MARTIN, TROY A., Ph.D. Unsettling Professional Code: Relationship Boundaries and Ethical Possibilities. (2015) Directed by Dr. Kathy Hytten. 242 pp. My dissertation addresses ethics in social professions through a conceptual and empirical study of how professional boundaries and codes organize relationship. Central research questions include: “How might one’s sense of responsibility to another person shrink under professional codes, procedures or good boundaries? Does professionalism lower the stakes of professional relationship by restricting involvement and avoiding risk?” After developing an interdisciplinary, theoretical account of professionalism and normative ethics, I bring care ethics and postmodern critique together to challenge the foundations of professional ethics. While providing important protections, professional norms and codes of ethics narrow the scope of what is “ethical” and limit ethical possibility. Emphases on “do no harm” and risk-aversion lower the stakes of professional relationship. My queer reading of ethics code discloses how professional ethics are treated as stable knowledge. I argue that professionalism ascribes the condition of being ethical rather than promoting active social processes and pragmatic ways of doing ethics. My qualitative study of professional teachers and social workers who became “parents” to youth they met in professional contexts grounds my theoretical and philosophical inquiry in experiential narrative. I describe an ethical periphery where practitioners make “positive boundary crossings” and suggest that professional ethics is a matter of deliberated action rather than identity. Mutual relations and “elastic boundaries” invite more creative and pragmatic problem solving and make ethical discourse more relevant and meaningful in everyday professional practice. UNSETTLING PROFESSIONAL CODE: RELATIONSHIP BOUNDARIES AND ETHICAL POSSIBILITIES by Troy A. Martin A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy Greensboro 2015 Approved by ________________________________ Committee Chair To Wing Biddlebaum who said, “You must try to forget all you have learned. You must begin to dream.” ii APPROVAL PAGE This dissertation written by Troy A. Martin has been approved by the following committee of the Faculty of The Graduate School at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Committee Chair _________________________________________________ Committee Members _________________________________________________ _________________________________________________ _________________________________________________ ___________________________ Date of Acceptance by Committee _________________________ Date of Final Oral Examination iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................1 Technologies of Care ...................................................................................4 The Social Professions .................................................................................8 Research Questions ....................................................................................10 Personal and Theoretical Reflections: Queering a Professional “Minefield” .......................................................................11 Importance of the Study .............................................................................15 Outline of the Study ...................................................................................17 II. BOUND BY CODE: SOCIOLOGICAL AND PHILOSOPHICAL PERSPECTIVES OF PROFESSIONS ..........................................................21 Sociological Perspectives on Professionalism ...........................................22 Professional Codes of Ethics .....................................................................47 Summary ...................................................................................................68 III. UNSETTLING PROFESSIONALISM: CHALLENGING NORMATIVE CODE AND IMAGINING ETHICAL POSSIBILITIES .............................................................................................70 Care Ethics, Professional Care, and Technological Society ......................71 Ethics in a Technological Society: Procedures, Limits, Choices, and Legal Rights .....................................................................87 Postmodern Critique: Knowledge, Ethics, and Subjectivity .....................94 Summary .................................................................................................110 IV. FROM TOP DOWN TO BOTTOM UP: FINDING ETHICS IN EVERYDAY PROFESSIONAL LIFE .........................................................111 Ethics as “Being-in-the-World” ...............................................................112 Pragmatic Assessment of Ethics Code .....................................................117 Pragmatic Hermeneutics ..........................................................................119 “Being-in-the-World” Vignettes ..............................................................122 Summary ..................................................................................................136 iv Page V. CROSSING LINES, OPENING ETHICAL SPACE: PROFESSIONALS BECOMING PARENTS ............................................137 Methods: Qualitative Interviews and Phenomenological Sensitivity ............................................................................................139 Professional and Child Contexts ..............................................................151 Theme 1: “Something That Had to Happen” ..........................................157 Theme 2: “Responsibility for a Child that Goes Beyond the Classroom” ......................................................................161 Theme 3: The Ethical Arc of Rules ........................................................164 Some Critical Notes about Ethical Discourse ..........................................167 Limitations of Interview Materials ..........................................................173 Research Findings and Summary .............................................................174 VI. CONCLUSION: IMAGINING SOCIAL PROFESSIONS THAT MAKE IT EASIER TO LOVE ...................................................................178 Summary of Findings to the Research Questions ....................................179 Queering the Code ...................................................................................186 Decentering Professional “Ethics” and Opening Space for Risk and Love .....................................................................189 Implications and Recommendations ........................................................194 Closing Thoughts .....................................................................................198 REFERENCES ................................................................................................................200 APPENDIX A. RECRUITMENT ADVERTISEMENT .................................................218 APPENDIX B. INTERVIEW PROTOCOL ....................................................................219 APPENDIX C. CONSENT FORM .................................................................................221 APPENDIX D. NARRATIVE SUMMARIES ................................................................225 v CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION Citizens of economically “developed” and “developing” nations regularly use professional services. Later today, I plan to take my cat to his appointment with the veterinarian. Perhaps you sent a child to school this morning. Relying upon and integrating professional services into daily life has become common, seldom questioned routine. As well, managerial and professional services have become dominant sectors in the U.S. economy (Williams, 2014). With attention toward the influence of professionalism on social organization, I am broadly interested in how boundaries organize and order relationship. By centering ethics in the life-world of the professional, I seek to better understand how professional ethics organize relationships and describe how professional agents experience relationship boundaries. While the experiences of recipients of professional services are an important area of study, I have found that the experiences of frontline professionals who provide services are less often theorized and described. Given that professional codes of ethics establish general principles and rules of conduct, I want to know more about how they conventionally narrow the scope of what is “ethical” and, thereby, limit ethical possibility. I recently listened to a story on National Public Radio covering the January, 2015 Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris in which 17 people were killed. When reporting about the 1 assailants and the accuracy of their marksmanship, the reporter described them as “very professional.” I presumed that she meant the killings were carried out with technical expertise and skill. Yet I wondered, “If killing can be described as ‘professional,’ does any ethical signification remain in the concept of professionalism?” While a minor descriptor in one story does not fully reflect contemporary discourse, I wondered if professionalism has come to mean expert know-how devoid of any ethical content. I then asked, “What meaning is conveyed when teachers or social