Download Professional Planning Ethics

Professional Planning Ethics
Presented by Brad Collins FAICP
1.5 Certification Maintenance Credits
September 25, 2015
Basics
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AICP Code of Ethics (new format in 2005)
Professional Conduct (also new format)
Why is anyone a member of AICP?
What do you do when facing difficult issues?
When do you turn to the Code of Ethics?
How much ethical behavior is enough?
Procedural answers to above questions
Shall Strive For
• Aspirational Principles
• Responsibility to Whom – Public (Interest),
Clients & Employers, and Profession &
Colleagues
• Primary Obligation To Serve Public Interest
• A Noted “Unless” – Illegal or Plainly
Inconsistent with Primary Obligation
Shall Not – Compliance Enforced
• Deliberately or with reckless indifference
• “Unless” full written disclosure and written
permission/consent from client or employer
• Other employment – whether or not for pay
• Employment as a professional as a duty
• Conflicts in publicly advocated positions and with
the work of other professionals
• Misrepresentation & work beyond competence
Ethics Session Toolkit
Facilitated Discussion
• Panel or Audience
• Questions or Scenarios
• Basic or Beyond Basic
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Questions About Ethics
• What are the most common ethical issues?
• What do you do when ethics are violated?
• Are illegal and unethical the same?
• What do you do when politics enters into a
planning decision?
• Do the Appearance of Fairness and Conflict
of Interest laws provide ethical guidance?
• Can a planner develop property?
Private & Public Planning Scenarios
• Carol Barrett’s Book – permission to use for
professional training purposes
• Difference professional perspectives,
experiences, and clients/employers
• Often driven by personal experiences which
can be misleading in regards to ethical issues
• Remember primary obligation to serve public
interest(s)
Private Planning Scenario
• You are a journeyman planner with expertise
in site planning and circulation standards.
• During a final site visit to verify the physical
site characteristics, particularly topographical
constraints, you see an endangered species.
• This observation creates a series of ethical
concerns to professional planners.
• Stand up for what you believe is most ethical.
Public Planning Scenario
• You are a City Planning Director involved in a
controversial public hearing.
• In a last minute turn of events, you are put in
an impossible position with no easy solutions.
• Faced with a series of ethical problems, what
can you do?
• The right solution requires an experienced
view of the planning process.
Facilitated Discussion
• Audience of Professional Planners
• Ethics = Trust
• Recognize an ethical issue, make an ethical
judgment, engage in ethical behavior
• Ethical uncertainty (willful ignorance)
• Ethical dilemma (equal pros and cons)
• Ethical distress (institutionally blocked despite
knowing the moral principle)
Making an Ethical Judgment
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Good versus Bad
Right versus Wrong
Fair versus Unfair
Praise versus Blame
Rational Based Theories
• Universalism – right or wrong independent of
consequences
• Utilitarism – greatest good for greatest
number of people
• Justice – giving each person their due, treating
equals as equals and unequals unequally
Compassion for Others
Selflessness Theories
• Ethics of Care – ethical worth of relationships
characterized by caring
• Libertarism – maximize capacity for free,
informed personal choice
Character of Morality Theories
• Virtue - achieving our personal ethical ideal
(who we are not what we do)
• Land Ethic – right if it is in harmony with
nature
Engage in Ethical Behavior
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Choose a few offered ethical issues
Examine the facts of an ethical issue
Identify and select ethical behaviors
Model of Ethical Decision-making
Craig Dunn, Dean, College of Business and
Economic, Western Washington University