Ethical decision-making

Let’s start this chapter with a small thought experiment. Imagine the following scenario:

Charles is my close friend. We live together in the dormitories and work together on the same project under the same supervisor. We both have too many study responsibilities and don't have time to write our bachelor's thesis. I decided to extend my studies, but Charles finally submitted his thesis.

It's the beginning of January, and Charles has three weeks left until the final state exam. After Christmas, we saw each other for the first time, and Karel made a remark that he would never have finished the thesis without the significant help of a specialised company. What should I do?

1. I will report it to the supervisor
2. I will talk to Charles and try to convince him to withdraw the work
3. I don't deal with it
4. I will anonymously submit a complaint to the university ombudsperson

We can come up with good reasons for each of the potential outcomes. Similarly, we can come up with good reasons against each of the potential outcomes. Nonetheless, our goal now is not to discuss the pros and cons of each particular outcome but to investigate the process which led you to your decision. How did you make your decision, and why did you make that choice?

We already examined the ethical paradigms. The deontological approach would command us to seek authority to learn what we are expected to do. The consequentialist approach would lead us to meticulously consider the consequences of each potential outcome for all stakeholders, evaluating the harms and benefits of each situation and comparing them with each other.

We occasionally find ourselves in a situation requiring a tough decision. How can we ensure our decision is right in the broadest sense of the word? Ethics as a science - part of philosophy - can equip us with basic principles and theoretical foundations. Nonetheless, to apply these principles in practice, we need a more hands-on approach and to consider findings from psychology, sociology, and behavioural ethics. Numerous scientific studies have examined how people make their decisions and what circumstances lead to more ethical choices. Several authors have transformed these findings into various forms - guidelines, questionnaires, checklists, etc. Let’s take a closer look at some of these checklists.

Checklists for Ethical Decision-Making

This section will examine several checklists (or frameworks) for ethical decision-making. Kidder’s ethical checkpoints are general and help solve everyday moral dilemmas. Then we look at four quadrants of bioethics, Twelve questions from Laur Nash for managers, a Seven-step path to better decisions from Josephson Institute for Ethics, and a CHEAP framework designed for computer science teaching assistants.

Kidders Ethical Checkpoints

Coined by Rushworth Kidder in his book How Good People Make Tough Choices: Resolving the Dilemmas of Ethical Living (Kidder, 1996)

Nine checkpoints for ethical decision-making:

1.  Recognize a moral issue: This step is critical. Requires acknowledgement of a problem and, identification of issues needing attention and separating the ethical problems from social conventions (different does not necessarily mean wrong) or personal preferences.

2.  Determine the actor: Whose moral dilemma is it? Who is responsible or morally obligated to solve the problem? 

3.  Gather the relevant facts and distinguish facts from assumptions. Only a good understanding of facts can ensure that the right decision is made. Note that context matters a lot in ethical reasoning. Try to gather as many details as possible, but only the relevant information. Gather the whole story - what happened, how it happened, what else might have happened. What are the potential outcomes? List the possible options.

Now that we have the list of options, we can test each of them.

4.  Test for right vs. wrong issues. Kidder suggests four tests to recognise whether an action is right or wrong, i.e., to distinguish between ethical dilemmas and moral temptations.

• The legal test involves answering one question: Is it legal, or is lawbreaking involved?

• The stench test: Does it smell? I.e., is it against your moral principles? Listening to your gut means following your internal moral code.

• The front page test: What if everyone, including your family and friends, suddenly learns what happened? How would you feel? Would it be OK? This test reflects your social mores.

• The mum test: Would my mum (or any other moral exemplar) do it? Or, what would she think? Looking at the issue from the perspective of a valuable person, a moral authority may be helpful and may reveal some downsides of an action.

5.  Test for right vs. right paradigms. Most moral dilemmas require hesitation between two or more positive values in conflict. Typical conflicting values are:

• Truth versus loyalty: Recall the initial dilemma of this chapter. The truth and general moral obligations command us to report the case, but our personal relationships and loyalty to the friend command us not to. In other cases, this may be loyalty to our employer, association, or ideology.

• Short-term versus long-term. Solving an urgent, immediate need may conflict with our long-term goals.

• Justice versus mercy. Justice means promoting fairness, sticking to the principles, and obeying the rules at any cost. Mercy involves consideration of personal situations, benevolence and caring for someone’s needs.

• Individual versus community. Sometimes, the needs of an individual conflict with a need for community.

6.  Apply the resolution principles. Select the ethical paradigm that is most relevant and persuasive to the issue. It might be utilitarian or ends-based, requiring evaluation of consequences and aiming for the greatest good and minimal harm. Or it might be deontological or rules-based. A typical rule is Kant’s categorical imperative: Do what you want everyone else in this situation to do. Or, it may be care-based, i.e., depending on your emotions and “gut feeling”. The golden rule also applies here: Treat others like you want others to treat you.

