TO BREAK RULES OR NOT? WHEN SOCIAL ACCELERATION CHALLENGES THE MORAL ORDER OF PROFESSIONALS

Abstract
An often-espoused notion of professionalism is the notion that professionals adhere to and follow a professional ethos. This
view has been challenged early on from various perspectives. Today mainstream professional theory hold that professionals
have autonomy to carry out professional work subject to discretionary judgement within their field of expertise, but their
jurisdiction is negotiated in several arenas. In the extreme, empirical research, for example as carried out by Strauss and
Strauss, demonstrate that professionals may not even be educated to follow ethos but rather to be cynical in their professional
practice and yield to other interests. In this paper we will argue that it is not enough for professional to rely on discretionary
judgement. To be true to their professional ethos they need to break rules set up to govern them. We will support our argument
using Hartmut Rosa’s theory of social acceleration occurring in three domains: technical acceleration, acceleration of social
change, and acceleration of the pace of life. While change in professional life earlier was generational change it has turned
intragenerational and it is likely that professionals will see several shifts in the governance of their profession, in what is
considered best practice and in what technology they use during their time as professionals.
Taking a cue from the theory of moral orders we will argue that today’s professionals increasingly find that their decisions can
be challenged from different moral orders. Luk van Langenhove proposes that different groups have their own moral orders
or system of values that guide their decision-making. Moral orders are not fixed but shaped by history, culture and society. In
the paper, we argue that it has become common for professionals in different occupations to be challenged in this way? Social
acceleration contributes to the growth in moral orders, hence to governance professionals have to relate to. Their profession
provides one value-system but since jurisdiction tends to be contested they need to take other moral orders into account
when they make decisions. Andreas Berg (2010) for example, asserts that teachers’ conceptions of quality are challenged by
the judicial and economic moral orders these days. These orders have a greater appeal and explanational value when judging
quality and teacher can be held accountable to them. Subsequently, teachers find themselves dealing with quality using models
from disciplines outside their expertise instead of from the educational moral order where their professional competence lies.
Their jurisdiction is being threatened. Following Berg, we come to the conclusion that these days teachers find themselves at
a disadvantage when arguing for quality in their own professional field.
What we have described up till now, are situations where professional judgment is challenged by other moral orders. Following the
theory of moral orders we argue that these orders often clash and that calls for action may clash to the extent that to follow one
call you need to be deaf to other calls. This becomes problematic when there is a strong call from the ethos of the profession that
clashes with calls from other moral orders for example from legal moral orders (Aili and Nilsson, 2018). We found many examples of
situations where teachers using digital technology had to break rules to be able to carry out their job. New governance, however,
implies that they can be held accountable for decisions they have made not knowing which moral order they will be judged from.
From that perspective breaking god or breaking bad has become an important issue for discretionary judgement.