Society and The Term Professionals: Do Professionals Have an Obligation to Society?

“Professionals have an obligation to serve society”

Introduction

Society has placed a special meaning to the term professionals. A professional is expected to perform and maintain him or herself at a high standard in exercising sensitive and moral judgement in all their practices. Members of the professional world should accept the obligation to serve society and honour the public in performing all responsibilities with integrity in order maintain public confidence. Society does have an obligation to serve society in that they must practice in way that they do not harm others or perform any misconduct behaviour or actions. Some argue that professionals have an obligation to serve the client as it is in the client’s best interest and they are entitled to expect their needs in the transaction with the professionals. Society has the expectations to receive the utmost highest standard and expertise from their professionals and it is a duty of the professional to provide the services and maintain their knowledge up to date in order to provide competent services to their clients. In other words there is an implicit social contract between society and the professionals where both the client and the professional know their responsibilities, duties and expectations. The trade-off is that society has given professionals special privileges and rights such as self-regulations and professionals have provided society their expertise and knowledge in order to serve society when they are in need of seeking professional advice or services. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the obligation and responsibilities of Professionals and their services to society. This paper will define the nature of profession, the legal obligations of prof...

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