Ethical decision paper

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Ethics Paper Instructions

Ethical Decision with Scott B. Rae’s

Model for Moral Decision Making (MMDM)

Last Update: 10 January 2017

The paper is to be a (7 – 12 page) practical exercise in moral decision making. You will first present a moral dilemma, and then you will use Scott B. Rae’s decision-making model to figure out what to do. When you use Scott B. Rae’s Model for Moral Decision Making, you will go through various steps in order to come to a conclusion.

You will be writing from the first-person perspective. Choose a difficult decision you are currently facing to analyze with real facts. Focus on a problem you have right now, or one that you face in the near future (e.g. this summer, or after you graduate). Do not choose a “no-brainer” like the following: “should I go steal my neighbor’s car and drive it off a bridge, or not?” Pick something that involves a moral struggle for you, personally.[footnoteRef:1] See the supplemental document about boundary issues with friends, family, and other loved ones. The paper will be much more practical (and interesting to you) as a result. Email me to get my approval (sometimes your issues are too broad). Make sure it is a real dilemma for you right now (or in the near future). [1: Some students do decisions that are “no brainers” for themselves, but would be tough for other people. So, they think it looks like it would make a good paper. These decisions make horrible papers since there aren’t real tensions. ]

Decisions by former students (that might help you think of something):

(1) I have serious anger fantasies with my former boss, ex-girlfriend, etc. and I need to find a way to deal with this hate and forgive him/her and find peace. Nothing is working.

(2) I have problems balancing school, work, and family and taking care of myself physically, spiritually, and emotionally. What should I sacrifice to reach my goals?

(3) I want to do this Ironman race in October in Arizona. It will take 15-25 hours of training a week, and I will not be able to invest the time into my girlfriend that she will want.

(4) I graduate in May. Should I work this wonderful job in the U.S. or return to an “ok” job in China to take care of my family?

(5) Should I put off school another year to take care of my sick father in my hometown (Mississippi)? Or, should I just go visit every weekend or every other weekend?

(6) My parents blow their paycheck at the casino the day they get it. They ask me for money to pay utilities. I give in. I am enabling my parents’ gambling habit by giving them money. What should I do?

(7) I just found out that there is a warrant out for my arrest that is over three years old (for something I didn’t do). Should I turn myself in today and risk missing the last two weeks of the semester (and possibly miss my exams and fail the course), or should I wait until exams are over?

(8) I have become slightly more skeptical about Christianity in the last few years. My wife and kids are true believers. Should I begin a plan of studying Christian apologetics and see if I find rational reasons to believe in God, and, perhaps, doing spiritual disciplines to see if God shows up? Or, is that too risky (I might leave Jesus completely and risk rejection of my family)?

(9) Should I tell my husband that I am cheating on him? Should I just quit the affair? Or, should I leave my husband for this man? How long can I wait to make this decision?

(10) I don’t know if I want to work on this relationship or leave it. Is s/he worth it?

(11) Should I have my grandfather move into my house, or should I put him in a nursing home? I have to make an initial decision now, and I could re-evaluate in 9 months.

(12) Right now, in 2015, close to 150,000 boys are enslaved in the sex trade in Sri Lanka, and European men can pay $15 to rape one. I think God may be directing me to a career in strategically tackling these issues. Should my focus in law school be tools to stop sex-trafficking or should it be employment law so I can work in my father’s firm back home? If the latter, I could sacrifice part of my income to give to organizations that try to stop the sex slavery trade in South-East Asia and maybe go on missions trips to assist an organization (like International Justice Mission www.ijm.org to stop this activity). What do I do?

(13) My classmates continually ask me to cheat for them in school. I made the mistake of doing it once, and now they depend upon me each week. How do I handle this?

(14) Should I do something about the actions of my boss? (He could be fudging numbers, cheating on his wife, or doing some other illegal or immoral practice.)

(15) Should I report my friend and co-worker for some of his immoral or illegal actions? Or, should I confront him directly, or passive-aggressively?

(16) My neighbors and I do not get along about an issue. What do I do about this problem?

(17) How should I work on some character issue (my anger issues or procrastination habit or pornography addiction) that has become a real impediment to my progress this year? Counselor, self-therapy (Cloud and Townsend books/workbooks), or a friend?

(18) Should I rat out my illegal alien boyfriend to his employer or ICE?

(19) I struggle with my sister and her behavior. What do I do about it? Intervention? Draw protective boundaries for six months to see if the behavior improves?

(20) My mother has BPD (Borderline Personality Disorder). What protective boundaries should I set up until she learns to respect me?

(21) I am not doing any spiritual disciplines to grow. Should I find a spiritual mentor to work with each week? Or, just read Dallas Willard’s Spirit of the Disciplines and Richard Foster’s Celebration of Discipline and try things on my own this semester?

STRUCTURE OF PAPER

Introduction

· Give a brief synopsis of the context of the decision and what the decision is. Make sure this section is in full paragraphs. You may skip this and go right to Step 1 if you want.

Step 1: Gather The Facts

· A lot of people insert facts later in the paper that should go here. Get everything off your chest in this part. Throw out all the raw data. You may need to do a lot of research. You may have to write a lot about the background of the participants. Who or what is involved in this situation? Better to write too much here.

