When Rules Are Not Enough: Developing Principles to Guide Ethical Conduct

Currently, certified behavior analysts are required to adhere to the ethical rules established by the Behavior Analyst Certification Board® (BACB®) known as the Professional and Ethical Compliance Code for Behavior Analysts (BACB, 2014; hereafter referred to as the BACB Code). Applying these rules without context, however, can result in an overly simplified and mechanistic approach to ethical problem solving. Ethical rules that lack guiding principles may also pose dissemination challenges for behavior analysts tasked with communicating the field’s ethical ideals to nonbehavioral colleagues and stakeholders. This article describes the process that our applied behavior analysis organization used to develop a set of guiding ethical principles to supplement the BACB Code. These principles guide our members’ ethical decision making and assist them in disseminating our organization’s ideals. Following a description of the principle development process, we present our organization’s ethical principles and discuss how behavior analysts can use them to make clinical and ethical decisions, and address dissemination challenges.