H L Handbook on Human Values

& Professional Ethics

H L College of Commerce
Ahmedabad
Objectives

 To understand the moral values that ought to guide the accounting

professionals, resolve the moral issues and to justify the moral
judgement.

 To develop a set of beliefs, attitudes, and habits that should display

concerning morality.

 To create an awareness on accounting ethics and human values.

 To inspire moral and social values and loyalty.

 To appreciate the rights of others.

 To develop ability to deal effectively with moral complexity.

 To improve cognitive skills like

o Moral awareness (proficiency in recognizing moral problems)
o Moral reasoning (comprehending, assessing different views)
o Moral coherence (forming consistent viewpoints based on facts)
o Moral imagination (searching beyond obvious the alternative
responses to issues and being receptive to creative solutions)
o Moral communication (expressing and supporting one‘s views to
others)

 To act in morally desirable ways viz.

o Moral reasonableness (willing and able to be morally responsible)
o Respect for persons (showing concern for the well-being of others)
o Tolerance of diversity (respect for ethnic and religious differences,
and acceptance of reasonable differences in moral perspectives)
o Moral hope (believing in using rational dialogue for resolving moral
conflicts)

H L Handbook on Human Values & Professional Ethics 1

 PART-I HUMAN VALUES

MORALS

Morals are the welfare principles enunciated by the wise people, based on their
experience and wisdom. They were edited, changed or modified in accordance
with the development of knowledge from time to time.

Morality is concerned with principles and practices of morals such as: What
ought or ought not to be done in a given situation? What is right or wrong about
the handling of a situation? What is good or bad about the people, policies, and
ideals involved?

VALUES

Humans have the unique ability to define their identity, choose their values and
establish their beliefs. All three of these directly influence a person‘s behaviour.
People have gone to great lengths to demonstrate the validity of their beliefs,
including war and sacrificing their own life. Conversely, people are not
motivated to support or validate the beliefs of another, when those beliefs are
contrary to their own. People will act congruent with their personal values or
what they deem to be important. A value is defined as a principle that promotes
well-being or prevents harm. Values are our guidelines for our success—our
paradigm about what is acceptable. Personal values are defined as emotional
beliefs in principles regarded as particularly favourable or important for the
individual. Our values associate emotions to our experiences and guide our
choices, decisions and actions.

INTEGRITY

Integrity is defined as the unity of thought, word and deed (honesty) and open
mindedness. It includes the capacity to communicate the factual information so
that others can make well-informed decisions. It yields the person‘s peace of
mind, and hence adds strength and consistency in character, decisions, and
actions. This paves way to one‘s success. It is one of the self-direction virtues. It

H L Handbook on Human Values & Professional Ethics 2

enthuses people not only to execute a job well but to achieve excellence in
performance. It helps them to own the responsibility and earn self-respect and
recognition by doing the job. Moral integrity is defined as a virtue, which reflects
the consistency of one‘s attitudes, emotions, and conduct in relation to justified
moral values. Integrity comes in many forms, but honesty and dependability are
two traits that are expected in most workplace situations. Without responsible
behaviour, distrust can make a work environment tense and uncomfortable. A
strong work ethic shows co-workers and clients that you're reliable and take
your responsibilities seriously. Polite communication, respectable behaviour
and fiscal responsibility also help you stand out as a trustworthy employee.

CIVIC VIRTUES

Civic virtues are the moral duties and rights, as a citizen of the country or an
integral part of the society and environment. An individual may exhibit civic
virtues by voting, volunteering, and organizing welfare groups and meetings.

The duties are

 To pay taxes to the local government and state, in time.
 To keep the surroundings clean and green.
 Not to pollute the water, land, and air by following hygiene and proper
garbage disposal. For example, not to burn wood, tyres, plastic materials,
spit in the open, even not to smoke in the open, and not to cause nuisance
to the public, are some of the civic (duties) virtues.
 To follow the road safety rules.

