The Office of Retention, Mentoring,

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(No Transcript)
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The Office of Retention, Mentoring, Support
Programs Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR)
Workshop entitled Ethical Reasoning October 20,
2005
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Presented by

• Virginia A. Brown, Program Coordinator
• HU, College of Medicine, CHFP
• Program in Health Care Ethics

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Develop a practice-oriented philosophy that links
ethical reasoning with ethical action(s) in real
life situations.
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The Prime Directive

• Above all else, do no harm!

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Terms of Art

• Morality vs. Ethics
• Codes of Ethics
• Ethical Reasoning

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Terms of Art

• Words and their meaning.

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Morality

• I. Simple uses.
•      1. Ethical wisdom, knowledge of moral
  science. Obs.

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Ethics

•  II. pl. ethics.
•     2. (after Gr.) The science of morals the
  department of study concerned with the principles
  of human duty. 

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Ethics and Morality

• Ethics and morality are often used
  interchangeably.
• It is useful to distinguish between them.
• Ethics stems from the Greek word ethos, meaning
  character.
• Morality is from the Latin word mores, meaning
  character, custom, or habit.

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Ethics

• Systematic ethics is the examination of morality,
  conduct, and social practices.
• Responds to questions of Why should I (or we) do
  X or Y? What reasons would justify such actions
  and why. How ought I conduct myself in this
  life?

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Morality

• We now understand morality to mean customary
  morality, or widely shared beliefs about the
  moral life and norms about right and wrong
  conduct that prevail in a particular culture or
  subculture.

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Normative Ethics

• That pole of ethical theory that stood closet
  to practice.¹
• Thus the idea is that the task of normative
  ethics is to define and to defend an adequate
  theory for guiding conduct.²

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Post Modernity

• Liberal (great sound bites)
• Conservative (as seen on Fox TV)
• Consensus (as seen on Oprah and Dr. Laura)
• Religious Right (Farwell approved)

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????!!!!
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Features of Codes

• Patient Relationships/Employment Practices
• Confidentiality
• Public Disclosure
• Conflicts of Interest/Relationships/Safety
• Management Practices
• Employment Practices/Bounds of Authority
• Political Involvement
• Societal Duty

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HU Academic Responsibilities

• All students share the following
  responsibilities
• A. To read, become familiar with and adhere to
  the
• Code,
• the Universitys Code of Ethics and Conduct,
• the Academic Code of Conduct,
• the Student Reference Manual,
• the H-Book,
• and the relevant academic Bulletin of the School
  or College in which the student is enrolled.

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continued

• B. To respect the personal and property rights of
  others and to act in a responsible manner at all
  times.
• C. To protect and foster the intellectual,
  academic, cultural, social and other missions of
  the University.
• D. To observe the laws of local, state and
  federal governments

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ACADEMIC CODE OF STUDENT CONDUCT

• Howard University is a community of scholars
  composed of faculty and students both of whom
  must hold the pursuit of learning and search for
  truth in the highest regard.
• Such regard requires adherence to the goal of
  unquestionable integrity and honesty in the
  discharge of teaching and learning
  responsibilities.

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continued

• Such regard allows no place for academic
  dishonesty regardless of any seeming advantage or
  gain that might accrue from such dishonesty.
• To better assure the realization of this goal,
  any student enrolled for study at the university
  may be disciplined for the academic infractions
  defined below.

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ACADEMIC POLICIES

• ACADEMIC INTEGRITY
• As part of Howards community of scholars, you
  are expected to hold the pursuit of learning and
  the search for truth in the highest regard while
  displaying unquestionable integrity and honesty.
• There is no place for academic dishonesty,
  regardless of any seeming advantage or gain that
  may accrue from such dishonesty.
• Students will be disciplined for any intentional
  act(s) of dishonesty in the fulfillment of
  academic course or program requirements and for
  intentionally representing as ones own, any
  ideas, writings and works of another without
  acknowledging that author.
• (Page 20)

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Types of Moral Theories

• Consequence-based theories
• Utilitarianism
• Obligation-based theories
• Kantianism
• Rights-based theories
• Liberal Individualism
• Community-based theories
• Communitarianism
• Relationship-based theories
• Ethics of care

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PROBLEM
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Ethical Reasoning

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The process
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Case Discussion

• Process

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Criteria

• Issues and points of ethical conflict
• Interested party / parties
• Consequences
• Duties or Obligations

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Applying the criteria
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Grid

• Issues or Interested Parties
• Points of Conflict
• Consequences Obligations

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Issues of points of conflict

• Describe the nature of the moral conflict
• Note This is the most difficult part of the
  analysis. Most people find it easier to begin
  by considering interested parties, consequences,
  and obligations.

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Interested Parties

• Requires skills in perspective-talking
• Think progressive ordering of people-form the
  person facing the ethical problem, to the person
  (s) immediately affected, to employer, to peer,
  to society in general.
• Consider reasonable expectations of the
  interested part.

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Consequences

• Each action considered several possible outcomes
• Identify consequences that have a good
  probability of occurring
• May be multifaceted

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Obligations

• Primary Obligations of the protagonist toward
  the various interested parties
• Refer to the moral justification in terms of
  values, principles, character, or outcomes

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Summary

• Professionals have a particular responsibility to
  have well developed skills of moral reasoning

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So just who are you?

• What is the source of your moral center?
• What is the source of authority regarding your
  professional conduct?
• How do you justify your professional actions?
• Do they the conflict?
• When they do, what will you do?

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The Road Not Taken

• I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere
  ages and ages hence
• Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-- I took the
  one less traveled by, And that has made all the
  difference.

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Thank You.