Turn it and Turn it Again: The Updated Inclusive Model of Ethical Decision Making

Abstract

Ethical decision making is a critical skill for practitioners of all disciplines in the social, health and human services. Having capacity to engage proactively with decisions that will impact people’s lives in a way that is rigorous, principled, and considered, is the hallmark of an ethically competent practitioner. There have been multiple models of ethical decision making that have provided structured examples of the questions that should be asked of self and others while navigating an ethical dilemma. The Inclusive Model of ethical decision-making was first published by McAuliffe & Chenoweth in this journal in 2008. In reviewing the Inclusive model some 15 years since its original development, it is timely to reconsider the value of incorporating a 5th ethical platform, conceptualised as Interdependence, to draw on the importance of the relationships between humans, non-humans, and the natural world. This paper provides an extension of previous work to bring the Inclusive model of ethical decision making to a better coherence with current developments in both theory and practice.