How Good People Make Tough Choices Rushworth Kidder Fireside, New York (1995) At the 1998 Annual Conference of the Institute of Management Consultants, Michael and Nancy Shays gave a beautiful presentation entitled "How Good People Make Tough Choices," based on this book.  Since the conference, I have studied the book and want to share my observations with you. Book Review © Dr. Terry J. van der Werff, CMC

This is a highly valuable primer aimed at helping people make ethical choices, through an readable mixture of analysis, guidance, and case studies (drawn from participants in seminars given by the Institute of Global Ethics, founded by Rushworth Kidder).  The reader can easily identify with the case studies.

The basic premise is that tough choices revolve not around questions of right vs. wrong (which fall within the realm of morality and are generally pretty clear cut), but rather tough choices revolve around questions of right vs. right (in which two deeply held values are pitted against each other and apparently cannot both be satisfied).

Based on study of thousands of real ethical dilemmas, Kidder presents four ethical paradigm pairs:

 

	Truth vs. loyalty
	Individual vs. community
	Short-term vs. long-term
	Justice vs. mercy

For a given ethical dilemma, there is usually a dominant pair.  Frequently, more than one must be considered, and sometimes all four.  But, as Kidder points out, "merely to analyze a dilemma - even to fit it into the above paradigms - is not to resolve it.  Resolution requires us to choose which side is the nearest right for the circumstances.  And that requires some principles for decision-making."

He outlines three such principles:

 

	Ends-based - Do whatever produces the greatest good for the greatest number.
	Rule-based - Follow only the principle that you want everyone else to follow.
	Care-based - Do unto others what you would like them to do to you.

Note that these decision-making principles do not give the answer; they merely provide three quite different frameworks to approach an answer for the particular ethical dilemma being faced, according to our particular set of core beliefs.

Kidder makes a fine point in drawing the analogy between ethical fitness and physical fitness.  One becomes fit in either only through exercise - both are active concerns.

Kidder finishes with a nine checkpoints for ethical decision-making, noting that one does not always have the luxury of time to analyze and resolve an ethical dilemma.

1. Recognize that there is an ethical issue.
2. Determine the actor, i.e. whose issue it is.
3. Gather the relevant facts.
4. Test for right vs. wrong - if it is, then this is not an ethical issue, but a moral one.
5. Test for right vs. right paradigms.
6. Apply the three decision-making frameworks.
7. Investigate "trilemma" options, in which one seeks a creative resolution which satisfies all values at stake.
8. Make the decision.
9. Revisit and reflect on the decision later.

There is far more in Kidder's How Good People Make Tough Choices. It is informative, useful, and nourishing. I hope this brief review will pique your interest enough to pick up a copy for yourself.

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