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

Design Problem Ethical Problem

Construct a prototype that optimizes (or satisfices) designated specifications

Construct a solution that realizes ethical values (justice, responsibility, reasonableness, respect, and safety)

Conflicts between specifications are resolved through integration of specifications

Resolve conflicts between values (moral vs. moral or moral vs. non-moral) by integration

Prototype must be implemented over background constraints

Implement solution over resource, technical, and interest constraints

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:

1. Problem Specification

2. Solution Generation

3. Solution Testing

4. 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

1. Identify key components of the STSPart/Level of Analysis

Hardware Software Physical Surround-ings

Stakeholders (People, Groups, and Roles)

Procedures Laws Information Collection and Storage Structures

Individual

Group

Organization

Institution

Identify parts that embody valuesHardware Software Physical

Surround-ings

Stakeholders (People, Groups, and Roles)

Procedures Laws Information Collection and Storage Structures

Justice

Responsibility

Respect

Trust

Integrity

Financial

Environment Integrity

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 / Solution Strategy

Disagreement Value Conflict Situational Constraints

Factual Conceptual Integrate? Tradeoff? Resource?Technical?Interest?

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.

Refined Solution ListAlternatives / Criteria

Responsiveness to Problem

Global Ethical Test Global Feasibility

Alternative 1

Alternative 2

Alternative 3

Generic Solutions (For every occasion)

• Gather more information

• Nolo Contendere

• 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?

Solution Evaluation MatrixAlternative / Test Reversibility Harm / Benefits Publicity (Values

Test)Code (Corporate or Professional Code of Ethics)

Will it Work? (Feasibility)

Alternative 1

Alternative 2

Alternative 3

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?

Feasibility MatrixAlternative/ Constraint

Resource Interest Technical

Time Cost Individual Organizational Legal Available Technology

Manufacturability

Alternative 1

Alternative 2

Alternative 3

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.

Flow Charts

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Flow Charts

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