7.  Investigate the “trilemma” option. Can you escape the dilemma? Try to think out of the box. Is there another option that you haven’t considered before? Can we reach a win-win situation? This may be either a compromise or a completely different option.; 

8.  Make the decision and take the action. Analysis and theory are completely different from action in practice. Acting often requires courage. Many people tend to think and talk about the problem but never act.

9.  Revisit and reflect on the decision. Each tough decision is also an opportunity to learn and take lessons.  After some time, it is helpful to revisit the decision, judge the circumstances that were not known at the time of action, and try to answer the question: Would I do the same?

Why ethical people make wrong decisions

Even though the frameworks described above are helpful, they are based on the assumption that we can gather sufficient information, get all relevant data and objectively consider the consequences of all potential outcomes. Unfortunately, this is very rarely the case. Drumwright et al. (2015) have summarised the findings from behavioural ethics and moral psychology in the context of teaching ethical decision-making. The paper provides an overview of foundational assumptions, cognitive errors, social and organisational pressures and situational factors that may lead even honest people to unethical decisions.

The foundational assumptions, according to Drumwright et al. (2015), are:

• People make most of their decisions instinctively rather than rationally.

• People tend to believe that they are leading ethical lives while doing things that ethical people would not do.

• Cognitive limitations, social and organisational pressures, and situational factors make it hard for even the most well-intentioned people to act as ethically as they would like.

This does not mean that the frameworks described above are wrong. They are basically right, but people have to understand factors that can destroy their ethical decision-making. These factors include cognitive errors, social and organisational factors and situational factors.

Cognitive errors

Probably one of the most important cognitive errors is incrementalism, also known as a slippery slope, which is often described by a metaphor of a boiling frog. The metaphor presumes that if you put a frog suddenly into boiling water, it will jump out to save its life. Nevertheless, if you put the frog into cold water and heat the water gradually, the frog does not notice the danger and will be cooked to death. Even though the underlying legend is probably false (ref? some sources from Wikipedia?), the mechanism of the slippery slope is well described in scientific literature and justified by evidence. People tend not to notice a gradual change. Cutting ethical corners, which gradually get larger and larger, may lead first to small violations, which one may rationalise as inevitable, but gradually grow to large misconduct, which, if happened suddenly, would be immediately noticed.

Another cognitive error is self-serving bias. People tend to gather and process information in a way that serves them. They usually judge their own ethical violations more leniently compared to the violations of other people.

People also tend to prefer immediate tangible factors, especially quantifiable ones, over abstract factors. Given the initial dilemma, losing a present friend is more tangible than abstract factors like upholding academic integrity and compliance with fundamental ethical values. Therefore, while many people would report an anonymous, unknown person for such a violation, significantly fewer people would report their friend.

Another interesting factor is loss aversion. People are generally more afraid of losing something they already have than not gaining something they don’t have yet. This means that in order to avoid loss, people may be willing to resort to more unethical actions than to gain something.

Different framing and biased descriptions of a situation are also factors that can influence one’s decision-making. Factors like meeting production goals, feeding their families, etc., play significant roles in one’s rationalisation process.

The last (but definitely not least) cognitive error is overconfidence. Most people believe that they are more intelligent than the average person. Most people also believe that they are more ethical than others. The overconfidence also applies to specific skills. Most drivers think they are more skilled and drive more safely than the average driver. Most managers think they are better than the average manager, etc. (REFERENCES TO EACH CLAIM)

Social and organisational pressures

Obedience to authority and influence of peers are generally good, but if a superior acts unethically, compliance with such requests may lead to rule violations.

Situational factors

Everybody knows the tricks of salesmen: This special offer is valid only today; you either buy it now or pay more. The aim of such a limited offer is to create time pressure, which distorts the perception of reality and persuades people to use the special offer even though it is not special at all. Under normal circumstances, people would probably not buy that product. Applied to ethics, people are more likely to make an unethical decision when they are under time pressure.

The same applies to fatigue, hunger, and other factors that make someone feel uncomfortable. The research shows that people tend to act less ethically when they are tired.

The overall setting of the environment also influences decision-making. Some studies showed that people act more ethically in a clean room than in a dirty one. TODO: more examples, references

Importance of ethics education

There is evidence that including behavioural ethics in curricula can positively impact the graduates' ethical decision-making (SOURCE Prentice). For example, in the context of business education, focusing only on financial considerations leads to less ethical decisions. As soon as students understand how ethical decision-making works and what happens in their minds when thinking about a difficult situation, they become more resistant to cognitive errors, can recognise harmful social and organisational pressures and avoid situational factors known to lead to worse decisions.

The main messages of this chapter are:

• Acknowledge that your decision-making is rather intuitive than rational

• When facing a morally difficult situation, try to gather as much information as possible. Context matters a lot in ethics.

• Learn how to look at a situation from a bird's view - how to value conflicting values, how to consider right versus wrong and right versus right.

• Beware of cognitive errors, social and organisational pressures and situational factors that may influence your decision-making.

• Don’t be afraid to discuss moral dilemmas with someone you trust

• Try to think out of the box. There are often solutions that are not apparent at first sight.