On the other hand, the rights are

 To vote the local or state government.
 To contest in the elections to the local or state government.
 To seek a public welfare facility such as a school, hospital or a community
hall or transport or communication facility, for the residents.
 To establish a green and safe environment, pollution free, corruption free,
and to follow ethical principles. People are said to have the right to
breathe in fresh air, by not allowing smoking in public.

H L Handbook on Human Values & Professional Ethics 3

  People have inalienable right to accept or reject a project in their area.
One has the right to seek legal remedy, in this respect, through public
interest petition
 Civic virtues as indispensable for a self-governing administration.

RESPECT FOR OTHERS

This is a basic requirement for nurturing friendship, team work, and for the
synergy it promotes and sustains. The principles enunciated in this regard are:
 Recognize and accept the existence of other persons as human beings,
because they have a right to live, just as you have.
 Respect others’ ideas (decisions), words, and labour (actions). One need
not accept or approve or award them, but shall listen to them first. One
can correct or warn, if they commit mistakes. Appreciate colleagues and
subordinates on their positive actions. Criticize constructively and
encourage them. They are bound to improve their performance, by
learning properly and by putting more efforts.
 Show goodwill on others. Love others. Allow others to grow. Basically, the
goodwill reflects on the originator and multiplies itself on everybody. This
will facilitate collinearity, focus, coherence, and strength to achieve the
goals.

LIVING PEACEFULLY

To live peacefully, one should start to install peace within (self). Charity begins
at home. Then one can spread peace to family, organization where one works,
and then to the world, including the environment. Only who are at peace can
spread peace. You can’t gift an article which you do not possess. The essence of
oriental philosophy is that one should not fight for peace. It is oxymoron. War
or peace can be won only by peace, and not by wars.

One should adopt the following means to live peacefully, in the world.

H L Handbook on Human Values & Professional Ethics 4

Nurture
 Order in one’s life (self-regulation, discipline, and duty).
 Pure thoughts in one’s soul (loving others, blessing others, friendly, and not
criticizing or hurting others by thought, word or deed).
 Creativity in one’s head (useful and constructive).
 Beauty in one’s heart (love, service, happiness, and peace).

Get
 Good health/ body (physical strength for service to enjoy the academic
environment in the institution)

Act
 Help the needy with the head, heart and hands (charity).
 Not hurting and torturing others physically, verbally or mentally.

CARING

Caring is feeling for others. It is a process which exhibits the interest in, and
support for, the welfare of others with fairness, impartiality and justice in all
activities, among the employees, in the context of professional ethics. It includes
showing respect to the feelings of others, and also respecting and preserving the
interests of all others concerned. Caring is reflected in activities such as
friendship, membership in social clubs and professional societies, and through
various transactions in the family, fraternity, community, country and in
international councils.

SHARING

Primarily, caring influences sharing. Sharing is a process that describes the

transfer of knowledge (teaching, learning, and information), experience
(training), commodities (material possession) and facilities with others. The
transfer should be genuine, legal, positive, voluntary, and without any
expectation in return. However, the proprietary information should not be
shared with outsiders. Through this process of sharing, experience, expertise,

H L Handbook on Human Values & Professional Ethics 5

wisdom and other benefits reach more people faster. Sharing is voluntary and it
can‘t be driven by force, but motivated successfully through ethical principles.
In short, sharing is charity.

For humanity, sharing is a culture. Happiness and wealth are multiplied, and
crimes and sufferings are reduced, by sharing. It paves the way for peace and
obviates militancy. Philosophically, the sharing maximizes the happiness for all
the human beings. In terms of psychology, the fear, divide, and distrust between
the haves and have-nots disappear. Sharing not only paves the way to
prosperity, but also sustains it. Economically speaking, benefits are maximized
as there is no wastage or loss, and everybody gets one’s needs fulfilled and
satisfied. Commercially speaking, the profit is maximized. Technologically, the
productivity and utilization are maximized by sharing.

