Responsible Dissent
Problem-Solving
Compromise
Modes of Responsible Dissent
Whistle Blowing: Costs and Considerations
A Taxonomy of Ethical Problems
•
Reconciliation of Conflicting Values
– Moral vs. moral by first seeking to integrate conflicting values and then by compromising
– Moral vs. non-moral
•
Resolving Disagreements
– Factual by uncovering facts
– Conceptual by comprehensively defining concepts or by reframing
•
Value Maintenance and Value Promotion
– Prevention: uncovering embedded ethical problems and developing counter measures upstream
in the design process
– Opportunities for Value Realization: uncovering opportunities to use professional skills and
knowledge to realize community values
•
Test-Driven
– Reversibility: respect is at stake
– Harm/beneficence: not causing or preventing harms and promoting/realizing value)
– Publicity: Professional or Personal Integrity is an issue
•
Implementation Issues
– Time, technical, and fiscal constraints impede implementation of ethical solution
First characteristic of ethical solutions
• 1. Ethical solutions maintain, realize, concretize, or
embody value in the real world
– Ethical problem-solvers are adept at finding situations where
they can use their skills and knowledge to bring value into the
world
Second characteristic of ethical solutions
• 2. Ethical problem solvers start by working
toward creative middle way solutions that
reconcile or integrate conflicting value
– They turn to compromises or trade offs only as a
last resort
– They optimize ethical value through integration
Third characteristic of ethical solutions
• 3. Ethical solutions must also satisfy feasibility conditions
– Ethical solutions must satisfy time constraints, be technically
feasible, satisfy cost limitations, conform to legal requirements,
and be realizable within certain organizational and social
contexts
– These feasibility constraints are often flexible
• Time limits can be extended through negotiation, cost limits met by
designing cost saving measures or renegotiating these, technical
feasibility expanded through innovation
– Reframing helps to see options for extending feasibility limits
Fourth characteristic of ethical solutions
• 4. Ethical solutions are created, not found
– Ethical problems are open ended
• There are no uniquely right answers
• But there are answers that are clearly wrong
• The right answers satisfy the ethics tests and meet feasibility
requirements
– Imagination plays a fundamental role in by…
•
•
•
•
picking out relevant facts
achieving a reflective critical distance
making possible a reflective sympathy with other agents
uncovering/designing non-obvious solutions
Fifth characteristic of ethical solutions
• 5. Ethical problem-solving involves an experimental
phase in which we test the proposed solutions to
problems
– Imagination helps us to create possible worlds
– These worlds serve as fields in which we test solutions by
• imagining their consequences,
• imagining the process of implementation and
• envisioning the obstacles that might arise
– Ethical and feasibility criteria provide the standards of
this imaginative test
Sixth characteristic of ethical solutions
• 6. Stakeholder participation is “built into” an ethical
solution upstream in the formation process
– Various design methodologies exist in computing to
facilitate building stakeholder input:
• Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CACW), Participatory
Design, the ETHICS Method, the Software Development Impact
Statement (SoSIS), Value Sensitive Design, and Social Impact
Statements
– The right at stake here (that ethical solutions honor) is
free and informed consent
Ethical Dissent
Before Blowing the Whistle
The Decision to Blow the Whistle
• Whistle blowing is often treated as the only way
to deal with ethical disputes with management.
• There are other options
• Whistle blowing always produces harm.
