A quarterly publication of AQU Catalunya

93

April 2019

As a lawyer and an expert in criminal law, I have been trained in the principles that regulate certain types of behaviour and protect what are considered to be certain fundamental legal assets that, if they are not respected, result in the punishment of whoever infringes the rules and/or regulations. When the first codes of ethics appeared they proved to be overly similar to laws and regulations in that they attempted to regulate certain types of behaviour to the point of case-based reasoning, or casuistry. This was in part due to the fact that applied ethics as a discipline was still underdeveloped in Spain.

In the 1970s a new discipline in the field of ethics, known as applied ethics, appeared in the US. As the name indicates, it was a movement linked to specific situations that arose as a result of the need to deal with real-world actions (and their moral considerations) in professional practice that are not necessarily governed by law.

Bioethics is probably one of the more well-known fields in this discipline as it is directly linked to specific situations in the field of health in which many people have found themselves faced either directly or indirectly with ethical dilemmas. By now, however, it has spread to all professional sectors, ranging from private enterprise to public service.

Ethical codes, which have also appeared in the same way, are an instrument that sets out the values that describe an institution or organisation's obligation in terms of its rules of conduct. Although they are not coercive in nature, they are mandatory because they are grounded in the basic principle of respect for human dignity.

The Catalan University Quality Assurance Agency (AQU Catalunya) has had a code of ethics since 2008 and the values and principles that it sets out continue to be of full force and effect and are in no way obsolete. Nevertheless, given the need for pedagogical renewal and innovation, as has happened in many other fields, the Agency's code of ethics has just been revised. The team involved in this consisted of Begoña Román and Marina Garcés, both philosophers, professors and experts in ethics and contemporary thought and who provided the rigour and clarity, together with Jordi Escolar, adviser to AQU Catalunya, and myself on the legal side. Our intention, as a well-integrated, dynamic and ultimately very rewarding team, was to simplify the ethical code, make it easy and yet inspiring to read, and ensure that it conveys the spirit of continuous improvement and enhancement in the day-to-day work of the Agency.

The aim of the new code of ethics (Spanish version) is, more than anything, to impress upon and transmit to the user what is important regarding what he or she is accessory to, which is why the number of concepts has been reduced and enhancement given to the values of dignity, independence, impartiality, integrity, innovation and improvement, public service, diversity, equity and trust as core values to guide decision making. In addition to these values, the definition of which is summarised, other more instrumental values are represented, such as the means and procedures for achieving the aims of the Agency.

The wording of each of these values is such that they are easy to understand and apply in professional practice. So, for example, in the case of diversity, this is defined as the "understanding of different individual academic and scientific realities as an opportunity for transformation through plurality that is beneficial for developments in the field of higher education". Diversity "also entails respect for institutional and organisational plurality".

This highlights the need for the differentiation at both individual and institutional level between the various types of formal education that, together with equity, need to permit the assessment of things that are unequal in ways that are different.

Of all the different parts that make up this new code of ethics, the one that to me stands out the most is the one that refers to commitment. On the one hand, because on a personal level commitment for me is one of those words that has a greater sense of meaning; as US president Abraham Lincoln said, "commitment is what transforms a promise into reality". In this way, the values listed above give rise to a series of commitments that go far beyond simple ideals or a mere declaration of good intentions. In this regard, the people associated with AQU Catalunya have a sense of moral and ethical duty through which they are bound by the abovementioned values.

The Agency's new code of ethics has an added value which is that, from the training point of view, it is of clear and significant educational value.