Virtue ethics and social Work 1017 The relevance of virtue to ethics in social work Historically, virtue ethics rooted in an account of how a citizen stood to the greek city-state was pre-eminently a theory of the relation between individual character morality and public life. The relevance of such an approach to todays society may rest on the question of how right moral relations can exist between state agencies and clients in terms of the character or 'excellences' of the worker the nature of the organization, and the response of the client. This stands in contrast to the current trend in public agencies, and especially in social services departments(SSD)to engage in defensive decision making. This is a culture of departmental 'battening down of the hatches by doing the least risky option that can be thoroughly accounted for in terms of laid-down procedures and/or deflecting criticism by announcing changes to a purportedly inadequate system. Senior managers have confirmed to us the beyond the UK, certainly to Canada. In British Columbia when Matthew Vaudrieul died, the Gove Inquiry was under enormous pressure to do something in the face of the ensuing scandal. To this end they grabbed at a set of Alaskan risk assessment ocedures that an academic advisor had come across and said was good, and ther posed it upon Canadian professionals irrespective of its efficacy. Thus the right thing was seen to be done, that is inquiry and change to procedures, and most importantly the political pressure was relieved(Craddock, 2001). This may sound familiar In the UK the same political logic is inevitably at work when child protec- tion failures occur, that is to defuse the problem for the authority first. This can lead e bad procedures being put in place as thenever again lobby in association with get up a head of steam. At this point any alternative procedures must be better than the existing ones, and there is no time for careful critical scrutiny. Improvement of work is often cast in terms of updated procedures Their strict application will have positive effect, it is claimed, if workers are adequately supervised. As an aside, Martin Davies and others have suggested that social work is about maintaining societys interests in society; rather it might seem first of all to be about containing sub-system crises However, our point is that the realization of the good society where it connects to social work is too often reduced to a re-negotiation of procedure irrespective of circumstance and human qualities. The Canadian example points up how both Kan- tian and utilitarian forms of reason can be corrupt if applied by persons lacking good will and a broad conception of good life. Politics tells us to act every time to minim ize political costs. If our only context was the SSD then such a course of action would be procedurally right as well as goal maximizing. However, would it be right to live a life and live in a world that is so systemically defensive in character? There would be little room here for the rather dated sounding idea of use of self and by the same token, for the application of a virtue ethics emanating from immanent qualities of persons. Thus our question: can we escape the confines of a Kantian or utilitarian cage of morality by offering a less automated and functional account of the moral conduct of public bodies in terms of the'virtuesof the citizen-worker inVirtue Ethics and Social Work 1017 The relevance of virtue to ethics in social work Historically, virtue ethics rooted in an account of how a citizen stood to the Greek city-state was pre-eminently a theory of the relation between individual character, morality and public life. The relevance of such an approach to today’s society may rest on the question of how right moral relations can exist between state agencies and clients in terms of the character or ‘excellences’ of the worker, the nature of the organization, and the response of the client. This stands in contrast to the current trend in public agencies, and especially in social services departments (SSD) to engage in defensive decision making. This is a culture of departmental ‘battening down of the hatches’ by doing the least risky option that can be thoroughly accounted for in terms of laid-down procedures and/or deflecting criticism by announcing changes to a purportedly inadequate ‘system’. Senior managers have confirmed to us the presence of this strategy and there is evidence that this extends beyond the UK, certainly to Canada. In British Columbia when Matthew Vaudrieul died, the Gove Inquiry was under enormous pressure to do something in the face of the ensuing scandal. To this end they grabbed at a set of Alaskan risk assessment procedures that an academic advisor had come across and said was good, and then imposed it upon Canadian professionals irrespective of its efficacy. Thus the right thing was seen to be done, that is inquiry and change to procedures, and most importantly the political pressure was relieved (Craddock, 2001). This may sound familiar. In the UK the same political logic is inevitably at work when child protec￾tion failures occur, that is to defuse the problemfor the authority first. This can lead to bad procedures being put in place as the ‘never again’ lobby in association with the ‘where’s the report’ lobbies get up a head of steam. At this point any alternative procedures must be better than the existing ones, and there is no time for careful critical scrutiny. Improvement of work is often cast in terms of updated procedures. Their strict application will have positive effect, it is claimed, if workers are adequately supervised. As an aside, Martin Davies and others have suggested that social work is about maintaining society’s interests in society; rather it might seem first of all to be about containing sub-systemcrises. However, our point is that the realization of the good society where it connects to social work is too often reduced to a re-negotiation of procedure irrespective of circumstance and human qualities. The Canadian example points up how both Kan￾tian and utilitarian forms of reason can be corrupt if applied by persons lacking good will and a broad conception of good life. Politics tells us to act every time to minim￾ize political costs. If our only context was the SSD then such a course of action would be procedurally right as well as goal maximizing. However, would it be right to live a life and live in a world that is so systemically defensive in character? There would be little roomhere for the rather dated sounding idea of ‘use of self ’, and, by the same token, for the application of a virtue ethics emanating from immanent qualities of persons. Thus our question: can we escape the confines of a Kantian or utilitarian cage of morality by offering a less automated and functional account of the moral conduct of public bodies in terms of the ‘virtues’ of the citizen-worker in