Ethical Decision Making: Fallacies/Biases and Models

Abstract

The chapter considers what can go wrong in ethical decision making and the models available to ensure that it goes right. Ethical decisions involve a complex interplay of professional regulations (as in ethics codes), the law, and the roles of the various stakeholders involved, including the mental health practitioner. Ethical dilemmas arise when there are no straightforward ways of resolving ethical issues and, when this transpires, a practitioner's mental health ethics code can be a valuable resource. However, the mental health practitioner should never consider that one's ethics code is the only or best resource that is available for resolving ethical dilemmas. The first part of the chapter reviews the types of logical fallacies and personal biases that can impact proper ethical decision making. The examples provided are uniform in that they focus on how far can one stray from more accepted therapy and assessment procedures. Some of the fallacies that are reviewed include ad hoc rationalization and affirming the consequent. Some of the biases that are reviewed include hind-sight as bias and overconfidence. Heuristics are important aspects that get in the way of proper ethical decision making, as well. Finally, the way one thinks generally is involved, e.g., intuitively or logically. The second part of the chapter reviews extant models of ethical decision making. They include anywhere from 17 to 4 steps. On the basis of these models, the chapter presents an integrative one that involves 35 steps. They are organized into seven phases, which helps organize the steps. The judicious application of the integrated model presented in this chapter by a practitioner to ethical dilemmas will help avoid the fallacies and biases that could impact proper ethical decision making in any one ethical dilemma. The seven phases in the proposed ethical decision-making model involve analysis of the ethical issue, taking responsibility, reviewing all sources, seeing the whole, engaging in decision making, deciding, and following up. Each phase in the model has five steps.