· No rhetorical questions. Rewrite all of them as statements.

Step 2: Determine the Ethical Issues

· Do your best to establish the major tensions in this decision. X vs. Y. This should be one of the shortest sections of the paper. You may have more than one tension in the situation. Better to have at least THREE.

· State how many tensions you found in your analysis. State them clearly (“my desire to be honest is in conflict with my desire to be a loyal friend”) before explaining them.

· It is best to have the opening sentence tell us how many ethical tensions you’ve discovered, and conclude the section with a sentence reminding us of the 2 – 5 tensions.

· This is the part of the paper over which people struggle most

Step 3: Isolate Your Ethical Principles

· This is the section where you discover your DEONTOLOGICAL PRINCIPLES that might have a bearing on the case.

· Brainstorm before you write this. Make sure you isolate principles. “Thou shalt not commit murder.” “Honor those worthy of honor,” “be honest,” etc.

· The first sentence should tell us how many ethical principles you are going to examine. Then, clearly walk through them. Make it easy on your reader to know how many principles are going to be employed.

· Then, tell us how many principles you are working with and examine them in this section to see which ones have the highest priority for you.

· Some of you are Christians. If you are getting some (or all) of your ethical principles from the Bible, please look up the verses or parables and ground your principles in passages in the Bible. Cite them properly.

· If you are of another religion, please use your religious text to back up your principles. Cite your religious texts properly. This will require some work if you are a Muslim, Christian, Jew, Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh, etc.

· Organize your principles well. Rank them in order of importance to the best of your ability. Explain them. Most people have thoughts scattered.

· If it helps, list your principles in your opening sentences. Then walk through the principles more in-depth in paragraph form.

· In the last paragraph, refresh our memories as to your list of principles and which ones rank the highest. It is better to argue why you hold some principles to be more important than others. We are all different.

· It would be best if you rank your principles in order of highest importance. For instance, “Do not murder” should be higher than “keep your family’s honor.”

· Make your paper reader friendly. Read it to someone. See if they “get” what you are saying and can repeat back your principles and the rationale behind them.

· Have at least SIX moral principles/rules.

· Be clear. Save analysis for later. Be a ROBOT . . . ETHICS MACHINE!

Step 4: Brainstorm Alternatives

· Tell us in your opening paragraph how many alternatives you are going to explore. Help your reader clearly see the number of alternatives that are going to be eliminated with the various principles from the last step.

· Get creative! Many people miss alternatives due to tunnel vision. Spell these out.

· Talk to your friends and family members to see if they have other suggestions.

· Include two INSANE alternatives that are not real options. Act like they are real options so your reader isn’t sure if you are serious or not. Practicing this will help you be creative when it comes to real life decisions. Think “outside the box”

· Make sure you are just giving the alternatives and not putting more facts and principles or consequences here. This model is a step-by-step deal. Don’t get ahead of yourself. You want clarity and thoroughness.

· SAVE ANALYSIS FOR NEXT SECTION! Just list the alternatives.

· Have at least FIVE alternatives if possible and add an insane one or two.

· Make sure everything is crystal clear. Clarity, clarity, clarity!

Step 5: Eliminate Alternatives with Principles

· THE MOST IMPORTANT SECTION OF THE PAPER.

· This is where you use your DEONTOLOGICAL PRINCIPLES to eliminate your alternatives. Do NOT explore consequences (STEP 6).

· Act like a robot during this section. Isolate your most important ethical principles and see if they support or discourage the adoption of a certain alternative.

· It might be helpful to make a chart on notebook paper to visually see which principles support/discourage each alternatives.

· Methodically walk through the alternatives. Tell us how each principle supports or doesn’t support the various alternatives. See if you can cross alternatives off.

· You should at least show us how your two INSANE alternatives are not compatible with your most important ethical principles. Do these first as a “warm up” to the more difficult alternatives. Have fun with it.

· Refer to principles throughout: “This alternative conflicts with my most important principle/rule: be honest.” Use the word “principle” to keep on track.

· Tell us how many are left over at the end of this section.

· This should be the one of the largest sections of your paper.

· Clarity! Make your points easy to follow. Read it out loud to someone (or just yourself) to test this.

Step 6: Explore Consequences for Remaining Alternatives

· This is the CONSEQUENTIALIST or UTILITARIAN section.

· [This section is really only needed in the case of a stalemate between two remaining alternatives. I still want you to do this section even if there is a clear decision from Step 5. Just examine the 1st place and 2nd place alternatives for consequences. Good practice.]

· Clearly state which alternatives are remaining from Step 5.

· Save the analysis of consequences to this step. All too often people make this a consequentialist model instead of a deontological (rule-based) model. This is about the only place in your paper where you should be dealing with consequences.

· So, tell us which of your remaining alternatives has the best consequences (maximal happiness and minimal pain).

Step 7: Make a Decision

· Tell us what decision this PROCESS revealed from STEP 5 and STEP 6.