• The moral question is whether the harms of
whistle blowing are compensated for by the
harms that it is designed to prevent
Strategies for Responsible Dissent
• Gather more information
• Nolo Contendere
• Oppose diplomatically
• Oppose confrontationally
• Distance yourself
• Resign
Strategies for Responsible Dissent
• Gather more information
– Frame your arguments in terms other parties can
comprehend
• Nolo Contendere
– Live to fight another day
• Negotiate
– Oppose the organizational decision diplomatically and
work toward a resolution based on rational persuasion
– Integrate conflicting interests, compromise on conflicting
interests and trade off interests. (Trade off a non-basic
interest to preserve a more fundamental interest in a
future transaction)
Strategies for Responsible Dissent
• Oppose diplomatically
– Remain open to rational persuasion from
other parties
– Use rational persuasion to negotiate with
other parties
– Focus on interests and their constituent
values
• Integrate conflicting interests and values
• Compromise or partially integrate
• Trade off conflicting values (One party concedes
an interest now to gain an interest in a future
transaction)
Strategies for Responsible Dissent
• Oppose confrontationally
– Should persuasive measures fall short, try opposing
the questionable behavior or policy with more
confrontational and forceful measures
– Lead an organizational charge
– Begin the whistle blowing process
• Distance yourself
– State your dissenting view or opinion, document it,
but decline to oppose further the questionable
behavior or practice should your supervisor and
employer prove unresponsive
• Resign
– To avoid being implicated in an immoral action you
cannot prevent, exit from the situation
Oppose Diplomatically: IEEE
Recommendations
• Establish a clear technical foundation
• Keep your arguments on a high professional
plane, as impersonal and objective as
possible, avoiding extraneous issues and
emotional outbursts
• Try to catch problems early, and keep the
argument at the lowest managerial level
possible
IEEE Recommendations Continued
• Before going out on a limb, make sure that the
issue is sufficiently important
• Use (and help establish) organizational dispute
resolution mechanisms.
• Keep records and collect paper
In carrying out dissent…
• Make sure of your motivation
• Count your costs
• Obtain all the necessary background materials
and evidence
• Organize to protect your own interests
• Choose the right avenue for your disclosure
• Make disclosure in the right spirit
Motivations Good and Bad
• Bad
– To show someone that you will not be ignored
– To punish someone for their behavior toward you
• Good
– To maintain your personal integrity
– To save your organization’s reputation or finances
– To reduce threats to public safety and health
Compromise
Circumstances
Preserving Integrity
Moral Compromise
• Benjamin: “In what I will call the standard case, an
outcome characterized as a compromise is reached
as a result of the contending parties’ participating in
a procedure, also called a compromise.”
• Dictionary: “a settlement of differences by mutual
concessions.”
•
Martin Benjamin, Splitting the Difference: Compromise and Integrity in Ethics and Politics, p. 5
Compromise as Outcome
• A decision which “splits the difference”
between the disputants
– Each side gives in so that the result is not the first
choice of either
Compromise as Process
• The Process of
Compromise involves…
• This Process excludes…
– Rational persuasion
– Force
– Mutual trust
– Threat
– Reciprocal Concession
– Intimidation
Circumstances of Compromise
• A checklist of features that strengthen the argument
for compromise in the context of a given
disagreement.
• Circumstances:
–
–
–
–
–
Factual uncertainty
Moral complexity
Continuing cooperative relationship
Decision cannot be deferred
Scarcity of resources
Compromise and Problem Taxonomy
• Compromise may be necessary in situations
that involve
– Factual disagreements
– Conceptual disagreements
– Conflicts
• Conflicts between moral values
– Property rights and equal access
• Conflicts between moral values and important nonmoral values
– Safety and technical feasibility
Compromises and Problem Taxonomy
• Compromises on factual disagreements
– Splitting the difference on distributing the risks involved
with uncertainty
• Compromises on conceptual disagreements
– Stipulating a conceptual agreement or deciding on a
course of action while putting conceptual disagreement
in abeyance
• Compromises on conflicts
– Splitting the differences (if the conflicting values are
quantifiable)
– Taking turns on making concessions
– Putting conflict in abeyance and agreeing on a course of
action
Circumstances of Compromise
Circumstances of Compromise
• Factual Uncertainty
– “factual information that would significantly strengthen one or the other side
in a moral disagreement will often be unavailable or unattainable.” Benjamin,
26
– Chapter 10: Areas where factual disagreements are difficult to resolve:
• Historical facts (conflicting testimony from witnesses)
• Scientific Facts (uncertainties that can’t be eliminated such as those in risk
assessment)
• Limitations collecting facts imposed by time and money
– Compromise strategy: Design around uncertainty and distribute the
burden created by the uncertainty equally
• Example: Regulating chemical where risk assessment has a margin of error
• Does the margin of error count for or against regulation?
Circumstances of Compromise
• Moral complexity
– Benjamin (29): “Like factual uncertainty, moral complexity is
one of the features of the human condition that contribute
to the circumstances of compromise.”
