2.4 Three frameworks for ethical problem-solving in business and  (Page 6/10)

Refining solutions

• Are any solutions blatantly unethical or unrealizable?
• Do any solutions overlap? Can these be integrated into broader solutions?
• Can solutions be brought together as courses of action that can be pursued simultaneously?
• Go back to the problem specification? Can any solutions be eliminated because they do not address the problem? (Or can the problem be revised to better fit what, intuitively, is a good solution.)
• Can solutions be brought together as successive courses of action? For example, one solution represents Plan A; if it does not work then another solution, Plan B, can be pursued. (You negotiate the problem with your supervisor. If she fails to agree, then you oppose your supervisor on the grounds that her position is wrong. If this fails, you conform or exit.)
• The goal here is to reduce the solution list to something manageable, say, a best, a second best, and a third best. Try adding a bad solution to heighten strategic points of comparison. The list should be short so that the remaining solutions can be intensively examined as to their ethics and feasibility.

Solution testing: the solutions developed in the second stageMust be tested in various ways.

1. Reversibility : Would I still think the choice of this option good if I were one of those adversely affected by it? (Davis uses this formulation in various publications.) I identify different stakeholders and then take up their roles. Through this imaginative projection, I should consider how the action under consideration will affect them and how they will view, interpret, and experience this affect.
2. Harm : Does this option do less harm than any available alternative? Here I try to design an action that will minimize harmful effects. I should factor in the likely results of the action under consideration but I should also evaluate how justly these results will be distributed among stakeholders.
3. Publicity : What kind of person will I become if I choose this action? This is Davis' formulation of this test as a virtue test. The key to this test is that you associate the agent with the action. If I (the agent) am publicly judged as a person in terms of this action, what does this say about me as a person? Am I comfortable being judged an irresponsible person on the basis of my being identified with my irresponsible action?
4. Meta-Test - Convergence : Do a quick inventory here. Do the ethics tests come together and agree on ranking this solution as a strong one? Then this solution satisfies the convergence meta-test and this provides independent evidence of the strength of the solution.
5. Meta-Test - Divergence : Again, do a quick inventory of your solution evaluation matrix results to this point. Do the tests differ or diverge on this point? This is independent evidence of the weakness of this solution. Think about why this solution may be strong under one test but weak under the others.
6. The solution evaluation matrix presented just below models and summarizes the solution testing process.