by The Good Project Research Team
Have you ever felt torn between your professional responsibilities and your friends and family? Perhaps you are one of the 56% of American adults who find it difficult to balance work and family responsibilities. Or perhaps you’re a student who struggles to balance your responsibilities to school while also finding time to hang out with your peers--how much time do you have to spend on homework, and how much time is it okay to spend texting with friends?
At The Good Project, we talk about this balancing act between professional and more personal responsibilities as a balance between neighborly morality and ethics of roles. Neighborly morality refers to how an individual might show kindness and respect to those in their immediate social circles; it includes behaviors such as honesty and other prosocial actions. In contrast, ethics of roles refers to the standards, norms, and regulations expected of those acting in a professional capacity (including students); one might think of the Hippocratic Oath for those in the medical field.
A new dilemma posted on our website deals with this tension between wanting to maintain one’s duty to one’s profession versus wanting to uphold one’s responsibilities to one’s neighbors. Please keep in mind that this dilemma deals with the sensitive topic of child abuse. Entitled The Pediatric Protector, it reads:
Eliza is a retired former pediatrician who now works as a private language tutor. She often spends time bringing her grandchildren, ages eight and five, to their nearby playground. Her grandchildren recently struck up a friendship with a new six year old girl on the playground, who told them that her mother had “banged her up” at her home for playing on the stairs, so much so that she was in pain on the playground. After hearing about this from both her grandchildren, Eliza is not sure what to do. As a pediatrician, she was a mandated reporter, required to report any child abuse to the appropriate authorities. But she also knows that children can exaggerate or make mistakes; perhaps the mother was trying to keep the child safe, or she had fallen on her own. Eliza is told by a child welfare hotline that it is her decision whether to report or not. Her pediatrician friends urge her to report, and she feels obligated to as a former doctor. But Eliza worries the child could end up in a foster home where she might not be cared for.
The full dilemma can be read here. How would you describe the tension between the ethics of roles and neighborly morality Eliza is feeling? If you were in a similar situation, is there someone you would consult for advice?
On the one hand, as a former practicing pediatrician, Eliza is dealing with the requirements of her former responsibilities as a mandated reporter, an ethics of roles issue. On the other hand, Eliza cares for the children involved and is worried about their welfare should they end up in poor care, an issue of neighborly morality. What decision should she make, and what factors should she weigh in her decision making?