In-person event: The Actuary and the Ethics of Communication

The Actuary and the Ethics of Communication

The Society’s Code of Conduct requires that “Members must communicate appropriately”. In this session we explore this requirement from two viewpoints:

• Communicating with the Public:

It is argued that experts have an inherent duty to warn the public of impending risks and our commitment to public service supports this view. The question however is how far does this responsibility go i.e. on which matters should we, as individuals and a group, choose to communicate with the public and by what means?

• Communicating with direct users of our services: 

Sometimes our need to demonstrate our expertise could lead us to be accused of exhibiting “intellectually arrogant” behaviours in our communications. We will examine what is meant by intellectually arrogant behaviours and the harm that these behaviours can present.