HONESTY

Honesty is a virtue, and it is exhibited in two aspects namely,

 Truthfulness
 Trustworthiness

Truthfulness is to face the responsibilities upon telling truth. One should keep
one’s word or promise. By admitting one’s mistake committed (one needs
courage to do that), it is easy to fix them. Reliable judgement, maintenance of
truth, defending the truth, and communicating the truth, only when it does good
to others, are some of the reflections of truthfulness. But trustworthiness is
maintaining integrity and taking responsibility for personal performance. People
abide by law and live by mutual trust. They play the right way to win, according
to the laws or rules (legally and morally). They build trust through reliability and
authenticity. They admit their own mistakes and confront unethical actions in
others and take tough and principled stand, even if unpopular.

H L Handbook on Human Values & Professional Ethics 6

Honesty is mirrored in many ways. The common reflections are:

 Beliefs (intellectual honesty)

 Communication (writing and speech)
 Decisions (ideas, discretion)
 Actions (means, timing, place, and the goals)
 Intended and unintended results achieved

As against this, some of the actions that lead to dishonesty are:

 Lying: Honesty implies avoidance of lying. A professional may

communicate wrong or distorted test results intentionally or otherwise. It
means giving wrong information to the right people.
 Deliberate deception: A professional may judge or decide on matters one
is not familiar or with insufficient data or proof, to impress upon the
customers or employers. This is a self-deceit.
 Withholding the information: It means hiding the facts during
communication to one’s superior or subordinate, intentionally or
otherwise.
 Not seeking the truth: Some professionals accept the information or data,
without applying their mind and seeking the truth.
 Not maintaining confidentiality: It means giving right information to
wrong people. Accounting professionals should keep information of their
customers/clients or of their employers confidential and should not
discuss them with others.
 Giving professional judgement under the influence of extraneous factors
such as personal benefits and prejudice. The laws, experience, social
welfare, and even conscience are given a go-bye by such actions. Certainly
this is a higher-order crime.

H L Handbook on Human Values & Professional Ethics 7

COURAGE

Courage is the tendency to accept and face risks and difficult tasks in rational
ways. Self-confidence is the basic requirement to nurture courage. Courage is
classified into three types, based on the types of risks.

 Physical courage - The thrust is on the adequacy of the physical strength,

including muscle power and armaments. People with high adrenalin, may
be prepared to face challenges for the mere thrill or driven by a decision
to excel.
 Social courage – It involves the decisions and actions to change the order,
based on the conviction for or against certain social behaviors. This
requires leadership abilities, including empathy and sacrifice, to mobilize
and motivate the followers, for a social cause.
 Intellectual courage – It is inculcated in people through acquired
knowledge, experience, games, tactics, education, and training. In
professional ethics, courage is applicable to the employers, employees,
public, and the press.

Look before you leap. One should perform Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities,
and Threat (SWOT) analysis. Calculate (estimate) the risks, compare with one’s
strengths, and anticipate the end results, while taking decisions and before
getting into action. Learning from the past helps. Past experience (one’s own or
borrowed) and wisdom gained from self-study or others will prepare one to plan
and act with self-confidence, succeed in achieving the desired ethical goals
through ethical means. Opportunities and threat existing and likely to exist in
future are also to be studied and measures to be planned. This anticipatory
management will help anyone to face the future with courage.

VALUING TIME

Time is rare resource. Once it is spent, it is lost forever. It can‘t be either stored
or recovered. Hence, time is the most perishable and most valuable resource
too. This resource is continuously spent, whether any decision or action is taken

H L Handbook on Human Values & Professional Ethics 8

or not. The history of great reformers and innovators have stressed the
importance of time and valuing time. The proverbs, Time and tide wait for
nobody and Procrastination is the thief of time amply illustrate this point.

CO-OPERATION

It is a team-spirit present with every individual engaged in business. Co-

operation is an activity between two persons or sectors that aims at integration
of operations (synergy), while not sacrificing the autonomy of either party.
Further, working together ensures, coherence, i.e. blending of different skills
required, towards common goals.

