Guidelines for Individual Essay

This assessment task is designed to assist students to explore their own profession, as evidenced by their previous qualification, current or previous employment, e.g. accounting, law, teaching, medicine, so as to determine whether it is a true profession, a quasi-profession or an occupation, the ethical dilemmas faced and the approaches to resolution.

Students are to outline the characteristics of a true a profession and compare this to their own occupation or previous qualifications. Students must identify the "professional association" that represents this occupation in Australia and one other country. Students need to briefly describe whether these associations meet the requirements and functions of a body or institute as identified in a true profession.

Students are then to identify a recent critical ethical issues/dilemmas that has been faced by this occupation, evidenced through press or professional literature within the last 12 months, Students must analyse how, or propose how the "profession" resolved the dilemma and then classify the approach using ethical theory, and assess its appropriateness

Assessment Criteria

Students are to demonstrate knowledge of the subject matter by:

• Defining key terms and concepts related to profession, occupation and moral/ethical accountability.
• clearly identifying ethical dilemmas related to that profession and why they are considered to have moral dimension
• able to advance a resolution to the ethical dilemmas using ethical theories and concepts with examples to illustrate
• demonstrate a breadth and quality of research by using a minimum of 12 academic sources
• use of the APA in text referencing system to correctly cite academic sources

There are essentially 3 sections to this paper-

Section 1 Approximately 400 words 10%

This brief section requires student to contrast a number of definitions of ethics and morality- at a minimum at least 3 different perspectives for each concept should be used to explain:

• What is ethics and morality?
• What is a moral act?
• What is an ethical dilemma?
• Under what conditions do we hold a person morally accountable for their actions- i.e.what are the characteristics of

personhood'that must be satisfied to be recognised as a moral agent?
This is important given the role of professions around making decisions based on expertise
(Students should recognise that at Masters Level the use of 1 reference per definition is NOT considered substantial research)

Section 2 Professions and Occupations 800 Words 10%

Students need to explain the difference between an occupation and a profession. It is important to outline the characteristics that must be satisfied to be classified as a profession and what this requires of member of that profession in terms of their expertise, standards of behaviour and ability to engage wit clients.

Students are then to identify and describe characteristics of their own occupation- either being their previous job or as represented by their previous degree- e.g. marketer, finance, accountant, economist, journalist etc. Students are then to examine this occupation to see whether it classifies as a profession.

Section 3 Resolving Ethical Dilemmas 800 Words 10%

Students are then to identify an ethical dilemma that the profession or a member of the profession has faced within the past 12 months. (The commercial press will have many examples which can be used.)

You must explain WHY it is an ethical dilemma by using appropriate ethical concepts.
Students are to examine the facts of the case against the requirementsof the profession and determine how the profession would address the problem. This should then be examined against the theories of: Utilitarianism, Deontology (including rights, process, principles, duty) and Virtue Ethicsso as to assess the effectiveness and appropriateness of the approach.

Research and Referencing 10%

• demonstrate a breadth and quality of research by using a minimum of 16 academic sources
• Use of the Harvard in text referencing system to correctly cite academic sources.
Student must demonstrate an ability to cite academic sources correctly using the APAin text referencing system.

The assignment must contain:

1. An Introduction
This explains to the reader what the assignment will address (it should be no more than 1 paragraph)

2. Body of the essay

To aid in the structure of the essay, you should use relevant headings for each of the three sections detailed above. (These should be of roughly equal word count).

3. A Conclusion: A summary of key findings (it should be no more than 1-2 paragraphs)

4. Reference list: A list of all sources used in the body of the essay- in alphabetical order

A minimum of 12 quality references must be used in the essay - this includes business ethics texts, articles from journals such as The Journal of Business ethics, Business Ethics Quarterly etc.