Ghosts in Our Bones

With Sean Fitzpatrick, online and in-person hybrid event.

Embedded in our ethical codes is an implicit assumption that we can successfully attain a kind of professional purity. If we follow the rules diligently, we can stay on the proper side of a divide between "ethical" practitioners and "unethical" practitioners. This may lead to two different false assurances -- one, that our work is somehow shadowless, without flaw or potential harm to clients, or two, that the codes themselves are sufficient guides to ensure ethical practice. Lurking behind this fantasy of purity is a deeper belief that somehow we can escape our complicity in systems that are always flawed, protective of those with power, and built with old, outdated, or problematic assumptions that have retreated into the fog of history.

Another path -- the one eloquently proposed by philosopher Alexis Shotwell in "Against Purity: Living Ethically in Compromised Times" -- is…