Budd Towards A Practical and Normative Ethics 2006

Toward a Practical and Normative Ethics for Librarianship
Author(s): John M. Budd

Source: The Library Quarterly: Information, Community, Policy, Vol. 76, No. 3 (July
2006), pp. 251-269
Published by: The University of Chicago Press
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THE LIBRARY QUARTERLY
Volume 76 JULY 2006 Number 3
TOWARD A PRACTICAL AND NORMATIVE ETHICS FOR

LIBRARIANSHIP
John M. Budd1
Just about everything that librarians do as professionals carries ethical implications.

Matters of intellectual freedom are most commonly recognized as loci for ethics-
based decision making, but the totality of individual and collective conduct is in
need of practical, normative ethical structure. What is argued for here is a frame-
work founded on rights. In order to achieve the goal of rights as foundation,
processes of deliberation within librarianship must be established. The most at-
tractive form of deliberation is discourse ethics that recognizes the dialectic nature
of this (or any) profession. The result is an ethical state that serves the good of
both the profession and communities.
Ethics cannot be separated from politics. [1, p. 21]
In the profession of librarianship, the topic of ethics has been the focus
of considerable attention in recent years. Some of this attention has been
direct and has addressed such things as codes of ethics, freedom of in-
formation, and the Library Bill of Rights (LBR). Other writings have ap-
proached ethics less directly, as we can see from efforts to articulate the
field’s core values. These areas of focus are closely related and, while there
have been some very detailed examinations of particular issues, the need
remains for an extensive look at points of concern and areas in which
ethical action is called for. In particular, this article addresses the practical
1. Professor, School of Information Science and Learning Technologies, University of Mis-

souri–Columbia, 303 Townsend Hall, Columbia, MO 65211. Telephone 573-882-3258; Fax
573-884-4944; E-mail buddj@missouri.edu.
[Library Quarterly, vol. 76, no. 3, pp. 251–269]

䉷 2006 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved.
0024-2519/2006/7603-0010$10.00
251
252 THE LIBRARY QUARTERLY
(the ways we live as professionals in relation to our communities) and the

normative (what standards for action we can agree upon and why). Practical
ethics can be conceived of in several ways (including consideration of what
is right and wrong, how action affects others, and how we look at ourselves),
but even in the face of criticism [2], there is a need to understand what
we should do in certain circumstances. The normative element is the an-
chor for such understanding; Shelly Kagan says that it “involves substantive
proposals concerning how to act, how to live, or what kind of person to
be. In particular, it attempts to state and defend the most basic principle
governing these matters” [3, p. 2]. Amartya Sen wisely observes that “it
would be rather absurd to devote much attention to the subject of ethics
if it were really the case that ethical considerations would never affect
people’s actual behaviour” [4, p. 52].
The foregoing recognizes that the practical side of ethics is vital to work
in librarianship. The essential character of ethics in librarianship includes
recognition that, as a profession, the concern is for the public life of
participants and their public actions. As Alisdair MacIntyre emphasizes
(and as the epigraph by Adriaan T. Peperzak affirms), the political and
the moral do not have separate histories (or presents, for that matter).
Theorizing and belief are both political and moral actions. “Every action
is the bearer and expression of more or less theory-laden beliefs and con-
cepts; every piece of theorizing and every expression of belief is a political
and moral action” [5, p. 61]. MacIntyre’s point is extremely important;
history is integral to any understanding of ethics and moral philosophy.
History, as is ethics, is human and social; it is an essential component to
any understanding of our places in society. The challenge is to create an
institutional ethos that achieves a very explicit set of goals. In order to
achieve the goals, some principles of rights and obligations have to be
recognized and upheld. The easiest of these rights and obligations to ac-
cept, and the least controversial, are those grounded in law. Individuals
must not be harassed, physically attacked, and so on. These fundamental
principles are referred to by John Rawls (who stresses that political phi-
losophy is not a comprehensive ethical or moral theory) as a system of
social cooperation:
The central organizing idea of social cooperation has at least three essential fea-
tures:
a) Social cooperation is distinct from merely socially coordinated activity. . . .
Rather, social cooperation is guided by publicly recognized rules and pro-
cedures that those cooperating accept as appropriate to regulate their con-
duct.
b) The idea of cooperation includes the idea of fair terms of cooperation: these
are terms each participant may reasonably accept, and should accept, pro-
vided that everyone else likewise accepts them.
ETHICS FOR LIBRARIANSHIP 253
c) The idea of cooperation also includes the idea of each participant’s rational
advantage, or good. The idea of rational advantage specifies what it is that
those engaged in cooperation are seeking to advance from the standpoint
of their own good. [6, p. 6]
Less simple are those rights and obligations that are based in fairness
and justice. Rawls reduces these rights to two: “(a) Each person has the
same indefeasible claim to a fully adequate scheme of equal basic liberties
for all; and (b) Social and economic inequalities are to satisfy two condi-
tions: first, they are to be attached to offices and positions open to all
under conditions of fair equality of opportunity; and second, they are to
be to the greatest benefit to the least-advantaged members of society” [6,
p. 42]. At this point, we will leave Rawls’s idea of rights and the implications
for positions leaning toward rights or toward welfare, but we will return
to it in more detailed discussions of individual rights and institutional
responsibilities.
Frequently occurring in philosophical ethics is a tendency to assume a
stability of human nature, of reason, of choice, and so on. As we consider
ethics and our profession, though, we have to realize that there have been
some social, cultural, and, especially, technological changes. The previous
ethical thought, for the most part, assured a neutral relationship between
us and our creations. The most forceful and articulate challenger to the
old assumptions has been Hans Jonas. Jonas states that “technology, apart
from its objective works, assumes ethical significance by the central place
it now occupies in human purpose” [7, p. 9], which leads him to conclude,
“If the realm of making has invaded the space of essential action, then
morality must invade the realm of making, from which it has formerly
stayed aloof, and must do so in the form of public policy” [7, p. 9]. It may
be impossible to overstate the importance of Jonas’s conclusion. A pro-
fession that uses technology as a tool in its work (and this includes most,
if not all, professions) must see the effects of technology on praxis and
the telos (purpose) of the profession in its adoption and use of technology.
Practical Concerns
The scope of ethics is huge, and the scope of ethics and our profession is
only slightly more constrained. One of our concerns is with what might
be called peripheral issues. Librarians and information specialists, by and
large, do not directly produce the information to which they provide access.
Other parties—publishers, media producers, and individuals—form a sys-
tem of production and dissemination of information. While these parties
operate in a sphere that is mostly separate from libraries and information
agencies, their decisions, actions, and practices do have a substantial impact

