The constraint of avoiding unwarranted harm to third parties is rooted in the rights of other members of the public affected. Most important are rights not to be harmed nor submitted to great risks without voluntary informed consent.

The means in promoting the public good include most of the valid entries in codes of ethics.

The goal of a particular profession can usually be understood in terms of rational goods: the primary goods that reasonable persons seek in exercising their rights

First, agreeing partly with Koehn’s view, Camenisch says that professionals promise to serve the public good, whether their promises are made explicitly as oaths or implicitly by voluntarily taking on professional roles. Second, agreeing partly with Davis’s view, professionalism requires “paying one’s dues” by meeting shared responsibilities rather than unfairly exploiting other professionals.18Close Third, adding his own emphasis, professionals owe a duty of gratitude to abide by the responsibilities society requires, because they voluntarily accept society’s gifts. These gifts include the financial support that underwrites their education through scholarships and general funding. They include the establishment of institutions that support their work. And they include special privileges such as allowing monopolies over professional services, which bring high salaries, job security, and social prestige.

Sixth, professional morality includes special standards that are more or less stringent than particular requirements of ordinary morality in other contexts.

Fifth, the consensus established by a code of ethics provides strong support for the many individuals who strive to act responsibly.

Fourth, mandatory and enforced guidelines are needed to create a fair playing (or working) field where professionalism can flourish without cutthroat competition. In addition, the guidelines help control temptations to cut corners in the pursuit of private or corporate gain.

Third, and partly combining the first two considerations, professionals provide important services to clients who must trust in their expertise. Professional groups win the approval of society to exercise a monopoly, or at least dominance, over vital services, based on their particular credentials that establish their singular claim to competence in providing specific services.

Second, everyday nonprofessional ethics constitutes a morass of clashing viewpoints and languages, a seeming Tower of Babel.1Close Professional norms must be standardized in order to establish a common understanding about what can be expected by way of professional diligence and decency.

First, often much is at stake in providing professional services. Individuals and the general public can be harmed substantially, including through loss of life and livelihood.

Six considerations support the need for this shared minimum.

The consensus paradigm reduces professional responsibilities to the shared mandatory requirements developed as a consensus within a profession and imposed on all its members equally