The Ethics Triad

This week focused on individual approaches to ethics, and we learned about something called the “ethics triad.”  It focused on three different aspects that need to be considered when analyzing an ethical dilemma.  The three aspects are the results-based approach, the duty-based approach, and virtue ethics (Bowman & West, 2015).  When reading about these three schools of thought, it made me realize that I typically make decisions based on one singular aspect, alone, as opposed to thinking through the situation in its entirety; I definitely will be approaching ethical decisions differently now that I have read about these three specific concepts to think through when making a critical decision. Let me give you an example so you understand what I am talking about.  I watched a movie called “The Experiment” this week, which was based on events from the 1971 Stanford Prison Experiment, and this movie left me wondering if this experiment should have ever been conducted.  I question the ethics behind it because while studies, such as this particular one, provided detailed insight into human behavioral aspects, one must consider the cost that was involved in obtaining such information.  If a study leaves residual effects on the people involved, then many people would argue that the study was unethical because it psychologically damaged the participants.  

If you have not see the movie that I am referring to, here is the trailer for it:

I am going to examine this dilemma by utilizing the ethics triad.   Based on the results-approach, a person needs to determine if the decision will benefit the greater good (Bowman & West, 2015).  On one hand, the information obtained from the study can be used to make advances in the psychology field, and it can help researchers understand why people behave the way that they do.  On the other hand, the people involved in the study may regret that they were part of the study because it could reveal aspects about themselves that they may have trouble living with.  Based on the two sides of this coin, I believe that the study would benefit more people than it would harm, so based on the results-approach, the study is acceptable.  Now I will move to the second school of thought: the duty-based approach.  Within this approach, a person must consider if laws were followed when deciding to conduct this study and if it was universally accepted (Bowman & West, 2015).  At the time of the study, I believe that the no laws were broken; however, shortly after this study was conducted, institutional review boards were established in an effort to protect human subjects by subjecting studies to ethical reviews prior to initiation.  I think that prior to the study, the prisoner/guard concept would have been universally accepted; however, after the study is when the questions arose.  Based on the duty-approach considerations in order to conduct the study, I believe that it supports the decision to initiate the experiment.  Based on virtue ethics and how a person of integrity would handle this decision, I believe that a person of integrity would have a difficult time treating innocent people as prisoners and possibly inflicting psychological damage to them in the name of research, despite the fact that the conclusions drawn might be able to help advance the field of psychology.  So based on this school of thought, I do not believe that the decision to conduct this study was an ethical one. 

In order to fully understand how the ethics triad works, one must consider all three schools of thought to see the “bigger picture” and to make the best decision with all of the factors included.  The first two schools of thought indicate that this study was ethical, but the third school of thought raises ethical concerns.  If a person goes with the “majority rules” mentality, then two out of three wins and the answer would be to conduct the study.  However, another approach to handling a situation with the ethics triad would be to only go through with a decision if the answer was a unanimous “yes” to all three approaches; this would leave no room for doubt that the decision was, in fact, ethical.  This is where personal beliefs enter the picture because there is not a strict guideline on how a person should handle a situation like this.  The bottom line is that people need to consider ethical dilemmas from multiple aspects, as opposed to just a singular one, to fully analyze the dilemma at hand.

Now that I have thoroughly explained the ethics triad to you, think back to a decision where you had to make a tough call and could have utilized this triad to help make your decision clearer.  Did you make the right call based on the ethics triad?  Feel free to post your questions or thoughts in the comments section below.  Have a great week, and thank you for visiting my blog! 

                                                                  References:

Bowman, J.S. and West, J. P. (2015).  Public service ethics: Individual and 
        institutional responsibilities. Thousand Oaks, CA: CQ Press.