on our profession. This means that the ethical choices made by these other
parties also affect us. Let us look at a hypothetical scenario. Suppose that,
in the heat of a contentious political battle, a person decides to write a
book on a candidate for national office. That person consciously chooses
to distort some factual information, omit information that would weaken
his case against the candidate, draw conclusions that are not supported by
evidence, and fabricate some information relating to the candidate’s per-
sonal life. A publisher decides to rush that person’s book into production
and to distribute it as widely as possible. Many bookstores, aware that this
book is likely to sell well, stock it and even feature it prominently in displays.
Several reviews of the book are published very soon after its release that
point to the distortions and fabrications. Should a library or other infor-
mation agency purchase the book? Should descriptions of the book in
cataloging records in any way indicate the book’s flaws? This scenario
demonstrates the dilemma our profession faces as a result of the actions
of other parties.
To begin with, there is a very complicated element of First Amendment
application inherent in the scenario. What is in question is not a work that
engenders disagreement (in which case the library’s decision could simply
be not to allow one voice to stifle others), nor is it a matter of finding
offense (including materials in library collections that some find offensive
is not merely allowed, it is frequently necessary); it involves legality. There
has been a reluctance to enforce aggressively either slander or libel when
the individual in question is a public figure. The right or wrong of such
a situation is outside the scope of this article, except insofar as it constitutes
something of an absence of a barrier for libraries. In other words, the
legality of libel is not likely to impinge upon a library’s decision to acquire
or retain the book. Suppose, however, we (collectively) adopt a rights-based
approach, such as what Rawls argues for. If fairness is central to our think-
ing, we definitely need to consider the strong positive right to free speech,
but we would also have to consider the position of the political candidate
who is being lied about. The importance of access to the book (including
the potential for archival copies being preserved) would have to be weighed
against the possible damage to the candidate’s campaign, career, and life.
Because there may be some laxity regarding the enforcement of libel does
not erase the fact that the First Amendment, plus federal and state laws,
does not permit any and all speech. Even with existing laws, the matter
described above is not without controversy. Ronald Dworkin, recognizing
that laws of libel and slander are efficacious, still stresses that the First
Amendment is constitutively, rather than instrumentally, justified, and, so,
“because we are a liberal society committed to individual moral respon-
sibility . . . any censorship on grounds of content is inconsistent with that
commitment” [8, p. 205]. Dworkin argues that such a constitutive justifi-

