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Learn to identify, analyze, and resolve ethical issues with a step-by-step toolkit for making moral decisions in the business context. Explore the rational choice method, issue management process, and problem-solving in computing.
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Decision Making Manual: A Toolkit for Making Moral Decisions William J. Frey (UPRM) José A. Cruz-Cruz (UPRM) Chuck Huff (St. Olaf)
Syllabus as Social Contract • Consent (free and informed) • Quid Pro Quo (mutually beneficial exchange) • Safe Exit • FIC (free and informed consent)—The right of a risk bearer to participate in the public decision as to the acceptability of that risk. Includes knowledge requirements and absence of compulsion.
Information • Name • Area of academic concentration • Reason for taking course • Best educational experience • Reading and listening in English
There is an analogy between design problems and ethical problems
Decision-Making in Business • Rational Choice Method: Textbook (Lawrence and Weber) • Issue Management Process (32) • Identify Issue • Analyze Issue • Generate Options • Take Action • Evaluate Results • Evaluating and ranking given results
Problem-solving in computing can be modeled on software design • The software development cycle can be presented in terms of four stages: • Problem Specification • Solution Generation • Solution Testing • Solution Implementation • Generate or create options that embody or realize ethical value or worth • We don’t find them, we make them
The Difference between choice and problem-solving? • In choice, one chooses among existing options by applying different frameworks such as ethical frameworks (Text 86) • Virtues: An action is ethical when it aligns with good character • Utilitarian: An action is ethical when net benefits exceed net costs • Rights: An action is ethical when basic human rights are respected • Justice: An action is ethical when benefits and costs are fairly distributed
Problem Solving • We do not find a solution but create one • We do not evaluate existing choices in terms of standards • Instead we use the standards to guide the imagination in brainstorming and designing solutions that respond concretely to the situation in question
Problem Solving Specifying the Problem
Prepare a Socio-Technical System (STS) table • “an intellectual tool to help us recognize patterns in the way technology is used and produced” • Components: Hardware, Software, Physical Surroundings, Stakeholders (people, groups, & roles), Procedures, Laws (Criminal Law, Civil Law, Statutes & Regulations), Information Systems (collecting, storing, transferring) • Other Components: Financial Markets, Rate Structure (Power Systems), Environment, Technological Context, Supply Chain • A STS is a system. The components are related and interact. • STSs embody values • Moral: Justice, Respect, Responsibility, Trust, Integrity • Non-Moral: Financial, Efficiency, Sustainability • STSs exhibit trajectories i.e., coordinated paths of change
Classify the problem: • Disagreement on Facts • Did the supervisor sexually harass the employee? (What happened—there are two different versions) • Disagreement on Concepts • Has the supervisor created a hostile environment? (Meaning of hostile environment?) • Conflicts • Conflict between moral values (Toysmart either honors property claims of creditors or privacy rights of customers) • Conflicts between moral and non-moral values (In order to get the chips to clients on time, LaRue has told the quality control team to skip environmental tests and falsify results) • A key value becomes vulnerable • Online activity has magnified the potential harms of cyberslander against companies like Biomatrix • Immediate, Midterm, or Remote Harms • Is it the case that Therac-25 patients are receiving radiation overdoses?
Table summarizing problem classification (With Generic Solutions)
Problem Solving Solution Generation
Solution Generation • Don’t fall into the dilemma trap • Assumption that all ethical problems in business offer only two solution forms: do the right thing financially or do the right thing ethically • Brainstorm • Do exercises to unlock creative thought • Start with an individual list • Share your list with others while suspending criticism • Once you have a preliminary list (set a quota) refine it • Eliminate solutions that are impractical • Combine solutions (one is part of another; one is plan A, the other plan B) • Test solutions globally and quickly to trim them down to a manageable list
Use more than one frame when generating solutions • How would an engineer specify the problem? • How would a lawyer specify the problem? • How would a manager characterize the problem? • How would a politician specify the problem? • How would a financial expert or economist specify the problem? • Try to integrate these different framings.
Generic Solutions (For every occasion) • Gather more information • NoloContendere • Be diplomatic. Negotiate with the different parties. Look for a “win-win” solution • Oppose. Stand up to authority. Organize opposition. Document and publicize the wrong • Exit (Get a transfer. Look for another job. Live to fight another time) • Organize these as plans A, B, C, etc. (Try one, then the other if the first doesn’t work.)
Solution Testing Reversibility, Harm/Benefits, Publicity
Test Solutions • Develop a solution evaluation matrix • Test the ethical implications of each solution • See if the solution violates the code • Carry out a global feasibility assessment of the solution. • What are the situational constraints? • Will these constraints block implementation?
Reversibility • Does the action still look good when viewed from the standpoint of key stakeholders? • Agent projects into standpoint of those targeted by the action and views it through their eyes • Avoid extremes of too little and too much identification with stakeholder (go beyond your egocentric standpoint but don’t become lost in the perspective of the other)
Harm / Benefits • What are the likely harms and benefits that will follow from the action under consideration? • What is their magnitude and range? • How are they distributed? • Which alternative produces the most benefits coupled with the least harms? • Avoid too much (trying to factor in all consequences) and too little (leaving out significant consequences)
Publicity Test • What are the values embedded in the action you are considering? • Is it responsible or irresponsible? Just or unfair? Respectful or disrespectful? • Would you want to be publically associated with this action given the values it embodies? • People would view you as responsible, just, or respectful; irresponsible, unjust (biased?), disrespectful
Code of Ethics Test • How does the action accord with your profession’s or company’s code of ethics? • How does the action accord with the key values professed by your company or profession?
Solution Implementation Will it work given the background constraints?
A Feasibility Test—Will it Work? • Restate your global feasibility analysis • Are there resource constraints? • Are these fixed or negotiable? • Are there technical or manufacturing constraints? • Are these fixed or negotiable? • Are there interest constraints? • Are these fixed or negotiable?
What if there are major constraints? • Try out what Westin calls the “intermediate impossible” (Practical Companion, 38) • Take your ethically, financially, technically ideal solution • Test its feasibility. If it is lacking… • Modify it as little as possible until it becomes feasible. Then implement the “intermediate impossible.”
Final Considerations • Has your problem shifted? • Check over your refined solution list and your final solution. Sometimes the process moves from one problem to another. If so, re-specify your problem given what you have learned. • Have you opened all possible doors to solving your problem? • Multiple framings. Resisting dilemma trap
Some Readings • Anthony Weston. (2002). A Practical Companion to Ethics: Second Edition. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. • Weston has several excellent suggestions for brainstorming solutions to ethical problems. He also discusses how to avoid the dilemma trap. • Good Computing. (Book under development through Jones and Bartlett) (Huff, Frey, Cruz) • The manuscript describes the four-stage software development cycle that is used as a model here for problem-solving. • Carolyn Whitbeck. (1998). Ethics in engineering practice and research. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. • Whitbeck provides an illuminating discussion of the analogy between ethics and design problems.
