There are a range of ways to make sure that Safety harms people in the name of no harm. The first is to supress critical thinking and believe that any criticism of Safety is anti-safety. The opposite is the case. Nothing in safety will improve if criticism of Safety is interpreted as demonising … [Read more...] about How to Enable Unethical Practice in Safety
Ethics
Mapping an Ethic of Risk
The foundation for professionalism is Ethics. The misuse and abuse of power in the risk and safety industry is evidence that it has yet to engage in or articulate an ethic of risk. This is evidenced in Rosa Carrillo’s book Voices From the Resistance: … [Read more...] about Mapping an Ethic of Risk
Principles for Safety
Any approach to tackling risk is a moral activity, because the outcome of the way risk is tackled implies an outcome for persons. How people are treated in the process of tackling risk is a moral challenge. This is the challenge of An Ethic of Risk … [Read more...] about Principles for Safety
Smoke Screen Safety
A paper by Provan and Rae (the lovers of zero), argues about the nature of ‘safety work’. The paper rightly questions whether the many activities of Safety actually keep people safe or, are just ‘busy work’. I think the premise of the paper is right. Many activities that Safety undertakes provide … [Read more...] about Smoke Screen Safety
Ethics and the Foundation for Being Professional
The foundation for any profession starts with a mature understanding of ethics. Knowing what is right and wrong doesn’t come ‘naturally’, by so called ‘common sense’ or from god. The AIHS BoK Chapter on non-ethics is constructed on these assumptions and is useless for any real understanding of … [Read more...] about Ethics and the Foundation for Being Professional
The Safety Dunce
The profession of teaching learned over 100 years ago that humiliation, shaming and victimising doesn’t work. Indeed, such strategies are not just ineffective but drive the opposite. Understanding ethics in teaching was essential for claiming the status of ‘professional’. Not so Safety. I was … [Read more...] about The Safety Dunce
From Procedure to Profession: A Comparison of Safety and Nursing Ethics
The Missing Ethic: Safety’s Core Challenge by Simon Renatus For a pursuit that claims to protect lives, Safety is surprisingly quiet about the lives it influences. Unlike professions such as nursing, where respect, kindness, and relational responsibility are core values, Safety remains focused on … [Read more...] about From Procedure to Profession: A Comparison of Safety and Nursing Ethics
The Rights and Wrongs of What is Right and Wrong
How strange this industry that thinks that Safety is objective and has no interest in ethics. The very language of right and wrong invokes an ethic, methodology and ontology (theory of being). All this silly focus by S2 on positive vs negative, what goes right or what is determined to be wrong, says … [Read more...] about The Rights and Wrongs of What is Right and Wrong
The Power and Powerlessness of Safety
When it comes to a discussion of ethics, how curious that Safety never talks about power. In the AIHS BoK Chapter on Ethics it gets no mention. How strange, when the foundation of any ethic is an understanding of power. This is the level of intelligence one gets from a mono-disciplinary association … [Read more...] about The Power and Powerlessness of Safety
Sifting the Chaff from the Wheat in Safety
I have discussed the skill and wisdom of discernment previously: https://safetyrisk.net/wisdom-discernment-and-an-ethic-of-safety/ https://safetyrisk.net/the-need-for-discernment-in-risk-and-safety/ https://safetyrisk.net/social-psychology-applied-to-the-discernment-of-risk/ I have … [Read more...] about Sifting the Chaff from the Wheat in Safety