The Ethics of Confidentiality: Professional Duties and the Uncooperative HIV-Infected Client

Abstract

Exceptions to confidentiality clauses in most professional codes of ethics suggest that a client's right to privacy sometimes conflicts with the basic rights of others, such as the rights to life and bodily integrity. But this conflict does not provide a sufficient reason to break a client's confidence. Using as a test case the uncooperative HIV-infected client who intends to place third parties at risk of harm, this paper examines confidentiality through the lenses of act utilitarianism and Kantianism before settling on rule utilitarianism. The paper concludes that there can be no exceptions to an effective rule of confidentiality.