A City of Professions. Jordi Ludevid Anglada
of a group and to devoting themselves to a certain practical knowledge, considered necessary for society based on a decision of the State.
The orientation of the Napoleonic university was one of two basic strategic directions among the nascent modern European universities. Its original objective was practical knowledge: to train the professionals needed by society needed. This stood in contrast to the option proposed by Humboldt in Germany, which was much more oriented towards training scientists and humanists. The Napoleonic schools thus began to grant licences for the legitimate exercise of the professions that had been recognised by society. Thus, the universities offered «certification», with schools staffed by «professors» – professionals who were trained to teach – not necessarily «masters» (the former magistri, dedicated to research and the cultivation of knowledge). New structures, entirely dedicated to study and research, were created for those who wished to devote themselves to scientific research, and only eventually to teaching.
This approach had a very direct impact on the new societies of southern Europe and contributed to solving the new practical problems of a nation state that had become a unified political space populated by citizens with equal rights, decisively influencing the world of the professions and its future in Spain to this day.
Max Weber
Following the beginning of the industrialisation process with the expansion of capitalism, the next significant milestone was set by the German Calvinist sociologist Max Weber (1864-1920). Considered one of the founders of modern sociology, along with Karl Marx and Émile Durkheim, in his classic work The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, the sociologist and historian defines the term profession [Beruf] as follows: «the continuous activity of man on the basis of the division of labor, which is normally his source of income and thus a permanent economic living.»
This is, of course, a classic definition, which has survived to the present day – i.e., for more than a century. It was formulated at a time when, sociologically, the number of professionals was increasing considerably, and they were playing a new and significant role in the nation state and in the nascent industrial economy required by the new capitalism.
Weber’s definition emphasises two of the basic characteristics of the professions: their individual character and their economic dimension, and it does so within the framework of a defence of the close relationship he postulates between Protestantism and capitalism. The professions are seen as a means of subsistence for a growing number of individuals, which makes them an «individual instrument» for earning money, thus highlighting the autonomy of the subject, an aspect characteristic of the then nascent modernity. Max Weber’s Calvinism sees professional activities as the path to a person’s salvation or damnation. If he succeeds professionally, he is saved; if he fails, he is damned.
However, as some authors point out, today, this approach is limited and even outdated because it ignores the aims and the social activity of the professions, which are no longer elitist. That approach was still coherent in the early 20th century, but it has become totally inadequate at the beginning of the 21st.
Mention should also be made of the work of Émile Durkheim, an important French sociologist who provides a fundamental and complementary link when it comes to interpreting and describing the expansion and social impact of the professions in European countries and their role in social cohesion.
The 21st Century
Civic Ethics
The changes that took place over the course of the second half of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st are dizzying. Important new circumstances appeared on the horizon. Professional demography exploded and became more feminised, specialised and digitalised. That is no small thing. Moreover, culturally, the public sphere is no longer exclusively political, a fact that has affected the professions and their institutions. And the extraordinary massification of the professions has made it clear that they are no longer dominated by «the old or new elites»; they are no longer «aristocracy», but «democracy».
The spread of knowledge and the process of its specialisation, which were unrelenting during the 20th century, have generated a much larger workforce in the professions and services. The new key elements for all professions include feminisation – with women gaining widespread access, the exacerbation and «triumph of the markets», the global population explosion, the digital transition and the network society, the intense and chaotic urbanisation of the planet, and the global ecological crisis, together with the growing difficulties associated with civic responsibility and citizenship.
Moreover, in parallel, as Emilio Martínez Navarro aptly explains it, today, as a multitude of social activities have acquired the characteristics of a profession, the old distinction between professions and trades has been blurring and losing its meaning. The term profession now designates virtually any occupation or task, and there has been a progressive loss of the traditional privileges associated with some professions. At the same time, certain trades are demanding to be considered professions. This process of loss of privileges and progressive equalisation in the consideration of social activities is fully consistent with the principles of the liberal revolutions, which put an end to the regimes of absolute monarchy. In modern societies, all citizens have the same fundamental rights and obligations, and it is therefore unacceptable for certain groups to enjoy privileges that others cannot access.18
It is in this completely new context that the philosopher and professor of philosophy Adela Cortina19 offers four contemporary clarifications on Max Weber’s now dated definition:
1. A profession is not only a «source of income», i.e., a subjective end; rather, the profession has a purpose in itself, the achievement of which is what gives it meaning and social legitimacy. In consequence, society can require its fulfilment and demand its quality.
2. A profession, in addition to being an individual activity, is a collective activity, uniting a professional community that has shared goals and uses a common language, with similar methods and its own ethos. In other words, just as there is a personal ethos (‘character, way of being’), there is also a professional ethos of the profession. Architects know a thing or two about this...
3. Therefore, «entering a particular profession and professional community gives the professional a particular identity and generates a particular sense of belonging». In that sense, a profession is way for civil society to assert itself vis-à-vis political power, but it is also a way for public space to assert itself vis-à-vis other spaces, such as economic or religious space.20
4. Ultimately, Adela Cortina proposes a much more integrative definition: «A profession is a cooperative social activity, the internal goal of which is to provide society with a specific good that is indispensable for its survival as a human society, and which requires the joint efforts of the community of professionals who are identified as such in the eyes of society.»
It could not be expressed any better. Based on this contemporary and updated definition, although it is little known and disseminated, the meaning of a profession in our times can become clear, as well as its social relevance. A profession seeks to achieve a good or purpose; its mission is essential and decisive to social life; it is not expendable. Its practice requires the accumulation of knowledge and the cultivation of habits, skills or excellence on the part of the subject and the action being performed. Finally, professional activity is not an isolated individual activity but a communal, cooperative one, which gives it its own identity and character.
That said, there is something else that significantly defines the contemporary nature of the professions. For the Spanish philosophers Victoria Camps and Adela Cortina, pioneers in this reflection, there is no possible dichotomy between civic ethics and professional ethics, since «civic ethics are now the obligatory moral framework for professional ethics». Both authors argue that the content of these ethics are human rights, formulated during their historical development in the 20th century, and from which a set of fairly universal values have been derived, representing the substance of human rights: such as freedom, equality, tolerance, dialogue and solidarity. Moreover, it is worth recalling that in the «welfare state» of the past century some basic needs became civil rights, what are called «second-generation human rights».
Thus,