Professional integrity, social work and the ethics of distrust

Abstract

This paper explores the relevance of the concept of professional integrity in the context of the current climate of managerialism and marketisation in the social welfare field. It considers the implications for professional integrity of the present organisational climate based on an ‘ethics of distrust’, the nature of the concepts of ‘integrity’ and ‘professional integrity’, and the possibility of professional integrity as part of an ‘ethics of resistance’. It draws on literature from moral philosophy and on interviews with senior practitioners in social work and related occupations.