Willingness to understand others, think and act together and putting this into
practice, is cooperation. Cooperation promotes co linearity, coherence (blend),
co-ordination (activities linked in sequence or priority) and the synergy
(maximizing the output, by reinforcement). The whole is more than the sum of
the individuals. It helps in minimizing the input resources (including time) and
maximizes the outputs, which include quantity, quality, effectiveness, and
efficiency.

The impediments to successful cooperation are:

 Clash of ego of individuals
 Lack of leadership and motivation
 Conflicts of interests, based on region, religion, language, and caste
 Ignorance and lack of interest

By careful planning, motivation, leadership, fostering and rewarding team work,

professionalism and humanism beyond the divides, training on appreciation to
different cultures, mutual understanding cooperation can be developed and
also sustained.

H L Handbook on Human Values & Professional Ethics 9

COMMITMENT

Commitment means alignment to goals and adherence to ethical principles

during the activities. First of all, one must believe in one’s action performed and
the expected end results (confidence). It means one should have the conviction
without an iota of doubt that one will succeed. Holding sustained interest and
firmness, in whatever ethical means one follows, with the fervent attitude and
hope that one will achieve the goals, is commitment. It is the driving force to
realize success. This is a basic requirement for any profession. Only when the
teacher (Guru) is committed to his job, the students will succeed in life and
contribute good to the society. The commitment of top management will
naturally lead to committed employees, whatever may be their position or
emoluments. This is bound to add wealth to oneself, one‘s employer, society,
and the nation at large.

EMPATHY

Empathy is social radar. Sensing what others feel about, without their open talk,
is the essence of empathy. Empathy begins with showing concern, and then
obtaining and understanding the feelings of others, from others’ point of view.
It is also defined as the ability to put oneself into the psychological frame or
reference or point of view of another, to know what the other person feels. It
includes the imaginative projection into other’s feelings and understanding of
other’s background such as parentage, physical and mental state, economic
situation, and association. This is an essential ingredient for good human
relations and transactions.

SELF-CONFIDENCE

Certainty in one’s own capabilities, values, and goals, is self-confidence. These

people are usually positive thinking, flexible and willing to change. They respect
others so much as they respect themselves. Self-confidence is a positive
attitude, wherein the individual has some positive and realistic view of himself,
with respect to the situations in which one gets involved. The people with self-
confidence exhibit courage to get into action and unshakable faith in their

H L Handbook on Human Values & Professional Ethics 10

abilities, whatever may be their positions. They are not influenced by threats or
challenges and are prepared to face them and the natural or unexpected
consequences. The self-confidence in a person develops a sense of partnership,
respect, and accountability, and this helps the organization to obtain maximum
ideas, efforts, and guidelines from its employees.

The people with self-confidence have the following characteristics:

 A self-assured standing
 Willing to listen
 To learn from others and adopt (flexibility)
 Frank to speak the truth
 Respect others’ efforts and give due credit

CHARACTER

It is a characteristic property that defines the behavior of an individual. It is the

pattern of virtues (morally-desirable features). Character includes attributes
that determine a person’s moral and ethical actions and responses. It is also the
ground on which morals and values blossom. People are divided into several
categories, according to common tendencies such as ruthlessness,
aggressiveness, ambition, constricting selfishness, stinginess, cheerfulness,
generosity and goodwill. Individuals vary not only in the type of their character
but also in the degree. Those whose lives are determined and directed by the
prevailing habits, fashions, beliefs, attitudes, opinions and values of the society
in which they live, have at best a developed social as opposed to an individual
character. The aim of education is not only the cultivation of the intellect but
also the formation of moral character. Increased intelligence or physical skill
may easily be employed to the detriment of the community, if not accompanied
by improved will. It is the function of ethics to determine the ideals of human
character.

