Moral high ground and employment

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Does anyone feel that someone should live a moral high ground in some professions?

eg A pyscologist not being a cutter, an dietician not eating only junk food, a anti smoking campaigner not smoking?

Or do you think it shouldn't matter and that a persons personal freedoms shouldn't matter no matter what the job is.

As long as they do their job well, it doesn't bother me.

What people do privately is their business. As long as they do their jobs well and earn their keep they are just fine.

ruveyn

Yes.

If you work in a 'preachy' profession you should do as you say otherwise why are you saying it?

Case in point, Ted Haggard demonising all gay people while sucking cock on his time off.

He did make a good living off of demonizing gays.

An obese dietician might tend to lose professional credibility.

Most CEOs of tobacco companies know better than to smoke.

If they want to enjoy the profits that come free being Merchants of Death it is well that they do not smoke.

ruveyn

As ruveyn said, what people do privately is their business.

Those are all things that mostly effect you directly. What about a lawyer who represents someone he knows is guilty? An engineer who works on a project she knows will have a strong negative impact. A cop who beats people for... uhm. why do cops beat people?

I would have trouble staying sane while compromising my morals. It's kinda happened before and I felt hollow and sad. This has been on my mind a lot lately. Even our first-world way of life is still dependent on the misery of the developing world, and little is being done to change that, only to reinforce it.

In a perfect world, sure. In my line of work, though, I pretty much live in a glass house, and there is a reason and I and my family are extremely private people and avoid a lot of interaction with the outside world. If, for example, my wife and I were headed for a divorce, the reason being that I was having an affair, I'd be out of a job.

My superiors look down on drinking, even on personal time. My wife and I were regular drinkers up until almost a year ago, and we quit drinking for our own reasons. No one gave us a hard time about it. But that's just one of those things you have to be careful with when you're on staff at a conservative evangelical church. Even when you know half the congregation drinks, they tend to hold staff members up to a higher standard. And there's nothing at all wrong with drinking in moderation.

Someone mentioned Ted Haggard, and that's something everyone tends to look down on: hypocrisy. You tend to lose your credibility if you are someone who is exposed for having a double-standard. We don't want to know that we are supporting the immoral behavior of others. From what I understand Bill Clinton didn't technically break any laws while in office. His behavior was considered immoral, certainly inappropriate, and unethical. When confronted with the Monica Lewinsky affair, he lied about it and it was obvious that he lied. Even though this started out as a private matter, it ended up revealing a side of the president we'd rather have not seen and certainly uncharacteristic of the kind of person we want in power. We just tend to expect more from people like that.

While your personal life is just that--personal--the kind of person you are reflects on the person in the office. And people do tend to judge a company by the people it hires. Companies know this. So if an employee bad-mouths his workplace on Facebook and so forth, it's only natural for an employer to assume that the employee is unhappy and would find more fulfilling work elsewhere.

Also, think about that guy who harassed a Chik-fil-a employee and posted it on YouTube. I think the guy was a CFO or something. What do they do? They fire him because that isn't the kind of person they want working for them. You don't have to like it, but it helps to be on your best behavior even if you're away from the workplace.

Yeah, like someone who is working for AA would not be a good mentor for people to get clean if they were using drugs. Sometimes people pay for leaders to show them the path to a better life. If the truth of their immoral lifestyle came out, then their job may be compromised.

Well, as someone who works in one of those "preachy" professions, I think that there needs to be room for a diverse group of professionals.

Some patients simply aren't going to take advice on healthy choices from doctors or nurses who seem to lead perfect lives of raw vegetable diets, frequent and regular exercise, and complete abstinance from alcohol, tobacco and drugs. On the other hand, some patients aren't going to take the same advice from doctors or nurses who obviously don't practice what they preach.

The key is to match up the right doctor and the right patient so that healthy living isn't a matter of achieving some unreachable ideal, but rather is presented as a matter of some fairly simple choices that can be made in the moment.

An AA sponsor who beat alcohol himself will be better than someone who only drinks tea.

Yes, but I meant someone who is currently addicted, not someone who was addicted at some point then overcame it.

I could actually ask about how you mean that? So Time, or distance from, the last time it occurred is acceptable in a person attempting to work a proffession where double standards are possible and frowned upon? How much time? How much leniency should be allowed? Are mistakes not allowed? How far can you trust someone once a mistake is made? What about a decision to not share what they dont consider to be your business? How absolute must their "Triumph Over their past" be? AA members are considered "Recovering" for life for instance, and many at some point wander back into drink (Though as often as not wander back out of it again, which is why AA is there to continue support), and there are other examples I know Im too tired to think of atm....

Sorry for dumping the questions on your specific post Deltafunction, I mean these for everyone here to answer. You were just the first one that raised this particular aspect of this subject that I saw.

Though as a parting thought, this all just basically boils down to trust... What would it take for you to trust an obese dietician that hes going to be able to help you live or eat better? / And why couldn't we trust one president's decision to lie about something nobody else had any business with, but we can still trust another after he lead the entire nation into 2 foreign wars on the basis of a bunch of lies? But w/e, take from this what you will.

Aldran

An alcoholic never stops being addicted. An alcoholic who successfully overcomes the disease is not cured--they are simply victorious over the disease at that moment. It doesn't invalidate your point (rather, I think it strengthens it). But it's an important aspect to addiction that people who don't suffer from addictive disorders aren't always able to undertsand.

Alright, fair enough. I'll just answer the question for my own opinion, since I can't speak for anyone else.

I totally get the addictive personality part. I get that alcoholics or drug users can be addicted for certain parts of their life. But I am really talking about addicts who are to the point of killing themselves with drug use. It will take a lot for them to stop using, and it may even take someone who has been there before, but seen the light to make them stop using. Now I'm not saying that someone who is casually using drugs or alcohol would still not be a good example. I'm just saying that someone who is also to the point of killing themselves with drug use would be morally compromised. They can't control their own addiction, so how can they help anyone else control theirs.

Again, just my opinion.