The Idea of a "Decent Profession": Implications for Professional Education

• In Event: Professions Education and the Public Good — Paper Session

Abstract

Social responsibility is critical for professions. This conceptual inquiry explores whether Nussbaum’s notion of a ‘decent society’, grounded in the premises of equal respect for persons, different conceptions of the good, and affording all its members a threshold of capabilities that allow for a good life, could usefully inform the idea of a ‘decent profession’. One aim is to develop a theory-based rationale for the claim that a ‘decent profession’ strives for capability expansion, thereby identifying capability expansion as a professional ideal. Accepting Nussbaum’s argument that our rational ideals require appropriate emotions to be sustained, the second aim is to outline how this professional ideal may be promoted in higher education through art and symbols employed to cultivate these emotions.

Author

• Carolin Kreber, Cape Breton University