Text book reference: Allhoff, Fritz, and Anand J. Vaidya, eds. 2008. Professions in Ethical Focus: An Anthology. Peterborough, ON: Broadview Press.
Assignment 3: Case Study
- 30% of your final mark
- Length: 1800 ±200 words
- Choose a case depicting a morally problematic situation in professional practice:
- You may choose a ready-made case from our course materials or from somewhere else, such as from another book or one you find online. If you choose a case from this course, simply indicate the case you are using and provide a citation. If your case is from another source, reproduce the case with your assignment and provide a proper citation.
- Alternatively, you may develop your own case. You may create a case that is totally fictional or one that is based on your own experience or the experience of someone you know or know of. If you choose a case that is in the news, but you author the case itself by writing and presenting the case description, then this will count as a case that you have created. Note: if you use a case based on real life but one that is not public knowledge, then you must follow the “Ethical Guidelines for Case Studies” in the Course Manual.
- Choose a professional ethics issue that arises from your chosen case. This should be an issue that you think is interesting and reasonably controversial.[2]
- Write an ethical analysis of the case, focusing on the issue you choose by following “A Strategy for Understanding, Developing, and Presenting Moral Arguments” (given in the Course Manual).
- The grading scheme (below) that will be applied to your case study analysis[3] depends on whether you use a ready-made case or create your own. This allows your tutor the flexibility needed for the two different, but equally legitimate and worthy, ways you could approach this assignment.
Case Study Grading Scheme
| Parts of a Case Study | Per cent of grade using a ready-made case | Per cent of grade using your own case |
|
0% | 20% |
|
15% | 10% |
|
15% | 10% |
|
55% | 50% |
|
15% | 10% |
| Total | 100% | 100% |
Notes
[2] To say that an issue is controversial is to say that people can reasonably disagree about how the issue ought to be resolved. Think of it like this: if the issue is not controversial, then it is not worth analyzing. Don’t spend your valuable time and energy on an “issue” whose resolution is obvious to virtually everybody, such as “Should accountants embezzle funds?” or “Under what circumstances is it justifiable for medical doctors to murder their patients?”
[3] Note that this grading scheme does not reflect all grading considerations, such as those pertaining to your overall organizational structure or the mechanics of your writing. For a general guideline of how these considerations may affect evaluations of your work, see the Grading Policy section in the Course Manual. For this Case Study assignment, your tutor will use the General Grading Matrix to determine how, for better or for worse, your organization and mechanics affect your grade while also using the particular Grading Scheme provided here.
Ethical Guidelines for Case Studies
If you construct a case study or reference any situation that is based on your own experience or someone else’s experience and the situation is not public knowledge, you must consider and protect the privacy and confidentiality of any persons and organizations involved. Also, if you obtain information from anyone for use in the case study, and you plan to refer to that person by name or any other identifiable feature, you must inform them of the use to which you will put the information, and be sure that they agree to have it used in that way.
Since a case study can have the effect of accusing people of serious wrongdoing without giving them the chance to respond, you should be sure not to use identifying features (e.g., names, locations, etc.) of the people or organizations involved in your case, unless the information is part of the public record or unless you have the express permission of the person or organization. Moreover, identifying details (e.g., towns, cities, product names, etc.) should be omitted, whenever you don’t have express permission, since it is sometimes easy for the reader to identify the person or organization about whom the case is written, even if names are not explicitly provided. In any case, your tutor will hold your case study in confidence; however, it is your responsibility to protect the information of others.
This note is not meant to discourage you from creating your own case. You are encouraged to do so, as this can be a valuable learning experience in itself. You do need to be aware, however, of the ethical responsibilities taken on by anyone who does research on and writes about human subjects and situations.
If you have any questions about the ethical dimensions of creating a case for your case study or of writing about real-life situations in other contexts, please consult with your tutor.
A Strategy for Understanding, Developing, and Presenting Moral Arguments
- What, precisely, is the moral issue?
When reading articles and arguments by others, it is useful to determine as accurately and precisely as possible the main ethical issue the author examines. Ask yourself what moral question motivates the author to write his or her paper in the first place or, in other words, what moral question the author ultimately seeks to answer. Do the same when developing and presenting your own arguments. What, precisely, is the moral issue/problem/question that you will analyze with the aim of resolving? What question accurately expresses the moral problem that you have in mind, that you think is both controversial and important, and thus in need of answering?
The issues dealt with in Philosophy 333 are normative, ethical issues that pertain to professionals. They are problems about what professionals or professional groups ought to do; about whether certain actions or behaviours in professional life are justified; about the obligations and responsibilities of professionals or professional groups; about what is morally permissible or impermissible in professional life; and so on. Other kinds of issues, such as empirical issues and descriptive moral or legal issues, will be secondary and addressed only to the extent that they are relevant to analyzing any given normative, ethical issue.
It is recommended that, in any given instance, you state the primary issue that you will explain or analyze, whether another’s or your own, in the form of a question. This way, you have a specific focus to maintain throughout your discussion or analysis. Without a specific question and focus, you are much more likely to stray from your paper’s purpose and include reasoning that is not relevant or necessary. As is stated below, each possible answer you discuss, including the conclusion, should directly answer the issue question as you have initially stated it.
- What are the possible answers to the issue as stated?