cation is based in moral reasoning intended to ensure freedom, and his
argument is a forceful one. There remains the problematic dissemination
of speech that is in fact intentionally false and spread in order to do harm
to someone. Current and emerging technologies only make consideration
of access to information more difficult. A full resolution to the dilemma
presented in the scenario relies on dialectics, as we will see later.
The technologies we employ, as Hans Jonas has shown, are also third-
party interventions that affect professional ethical action. This is also rec-
ognized by Rafael Capurro, who, in addressing more than ethical princi-
ples, argues for technological tools to follow principles of accessibility,
confidentiality, and completeness [9]. It may be that our applications of
technology illustrate most clearly a distinction between “good” and “value.”
This distinction may appear to be a philosophical nicety, but it is vital to
ethical considerations in any profession. It is necessary to decide what is
good—that is, we must consider seriously what may have some objective
status, what may be independent of us. It is also necessary for us to decide
what has value—that is, what can be used by us to realize some of the
ethical goals and objectives we establish. In other words, what has value
necessarily is connected to some questions, such as for whom? at what
times? and in what amounts? Thomas Froehlich reminds us that database
producers exercise the prerogative of selection (what to include and what
to exclude) and, in so doing, may subvert critical and creative thought by
offering ready-made solutions [10]. Technology, in following the above
reasoning, is not good in itself, but it can have value. Electronic resources
of information, for example, do not have a universal intrinsic good, but
they can enable us to retrieve useful information for some people in a
timely manner (thus demonstrating value). Another way to look at the
good-value distinction is that good has an ontological quality; its very being
embodies the good (e.g., having integrity is good). In some ways, this
definition of good is similar to Kant’s categorical imperative (something
that is an end in itself) [11]. Value, however, is realized through appli-
cation; there is a pragmatic quality attached to it (providing timely access
to requested information has value). Jonas succinctly expresses the rela-
tionship of good and value through responsibility: “The concept of re-
sponsibility implies that of an ought—first of an ought-to-be of something,
then of an ought-to-do of someone in response to the first” [7, p. 130].
“Value” can thus be conceived as an important concept to practical ethics.
Jonas’s directive is an effort to solve what has been a persistent debate
in philosophical ethics for many years—reconciling “ought” with “is.” The
debate sometimes uses the terms “fact” and “value” to express what is a
dichotomy for some philosophers. Dating back at least to David Hume,
there has been an admonition that we cannot infer “is” from “ought.”
Another way of looking at this stricture is that what we value is not nec-
essarily (i.e., there is no causal link) what constitutes a fact. The claim
makes sense; we see every day that, for instance, just because there are
traffic laws that we all agree are best for public safety, they are not always
followed. Jonas’s point is that, while “ought” cannot cause “is,” each in-
dividual can try to bring about “is” from “ought.” Another way of looking
at the seeming dichotomy is to realize that every school of ethical thought
contains—implicitly or explicitly—responsibility. At the very least, it is in-
cumbent upon each of us to hold principles and to be true to those prin-
ciples. By virtue of responsibility, value is a very important part of ethics.
As Hilary Putnam has written, “It is much easier to say, ‘that’s a value
judgment.’ Meaning, ‘that’s just a matter of subjective preference,’ than
to do what Socrates tried to teach us: to examine who we are and what
our deepest convictions are and hold those convictions up to the searching
test of reflective examination” [12, p. 44].
One specific example may illustrate how the perceived fact-value di-
lemma manifests itself in librarianship. There is much that is of value that
derives from the literature and practice of business. It is rational to learn,
say, how to alert communities to services and resources and how to listen
to community members to assess what impact the library has on their lives.
There are valuable suggestions, grounded in empirical inquiry, regarding
how to present what the library can offer. Does the value of business con-
tributions translate to a fact, a good, that we should emulate businesses?
Is the relationship between value and fact the product of a conscious and
deliberate evaluation both of the “theory” of business and market eco-
nomics and of the cultural, social, intellectual, and educative imperatives
of libraries? A practical and normative ethics requires that these two ques-
tions be taken very seriously. If the theory of market economics comes to
be taken as fact (or good), there are consequences for the profession, for
libraries, and for communities. The word “customer” appears frequently
in professional discourse but without a clear definition (whereas, in market
economics, “customer” means something quite specific). One of the re-
quirements of a practical and normative ethics is the profound contem-
plation of the uses of language; it is incumbent upon professionals to
examine whether “customer” and “community” are congruent or discor-
dant. “Customer” and “community” are theoretical terms, in this loose
sense, that are components in a larger cognitive-professional framework
that will affect action. Use of a word or term may have cognitive effects
on the ways we think about and work in libraries. Ludwig Wittgenstein
offers a cautionary note: “Every sign by itself is dead. What gives it life?—
In use it is alive. Is life breathed into it there?—Or is the use its life?” [13,
p. 128].
Statements from the Profession
The framework for a practical and normative ethics entails not just our
professional ethos and action but also the externalities spoken of earlier.
For instance, the report of the American Library Association’s (ALA) Core
Values Task Force II explicitly acknowledges the values-based nature of the
mission statement. The values that are identified in the report are “Access;
Confidentiality/Privacy; Democracy; Diversity; Education and Lifelong
Learning; Intellectual Freedom; Preservation; The Public Good; Profes-
sionalism; Service; Social Responsibility” [14]. If we take these goals to be
genuine expressions of the professional ethos, then the reality of external
forces—politics, economics, information production, and the public
good—must be considered. If there are conflicts and contests among these
forces, we as professionals have to address them. Suppose the decision is
to trust the market to create and/or make available that which is best (in
every sense of the word) for people. One outcome may be, as Pierre Bour-
dieu observes, “that everything the new technology and economically in-
tegrated communications groups put into circulation—that is to say, tele-
vised messages as well as books, films, or games, all generally subsumed
under the term of ‘information’—be conceived as a mere commodity, and
consequently treated as any other product and subjected to the law of
profit” [15, p. 68]. Given the empirical reality of market consolidation of
mass media companies [16], practical and normative ethical action calls
for a skepticism regarding market-based claims. The concentration on ef-
ficiency that market economics dictates can, in fact, be antithetical to stated
professional goals. “Indeed, if economic efficiency (in the sense of Pareto
optimality) were the only criterion for economic judgement, and if the
various conditions (such as no externality) imposed by the so-called ‘Fun-
damental Theorem of Welfare Economics’ were to hold, then there would
be in general no welfare-economic argument for anyone to behave in a
way other than that required for self-interest maximization” [4, p. 52].
Another scenario can be used here to connect values to ALA’s Code of
Ethics. The main speaker at a library association conference program deal-
ing with codes of ethics focuses on the ALA Code of Ethics (the revised
version adopted by the ALA Council in 1995). The code includes items
about intellectual freedom, intellectual property rights, privacy and con-
fidentiality, and ensuring that personal or private interests do not interfere
with access to information. The speaker, though, spends most of his time
on one item of the code: “We provide the highest level of service to all
library users through appropriate and usefully organized resources; eq-
uitable access; and accurate, unbiased, and courteous responses to all re-
quests” [17]. The speaker adamantly defends this part of the code. A
responding speaker on the program challenges the main speaker’s position