H L Handbook on Human Values & Professional Ethics 11

SPIRITUALITY

Spirituality is a way of living that emphasizes the constant awareness and

recognition of the spiritual dimension (mind and its development) of nature and
people, with a dynamic balance between the material development and the
spiritual development. This is said to be the great virtue of Indian philosophy.
Sometimes, spirituality includes the faith or belief in supernatural power/ God,
regarding the worldly events. It functions as a fertilizer for the soil character to
blossom into values and morals.

Spirituality includes creativity, communication, recognition of the individual as

human being (as opposed to a life-less machine), respect to others, acceptance
(stop finding faults with colleagues and accept them the way they are), vision
(looking beyond the obvious and not believing anyone blindly), and partnership
(not being too authoritative, and always sharing responsibility with others, for
better returns). Spirituality is motivation as it encourages the colleagues to
perform better. Lack of motivation leads to isolation. Spirituality is also the
energy and flexibility to adapt to challenging and changing situations. One
should not be too dominating. Make space for everyone and learn to recognize
and accept people the way they are. Variety is the order of the day. But one can
influence their mind to think and act together. Tolerance and empathy are the
reflections of spirituality.

H L Handbook on Human Values & Professional Ethics 12

 PART-II PROFESSIONAL ETHICS

INTRODUCTION

Accounting professionals have an ethical and social responsibility to themselves,

their clients and society. Practically, business ethics is about balancing cost,
return and risk. Professional ethics is a means to increase the ability of
concerned accountants, managers, citizens and others to responsibly confront
moral issues raised by business activities. The awareness of moral issues and
decisions confronting individuals and organizations are involved in commerce
and management.

BUSINESS ETHICS

➢ Training In Preventive Ethics

 Stimulating the moral imagination

 Recognizing ethical issues
 Developing analytical skills
 Eliciting a sense of responsibility
 Tolerating disagreement and ambiguity

➢ Obstruction to Responsibility

 Self-interest
 Fear
 Self-deception
 Ignorance
 Egocentric tendencies
 Microscopic vision
 Groupthink

H L Handbook on Human Values & Professional Ethics 13

➢ Clearly Wrong Business Practices

 Lying
 Deliberate deception
 Withholding information
 Failing to adequately promote the dissemination of information
 Failure to seek out the truth
 Revealing confidential or proprietary information
 Allowing one‘s judgment to be corrupted.

➢ Questionable Business Practices

 Trimming - smoothing of irregularities to make data look extremely

accurate and precise
 Cooking - retaining only those results that fit the theory and discarding
others
 Forging - inventing some or all of the research data
 Plagiarism - misappropriating intellectual property
 Conflicts of interest - actual, potential, apparent

➢ Senses of Expression of Business Ethics

 Ethics is an activity and area of inquiry. It is the activity of understanding

moral values, resolving moral issues and the area of study resulting from
that activity.
 When we speak of ethical problems, issues and controversies, we mean
to distinguish them from non-moral problems.
 Ethics is used to refer to the particular set of beliefs, attitudes and habits
that a person or group displays concerning moralities.
 Ethics and its grammatical variants can be used as synonyms for morally
correct.

H L Handbook on Human Values & Professional Ethics 14

THREE TYPES OF ETHICS

Common Morality

Common morality is the set of moral beliefs shared by all commerce students. It
is the basis for the other types of morality. In ethics, we usually think of such
principles as Ahimsa (no harm physically or mentally to or killing others or even
suicides), Satyam (no lies and break of promises), Contentment (no greed,
cheating or stealing) etc. We don‘t question these principles.

Three characteristics of common morality are identified as follows.

 Many of the principles of common morality are negative. The common

morality is designed primarily to protect individuals from different types
of violations or invasions of their personhood by others, such as killing,
lying or stealing.

 Although the common morality is basically negative, it certainly contains

positive or aspirational features in principles such as, prevent killing,
prevent deceit and prevent cheating. Further, it includes even more
positive principles, such as help the needy, promote human happiness,
and protect the environment. This distinction between the positive and
negative aspects of common morality will be important in discussing
professional ethics.

