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Setting Up the Ethics Tests: Pitfalls to avoid

15 January, 2016 - 09:08
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Set-Up Pitfalls: Mistakes in this area lead to the analysis becoming unfocused and getting lost in irrelevancies. (a) Agent-switching where the analysis falls prey to irrelevancies that crop up when the test application is not grounded in the standpoint of a single agent, (b) Sloppy action-description where the analysis fails because no specific action has been tested, (c) Test-switching where the analysis fails because one test is substituted for another. (For example, the public identification and reversibility tests are often reduced to the harm/beneficence test where harmful consequences are listed but not associated with the agent or stakeholders.)

Set up the test

  1. Identify the agent (the person who is going to perform the action)
  2. Describe the action or solution that is being tested (what the agent is going to do or perform)
  3. Identify the stakeholders (those individuals or groups who are going to be affected by the action), and their stakes (interests, values, goods, rights, needs, etc.
  4. Identify, sort out, and weigh the consequences (the results the action is likely to bring about)