and that item of the code saying that the addition of accuracy in the
statement introduces bias. The second speaker argues that accuracy is a
construction based on domination and oppression and should be chal-
lenged in the interests of pluralism and cultural sensitivity. She brings up
the report of ALA’s Core Values Task Force II and points out that accuracy
appears nowhere in it; not even the value of service mentions accuracy.
She further says that the value of social responsibility implicitly urges ad-
vocacy on social issues and argues that advocacy trumps accuracy, becoming
our genuine ethical goal. Can/should a code of ethics explicitly address
things such as accuracy? Is there a realistic and/or objective norm for
accurate responses to questions? Should truth be a tenet of a code of
ethics?
The first question might be viewed as a first-order question; the answer
to it is primary and defines other subsequent questions. If we do not
consider ethics for a moment, we might have considerable difficulty con-
ceiving of an information or library service that is not grounded in accuracy
(or at least every reasonable effort to find accurate information). That
stance may presume that accuracy is not problematic. In some ways it is
problematic: if a student asks a librarian, “Is Huckleberry Finn a good book?”
it is difficult to determine the accuracy of a response. A simple yes or no
reply does not represent an effort to arrive at an accurate answer. However,
interaction with the student that entails a serious examination of critical
response to the novel, impact (socially, culturally, and politically), and
lasting attention to the book may constitute an accurate response. On the
other side of the debate, Michel Foucault’s words may be involved: “Cer-
tainly, as a proposition, the division between true and false is neither ar-
bitrary, nor modifiable, nor institutional, nor violent. Putting the question
in different terms, however—asking what has been, what still is, throughout
our discourse, this will to truth which has survived throughout so many
centuries of our history; or if we ask what is, in its very general form, the
kind of division governing our will to knowledge—then we may well discern
something like a system of exclusion (historical, modifiable, institutionally
constraining) in the process of development” [18, p. 218].
Foucault, however, is articulating the historical situation of what is taken
to be true, especially within the context of the power that perceived truth
commands and the uses to which it may be put. His is an important ob-
servation, but it does not obviate any ethical imperative aimed at seeking
truth (in a weak and fallibilist sense). That ethical imperative demands
that advocacy also be based in truth and that accuracy and advocacy be
contingent upon the quest for truth. Further, an advocacy stance neces-
sitates some conception of “right” and the acceptance that one particular
way of looking at an issue is right (or at least closer to right than the
alternatives). The stance itself includes a measure of accuracy if it is to be

