Commentary on the Ethical Worksheet
The issue
It is important for you to recognize that every problem has more
than one component, and that not every component involves an
ethical decision. Therefore, you must state, succinctly, the
ethical issue involved in the case and to make sure, in your
own minds, that you have not confused other elements of the problem
with the ethical component. For example, in a case involving
a decision to advertise a product in a certain way, you must
be able to separate the client's right to advertise from any
ethical question involved in the planned advertisement, and state
the issue in such a way that the ethical component is clear.
The question, or issue, may not be whether the client should
advertise, but whether the client should advertise in a particular
manner that might have ethical ramifications.
Relevant facts
Do not list all the facts, only for the facts that bear on the
ethical decision. For instance, while it may certainly be a fact
that a given newspaper employees 500 people, it may have no bearing
on its decision to run a story that potentially violates someone's
privacy.
You also need to recognize the realities of the two most important
factors of any decision made within the mass media industry.
Very often, economic or political factors are present which,
while typically amoral in nature, will probably have a direct
effect on the ethical decision-making process. What you do in
class only resembles what happens in the real world of media,
in that your decisions are made in an academic vacuum of sorts.
Nothing will happen to you or anyone else because of your classroom
decisions. However, in the real world, "doing the right thing"
may very well lead to severe economic consequences, and those
consequences must be seriously weighed. You must also be aware
that this weighing most often leads to compromise. The same is
true for political forces affecting a decision. While you may
not admit to political pressure, you must be aware of its almost
constant presence; and you must be prepared to deal with it and
to recognize how it will affect your decisions.
Back to Worksheet
Claimants
This is the first point at which ethical theory is applied. The
notion of moral claimants is tied both to consequential and non-consequential
theory. From a utilitarian perspective, for example, majority
interests must be considered, thus the majority claimants must
be recognized as a group. As Mill would have us consider the
rights of the minority as well—since he would limit that liberty
that severely affects the rights of others under his "harm principle"—that
minority must also be recognized. Duty-based theories (non-consequential)
such as Ross's also require us to be aware of all claimants potentially
affected by our decisions. His six prima facie duties allow you
not only to list claimants, but also to decide on who they are
by applying his six categories of obligation: fidelity/reparation,
gratitude, justice, beneficence, self-improvement, and non-injury.
For example, if, as a reporter, you are obligated by the duty
of fidelity to honor your implied contract with the public to
give them the news you want to read, that reading public must
be listed as a claimant on your decision. Likewise, if you are
obligated by the duty of non-injury to refrain from violating
a person's privacy, that person (perhaps the subject of your
story) must be listed as a claimant. At this point, conflicts
will begin to show up among your various claimants and your obligations
to them.
At this stage you must step into the shoes of the various claimants
and try to determine, honestly, what they would prefer you do
in this situation. One of the hardest tasks in ethical decision
making is this. Many philosophers say that to be able to see
a problem from anther's perspective is a great gift. The key
here is to try your hardest to see the problem from their perspectives.
Back to Worksheet
Options
It is extremely important to list at least three. As Aristotle
noted, there are always at least two, and these two often represent
the extremes. Nothing is ever either black or white, and you
must be forced to think in terms of compromise, even if that
compromise doesn't exactly conform with your personal notion
of what is the right thing to do. A true "Golden Mean" is not
simply a watered-down decision. It bears the marks of that internal
struggle already begun above, and is the result of hard thinking.
You must also be prepared to state where you would go if such
a compromise fails. It is not sufficient to state that you would
go to a source and ask permission before revealing that person's
name to a court of law. You must be prepared to drop back to
another option if the compromise option fails. It is also important
for you to realize which options may be most favored by which
parties. Although it is probably apparent by this time, putting
it down in writing serves to clarify the decision maker's position
and shows exactly where it conflicts with the preferences of
others involved in or affected by the decision.
Best- and worst-case scenarios
This is a great exercise for discovering whether or not you can
live with your decision. By visualizing the absolute best and
worst outcomes for each alternative, you will able to assess
the potential effects your decision may have on others. It is
important to with the possible (not necessarily probable) extremes
here since anything may be possible.
Harm
Likewise, it is vital to recognize what options will harm which
claimants. It is the rare case in which no harm will be done
by the carrying out of any option. By listing the options and
your concomitant harms, you are made to weigh the amount of potential
harm involved with each alternative and to understand that avoiding
harm is practically impossible. You might, as utilitarians suggest,
choose the option that will produce the least amount of harm.
Ideals versus options
The term ideals, as defined by Vincent Ryan Ruggiero, refers
to "a notion of excellence, a goal that is thought to bring about
greater harmony to ourselves and to others." For example, our
culture respects ideals such as tolerance, compassion, loyalty,
forgiveness, peace, justice, fairness, and respect for persons.
In addition to these human ideals are institutional or organizational
ideals, such as profit, efficiency, productivity, quality, and
stability. So, at this point, you are required to list those
ideals that apply to the various claimants.
Ideals often come in conflict with each other, much the same
way that the obligations already listed will conflict. You must
recognize these conflicts and be prepared to list ideals in the
order in which they should be honored. This calls for a serious
bout of internal struggling and may be the first time you are
forced to consider the ultimate direction your decision will
take. For example, if you choose to place the journalistic ideal
of providing information your audience wants over the societal
ideal of honoring privacy, you are well on the way to deciding
to run a story that may, in fact, violate someone's privacy.
Beginning here and continuing through the process, you are asked
to winnow your options. The first step is to compare your options
with the ideals of all concerned parties. For example, if you
have chosen to honor the journalistic obligation of providing
the kind of news your readers demand, then an option to withhold
a story that would be of vital interest to readers would be invalidated.
Again, you are not asked to make a decision yet, only to see
how your options stack up against the various criteria.
Rules
The winnowing process continues here by applying what Fritzsche
refers to as conjunctive rules, specifying a minimal cutoff point
for a decision. Principles, defined above, are simply the step
preceding rules and can be viewed as roughly analogous to the
rules derived from them. An example of an ethical conjunctive
rule derived from a principle might be, "any action that would
involve lying will not be considered." An example of an actual
rule might be Article I of the SPJ code which states that "The
public's right to know of events of public importance and interest
is the overriding mission of the mass media." Application of
such a rule would clearly invalidate an option of not running
a story on an event of public importance.
Back to Worksheet
Ethical guidelines
This is the final winnowing stage. This is the point at which
the ethical theories come into play. This final stage prior to
an actual decision completes the complex reasoning process you
have been forced into. You will discover here, as previously,
that there is much conflict among these theories. There will
be no easy solutions. While one person may use utilitarian theory
to support running a story in the interest of the "greater good,"
another person may cite Kant's proscription against using a person
as a means to an end as reason for not running the same story.
What is most important is to use only those theories that apply
directly to your decision. The best way to accomplish this is
to simply answer the questions honestly while considering all
sides of the issue. While a particular theory may not seem to
apply from one perspective, it very well may from another.
Decision
People often begin the entire decision-making process by coming
into a case with a decision already in mind. However, as you
proceed through this worksheet, you are forced to look at each
case from too many angles to have a fixed position. Remember,
the decision itself is not as important as the process. The goal
of this worksheet is to provide you with the tools you need to
assess ethical dilemmas and to reason through them. There are
no right answers, only well-reasoned answers—which leads us to
the final point.
Defense
If you have truly thought through the process and made a decision
based on sound reasoning, then you should be able to defend that
decision. The most appropriate person to defend it to is that
claimant who has lost the most or been harmed the most. The least
the people out there can ask for is that you, as a media representative,
have actually considered your decisions.
Back to Worksheet
Home |