Exploring Bioethics - NIH Office of Science Education - National ...

• What is the ethical question?• What are the relevant facts?• Who or what could be affected by the way thequestion gets resolved?• What are the relevant ethical considerations?Answers to the last question include the ethical considerationsthat are most relevant in a given case andhow they are relevant. Exploring Bioethics encouragesstudents to consider the relevance of three widelyrecognized considerations whenever they confront anethical choice:• respect for persons• minimizing harms while maximizing benefits• fairnessMany other ethical considerations exist, such as authenticity,responsibility, and intrinsic value. Students will usethese considerations to come to decisions about the bestcourse of action in a given case.The supplement encourages students to answer all fourkey questions fully and comprehensively and then, inlight of their responses, to come to a decision or recommendationabout the ethical question raised in the casesthey explore. The purpose is not to encourage groupconsensus, but rather to encourage each student todevelop his or her own point of view based on carefulreasoning. Students should refer to these questions andconsiderations in the justifications they provide aboutwhy their decision is the best one.Figure 1 shows the poster that summarizes the keyquestions and considerations that form the inner“architecture” of the approach taken in ExploringBioethics. Whenever you teach one of the modules,consider displaying the poster in your classroom anddrawing students’ attention to it.The purpose is not to encourage group consensus,but rather to encourage each studentto develop his or her own point of view basedon careful reasoning.Figure 1. The Exploring Bioethics poster reminds students thatsound justifications in bioethics require attention to four keyquestions and to relevant ethical considerations.Four Key Questionsto Always Ask YourselfIt is important to note that these key questions do notalways have to be asked in a specific order. Sometimes, thefacts of the case will illuminate the critical ethical question.Similarly, thinking about stakeholders and theirconcerns can bring the relevant facts into focus. Theprocess of ethical reasoning is fluid and can evolve asstudents consider a case more deeply.Key Question:What Is the Ethical Question?Identifying ethical questions is a two-part skill.1. The ability to see the ethical dimensions of agiven situation. Ethicists often refer to this skillas moral imagination or moral sensitivity, which isthe ability to detect that there are ethical issues atstake. This ability keeps people from simply glidingover the surface of a situation and missing its ethicalimplications. Fortunately, people can develop thisskill with practice.Introduction5