I heard a safety academic the other day on a podcast (that espoused it was ‘leading’) that safety was a ‘duty’. Of course, the academic concerned had no expertise in ethics nor that such a comment espoused a deontological ethic. Deontological (Kantian) ethics is the foundation of the AIHS BoK Chapter on Ethics that makes no mention of: power, zero, personhood, care, helping or moral meaning.

Safety is neither an outcome or a duty, more on that later.

There are numerous schools of ethics of which Deontology is but one. In the following chart I have mapped the most common ten, but there are more. Figure 1. Schools of Ethics

Figure 1. Schools of Ethics

The idea that something is a duty assumes that there are universal moral norms and rules that everyone needs to follow. When you hear someone say ‘do the right thing’ you are listening to deontological ethics that supposes that there is a common idea what that duty is towards. Such a sense of duty maintains a naïve sense of objectivity and the power associated with anyone who disagrees with that duty.

When we think of duties we think of obligations as if there is a natural law of known rights and wrongs and somehow safety is a universal obligation? Duty-based ethics allow little room for context, situational ethics or moral interpretation. For example. If one lived under the Nazi government does one have a duty to obey the moral law of that government? If one lives under the ideology of the trump government, does one a have a ‘duty’ to obey?

In a similar way in safety, what and who is this duty to? The Act and Regulation? an organisation? A set of moral norms? A commitment to low injury rates? A commitment to Zero? The mitigation of risk? Many of these are never discussed in a discussion of duty and deontological ethics, they are assumed.

For example, when two academics at the safety science innovation lab declare zero as a ‘moral goal’ (https://safetyrisk.net/since-when-did-zero-become-a-science/) we see such phenomenal naivety about the nature of ethics and morality. We see the same in the AIHS BoK Chapter on Ethics. Let’s be clear, Zero is an Immoral goal (https://safetyrisk.net/zero-is-an-immoral-goal/). One can never develop a moral method from an ideology that ignores the fallibility and mortality of human persons. Any goal of perfectionism is an immoral goal.

The trouble with all this is that safety sprouts forth on a single theory of ethics as if it is the only ethic. Similarly with a worldview. Apparently, the only worldview that is valid is the safety worldview. The only theory of causation that is valid is a linear causality. If this worldview is so good, why is safety not improving? Why is safety so brutal on persons?

The big problem in all of this discussion is that ethics is of little importance to safety. It is not in any standard curriculum or a central foundation to safety practice. As long as Safety gets lower injury rates apparently safety has been done. And, it doesn’t seem to matter what harm is done along the way or what the by-products emerge from safety practice. Safety is not seen as a caring or helping activity and so can never be deemed a ‘profession’. Moreso, a foundation in ethics is essential the development of any profession. The AIHS BoK even states this!

I would suggest starting here before one goes off running with a safety professor who advocates duty-ethics.

Once you begin to understand the complexity of ethics you will realise that duty-ethics is a perfect match for the brutalism safety enjoys delivering, in the name of ‘good’.

One could also read about:

But why would safety want to understand morality and ethics when a good dose of duty will do?

It is important to know that safety is NOT a duty, an outcome, an action or a performance. Safety is at best a process and how it is undertaken, delivered and administered matters. Any unethical administration of safety completely undoes safety.

Getting a lower injury rate at the cost of integrity, personhood, culture and psychosocial/social-psychological well-being only does harm to safety.

In safety, there is no such thing as a non-ethic. Just because one articulates an ethic, doesn’t mean you don’t have one. Similarly with a worldview or ontology. For example, a worldview that has its focus on performance (eg. HOP) makes safety by discourse an outcome. Particularly playing into the ideology of measurement. This also conforms to a deontological duty-based ethic.

So, if you would like to learn about an Ethic of Risk that challenges a deontological ethic of duty, you could start here:

There is an alternative to the ethic of traditional safety that is practical, positive and humanises the person in tackling risk.

Our next book in SPoR will be exactly on, The Ethics of Risk.