end he will usually try to participate in various professional organizations. Finally he will be willing to help younger members of the profession to gain their professional expertise and try to pass on his experience to those who follow.
INTEGRATING WORK AND LIFE
To be a good professional requires, among other things, that the person successfully integrates his professional activity into the broader context of his whole life. A normal human life includes much more than professional activities: family, religion, participation in the political and civic life of one's community, as well as many various activities involving sports, the arts, education, etc. It is very possible, indeed it happens all too frequently, that persons are overly dedicated to their professional activity to the detriment of other aspects of their lives, so that their life, taken as a whole, suffers. To be a good professional implies achieving a healthy work-life balance. And to achieve this balance, a person needs to reflect on what constitutes a successful human life so as to be able to integrate all the elements of his life in a healthy way.
Besides integrating well one's professional life into one's personal life, it is necessary for a good professional that his professional work also be well integrated into the larger community. It is very possible that a professional exercise his skills in a way that is actually harmful to the community (e.g., a plastic surgeon changing a criminal's fingerprints or some development projects in the armaments industry). A good professional needs to consider whether and how his work is contributing the good of the community and needs to avoid activities that are harmful to the moral climate (e.g., contributing to pornography), to the environment, and even to the economy (e.g., speculation that has no good result other than the enrichment of some private individuals). Obviously measuring the effect of one's activity on the larger community is not always simple; nevertheless, a good professional needs to consider it and try to promote the good of him community and avoid harming it. To this end he needs to have some idea of what is good and what is harmful to the community.
A particularly important aspect of integration is that of professional ethics. Professional ethics mark out certain kinds of activities which are "out of bounds" in the exercise of one's profession and generates rules or norms that identify such activities. These ethical norms, however, are not arbitrary. Rather they give direction and guidance to the professional precisely in this area of harmonizing his professional activity with the broader human good. To practice ethical behavior is to act in such a way as to promote the human good and not harm it. Hence, a good professional needs to know the ethical norms that apply to his professional activities and needs to follow them. He should see that these norms are not really extrinsic to the profession (or some sort of "brake"), but arise from the profession's intrinsic ordination to the broader human good.
All the above considerations point to the need for a good professional to have some degree of formation in the humanities. If studied well, the humanities are, we might say, training for a successful human life. Just as a person needs professional training to be a competent professional, so too, a person, as a person, needs some degree of education in the broader liberal arts. It is in studying the liberal arts (history, literature, philosophy, etc.) that a person reflects on the larger life-questions and through this reflection comes to a mature sense both of what counts for success in life and what makes for a good community. Hence, to focus one's education solely on professional preparation misses an essential element of the formation needed to be a good professional.