based in some version of truth. The choice of a position of advocacy is
one of judgment, and that judgment has to have some foundation. Michael
Lynch warns that “if there is no such thing as being right, wrong, or in-
between, then we can’t really disagree in opinion. We may of course still
differ in all sorts of ways—in our hopes, fears, and desires. But we aren’t
disagreeing over who is right and who isn’t” [19, p. 161]. The opinion,
then, that “accuracy” is biased and not a sufficient value when placed next
to advocacy is itself a claim to accuracy (in the sense of being “right”).
There is an enormous amount of territory we could cover here, but it
may be most fruitful to use our limited space considering a matter that
has been the focus of attention for many decades—intellectual freedom.
Any discussion of intellectual freedom in our profession should begin with
the Library Bill of Rights. A brief history of the document appears in the
Intellectual Freedom Manual [20], and a much more complete background
has been provided by Louise Robbins [21]. The first iteration was approved
by the ALA Council in 1939. The intention of the LBR is to be normative
and regulative, although it does not carry the power of law. It is also
intended, as the Intellectual Freedom Manual indicates, to be unambiguous,
although it is acknowledged in the Manual that questions do arise. The
LBR does raise some questions regarding practical action.
A recent article by Martin Frické, Kay Mathiesen, and Don Fallis [22]
reviews some examinations of the LBR that argue that it is ambiguous and
political and emphasizes censorship while underemphasizing intellectual
property rights and patron privacy. They then contend that, given a phil-
osophical foundation of fallibilism (no knowledge is absolutely certain,
and there is the possibility of correction), some of the tenets of the LBR
are problematic. They point in particular to Articles II, III, and V. The
third article, for example, prohibits censorship; the authors raise the ques-
tion of what should be done when one right (the right to free expression)
conflicts with another right (say, to privacy). Their questioning is reflected
in the first scenario presented above. At that point of conflict, a decision
must be made, and the LBR does not address such conflict directly. Some
interpretations of the LBR do address privacy rights but from the stand-
point of access to information and patron records rather than from the
standpoint of the content of the information carriers. Frické and his col-
leagues urge that social-contract theory be the basis for considering in-
tellectual freedom within the context of the LBR. Building upon Rawls’s
conception of rights, they argue that, while some individuals have an idea
of the good, “it may be that not all conceptions of the good should be
accommodated, by means of the principle chosen for distributing infor-
mation in society. If we contemplated from behind the veil of ignorance
the possibility that we might be placed in society as child pornographers,
perhaps we would desire society to supply the means for sympathetic un-
derstanding and medical help, rather than public libraries full of child
pornography” [22, p. 482].
In applying their social-contract argument, Frické, Mathiesen, and Fallis
point out that the fifth article states that access is not to be decided on
the basis of origin, age, background, or views. Again, they argue that the
fundamental thrust of the LBR is well intentioned but that the absolutism
presents difficulties for praxis. They maintain that the LBR’s literal mean-
ing could be construed as removing moral responsibilities for the welfare
of, say, children. It is evident that their argument, consciously or not, meets
with approval in many libraries. A recent survey asked a sample of librarians
if they favor restricting access to pornographic Web sites in the library (if
technology made this possible). A total of 37.3 percent of the respondents
were somewhat or strongly in favor of that kind of restriction [23, p. 370].
Perhaps the most common example of restriction at this time is the ex-
istence of acceptable-use policies in libraries. For the most part, but not
exclusively, these policies refer to electronic resources, such as Internet
searching and use. Many types of libraries adopt acceptable-use policies,
but they are most commonly applied in public libraries and school library
media centers. One purpose of these policies is to alert library users about
copyright laws and the limitations they impose. Other purposes extend
beyond law and move into the realm of more discretionary information
resources. The policy of the Eugene School District’s 4JNet (a commu-
nications network) states that “the use of profanity, obscenity or other
language that may be offensive to another user” is prohibited, as is the
“use of the network to access pornographic or obscene material” [24]. The
Salt Lake County Library System uses similar language: “Using the library’s
Internet connection (either in a Library or via the Home Page) to view
pornography or obscenity is prohibited” [25]. Dworkin points out that
cities can enact zoning regulations that limit where adult entertainment
establishments may be located without violating the First Amendment [8,
p. 218]. Acceptable-use policies may appear to be at odds with the LBR,
but are they equivalents of zoning regulations? This is the kind of issue
that requires a practical and normative ethics, arrived at deliberatively.
A defense of a strong version of intellectual freedom is proposed by
Tony Doyle. Doyle rests his argument on utilitarianism, especially on John
Stuart Mill’s liberalism. There is much in Mill’s thought that presents
cogent points in favor of freedom, most notably that a free society benefits
in multiple ways from a free and open exchange of ideas. Because of the
many benefits, it is thus better for society to allow all works to circulate;
those that have no utility will be recognized for their shortcomings. Doyle
says, “The utilitarian will concede that some things would be better left
unexpressed, unpublished, unseen, and unread. The trouble is, we cannot
know beforehand precisely which set of ideas or images, if published, would

do more harm than good” [26, p. 69]. There are no reasonable grounds
for ignoring the consequences of actions. Utilitarianism has, over the years,
encountered substantive criticism and numerous challenges. Two in par-
ticular can be mentioned here as a means of demonstrating that utilitar-
ianism is not an adequate practical and normative ethical position. Samuel
Scheffler argues for an agent-centered prerogative that must be infused
into any ethical theory and that is absent from all consequentialist theories.
Recognition of individual integrity, according to Scheffler, is vital to re-
alization of human agency and authenticity. Based on that recognition,
agents must be free to not always produce the best results or outcomes
for society as a whole [27]. Fallis and Mathiesen, responding to Doyle,
state, “The question is what will have worse consequences from the point
of view of utilitarianism: (a) censoring some material that ought not to be
or (b) not censoring some material that should be. This is an empirical
question. And there may be extremely compelling evidence that certain
material is so potentially harmful . . . that it is better to have some benign
material censored along with it than to have it not censored at all” [28,
p. 438]. Fallis and Mathiesen are acknowledging one aspect of utilitari-
anism that can be called “negative responsibility.” The best example of
negative responsibility is the requirement of the Hippocratic oath to do
no harm. If utilitarianism does include negative responsibility, then the
potential harm that might result from information cannot be ignored.
Toward a Practical and Normative Ethics
The project presented here was hinted at above in the references to Rawls’s
strictures regarding social cooperation, justice, and fairness. On a practical
plain, Jonas emphasizes that our creations, especially our technologies, are
not separate and apart from ourselves and so must be judged according
to moral tenets. These are not neutral stances; they represent advocacy
not only for ways of thinking about ethics but, more important, ways of
acting as individuals and with and for one another. Since the final advo-
cated stance is so important, an essential aspect of practical and normative
ethics for librarianship should be emphasized—procedure. Stressing pro-
cedure by no means diminishes outcomes, but it does locate the profes-
sion’s attention at the initial point of deliberation. It is here that a part
of professional discourse is challenged. The challenge is not new; Robert
Wengert has already articulated it:
Library professionals will not take a stand on ethical matters beyond the insistence
that patrons should have equal and open access to whatever sources they desire.
An information-professional might correct you were you to state that Chicago is

