Ethics and Values in Social Work (Practical Social Work Series) by Sarah Banks

Author:Sarah Banks [Banks, Sarah]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Published: 2012-03-30T04:00:00+00:00

There is an ongoing debate as to whether the concept of universal human rights – based, perhaps, on some basic human needs applying to everyone across the world – makes sense (see Browning, 2006; Doyal and Gough, 1991; Outka and Reeder, 1993; Sullivan and Kymlicka, 2007). This is not just because such rights may not be realizable everywhere, as Feinberg argued, but because the concept of a right in itself assumes a certain kind of individualized world-view. This will be discussed further in the next section on relational rights. Questions have also been raised about the concept of absolute rights – rights that apply unconditionally to everyone. Jones (1994, pp. 192–3) argues that even universal human rights such as the right not to be tortured may come into conflict with other legitimate considerations (he gives the example of torturing a terrorist to find the location of a bomb likely to kill many people). Furthermore, if we view human rights not as ‘natural’ but as constructed in particular times and places and in a constant state of development, redefinition, change and struggle (Ife, 2008, pp. 151–8), the idea of absolute rights, in the sense of unchanging and unchallengeable, does not make sense.

In relation to social work, the IFSW/IASSW (2004) statement on ethics endorses the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UN, 1948) and other declarations and conventions, including the Declaration of the Rights of the Child (UN, 1959). However, as Clark with Asquith (1985, p. 27) point out, social workers mainly deal with qualified particular rights on a day-to-day basis and the ‘application of universal rights cannot, without absurdity, be essentially different in social work from any other context’. Nevertheless, the statements of values and ethics made by the social work profession invariably focus on what appear to be regarded as either absolute or qualified universal rights and social work has been characterized as a ‘human rights profession’. What this means is that the rationale for social work as a professional occupation is based on principles of human rights. In other words, social work exists because of a societal commitment to enhancing and protecting the rights of all people to a dignified life, to protecting from discrimination, to providing adequate physical and social resources; and social work is conducted according to human rights principles – treating people with dignity and respect, promoting equality and so on.

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