The Ethics of Advising

Advising is a common way in which we try to help others, but there is no doubt that it can be fraught and even risky. Advice can provoke complex and sometimes baffling responses, from gratitude or polite indifference through to vociferous resentment. As friends, family and professional advisors, we can worry over what advice to give, unsure of what duty requires. Beneath these familiar concerns and everyday responses sit complex ethical judgements, but to date, they have rarely been the subject of philosophical investigation. The Ethics of Advising is the first book-length examination of the many roles that advice and advising play in our relationships and our moral lives. Drawing on the wide range of responses that advice receives, Monique Jonas presents a unified illocutionary and ethical account of advice grounded in its character as a form of help with practical reasoning. At its heart is a new account of five norms of advice. Jonas explores how these norms apply to advice we give in our personal and professional lives and how they mediate our responses to advice and the people who give it. Ethical questions concerning power, manipulation, responsibility, and how responsive advice should be to an advisee's goals, preferences, and values are examined, drawing on empirical evidence and a wide range of scholarship. The result is a practically grounded theory of the ethics of advising, which can be applied in advising friends, family and strangers as well as in professional contexts such as law, healthcare, financial services, and policy advice.