Fundamental Principles of Ethics

Abstract  Purpose: To write a memo on the fundamental principles of ethics that could serve as a general background for the International Commission on Occupational Health (ICOH) Code of Ethics.  

Method: Having been invited by Code Review Editor Peter Westerholm PW) to undertake the task, I reflect for several months, consult my previous writings on the subject, and discuss the matter with Review Editor and members of the constituted Africa Code Review Group.  

Results: Four fundamental ethics principles are identified as having been widely discussed in current moral literature. These are, namely, respect for autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence and justice. It is argued that, while these principles are couched in the language and idioms of the industrialized Western world, they have cross-cultural relevance and validity in their overarching and plastic nature, even if they may not everywhere be thought of or stated in the same terms and idioms. They form a set of values which complete and balance one another and none can be said to be more important than any other, although situational and contextual pressures may result in the tendency to lay emphasis on some over others.  

Conclusion: These principles are equally relevant and important in all fields of human endeavour and activity within all possible human contexts and perspectives. Given diverse and ever changing existential and situational conditions, ethical reflection/deliberation is necessarily a perennial and continuous human imperative; and nowhere is this more evident than within professional occupational ethics with its daily dilemmas and perplexities.