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- What harms would accompany the action under consideration? Would it produce physical or mental suffering, impose financial or non-financial costs, or deprive others of important or essential goods?
- What benefits would this action bring about? Would it increase safety, quality of life, health, security, or other goods both moral and non-moral?
- What is the magnitude of each these consequences? Magnitude includes likelihood it will occur (probability), the severity of its impact (minor or major harm) and the range of people affected.
- Identify one or two other viable alternatives and repeat these steps for them. Some of these may be modifications of the basic action that attempt to minimize some of the likely harms. These alternatives will establish a basis for assessing your alternative by comparing it with others.
- Decide on the basis of the test which alternative produces the best ratio of benefits to harms?
- Check for inequities in the distribution of harms and benefits. Do all the harms fall on one individual (or group)? Do all of the benefits fall on another? If harms and benefits are inequitably distributed, can they be redistributed? What is the impact of redistribution on the original solution imposed?
Pitfalls of the Harm/Beneficence Test
- "Paralysis of Analysis" comes from considering too many consequences and not focusing only on those relevant to your decision.
- Incomplete Analysis results from considering too few consequences. Often it indicates a failure of moral imagination which, in this case, is the ability to envision the consequences of each action alternative.
- Failure to compare different alternatives can lead to a decision that is too limited and one-sided.
- Failure to weigh harms against benefits occurs when decision makers lack the experience to make the qualitative comparisons required in ethical decision making.
- Finally, justice failures result from ignoring the fairness of the distribution of harms and benefits. This leads to a solution which may maximize benefits and minimize harms but still give rise to serious injustices in the distribution of these benefits and harms.
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