Abstract
This chapter discusses what to do after the different types of ethical tests have been conducted and the results assembled. There will almost always be a conflict between the recommendations of different ethical tests, so different methods for addressing this conflict are explored. A preponderance of evidence, different weightingtechniques, and the use of casuistry and line-drawing are all explored as ways to synthesize the results of the hypothesis tests into a final conclusion and recommendation.
“Nothing is more difficult, and therefore more precious, than to be able to decide.”
~Napoleon Bonaparte (1769–1821)
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
I am thinking specifically of the brant and omodel tests for violations of the parallel odds assumption- -> in an ordered logistical regression model using Stata, but feel free to substitute your own practical experiences here.
- 2.
Some may feel that a positive value- -> should represent affirmation of the null hypothesis - ->; here, it is easier to visualize the process as a one-sided t-test where the higher values increase the likelihood of rejection.
- 3.
This scheme is referred to as heuristic- -> because unlike other weighting- -> schemes, its structure is meant to allow numerically for the removal of the weighted items from the final determination. This “pruning” of the items being weighted can best be thought of as the application of a set of heuristic rules to the items being considered to remove those not being considered. This process is an adaptation of the poliheuristic model of decision-making (Mintz, 2004). As an example, if you were considering the purchase of a vehicle, you would not create a table of all possible vehicles and compare their various weighted attributes. The more realistic process would be that you have already made up your mind that you want a four-door compact car and you would confine your attribute comparisons to the subset of vehicles that were four-door compact cars. So, in our weighting scheme, this would be equivalent to providing a weight of 0 to the comparable items we wish to eliminate from further consideration.
- 4.
Much as the Bill of Rights (the first ten amendments) in the U.S. Constitution is included to protect the individual from the federal government policies and enforcement actions.
- 5.
Casuistry gained quite a bit of notoriety through Blaise Pascal’s criticism of its use by the Jesuits in the 1600s as a tool for helping absolve the wealthy of their sins by using its ability to help rationalize flexibility in the moral absolutes. In fact- ->, if you look in many dictionaries to this day, the definition of casuistry- -> is not flattering. The revival in the use of casuistry came in the 1990s with the publishing of the book The Abuse of Casuistry: A History of Moral Reasoning (Jonsen et al., 1990) where they argued it wasn’t the method per se but its usage in those situations. Its use has blossomed since them in both the moral reasoning- -> and artificial intelligence realms.
- 6.
For those of you with a geometrical bent, you can imagine the line-drawing analysis as a N-dimensional space where N is the number of rows (dimensions) in your analysis. Joining the positive and negative paradigms to each other will outline an N-dimensional hypercube. As such, the absolute best solution is located at the positive apex point and the worst solution is located at the negative apex. Your solution, when mapped, will be located somewhere in the space bounded by this cube nearer to one apex or the other.
References
Frey, B. S. (1994). Direct democracy: Politico-economic lessons from Swiss experience. The American Economic Review, 84(2), 338–342.
Harris, C. E., Pritchard, M. S., & Rabins, M. J. (2000). Engineering ethics: Concepts and cases (2nd ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Company.
Jonsen, A., & Toulmin, S. (1990). The abuse of casuistry: A history of moral reasoning. Berkeley, CA: U. California Press.
Mintz, A. (2004). How do leaders make decisions?- A poliheuristic perspective. Journal of Conflict Resolution, 48(1), 3–13. Sage Publications.
National Society of Professional Engineers. (2007, July). Code of ethics for engineers. Alexandria, VA: NSPE.
Wholey, J. S., Hatry, H. P., & Newcomer, K. E. (2010). Handbook of practical program evaluation (Vol. 19). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2016 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Searing, D.R., Searing, E.A.M. (2016). Drawing Conclusions. In: Searing, E., Searing, D. (eds) Practicing Professional Ethics in Economics and Public Policy. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-7306-5_5
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-7306-5_5
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-94-017-7305-8
Online ISBN: 978-94-017-7306-5
eBook Packages: Economics and FinanceEconomics and Finance (R0)