Abstract

Recent years have led to a nearly unchecked proliferation of the instrument of deontological regulation. This has brought about a progressive alteration of the original model of deontology - 'behavioural' - which, without relying on cogent written rules, frames and determines behaviour that the professional sphere and users or clients consider morally sage and balanced from the sociological standpoint. With respect to such model, ever increasingly more an 'instrumental' model of deontology is catching on that consists of codes of self-regulation, the structure of which ends up more and more by overlapping the disciplinary (when not penal) sphere and the function of which often coincides with the need to promote vis-à-vis the public organizational criteria purely within the structure (whether public or private).