Case Study

The RESOLVEDD decision-making strategy is a nine-step method for coming to a decision about hard ethical cases.
1. R Review the facts of the case.
• What are the details?
• What is the background or history?
2. E Estimate (specify) the conflict or problem present in the case.
• What is at issue or at stake?
3. S List main possible solutions to the case.
4. O State important and probable outcomes or consequences of each solution.
• What will happen?
• What is likely to happen?
• What might happen?
5. L Describe the likely impact of each main solution on people’s lives, and on the interests and concerns of entities (i.e., institutions, organizations,
companies, governments and states), as well as nonhumans and the environment.
• Who will be benefited?
• Who will be harmed?
• Who else will be impacted and how?
6. V Explain the values upheld and those infringed by each main solution.
• Refer to relevant moral principles, e.g., honesty, harm, fidelity, autonomy, confidentiality, lawfulness, equal consideration of interests;
• Characterize salient moral rights, e.g., knowledge, privacy, life, free expression, due process, safety, property;
• If relevant, include consideration of the interests and rights of future generations.
7. E Evaluate each main solution in terms of outcomes, likely impact and values upheld or infringed.
8. D Decide which solution is best, state it, clarify its details, and justify it.
9. D Defend the decision against objections to its main weaknesses.
Use this method to analyze and reach a decision about the best course of action in one of the following cases (following the Summary in Ch. 3)
Case 2: State Paternalism and Pregnant Women
Case 3: Medical Futility
Make sure you consider the case you choose in light of some of the moral theories and principles we have discussed in the class