Clip this values analysis to share with staff
Mercy Medical of Daphne, AL, uses this human values analysis to show its staff how rarely there are ethical conflicts that everyone can agree should be resolved only one way.
At the end of the exercise, a group of employees likely will be standing in very different places because it’s likely no one will agree on all six ethical issues.
Here’s how to use the exercise:
Form a line down the center of the room. The line may be two- to three-people wide if necessary. I will read a statement that involves values. Then I will ask you to move right or left, forward or backward, according to your belief about that statement. You must move one way or the other.
1. A celebrity needs a liver transplant; he is put at the top of the transplant list and receives a new liver in a matter of weeks.
If you believe that is ethically acceptable, move two steps to the right.
If you belief that is unacceptable, move two steps to the left.
2. Ethical behavior, moral behavior, and legal behavior are all the same thing.
If you believe this statement is true, move two steps forward.
If you believe this statement is false, move two steps backward.
3. Dr. Jack Kevorkian has helped another person commit suicide. Is physician-assisted suicide (or physician aid in dying) acceptable?
If your answer is yes, move two steps to the right.
If your answer is no, move two steps to the left.
4. Assuming physician aid in dying is acceptable, the patient is a 49-year-old artist with rheumatoid arthritis who is in constant pain. Does her constant pain make her an appropriate Kevorkian patient, even though she is not terminally ill?
If your answer is yes, move two steps forward.
If your answer is no, move two steps backward.
5. A patient with a rare, incurable disease should make him- or herself available to research scientists so that others might be helped.
If you agree with this statement, move two steps to the right.
If you disagree with this statement, move two steps to the left.
6. Resources should not be spent on keeping an anencephalic infant alive.
If you believe this is true, move two steps forward.
If you believe this is false, move two steps backward.
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