Instructions

This week for your discussion board postings you will deliberate with your team members over the sets of questions posed within your selected ethics case and Santa Clara University’s “A Framework for Ethical Decision Making” (listed below). As your group’s discussion board settings are set to private, only your team and instructor can view the discussion. Thus, you should seek to examine the circumstances, the stakeholders, the alternatives, the implications and ethics associated with those alternatives, candidly and substantively as you approach a conclusion to the issue(s) under scrutiny. If you believe there are questions not posed or complications not presented within the case or framework, certainly include those in your discussions.

Because your posts will consist of a series of questions and answers, points and counterpoints, this process will unfold in a somewhat chaotic manner, as it should. Following this deliberative process, however, your goal should be to systematically present your fully-developed ideas in formal memo format (please see the instructions for specifics), with all team members represented by some task associated with the final product.

A Framework for Ethical Decision Making

Recognize an Ethical Issue

1. Could this decision or situation be damaging to someone or to some group? Does this decision involve a choice between a good and bad alternative, or perhaps between two “goods” or between two “bads”?
2. Is this issue about more than what is legal or what is most efficient? If so, how?

Get the Facts

3. What are the relevant facts of the case? What facts are not known? Can I learn more about the situation? Do I know enough to make a decision?
4. What individuals and groups have an important stake in the outcome? Are some concerns more important?

Why?

5. What are the options for acting? Have all the relevant persons and groups been consulted? Have I identified creative options?

Evaluate Alternative Actions

6. Evaluate the options by asking the following questions:

• Which option will produce the most good and do the least harm? (The Utilitarian Approach)
• Which option best respects the rights of all who have a stake? (The Rights Approach)
• Which option treats people equally or proportionately? (The Justice Approach)
• Which option best serves the community as a whole, not just some members? (The Common Good Approach)
• Which option leads me to act as the sort of person I want to be? (The Virtue Approach)

Make a Decision and Test It

7. Considering all these approaches, which option best addresses the situation?

8. If I told someone I respect-or told a television audience-which option I have chosen, what would they say?

Act and Reflect on the Outcome

9. How can my decision be implemented with the greatest care and attention to the concerns of all stakeholders?
10. How did my decision turn out and what have I learned from this specific situation?

(This framework for thinking ethically is the product of dialogue and debate at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University. Primary contributors include Manuel Velasquez, Dennis Moberg, Michael J. Meyer, Thomas Shanks, Margaret R. McLean, David DeCosse, Claire André, and Kirk O. Hanson. It was last revised in May 2009. https://www.scu.edu/ethics/ethics-resources/ethical-decision-making/a-framework-for-ethical-decision-making/)