Action not associated with agent. The most
common pitfall is failure to associate the agent and the action.The action may have bad consequences and it may treat individuals
with respect but these points are not as important in the contextof this test as what they imply about the agent as a person who
deliberately performs such an action.
Failure to specify moral quality, virtue,
or value. Another pitfall is to associate the action and agent butonly ascribe a vague or ambiguous moral quality to the agent. To
say, for example, that willfully harming the public is bad fails tozero in on precisely what moral quality this ascribes to the agent.
Does it render him or her unjust, irresponsible, corrupt,dishonest, or unreasonable? The virtue list given above will helpto specify this moral quality.
Code of ethics test
Does the action hold paramount the health,
safety, and welfare of the public, i.e., those affected by theaction but not able to participate in its design or
execution?
Does the action maintain faithful agency
with the client by not abusing trust, avoiding conflicts ofinterest, and maintaining confidences?
Is the action consistent with the
reputation, honor, dignity, and integrity of the profession?
Does the action serve to maintain collegial
relations with professional peers?
Meta tests
The ethics and feasibility tests will not always converge on the same solution. There is a complicated answer for why this is the case but the simple version is that the tests do not always agree on a given solution because each test (and the ethical theory it encapsulates) covers a different domain or dimension of the action situation. Meta tests turn this disadvantage to your advantage by feeding the interaction between the tests on a given solution back into the evaluation of that solution.
When the ethics tests converge on a given
solution, this convergence is a sign of the strength and robustnessof the solution and counts in its favor.
When a given solution responds well to one
test but does poorly under another, this is a sign that thesolution needs further development and revision. It is not a sign
that one test is relevant while the others are not. Divergencebetween test results is a sign that the solution is weak.
Application exercise
You will now practice the four stages of decision making with a real world case. This case, Risk Assessment, came from a retreat on Business, Science, and Engineering Ethics held in Puerto Rico in December 1998. It was funded by the National Science Foundation, Grant SBR 9810253.
Risk assessment scenario
Case Scenario: You supervise a group of engineers working for a private laboratory with expertise in nuclear waste disposal and risk assessment. The DOE (Department of Energy) awarded a contract to your laboratory six years ago to do a risk assessment of various nuclear waste disposal sites. During the six years in which your team has been doing the study, new and more accurate calculations in risk assessment have become available. Your laboratory’s study, however, began with the older, simpler calculations and cannot integrate the newer without substantially delaying completion.
You, as the leader of the team, propose a delay to the DOE on the grounds that it is necessary to use the more advanced calculations. Your position is that the laboratory needs more time because of the extensive calculations required; you argue that your group must use state of the art science in doing its risk assessment. The DOE says you are using overly high standards of risk assessment to prolong the process, extend the contract, and get more money for your company. They want you to use simpler calculations and finish the project; if you are unwilling to do so, they plan to find another company that thinks differently. Meanwhile, back at the laboratory, your supervisor (a high level company manager) expresses to you the concern that while good science is important in an academic setting, this is the real world and the contract with the DOE is in jeopardy.What should you do?
Part one: problem specification
Specify the problem in the above scenario. Be as concise and specific as possible
Is your problem best specifiable as a disagreement? Between whom? Over what?
Can your problem be specified as a value conflict? What are the values in conflict? Are the moral, nonmoral, or both?
Part two: solution generation
Quickly and without analysis or criticism brainstorm 5 to ten solutions
Refine your solution list. Can solutions be eliminated? (On what basis?) Can solutions be combined? Can solutions be combined as plan a and plan b?
If you specified your problem as a disagreement, how do your solutions resolve the disagreement? Can you negotiate interests over positions? What if your plan of action doesn't work?
If you formulated your problem as a value conflict, how do your solutions resolve this conflict? By integrating the conflicting values? By partially realizing them through a value compromise? By trading one value off for another?
Part three: solution testing
Construct a solution evaluation matrix to compare two to three solution alternatives.
Choose a bad solution and then compare to it the two strongest solutions you have.
Be sure to avoid the pitfalls described above and set up each test carefully.
Part four: solution implementation
Develop an implementation plan for your best solution. This plan should anticipate obstacles and offer means for overcoming them.
Prepare a feasibility table outlining these issues using the table presented above.
Remember that each of these feasibility constraints is negotiable and therefore flexible. If you choose to set aside a feasibility constraint then you need to outline how you would negotiate the extension of that constraint.
Decision-making presentation
Clicking on this figure will allow you to open a presentation designed to introduce problem solving in ethics as analogous to that in design, summarize the concept of a socio-technical system, and provide an orientation in the four stages of problem solving. This presentation was given February 28, 2008 at UPRM for ADMI 6005 students, Special Topics in Research Ethics.
Problem solving presentation
Shortened presentation for fall 2012
Vigo socio-technical system table and problems
Decision making worksheet
This exercise is designed to give you practice with the three frameworks described in this module. It is based on the case, "When in Aguadilla."