the capital of the state of Illinois, but that same professional apparently will refrain
from criticizing your opinion were you to state that sadism is to be encouraged.
Notice that making such distinct responses assumes that the two items of belief are
radically different in kind: the one is factual information about which a professional
can make judgments, the other is not. [29, pp. 497–98]
Over time, statements such as the LBR have been discussed and alter-
natives weighed, but librarianship’s discursive practice has, in recent years,
largely constituted an orthodoxy that may not be sensitive or responsive
to disputation. One voice of this orthodoxy is Robert Hauptman, who
writes, “We are free to articulate anything we imagine” [30, p. 18], and “If
there are more fundamental rights than freedom of thought, then anyone,
naturally, can cite those rights when attempting to control what students
may read in a class, what libraries may collect, and what Americans may
access on the Internet” [30, p. 138]. His first idea is incorrect; there are,
in fact, laws that limit what a person can say. Paradoxically, Hauptman also
argues against research misconduct on the grounds of responsibility and
public interest, but if we are indeed free to say anything we can imagine,
we can lie and falsify with impunity. The positive ethos of research integrity
is indisputable; violation of the ethos can cause harm. That positive ethos
does, however, come into conflict with Hauptman’s first maxim. His second
claim is puzzling; if there are more fundamental rights, then those rights
probably should supersede a right to access to information. For example,
a right to privacy trumps another’s “right” to certain of an individual’s
personal information. A right to freedom from harm trumps a person’s
“right” to libel another intentionally and with malice. Hauptman also pro-
poses that, in combating censorship, the minority cannot dictate to the
majority. However, Paul Ricoeur, arguing for the kind of normative ethics
suggested here, says, “Whoever might be a victim must not be sacrificed
to the benefit of some common good. This is the anti-utilitarian point of
the Rawlsian theory of justice” [31, p. 65]. It is obvious that the whims of
the minority should not hold sway simply because they wish it to be so,
but, likewise, the majority should not be able to cause harm to others on
the basis of an indefensible claim of neutrality (the claim is, itself, not
neutral, as Gordon Baldwin demonstrates [32]).
One practical and normative standard according to which the profession
can act publicly relates to political speech. If a work of any sort (book,
video, or Web site) expresses a political opinion regarding anything of
public concern, it can be included in a library’s collection. Furthermore,
challenges to the presence of the work in the collection should be resisted
on clear First Amendment grounds. This standard should be uncontro-
versial, but its application requires that we ourselves (i.e., every one of us
who claims to be a professional) accept that it applies to all discourse.

Whitney Davison-Turley reports that her public expression of disagreement
to some resolutions proposed at an ALA annual conference met with de-
rision and insult [33, p. 33]. Her account, if accurate, points to some
logically and ethically faulty reasoning used in response to her position.
It is incumbent upon us as public professionals to adhere fully to any
normative ethical position that has not been shown to be fallible; otherwise,
any ethical argument we may make can be subject to refutation on the
grounds of inconsistency and selective application. Another way to look at
the proposed standard is that it is a positive right—the right of people to
engage in free public political speech.
Another practical and normative standard relates to nonpolitical speech.
In many instances, the legal regulation of some speech has been enacted
as a means to protect freedom of political speech. In other words, if some-
one or some organization attempts to silence some voices through, say,
ownership of media outlets, there has been resistance. Recently, the Federal
Communications Commission (FCC) approved relaxed criteria for own-
ership of broadcast outlets, but Congress refused to go along with the FCC
action because public discourse would be negatively affected. This stan-
dard, too, may seem uncontroversial, but it does entail some restriction of
speech in the public interest. Also, once again, laws of slander and libel
prohibit damaging individuals or groups through false and malicious
speech (see the first scenario above). This standard fits within Rawls’s
framework of justice as fairness, especially the point of fairness being a
legitimate good recognized by all free and rational participants. He em-
phasizes that right and good must be considered as parts of a whole: “That
the right and the good are complementary is illustrated by this reflection:
just institutions and the political virtues would serve no purpose—would
have no point—unless those institutions and virtues not only permitted
but also sustained conceptions of the good (associated with comprehensive
doctrines) that citizens can affirm as worthy of their allegiance” [6, pp.
140–41].
The concept of the good may apply particularly pointedly to professional
codes of ethics. The codes are aimed at the positive right of free speech
and also at professional responsibility. They attempt to articulate practical
and normative standards of ethics. Both the ALA Code of Ethics and the
American Society for Information Science and Technology Professional
Guidelines speak in terms of responsibility to communities, to the profes-
sion, and to society as a whole. Public pronouncement of the codes does
serve to affirm the existence of libraries as just institutions in a democracy.
Related to the second scenario above, accuracy does fit with the good since
it is in people’s interest to obtain accurate information that they can employ
for their own well-being. Advocacy is certainly not always and everywhere
prohibited, but it is secondary to people’s right to information that is as