· Sometimes, you might be able to do choice #2 if choice #1 doesn’t work. If that is an option, explain that. Sometimes choices are final and there is no plan B.

· DO NOT TELL US WHAT YOU ACTUALLY DID IN THE SITUATION!

· This decision is according to this model (based on your own personal principles), so if it doesn’t map onto reality, it is okay!

· Act like a reasoning ethical machine in this paper. Follow the steps.

· Remember George S. Patton: “If you are 51% sure of a decision, execute it. If you are 80% sure of a decision, execute it violently.”

Epilogue

· In this optional section, tell us what you actually did (if you have to act before the paper is due). Do not tell us what you did in Step 7. This model is not a chance for you to vindicate your decision (and people do this all the time, so don’t do it!). This is a principle-based model that should yield an alternative that fits best with all of your principles. Many of us are UTILITARIANS in nature, and so we might not follow this DEONTOLOGICAL model. If you do something other than what this model suggests in Step 7, tell us how similar/dissimilar the Rae MMDM is to your own ethical decision-making process in this case.

Good luck! If it isn’t too personal, please have friends/family read your paper to see if it is clear and readable. Test them when the paper is over. Can they remember the ethical tensions, the principles, and the alternatives? If not, go rewrite to make them clearer. Let them suggest alternatives and principles if you get stuck in your analysis.

At least read it out loud to yourself a time or two to see how it sounds. No contractions and no rhetorical questions. For more paper advice, see below.

General Advice for this Paper:

· USE THE OUTLINE! All students who fill out the outline first find writing it VERY easy. Start early.

· Choose a really important situation you face now or in the near future, and make sure it is a tough situation for you. Do not choose something that only has one real alternative. You will not benefit from this kind of paper.

· Email me (before you start writing) for topic approval. I can warn you if it is going to be a problem topic (based on past experience), and if it is narrow enough.

· If you are doing a business ethics or medical ethics decision, let me help you find resources. If possible, you might want to do both papers on the same topic to save time/energy.

· All sentences should have content. No “B.S.” – don’t meander. Content, content, content!

· NO RHETORICAL QUESTIONS. Rewrite all of them as statements. You will lose STRUCTURE/STYLE points if you have these.

· Write out all contractions. You will lose STRUCTURE/STYLE points.

· Do not try to entertain me. Bore me to death. This is a philosophy paper. I want it dry as bones in the Australian Outback. Thrill me with a detailed analysis of your ethical principles and your brainstorming ability to find wild alternatives to pursue.

· Do not try to rationalize what you actually did with this paper. This model might not reflect how you think (or should), though it might be something to consider in the future.

· I want to know the situation and all (possibly) relevant facts, the ethical tensions, your ethical principles, your alternatives, etc.

· BE THOROUGH. Some people do not put enough information in STEP 1 and have to fill in later in the paper. Get 99% of the relevant facts in Step 1. More may come out in Step 6 (consequences), but that’s fine.

· NO CONTRACTIONS. Write out all of them. Make this paper as formal as possible.

· No flowery TRANSITION SENTENCES. Just throw down your material. No need to define terms either. We don’t need to know what UTILITARIANISM means or what KANT believed. Definitions are common forms of transition sentences.

· You have my permission to be a dry decision maker in this paper.

· Please LABEL each step in your paper to make it easier to follow. “Step 1: Gather the Facts” . . . I want these section headings with Roman numerals.

· Read this paper to a friend (if it isn’t too personal) or relative and get feedback.

· CITE PROPERLY:

· APA Format: http://www.citationmachine.net/

· Writing Guide: http://www.ivytech.edu/richmond/writing_guide.pdf

· If you use Bible verses, please cite them properly. Look them up at www.biblegateway.com or www.blueletterbible.com Also, if you are a theist who believes in revealed knowledge (in a book like the Bible or Book of Mormon) then cite the principles and back them up with a reference.

· Remember not to tell us what you did or how you decided until the EPILOGUE. Act like a ROBOT and crank through the MMDM to produce a decision. It doesn’t matter if your decision was completely different from what happened in reality.

· Robotically list facts. Robotically explain ethical tensions. Robotically list your moral principles. Robotically list alternatives. Robotically analyze options to see how they are supported/not-supported by principles. Robotically calculate consequences. Robotically make a decision.

· BE CLEAR. Don’t make your reader guess. Make your paper reader-friendly.

Book/Blog Project:

OPTIONAL

(submit paper to me after the semester is over)

· I do hope that this model will be useful to you in the future. It can be of use to people of every religion (just insert your religion’s ethical principles) and of every non-religion. The purpose of this paper is to give you a working model for tough ethical decisions in your life. It is very methodical and keeps the different parts of decision making separate on purpose.

· Students solve some messy and horrible situations with this model and they are very thankful for it. This is why I want to do a blog and book to encourage more people to use a model like this to work through their problems.

· Email me in the future if it helps you in a tough situation in real life! - [email protected] or CHRIS TUFFER HAMMONS (Indiana Jones Face) on Facebook.

· If you want to change the names and dates and fudge some facts on this paper, you are more than welcome to submit it to the book/blog project at www.christopherhammons.com or https://christufferhammons.wordpress.com/