The Ethics of Control

In the flyer for the ‘Ethics that Work’ conference organized by this journal in November 2008, we raised the question as to whether teaching, writing and research about ethics in the social welfare field provided students with effective tools that they could ‘actually use to guide their practice and help them resolve practice dilemmas’. Or was it possible, we asked, that professional education in reality offered ‘little more than rhetorical devices − /approved buzzwords and noble-sounding sentiments − /that can be bolted on as necessary after the event, but have very little impact on actual practice decisions’?