Hands up all those in favour of ethics

Abstract

A recent media controversy is used to help discriminate between immediate and often impulsive reactions to ethical problems and those of a more critical or evaluative nature. Decision-making models are reviewed as a way of considering responses more carefully and using more explicit reasoning. The Canadian Code of Ethics for Psychologists is outlined and compared to that of the Psychological Society ofIreland. The former offers a clear and practical structure, even including guidelines for those situations when ethical principles are in conflict. A worked through example is reproduced to give a sense of how this code can operate in practice. It is argued that this style of code is useful for practice, for teaching ethics, as well as assisting in the adjudication of complaints against psychologists.