accurate as it is possible to provide. Accuracy also embraces a commitment
to truth, which recognizes a fundamental inequality of some information
(the true and the false; refer again to the first scenario). It is generally
taken to be responsible professionalism to check information sources
against one another to corroborate information. This action, as Lynch
observes, is not a substitute for truth; it is a means to truth (in the weak
sense) [19, p. 81]. Toward the end of accuracy and truth, there are some
closely related matters. For one thing, there have been some persistent
challenges related to government information and its accessibility versus
its effective suppression. This is an area in which advocacy and accuracy
merge, with the common aim of presenting library users with the most
authoritative information possible. Also, libraries’ access mechanisms, in-
cluding subject headings, can benefit from advocacy directed toward lan-
guage that encompasses the culture, linguistic distinctions, and other facets
of the people who will search for information.
The foregoing is certainly not an exhaustive list of the elements of a
practical and normative ethics for librarianship. No one person can pre-
tend to suggest an all-inclusive set of elements. The question to be faced
is, How do we, as public professionals, address the need for a more com-
prehensive consideration of ethics? The answer to this question grows out
of the rights-based premises upon which this article is based. As a public
profession, librarianship is committed to a democratic form of public polity.
An essential part of the democratic way of being is deliberation, especially
public deliberation. Among the many ways we can define democracy is by
aggregative or deliberative means. An aggregative position assumes that
collective preferences are given; that is, the preferences are taken to be
legitimated so that no further justification is required. Invocation of the
LBR or ALA’s Code of Ethics as immutable dogmas of the profession may
be indicative of an aggregative definition of democracy. The principal
shortcoming of this stance is that challenge of taken-for-granted prefer-
ences is very difficult and meets with tenacious resistance. An alternative—
deliberative democracy—admits to pluralism of preferences and of partic-
ipants. Amy Gutmann and Dennis Thompson maintain that “deliberation
is generally the best way to arrive at just decision, or, more accurately, the
least unsatisfactory” way [34, p. 41].
Deliberation poses some stringent requirements within the framework
of ultimately reaching a just and fair outcome. This is, in fact, the case
with ethical and moral theory in general. Jürgen Habermas points out,
“Since moralities are tailored to suit the fragility of human beings individ-
uated through socialization, they must always solve two tasks at once. They
must emphasize the inviolability of the individual by postulating equal
respect for the dignity of each individual. But they must also protect the
web of intersubjective relations of mutual recognition by which these in-

dividuals survive as members of a community” [35, p. 200]. Habermas’s is
a fundamentally phenomenological perspective insofar as the relationship
between self and other is a foundational imperative. (You are different
from me, and you and your ideas have legitimacy. You and I share the
moral imperative; moreover, I must acknowledge and operate according
to your right to be.) Building on the phenomenological base, he outlines
a discourse ethics as a practical means of deliberating and accepting moral
norms. There are advantages to discourse ethics within our professional
community. For one thing, even in the initial stages of deliberation, the
positions taken by all participants can be known; there is a starting point
from which to begin. For another, discourse ethics requires that there be
publicity, that positions and, more important, reasons for holding positions
be made public so that they can be deliberated. There is a genuine process
of argumentation at work in order for both the validity of an argument
(the logical connection between conclusion and premises) and the truth
of the premises and propositions to be tested in an open forum.
The practical and normative ethics of our profession will undoubtedly
be accompanied by emotive and affective reactions. After all, human action
is motivated by emotion, cognition, reason, and other things. The profes-
sion’s desire to identify core values is a product of these multiple moti-
vations. Just as identification of a core value requires an explication of
what qualities are attached to a thing that is valued and for whom the
thing is valuable and why, so too does discourse ethics in general require
such full argumentation. More than just formal argument, though, dis-
course ethics entails participation broadly; it invites those concerned to
have a voice within the communicative endeavor. The voicing, however,
follows some norms that are aimed at the outcome of the deliberation—
workable and agreed-upon practices. Habermas says that “discourse ethics,
then, stands or falls with two assumptions: (a) that normative claims to
validity have cognitive meaning and can be treated like claims to truth and
(b) that the justification of norms and commands requires that a real
discourse be carried out and thus cannot occur in a strictly monological
form” [35, p. 68]. Habermas presents an ideal that can suggest a beginning
for the furtherance of a practical and normative ethics for librarianship.
To anticipate a criticism of the use of Habermas’s discourse ethics, there
should be acknowledgment of Bent Flyvbjerg’s opinion, which is shared
by a number of people: “The basic weakness of Habermas’s project is its
lack of agreement between ideal and reality, between intentions and their
implementation” [36, p. 215]. In directly countering Habermas’s discourse
ethics, Foucault says, “The problem, then, is not to try to dissolve [power
relations] in the utopia of completely transparent communication but to
acquire the rules of law, the management techniques, and also the morality,
the ethos, the practice of the self, that will allow us to play these games
of power with as little domination as possible” [37, p. 298]. However,
Habermas does admit, “Bargaining processes are tailored for situations in
which social power relations cannot be neutralized in the way rational
discourses presuppose” [38, p. 166]. Their positions are not so far apart,
and the common ground is the ethics of the discursive practice. Further-
more, Habermas and Foucault share some phenomenological justification
for their positions. Communication may not be transparent, as the Ha-
bermasian ideal would prefer, but neither is power a totally corrupting
force. There are times when the discourse in librarianship will be agonistic
(competitive and possibly strained); an agreed-upon set of rules for ethical
communication is still the most effective antidote to disruption and au-
thoritarianism and assurance of rights being recognized.
Conclusion
The derivation of a formal, consistent, agreed-upon practical and nor-

