Ethical_Decision-Making

Ethical Decision-Making INTRODUCTION Trustworthiness, respect, responsibility, fairness, caring, and citizenship provide objective criteria to guide our choices. The standards of conduct that arise out of those values constitute the ground rules of ethics, and therefore of ethical decision-making. Consensus, discovered and acknowledged, has a special power to change society and lives. A clear, consistent language represents that consensus. So that people can see what unites our diverse and fractured society, so that the challenge of ethical relativism can be tackled. So that ethical decisions, while not necessarily made any easier, can nevertheless become more consistent and defensible. Finally, using core ethical values as the basis for principled reasoning can help us detect situations where we focus so hard on upholding one moral principle that we sacrifice another. Where, intent on holding others accountable, we ignore the duty to be compassionate; where, intent on getting a job done, we ignore how. LEVELS OF IMPACT Everyone makes many decisions everyday. There are three levels of impact ethical decisions we make are influenced by; o Individual Level: The character of the individual developed over the years; ... of principles, ideals, values; capacities for moral discernment; conscience, moral courage. o Situational Level: The confirmation with a particular issue; knowledge of the decision, decisions, ethical, values, decision-making, moral, ethics, process, personal, others, issue, impact, time, should, resident, reflection, make, made, group, family, facility, care, affect, about, stakeholders, stakeholder, stake, society, rights, residents, recognize, physical, patient, know, itself