Polling carried out by Populus on behalf of the Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues explored public attitudes on professions and morals. As part of the survey of over 2,000 UK adults, respondents were asked to select and rank the top three from the following professions for which they feel it is most important to be a morally good person. The results are shown in the table below:
Profession
|
Most Important
|
Top 3 Most Important
|
|
Doctor
|
41% |
77% |
|
Politician
|
20% |
41% |
|
Teacher
|
16% |
60% |
|
Nurse
|
8% |
38% |
|
Lawyer
|
7% |
33% |
|
Military
|
5% |
21% |
|
Business/Finance
|
2% |
10% |
|
Dentist
|
1% |
11% |
|
Journalist
|
1% |
8% |
More than two-fifths of respondents (41%) believe that it is most important for doctors to be a morally good person, followed by politicians (20% most important) and teachers (16%).
Nearly four-fifths (77%) put doctors in their top three professions for being a morally good person, followed by teachers (60%), politicians (41%) and nurses (38%).
Professor James Arthur and Professor Kristján Kristjánsson wrote an article in the Birmingham Brief titled ‘We want our political leaders to display good character – but what does it mean?’ where they discuss these findings.