Pursuing the good and human flourishing in professional life: virtue and ethics in the professions

An important question that vocational educators face is, namely, ‘How do we make people want to do good in professional life?’. This paper explores the concept of professionalism as an approach to ethics education – both in vocational degree programs and also in professional associations and colleges. I argue that current approaches to professionalism focused on guidelines or standards for good professional practice fall short of fostering intrinsic motivation among professionals to pursue the good in their work. I discuss how a framework of professionalism grounded in a robust sense of professional identity and virtue can fill the motivational gap that currently exists in some professionalism frameworks. I then explore how professionalism curriculums might go about fostering professional identity and virtue among students and junior professionals. The paper closes with a discussion of the advantages of integrating a robust professional identity and virtue framework into ethics education.