Resources for Ethical Deliberation

The mission of the Rock Ethics Institute is to integrate ethics throughout the Penn State curriculum and to provide the entire Penn State community with resources that enable all of us to stand up for the basic principles and values that we as a community share. In the wake of the current crisis at Penn State, and in the same spirit as President Erickson’s promise to “reinforce to the entire Penn State community the moral imperative of doing the right thing,” we offer the following guide to help faculty, students, staff, administrators, and other members of our community to sort through the complex ethical issues we face together.

We encourage everyone to use these ethical resources in conjunction with the resources that are now available through The Schreyer Institute for Teaching Excellence and the Center for Democratic Deliberation.

Ethical Deliberation

The goal of ethical deliberation is not simply to provide answers to questions about what is right and wrong or to provide a list of rules one ought to follow. Good ethical deliberation should help each of us identify and understand the ethical challenges we face, evaluate the facts we have in light of our shared norms, and provide a basis for acting ethically. As current events make painfully clear, we are often faced with unexpected and complicated situations that require that we speak up and take appropriate action. The best way we can prepare ourselves for these situations is to develop the skills involved in ethical literacy, the resources that encourage moral agency--by moving from ethical awareness to ethical action through cultivating ethical purpose--and strive to become ethical leaders in every aspect of our lives.

The university classroom is an excellent venue for developing ethical literacy. Classroom dialogue about ethical issues provides resources and develops skills that enable students to identify ethically significant conflicts and decisions that affect themselves and others. But dialogue also happens in the office, and at the HUB, and on the street. We provide these resources to help the entire Penn State community reflect on the ethical imperatives facing us as individuals and as a community. We welcome your feedback and your contributions.

Ethical literacy involves several important abilities:

Ethics Spotting: the ability to recognize that a situation involves ethical issues and to appreciate the ethical values underlying that issue. Questions to consider in working to spot ethical issues include:

Are we proud or ashamed of the action? Does it “feel wrong”?
Is such an action compatible with our basic ethical values such as integrity, trustworthiness, honesty, responsibility, and accountability?

Ethical Salience: awareness of the ethical intensity of the issue or situation. Not all violations of ethical values and principles are of comparable magnitude. Being able to judge the ethical intensity includes:

Recognition of the centrality of underlying values to the individual or community.
An appreciation of the seriousness of the resulting harms.
An awareness of the likelihood that harm will result.
An understanding of the numbers of people adversely affected.

Ethical Reasoning Skills: these are skills that we each need to develop and refine throughout our lifetime and which enable us to appreciate more fully the specific principles and values that guide our judgment in making ethical decisions. Ethical reasoning skills also help us support our normative judgments with coherent and consistent arguments. Ethical reasoning skills involve assessing ethical considerations by reflecting on the following:

What are the relevant ethical duties in this instance?
Who and what will be impacted by an action? (Who are the stakeholders?)
What consequences might result from acting in a particular way?
Is this action based on values that we fully endorse?
What would a caring person do in this instance?

Ethical reasoning skills include an appreciation that ethical decisions also require an understanding of the relevant facts and an awareness that there are times when ethical judgment should await further factual information.

Moral Imagination: the moral imagination is a blend of cognitive and affective factors that help us develop a sensitivity for how our actions affect others and enable us to think creatively about solutions. These factors include:

The ability to imagine ourselves in the situation of others
The capacity to “think outside the box” and come up with creative alternatives to habitual action
The development of sensitive attunement to the complexities of the situation

To produce real results, ethical literacy must be paired with moral agency. Individuals will choose a particular moral action only if they are convinced both of its importance and of their own capability to act in this way. The role of ethics education is not to stipulate behavior but to stimulate purpose.

Moral Agency is cultivated and encouraged through:

Ethical Purpose: developing a sense of one’s role in the moral domain.
Personal “ownership” and habituation of ethical behavior through:

Taking responsibility for ones actions,
Cultivating virtuous habits, and
Developing a passion for justice.

Moral Courage: the ability to act ethically even in the face of adversity and cost to one’s self.
Moral Hope: the belief that we can make a difference.
Moral Responsibility: the commitment to acting ethically.

Ethical Leadership includes:

Leading by example through being a role model for ethical behavior.
Taking the initiative to help others appreciate ethical issues, embrace moral purpose, and encourage moral agency.
Participating in the creation of an ethical culture that encourages and supports those who speak up in defense of the integrity of the community and those who stand up to the pressures capable of tempting any one of us to act in ways that undermine the pursuit of our common goals.

We at the Rock appreciate that:

Ethical decisions are often difficult decisions.
The ethical choice sometimes comes with a cost or a risk to one’s self or others.
We often have to act without sureness that our actions are the right ones, but we must do our best to act ethically and to take responsibility for our actions should we make a mistake.
Being an ethical person or an ethical leader sometimes means admitting to one’s own errors, taking responsibility for mistakes, doing what we can to rectify the situation, and learning from our errors.

The Rock Ethics Institute Speak Up blog (http://rockblogs.psu.edu) was launched nearly two years ago to provide an informal online forum for community-wide ethical deliberation concerning the issues and challenges that are most important to Penn Staters. The need for such a forum has never been as apparent as it is now. We remain committed to using this space to initiate and foster reflection and constructive conversation that cultivates the ethical literacy necessary for the development of moral agency and for the exercise of ethical leadership.