Transcript Debriefing_Round_2

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
•
Wally’s dilemma
•
Balancing environmental values with
safety. All of this within flexible cost
constraints.
•
Go back to Mountain Terrorist
Dilemma
–
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)
–
–
•
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
• Received Message
• How you interpreted the
criteria and what you intended
to communicate
• What your opponents and peer
review teams heard
– We gave an intelligible
presentation
– We integrated ethical
concerns
– We dealt with feasibility issues
– We exercised moral
imagination and creativity
– 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
• 1. Intelligibility and Moral
Imagination (more than one
perspective)
• 3. Solution Testing
• 2. Moral Creativity
• 4. Solution Implementation
• 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