NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Doctors are expected to have an allegiance to the Hippocratic Oath, principles that can conflict with the goal of making profits. Accountants and lawyers are supposed to be dedicated to the truth, even if it adversely affects their bottom line.
Business leaders should act ethically, even when it makes the annual report to stockholders less impressive.
These can be hard stands to take, as ethics scandals in recent years prove.
William May, author of Beleaguered Rulers: The Public Obligation of the Professional, will speak to these issues during a lecture on Tuesday, March 23, at Vanderbilt University.
The lecture is free and open to the public.
The "Professionals and Their Paymasters" lecture will take place at 4:30 p.m. in the Flynn Auditorium of Vanderbilt Law School. The talk is sponsored by The Cal Turner Program for Moral Leadership in the Professions and the Moral Reasoning Committee at Vanderbilt.
"I hope to talk about the importance of the virtues, in addition to suggesting some structural reforms," May said. "Academic institutions have the responsibility to not just turn out professionals with technical smarts, but also the strength of character to be professionally ethical, especially when dealing with the people who are paying them."
May is a fellow at the Institute for Practical Ethics and Public Life at the University of Virginia. Before that, he helped found the Cary M. Maguire Center for Ethics and Public Responsibility at Southern Methodist University.
The Cal Turner Program for Moral Leadership in the Professions is a Vanderbilt University program dedicated to the discussion and promotion of moral values relevant to the professional schools and the practice of the professions. Vanderbilt University Law School, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, the Owen Graduate School of Management, Vanderbilt University School of Nursing and Vanderbilt University Divinity School are formally affiliated with the Cal Turner Program.
Media contact: Jim Patterson, (615) 322-NEWS
Jim.patterson@vanderbilt.edu