mative ethics is no mean feat. In actuality, librarianship has, in many ways
over many years, aimed at this goal. The LBR, codes of ethics, expressions
of core values, and other statements are tangible products of the effort.
The commentary on these statements and related ethical concerns is also
part of the attempt to articulate a coherent ethical theory. Moreover, the
statements and the commentary are marks of progress. They constitute a
nascent discourse ethics, but the tacit realm in which they have existed
needs to become explicit. A foundation built upon rights does not deny
consequences, welfare, or duty, but it does couch ethics in terms of the
well-being of everyone in the community. A strong positive right of access
to information is weighed only against the negative liberty of not being
subjected to any palpable harm. Acceptance of these rights does constitute
something of a social contract. “The contract is a moral bond. It connects
the strong and the weak, the lucky and the unlucky, the rich and the poor,
creating a union that transcends all differences of interest, drawing its
strength from history, culture, religion, language, and so on” [39, pp.
82–83]. In connecting the advantaged and the disadvantaged, the library’s
responsibility is considerable. It cannot be accomplished dogmatically, and
it cannot be ignorant to constitutive rights.
A genuine atmosphere of deliberation requires three principles: “The
basic premise of reciprocity is that citizens owe one another justifications
for the institutions, laws, and public policies that collectively bind them.
. . . Together with reciprocity, two other principles specify the conditions
of democratic deliberation. The principle of publicity requires that reason-
giving be public in order that it may be mutually justifiable. The principle

of accountability specifies that officials who make decisions on behalf of
other people, whether or not they are electoral constituents, should be
accountable to those people” [34, pp. 133, 135]. Within the framework of
rights (encompassing justice as fairness) and the process of deliberation
according to a discourse ethical approach, librarianship can be better able
to address the difficult issues it faces. The reality of pluralism necessitates
both rights and deliberation. Deliberation, as a process, cannot help but
be dialectical. As has been shown here, there are differing conceptions of
right and good, of intellectual freedom and censorship, even of ethical
theories. To at least some extent, the discussion and controversy surround-
ing these issues are antinomies, contradictions between statements that
each has reasonable grounds. Dialectics, as a means of resolving contra-
dictions and reconciling division, has its foundations in Hegel. Steven
Smith ably summarizes the key elements of a dialectical approach:
Three general features of this method can be noted in advance. First, this method
must be immanent or internal to its subject matter. Dialectical theorists reject
outright the idea that the thinker can occupy some privileged Archimedean point
outside the subject of investigation. . . . A second feature of dialectical method is
its dialogical character. Theorizing is an activity taking place not simply within the
mind but between minds. Thinking is dialogical because it always takes the form
of an exchange or a conversation between ourselves, our contemporaries, and our
predecessors. . . . Third, the dialogical element is related to the historical dimen-
sion of theory. [40, pp. 167–68]
It is by such an approach that we, as a profession, can arrive at a fully

formed practical and normative ethics. It would be fruitless to ignore the
divisions and disagreements; they must be addressed dialogically. Further,
the dialogue is inescapably phenomenological (as described above) in that
legitimacy, which includes beliefs and voice, must be assumed by all, with
regard to all. The foregoing is an attempt to further the dialogue.
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Toward a Practical and Normative Ethics for Librarianship

Author(s): John M. Budd

TOWARD A PRACTICAL AND NORMATIVE ETHICS FOR

Just about everything that librarians do as professionals carries ethical implications.

Ethics cannot be separated from politics. [1, p. 21]

1. Professor, School of Information Science and Learning Technologies, University of Mis-

[Library Quarterly, vol. 76, no. 3, pp. 251–269]

(the ways we live as professionals in relation to our communities) and the

agencies, their decisions, actions, and practices do have a substantial impact

commitment” [8, p. 205]. Dworkin argues that such a constitutive justifi-

Statements from the Profession

responding speaker on the program challenges the main speaker’s position

alternatives). The stance itself includes a measure of accuracy if it is to be

know beforehand precisely which set of ideas or images, if published, would

Toward a Practical and Normative Ethics

An information-professional might correct you were you to state that Chicago is

who claims to be a professional) accept that it applies to all discourse.

prohibited, but it is secondary to people’s right to information that is as

web of intersubjective relations of mutual recognition by which these in-

The derivation of a formal, consistent, agreed-upon practical and nor-

giving be public in order that it may be mutually justifiable. The principle

It is by such an approach that we, as a profession, can arrive at a fully

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