 The common morality makes a distinction between an evaluation of a

person’s actions and of his intentions. An evaluation of action is based on
moral principles considered, but an evaluation of the person himself is
based on one’s intention. Similarly, if you convey false information to
another person with the intent to deceive, you are lying. If you convey the
same false information because you do not know any better, you are not
lying and not usually as morally culpable. Again, the result is the same
(misleading the person), but the intent is different.

H L Handbook on Human Values & Professional Ethics 15

Personal Morality

Personal ethics or personal morality is the set of moral beliefs that a person
holds. Our personal moral beliefs mostly and closely run parallel to the principles
of common morality, such as ahimsa, satyam and contentment. But our personal
moral beliefs may differ from common morality in some areas, especially where
common morality appears to be unclear or in a state of change.

Professional Ethics

Professional ethics is the set of standards adopted by professionals. Every

profession has its professional ethics: accounting, medicine, law, pharmacy etc.
Business ethics is the set of ethical standards that applies to the accounting
profession.

Some of the important characteristics of professional ethics are:

 Formal code: Unlike common morality and personal morality,

professional ethics is usually stated in a formal code. Many such codes are
promulgated by various components of the profession.
 Focus: The professional codes of ethics of a given profession focus on the
issues that are important in that profession. Professional codes in the
legal profession concern themselves with questions such as perjury of
clients and the unauthorized practice of law.
 Precedence: In a professional relationship, professional ethics takes
precedence over personal morality. This characteristic has an advantage,
but it can also produce complications. The advantage is that a client can
justifiably have some expectations of a professional, even if the client has
no knowledge of the personal morality of the professional.
 Restriction: The professional ethics sometimes differs from personal
morality in its degree of restriction of personal conduct. Sometimes
professional ethics is more restrictive than personal morality, and
sometimes it is less restrictive.

H L Handbook on Human Values & Professional Ethics 16

  Two dimensional: Professional ethics, like any ethics, has a negative as
well as a positive dimension. Being ethical has two aspects: (a) preventing
and avoiding evil, and (b) doing or promoting good.
 Role morality: This means the moral obligations based on special roles
and relationships. For example, Parents having a set of obligations to their
children, such as not to harm their children, nourish them and promote
their flourishing. A political leader has a role morality, the obligation to
promote the well-being of citizens. Professional ethics is one of the
examples of role morality.

WORK ETHICS

Work ethics is defined as a set of attitudes concerned with the value of work,
which forms the motivational orientation. It is a set of values based on hard work
and diligence. It is also a belief in the moral benefit of work and its ability to
enhance character. Work ethics may include being reliable, having initiative, or
pursuing new skills. The work ethics is aimed at ensuring the economy (get job,
create wealth, earn salary), productivity (wealth, profit), safety (in workplace),
health and hygiene (working conditions), privacy (raise family), security
(permanence against contractual, pension, and retirement benefits), cultural
and social development (leisure, hobby, and happiness), welfare (social work),
environment (anti-pollution activities), and offer opportunities for all, according
to their abilities, but without discrimination.

Workers exhibiting a good work ethic in theory should be selected for better
positions, more responsibility and ultimately promotion. Workers who fail to
exhibit a good work ethic may be regarded as failing to provide fair value for the
wage the employer is paying them and should not be promoted or placed in
positions of greater responsibility. Work ethic is not just hard work but also a set
of accompanying virtues, whose crucial role in the development and sustaining
of free markets.

H L Handbook on Human Values & Professional Ethics 17

MORAL DILEMMAS

Dilemmas are situations in which moral reasons come into conflict, or in which
the application of moral values are problems, and one is not clear of the
immediate choice or solution of the problems. Moral reasons could be rights,
duties, goods or obligations. These situations do not mean that things had gone
wrong, but they only indicate the presence of moral complexity. This makes the
decision making complex. There are some difficulties in arriving at the solution
to the problems, in dilemma.

