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This module provides three frameworks that are essential to problem-solving in professional and occupational contexts. The first framework structures problem-solving by identifying four stages: problem specification, solution generation, solution testing , and solution implementation . The second framework zeros in on the solution testing phase and offers three means of testing and ranking solution alternatives in terms of their ethics. It consists of reversibility, harm, and publicity tests. The third framework consists of a feasibility test designed to identify obstacles to implementing solutions that arise from situational constraints like resource, interest, and technical limitations. These frameworks are abbreviated from materials that will eventually be published in Good Computing: A Virtue Approach to Computer Ethics that is being authored by Chuck Huff, William Frey, and Jose Cruz-Cruz. They can also be supplemented by consulting www.computingcases.org and Engineering Ethics: Concepts and Cases by Rabins, Harris, and Pritchard. This module has been developed as a part of an NSF-funded project, "Collaborative Development of Ethics Across the Curriculum Resources and Sharing of Best Practices," NSF SES 0551779.

Module introduction

In this module you will learn and practice three frameworks designed to integrate ethics into decision making in the areas of practical and occupational ethics. The first framework divides the decision making process into four stages: problem specification, solution generation, solution testing, and solution implementation . It is based on an analogy between ethics and design problems that is detailed in a table presented below. The second framework focuses on the process of testing solution alternatives for their ethics by deploying three ethics tests that will help you to evaluate and rank alternative courses of action. The reversibility, harm, and publicity tests each "encapsulate" or summarize an important ethical theory. Finally, a feasibility test will help you to uncover interest, resource, and technical constraints that will affect and possibly impede the realization of your solution or decision. Taken together, these three frameworks will help steer you toward designing and implementing ethical solutions to problems in the professional and occupational areas.

Two online resources provide more extensive background information. The first, www.computingcases.org, provides background information on the ethics tests, socio-technical analysis, and intermediate moral concepts. The second, http://onlineethics.org/essays/education/teaching.html, explores in more detail the analogy between ethics and design problems. Much of this information will be published in Good Computing: A Virtue Approach to Computer Ethics, a textbook of cases and decision making techniques in computer ethics that is being authored by Chuck Huff, William Frey, and Jose A. Cruz-Cruz.

Problem-solving or decision-making framework: analogy between ethics and design

Traditionally, problem-solving frameworks in professional and occupational ethics have been taken from rational decision procedures used in economics. While these are useful, they lead one to think that ethical decisions are already "out there" waiting to be discovered. In contrast, taking a design approach to ethical decision making emphasizes that ethical decisions must be created, not discovered. This, in turn, emphasizes the importance of moral imagination and moral creativity. Carolyn Whitbeck in Ethics in Engineering Practice and Research describes this aspect of ethical decision making through the analogy she draws between ethics and design problems in chapter one. Here she rejects the idea that ethical problems are multiple choice problems . We solve ethical problems not by choosing between ready made solutions given with the situation; rather we use our moral creativity and moral imagination to design these solutions. Chuck Huff builds on this by modifying the design method used in software engineering so that it can help structure the process of framing ethical situations and creating actions to bring these situations to a successful and ethical conclusion. The key points in the analogy between ethical and design problems are summarized in the table presented just below.

Questions & Answers

I'm interested in biological psychology and cognitive psychology
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sammie Reply
physiological Psychology
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How can I develope my cognitive domain
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Communication is effective because it allows individuals to share ideas, thoughts, and information with others.
effective communication can lead to improved outcomes in various settings, including personal relationships, business environments, and educational settings. By communicating effectively, individuals can negotiate effectively, solve problems collaboratively, and work towards common goals.
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miss
Every time someone flushes a toilet in the apartment building, the person begins to jumb back automatically after hearing the flush, before the water temperature changes. Identify the types of learning, if it is classical conditioning identify the NS, UCS, CS and CR. If it is operant conditioning, identify the type of consequence positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement or punishment
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Wekolamo
because it helps many people around the world to understand how to interact with other people and understand them well, for example at work (job).
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ARC
A child is a member of community not society elucidate ?
JESSY Reply
Isn't practices worldwide, be it psychology, be it science. isn't much just a false belief of control over something the mind cannot truly comprehend?
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compare and contrast skinner's perspective on personality development on freud
namakula Reply
Skinner skipped the whole unconscious phenomenon and rather emphasized on classical conditioning
war
explain how nature and nurture affect the development and later the productivity of an individual.
Amesalu Reply
nature is an hereditary factor while nurture is an environmental factor which constitute an individual personality. so if an individual's parent has a deviant behavior and was also brought up in an deviant environment, observation of the behavior and the inborn trait we make the individual deviant.
Samuel
I am taking this course because I am hoping that I could somehow learn more about my chosen field of interest and due to the fact that being a PsyD really ignites my passion as an individual the more I hope to learn about developing and literally explore the complexity of my critical thinking skills
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Jonathan
and having a good philosophy of the world is like a sandwich and a peanut butter 👍
Jonathan
generally amnesi how long yrs memory loss
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interpersonal relationships
Abdulfatai Reply
What would be the best educational aid(s) for gifted kids/savants?
Heidi Reply
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Saurabh
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Source:  OpenStax, Pdf generation test course. OpenStax CNX. Dec 16, 2009 Download for free at http://legacy.cnx.org/content/col10278/1.5
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