This jointly authored paper rethinks social ethics for social work by offering an advanced theoretical analysis to demonstrate the paucity of deontological codes in relation to professional judgement and caring relationships. As a landmark intervention, it provides new ways of thinking about social work values, provoking widespread debate and citation in leading international journals as well as being incorporated into textbooks on ethics. It has become required reading on social work programmes internationally: Carleton University, Ottawa; Universities of North Carolina and Arkansas; SPSW University, Taiwan. The China Academy of Humanities and Social Sciences translated the paper for its library.