– Benjamin quotes Rawls (29): “Diversity naturally arises from
our limited powers and distinct perspectives; it is unrealistic
to suppose that all our differences are rooted in ignorance
and perversity, or else in the rivalries that result from
scarcity….Deep and unresolvable differences on matters of
fundamental significance…[must be acknowledged] as a
permanent condition of human life.”
More on moral complexity…
– Situations where moral values come into conflict.
• (Example: the debate between a browser that promotes access and at
the same time provides the user with privacy)
• (Example: in abortion, the debate between pro life and pro choice)
– Compromise strategy: devise a solution that postpones resolution of
the moral conflict
• Solution exacts equal concessions from both sides
• Example: allow abortion in some cases but disallow in others
• Example: sacrifice some privacy to promote access; sacrifice some
access to protect privacy
Circumstances of Compromise
• Continuing cooperative relationship
– Benjamin (30-31): “Thus a resolution to a moral problem
that can maximally accommodate differing viewpoints
and maintain mutual respect is, from the standpoint of
overall team effectiveness, highly desirable.”
– Benjamin (31): “The desirability of preserving
continuing, cooperative relationships among members
of a family or citizens of a nation—or, for that matter,
among nations in a world bristling with nuclear arms—
also counts as a circumstance of compromise.”
More on continuing cooperative
relationship
• More than just a one-time interaction
• Failure to agree on course of action could cascade into
future interactions
• Compromise strategy: One side compromises this time with
understanding that other side will give way the next time
• Compromise strategy: each side makes an equal concession
to preserve future relationships and interactions
Circumstances of Compromise
• Decision Cannot be Deferred
– Postponing the decision would favor one of the disputants
– Feasibility constraints (time, money, technical) conspire to force
a decision on a course of action
• Example: Time, money and technical constraints require that
software testing be halted and the system installed
– Compromise strategy:
• Pursue a course of action for a trial period and then assess results
Circumstances of Compromise
• Scarcity of Resources
– Benjamin (32): “We often lack the time, money, energy, and other human
and natural resources to satisfy everyone’s rights or interests, let alone
their wants and desires. And when rights or interests conflict because of
scarcity, compromise may seem to be both necessary and appropriate.”
– Example Problem: There are not enough computer technicians to
maintain the equipment in a university computer lab
– Compromise strategy: If the resources are quantifiable, then they can be
divided equally. Or allocation can be based on need or merit.
– Example Solution: The time of the computer technician can be divided
equally between the competing needs.
Personal integrity forms the limit to
compromise
• An individual should not be forced to compromise
a fundamental moral principle
– Unless it conflicts with another fundamental moral
principle
– Attempts to integrate the conflicting moral values have
been exhausted (or time has run out)
– The compromise is reciprocated by the other side (The
other side recognizes the importance of the moral value
being compromised and reciprocally compromises his or
her fundamental moral value)
Whistle Blowing
Its costs
What it requires
When it is permissible
When it is obligatory
Counting the Costs
Form of Retaliation
1) Lost their job or were forced to retire
69%
2) Received negative job performance
evaluations
3) Had work more closely monitored by
supervisors
4) Was criticized or avoided by coworkers
64%
68%
69%
5) Were blacklisted from getting another job 64%
in their field.
Counting the Costs
Effects on Whistle Blowers
1) Severe depression or anxiety
84%
2) Feelings of isolation or powerlessness
84%
3) Distrust of others
78%
4) Declining physical health
69%
5) Severe financial decline
66%
6) Problems with family relations
53%
Bottom Line
• Whistle Blowing is costly
– To the whistle blower
– To the target
• Whistle Blowing is risky
– It doesn’t always achieve its objective
• Whistle blowing must be treated as a last
resort
When is Whistle Blowing Morally
Permissible?
• When there is the risk of a “serious and
considerable harm”
• When you have notified your immediate
supervisor
• When your supervisor has not responded and you
have raised the matter before three additional
internal levels
Whistle blowing is permissible
when…
you have done everything possible to
minimize the harm of whistle blowing
and the harm you are trying to prevent
is greater
When is Whistle Blowing an
Obligation?
• In addition to the three conditions just
mentioned, you have…
• documented evidence that would convince an
impartial bystander and…
• there is a reasonable chance that blowing the
whistle will prevent the serious and
considerable harm
Here whistle blowing becomes
an obligation because…
you have worked to minimize its
harm and it appears the best option
for preventing another harm