Given the stated issue, what are its possible answers?[4] Some issue questions will have only two possible answers, as is the case, for example, when issue questions are of the “yes/no” type. “Is it morally permissible for doctors to perform active, voluntary euthanasia under certain conditions?” Other issue questions may have numerous possible answers. “Under what conditions, if any, should doctors be morally permitted to perform active, voluntary euthanasia?” When an issue has numerous possible answers, one must determine which of them should be included in the analysis. There are no hard and fast rules about how to do this. One practical consideration is how many of the answers may be adequately discussed within the stipulated length of the paper. It is often (but not always) the case that one may adequately analyze more possible answers in a 3000-word essay than in a 1500-word essay. Another thing that can help determine which of the possible answers to include is to ask oneself which answers are most likely to be suggested by a diverse group of persons. In our society, given its range of values and perspectives, what answers would people suggest? If you were at a “diversity-friendly” dinner party with ten persons quite different from one another, and you posed the moral issue for discussion, what answers would come forth? Finally, another thing to consider is whether some of the possible answers are important to discuss, even if they are not likely to be espoused by anyone present to the discussion. For example, given that we know that a significant majority of Canadians oppose the privatization of healthcare, it would be important to include answers that support privatization. These are some guidelines; however the bottom line is that, when developing an argument, the author must use his or her own judgment to determine the possible answers that should be covered.
At this stage, the possible answers – or options, resolutions, or possible courses of action – should be only listed. If they are explained at all, not merely stated, the explanations should be brief and somehow significant. And they should directly answer the issue as it is stated. They are alternative answers, resolutions, options, courses of action, etc. that capture possible ways of addressing the stated issue. As such, it is best if each is mutually exclusive with respect to the others, for only then does each constitute a distinct option. This step, then, should consist in only a list of the possible, mutually exclusive answers that will be analyzed with the aim of thoughtfully resolving the ethical issue posed.
- What considerations should be brought to bear on the issue’s possible answers, and what judgments about those answers follow from these considerations?
This is the substantive portion of one’s analysis. Having stated the issue question and the answers that will be analyzed, now comes the actual analysis. Your aim here is to provide a clear and reasonably comprehensive analysis of the possible answers to the issue, so as to determine the most defensible conclusion, that is, the answer that most satisfactorily resolves the issue. The basic strategy is to explain, discuss, and critique the pros and cons of each answer, and to compare the overall value of each possibility with the overall value of the other possibilities. For each answer considered, what would be the ‘up-side’ and what would be the ‘down-side’ of choosing that answer to resolve the issue? Given all of the above, which one of the answers best resolves the issue from an ethical point of view?
Among the considerations relevant to assessing nearly any issue in professional ethics will be both factual and ethically evaluative considerations. Facts about the situation, the people involved, the profession, the society, and so on may be relevant to how the proposed answers can and should be assessed. If we are considering the privatization of Canadian healthcare, for example, it is a relevant fact that there are significant disparities between the incomes of Canadians, so that some Canadians live in poverty while others are moderately well off and still others are rich. Factual considerations will also include the projected consequences of deciding in favour of and following through with any given answer. For example, many people think that a likely result of privatizing Canada’s healthcare system would be that some Canadians will go without needed healthcare while other Canadians will receive high quality healthcare in a timely fashion. How much weight should be given to any projected consequence in the assessment of a possible answer depends, in part, upon the significance (good or bad) of the consequences as well as on how likely it is that that consequence will in fact come about.
Whereas factual considerations make plain the facts that are relevant to analyzing a moral issue, i.e., the actual and projected realities that should be considered, ethically evaluative considerations make plain the ethical values and principles that are relevant. For each proposed answer, what ethical values and principles would it uphold, and how? What ethical values and principles would it violate or neglect, and how? For example, a socialized healthcare system, as opposed to a privatized healthcare system, is thought to uphold the value of equality, but at the expense of the value of freedom, at least to some degree. On the other hand, it may be argued that a privatized system maximally upholds individual freedom at the expense of equality. Determining which of the proposed answers to an issue question is morally best crucially depends on an analysis of the moral ‘pros’ and ‘cons’ of each answer and, importantly, on an analysis of how these sets of pros and cons stack up against one another. When the answers are considered in light of the moral values and principles that they uphold and neglect, comparing the overall results informs a final conclusion about which answer is best. How do the moral reasons for favouring one answer weigh against the moral reasons for another answer? Is one set of reasons stronger, and if so, how and why?
Analyzing an issue in professional ethics requires that all important facts and values are taken into consideration and weighed. Once this is done, it becomes clearer, if not altogether clear, which of the issue’s possible answers is not only practically possible but morally best.
- What, precisely, is the conclusion?
If one has done one’s work in the previous section, the conclusion of one’s analysis should be rather clear by now. At this point, it should only be necessary to clearly state (or re-state) which of the answers analyzed is considered to be the best – the morally best answer. The statement of conclusion is a statement of the answer that the author of the argument believes is best overall. Moreover, given that the reasoning offered culminates in the statement of the conclusion, stating the conclusion indicates that the author believes he or she has provided sufficient proof (or reasoning or evidence) for the conclusion.
- Should the main reasoning be summarized?
Finally, it may be useful to summarize the main reasons that support the conclusion and that count against whatever positions oppose the conclusion. If the reasoning presented in section C is quite straightforward and clear, then there is no need for a summary, and a paper may simply end with a clear statement of the conclusion (section D). However, if the reasoning is complex or, predictably, not easy for a reader to summarize, then it is a good idea to provide a brief, clear summary of the reasons that, from the author’s perspective, justify his or her choice of conclusion.
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