The three complex situations leading to moral dilemmas are:

 The problem of vagueness: One is unable to distinguish between good

and bad (right or wrong) principle. Good means an action that is
obligatory. For example, code of ethics specifies that one should obey the
laws and follow standards. Refuse bribe or accept the gift, and maintain
confidentiality
 The problem of conflicting reasons: One is unable to choose between two
good moral solutions. One has to fix priority, through knowledge or value
system.
 The problem of disagreement: There may be two or more solutions and
none of them mandatory. These solutions may be better or worse in some
respects but not in all aspects. One has to interpret, apply different
morally reasons, and analyze and rank the decisions. Select the best
suitable, under the existing and the most probable conditions.

The logical steps in confronting/addressing moral dilemma are:

 Identification of the moral factors and reasons. The clarity to identify the
relevant moral values from among duties, rights, goods and obligations is
obtained (conceptual inquiry). The most useful resource in identifying
dilemmas in business is the professional codes of ethics, as interpreted by
the professional experience. Another resource is talking with colleagues
who can focus or narrow down the choice of values.

H L Handbook on Human Values & Professional Ethics 18

  Collection of all information, data, and facts (factual inquiry) relevant to
the situation.
 Rank the moral options i.e., priority in application through value system,
and also as obligatory, all right, acceptable, not acceptable, damaging, and
most damaging etc. For example, in fulfilling responsibility, the codes give
prime importance to public safety and protection of the environment, as
compared to the individuals or the employers (conceptual inquiry).
 Generate alternate courses of action to resolve the dilemma. Write down
the main options and sub-options as a matrix or decision tree to ensure
that all options are included.
 Discuss with colleagues and obtain their perspectives, priorities, and
suggestions on various alternatives.
 Decide upon a final course of action, based on priority fixed or assumed.
If there is no ideal solution, we arrive at a satisfactory solution.

MORAL AUTONOMY

Moral autonomy is defined as, decisions and actions exercised on the basis of
moral concern for other people and recognition of good moral reasons.
Alternatively, moral autonomy means self-determinant or independent. The
autonomous people hold moral beliefs and attitudes based on their critical
reflection rather than on passive adoption of the conventions of the society or
profession. Moral autonomy may also be defined as a skill and habit of thinking
rationally about the ethical issues, on the basis of moral concern. Periodical
performance appraisals, tight-time schedules and fear of foreign competition
threatens this autonomy.

The attitude of the management should allow latitude in the judgements of their
accounting professionals on moral issues. If management views profitability as
more important than consistent quality and retention of the customers, it
discourages the moral autonomy, and accountants are compelled to seek
support from their professional societies and outside organizations for moral
support. It appears that the blue-collar workers with the support of the union
can adopt better autonomy than the employed professionals. Only recently,

H L Handbook on Human Values & Professional Ethics 19

legal support has been obtained by professional societies in exhibiting moral
autonomy by professionals in this country.

Skills related to moral autonomy is listed as follows: Proficiency in recognizing

moral problems and ability to distinguish as well as relate them to problems in
law, economics, and religion; Skill in comprehending, clarifying, and critically-
assessing arguments on different aspects of moral issues; Ability to form
consistent and comprehensive viewpoints based on facts; Awareness of
alternate responses to the issues and creative solutions for practical difficulties;
Sensitivity to genuine difficulties and subtleties, including willingness to undergo
and tolerate some uncertainty while making decisions; Using rational dialogue
in resolving moral conflicts and developing tolerance of different perspectives
among morally reasonable people; Maintaining moral integrity.

Autonomy is different from authority. It means independence in making

decisions and actions. On the other hand, authority provides freedom for action,
specified within limits, depending on the situation. Moral autonomy and respect
for authority can coexist. They are not against each other. If the authority of the
manager and the moral autonomy of the accountant are in conflict, a consensus
is obtained by the two, upon discussion and mutual understanding their limits.

H L Handbook on Human Values & Professional Ethics 20