Debriefing on Ethics Bowl

Dr. William J. Frey

Why I posed these two scenarios

• Responding to Wally’s Questions

• Concept: Confidentiality (What is it and what are its limits)

– Exploring Confidentiality (right/duty grounded in property)

– Difficulty with tension between protecting IP and disseminating IP

• Fred has to work with diplomatic skills but be ready to exercise moral courage

• A value consideration: – How can Fred develop a response that

balances reasonableness with responsibility? (To Chemitoil and Phaust)

• Wally’s dilemma

• Balancing environmental values with safety. All of this within flexible cost constraints.

• Go back to Mountain Terrorist Dilemma

– One way to respond is to reject Wally’s dilemma

– Recognizing a dilemma in two very different contexts

– Problem framing and specification

• Question rigorously whether, given strict financial constraints, we have to trade off safety and environmental security

Why I posed these two scenarios?

• Inkjet• Analogy between ethics and

design – solutions realize specifications

and respond to constraints

• Need to integrate ethics into design upstream

• Multiple framings/definitions of an ethical problem

• Therac• Making ethical decisions in

face of uncertainty– Uncertainty implies risk– Where does risk fall?

(Patients? Company? Manufacturer?)

• Issue of whistle-blowing• Best practices in resolving

ethical problems – forming interest groups to

exchange info and exert pressure

• Hager: a moral exemplar in action…

Inkjet

– Defining problem as carrying out social responsibility• Solution needs to respond to and integrate

social/employment problem with environmental problem• Realizing value within financial constraints• Develop an effective recycling program (advertise, set up

facility, solicit community/government support, “sell” solution to Board of Directors)

– Defining problem as developing a technical solution that realizes key ethical values

• Designing cartridges as recyclable• Designing new printers (laser technology)• Finding best practices in cartridge/ printer design or

developing new technologies• Feasibility? What do you do until you “discover” new

technology?

Therac

• Whistle-Blowing– Morally Permissible

• Clear and present danger• Notification of immediate supervisors• Exhaustion of internal channels

– Morally Obligatory (1-3 plus…)• Documented Evidence• Reasonable chance of success

• Consequences of Whistle-Blowing– Disrupts trust within an organization– Harms the whistle-blower– Justified as a last resort in the face of overwhelming evidence of

an impending serious and considerable harm

Outcomes

• Inkjet• Turning toward laser

technology• Outsourcing printers and

technology to other companies

• Finding new applications for inkjet technology (medicine)

• Therac• Hager worked carefully

with operator to recreate error sequence

• AECL sent representatives to Texas

• Went to FDA who required CAPs from AECL

• Notified patients and other operators

• Formed Therac user groups

What you did well

• You presented forcefully, courageously, and eloquently

• You responded to intensive criticism by practicing the virtue of perseverance

• Integrated broad moral considerations (integrity, responsibility, reversibility, whistle-blowing, patient safety/informed consent)

• You tested/debated Intermediate Moral Criteria– Safety, Confidentiality, Social Responsibility, Environmental

Integrity

• You practiced and realized reasonableness

Communication Gaps

• Intended Message

• How you interpreted the criteria and what you intended to communicate

– We gave an intelligible presentation

– We integrated ethical concerns

– We dealt with feasibility issues– We exercised moral

imagination and creativity

• Received Message

• What your opponents and peer review teams heard

– We had trouble following parts…

– We had trouble identifying the ethical considerations that guided your presentation

– Your solution strikes us as unrealistic

– You really didn’t understand our disagreement and the other team’s position

Responding to the Gap

• Treat it as a challenge, not as a criticism or put down

• If you said it and they didn’t hear it, then say it more carefully and say it again.– Tell us what you are going to say, say it, tell us what you said…

• Listen carefully to opponents and try to “negotiate” criteria– “What I heard you saying”– “Have you considered interpreting it as X as well as Y?”

• Use this as an opportunity to practice the skills and virtues of reasonableness

Some Best Practices• Intelligibility

– Tell us what you are going to say/do– Say/Do it– Summarize: Tell us what you have done

• Ethical Integration– Use the values and the tests

• Our solution is good because it is just• Our solution is reversible, minimizes harm, and stands up to the light of publicity

• Feasibility– Be proactive and anticipate an implementation problem (id resource, interest,

and technical constraints– Solve that problem

• Moral Imagination/Creativity– Somebody might disagree with our position. They might say the following…– Think out of the box on inkjet cartridges (using technology for something else)– Strength: projecting into standpoint of employees in PR town or patients in

Therac

Use the software development cycle

• 1. Problem Specification

• 2. Solution Generation

• 3. Solution Testing

• 4. Solution Implementation

• 1. Intelligibility and Moral Imagination (more than one perspective)

• 2. Moral Creativity

• 3. Ethical Integration (integrate by testing solutions)

• 4. Use the feasibility test to id latent problems: resource, interest, and technical constraints can block solution implementation

Be Prepared to Be Lucky…• Go to module, “Practical and Professional Ethics Bowl Activity:

Follow-Up In-Depth Case Analysis” m13759

• Start by filling out worksheets– STS, STS + Values– Develop a defensible problem statement plus other framings– Fill out a Solution Evaluation Matrix– Fill out a Feasibility Matrix

• Deepen your solution and arguments

• Start closing out you group activities for semester– Review goals– Identify some of the obstacles you encountered– Review and describe some of your best practices and cautionary tales

Final exam

• May 7: last class– Assessment of Frey and course modules

• May 11: 9:45, F329 Groups Carry Out Exercise Three, Team Work Module

• May 17: Turn in Group materials/final exam from 7:30 to 4:30

Areas for attention and improvement

• Right claim framework: essential, vulnerable, and feasible. (Connect to autonomy)

• Reversibility: Project yourself into the shoes of another (=stakeholder)– How does the action look from the receiving end?– Avoid extremes of too much (getting lost) and too little (no

sympathy)

• Keep working on values/virtues– Each virtue can be specified into mean between extremes of too

much and too little– Build virtues into ethics bowl debate. Our solution realizes X

values/virtues for Y and Z reasons.

What you need to focus on now• In depth case study analysis (Using STA to

formulate problems, brainstorming lists, SEM, and Feasibility)– Execute the software development cycle

• Respond to the feedback from the ethics bowl (and tell me in your self-evaluations)

• Review m13759 (Practical and Professional Ethics Bowl Activity: Follow-Up In-Depth Case Analysis)– Include the charts + verbal explanations– Process is as important as product. (Brainstorming

lists, refined lists, explanation of process)

What you need to focus on now

• Return to Ethics of Team Work Module (m13760) and carry out exercise three (final group self-evaluation)

• Review preliminary report– What did you change?– What did you learn?– What were your obstacles and how did you overcome them?

• Individual member evaluation forms– Each team member fills one out anonymously – Evaluate yourself and your team members

What you need to focus on now

• Case Summaries

• Concentrate on…– STS + Values table for STS of case– simple problem statement– Brainstorming list of solutions + refining– solution evaluation matrix– Feasibility matrix– Solution + Justification (ethics and feasibility)

What is important now

• Closing out the ethics bowl– Debating and reflecting on the challenges of

ethics advocacy– Peer Reviewing and how to instantiate the

virtue of reasonableness (active/critical listening)

• Building reactions into self-evaluation