Hey, can someone please write an ethical capstone paper? Instructions and examples are attached.

Professor Leiby

IDIS 302

June 26, 2022

Example 3

Final Capstone

Part One: Personal Code of Ethics

When I consider my own process for my personal point of view on ethics I have many things come to mind. My first consideration is personality traits, I like to think of ones that I have that would best apply to my own ethical standards. I consider things like kindness, compassion, loyalty, selflessness and patience. Using these traits to guide my ethics allows me to consider what is best for another person, it is not always about “what is right” but also “what the other person needs”. Sometimes the “right” thing to do isn’t what someone is asking for or may need at that moment. Another consideration I follow for my ethics is that I would treat others how I want to be treated. I believe that what you put into the world comes back to you and that sometimes you have to model behavior that you would want reflected back to you. These considerations are important to me because internal happiness comes from within you rather than around you, and by giving out good you feel good inside.

The immediate framework that comes to mind when I consider my own ethical process Aristotle and Virtue Ethics. When I interpret being a good person to achieve a state of eudaimonia, I think about how our internal environment and how it cannot be affected by our external environment to reach happiness and flourish. When you’re being a good person, you are making good decisions within yourself to put out into the world for others, this is how you will find internal happiness. I also believe I integrate “virtuous mean” between the two extremes, this is where weighing out what someone may need in the moment and where your own ethics are secured comes in. A person may need you to approach their situation differently than the last, and you need to be able to be flexible in how you apply your personal ethics for everyone. I also think I combine parts of deontology and utilitarianism into my ethics. I say this because I combine parts of what actions would meet my own moral goals and what I would be okay with everyone doing.

If I were to codify my ethics, I would say “put out into the world what you want reflected back to you”. This code reveals that you need to be an example of how you want to be treated and it shows how you treat yourself. When I think about my ethics sometimes I think about society and what’s lacking in their morals and where their foundations of ethics may lie. I often take it into consideration when applying my ethics. I believe that even if what needs to get put out into the world differs, your morals stay similar and align with who you are.

Part Two: A Professional Code of Ethics

I am choosing to write about the BCBA professional code of ethics used in the Applied Behavioral Analysis Field. I am currently studying as a psychology major and plan to get my masters in ABA following my bachelors degree. The BCBA professional code is outlined by the Behavior Analyst Certification Board. It applied in all professional activities including supervision, direct services, training, management, and research across different settings. There are four foundational principles that serve as the framework for the code. The first is to benefit others by working to maximize benefits and doing no harm by protecting the welfare and rights of others and actively identifying and addressing potential conflicts and negative impacts. The second principle is treating others with compassion, dignity, and respect regardless of factors such as age, race or gender and by protecting their right to privacy. The third is for behavior analysts to fulfill responsibilities to their communities by behaving with integrity. The last is to ensure competence by being aware and working within the boundaries of the profession. The code also contains ethics standards with 6 different sections covering a variety of responsibilities and duties. Due to its length we will focus on the strengths and weaknesses of the four core principles.

There are more strengths than weaknesses in the principles in the BCBA professional code. First, the code ensures that it covers multiple parties of people, including communities, clients, affiliated families, employees, etc. In addition to this, it covers the BCBA themselves, principle one mentions “Actively identifying and addressing the potential negative impacts of their own physical and mental health on their professional activities.” (Ethics code for behavior analysts, pg. 4). This ensures that BCBA’s are following the code within themselves and that their own internal environment does not affect their work or the people receiving care from them. The principles also reiterate that BCBA’s must keep up on current updates in the field and their profession. This keeps everyone on the same page on what is being applied and serviced to clients. When I look through core principles and think about if there is a weakness I have a hard time finding one. The principles are each broken down into details that cover a variety of people and different areas of the field that I don’t think there is a part of them that I would see lacking anywhere.

Part Three: Case Study

In this case study, a BCBA is claiming to be well trained in the field because they sit in on conferences and have received advice from another individual in the field. A professional in the field feels that the BCBA is misrepresenting herself to the families they are serving and other professionals in the field and is reaching out to others for advice on how to go about the situation. The professional violated multiple ethical standards in the BCBA ethics code by reaching out to others for advice and not informing the BCBA in question that they believe there was an ethical violation. If I applied my own personal code of ethics to this situation I would handle it a lot differently and with more discreteness. First, I would speak to the BCBA directly about their training and get their opinion on if they are getting a sufficient amount of support and information from them. If it seems that the BCBA still does not know how to adhere to ethical guidelines and seems to be continuously misrepresenting themselves to the families then I would create a plan for the BCBA to get more appropriate training and one on one guidance so they could be more skilled and up to date in the field. I think this would also help ensure that there were not more ethical violations in the future.

My personal codes could come into tension in this scenario if I was to be more passive with the BCBA and allow them to get out of having to do extra training because I was being “kind”. If I apply some of my traits of my personal code to this scenario, the BCBA in question would probably be able to get away with a lot more than they should because I look for the benefit of the doubt and the good in them. The tension this creates goes to show that the nature of personal and professional codes of ethics are on two extremely different scales. The nature of my personal ethics code is filled with feelings, a professional code does not have that, it breaks down what is acceptable and what is not and creates strict guidelines that need to be followed.

References

Behavior Analyst Certification Board. (2020). Ethics code for behavior analysts. https://bacb.com/wp-content/ethics-code-for-behavior-analysts/

Inman, M. (n.d.). Case study # 13. prezi.com. Retrieved July 31, 2022, from https://prezi.com/ajoe3rtkhy2q/case-study-13/