In order to dig deep into any ethical topic, it is a priority to define ethics. According to Mariam-Webster dictionary, ethics can be defined as “rules based on ideas about what is morally good and bad”, therefor, whenever we are talking about ethics, we are addressing a person’s behavior. Since behaviors can be observed and analyzed, unlike thoughts, we can identify ethical and unethical situations. James M. Johnston, in his book Radical Behaviorism for ABA Practitioners, describes ethics as behavioral does accepted by the community (2014). For James M. Johnston, the community writes laws, but that doesn’t mean if a certain behavior is not mentioned in law that it would be an unethical behavior. For instance, exploiting children is considered …show more content…
An example is the Behavior Analyst Certification Board (BACB) founded in 1990 as a state certification and in 2000 as an international certification. Certified behavior analysts, should follow the BACB ethical codes of behavior. “ These codes provide guidelines for association members to consider when deciding a course of action or conducting their professional duties” (Heron, Cooper, & Heward, 2007). In addition of the BACB ethical codes, the applied behavior analyst has to follow the rules within the environment he is working in. For example, the rules that the school puts on the practitioner are different than the ones put by another community. The school has a time-table/school schedule that the specialist has to follow different than the one set by another community. For an ABA practitioner it is highly important to distinguish between legal and ethical. As stated previously, legal doesn’t make it ethical. For example it is legal to be engaged in consensual sexual relations with a client over the age of 18, there is no governmental law that would prevent an ABA specialist from doing so, but it remains unethical to do so and that’s what stops him from performing such act. To make sure that such acts – the example stated before- doesn’t occur, the BACB’s “Professional and Ethical Compliance Code for Behavior Analysts” stated clearly in section 1.07: “Behavior analysts do not engage in sexual relationships with clients, students, or supervisees, because such relationships easily impair judgment or become exploitive”(BACB,