Assignment: SAGE in FOCUS project

HELP for the SAGE in FOCUS Model of Inquiry Project

The Sage in Focus Model of Inquiry organizes critical thinking skills developed in our text book and in our content sheets online and developed in the classroom.

How Do I Begin to Do A SAGE in FOCUS Project?

You can begin by looking inward and asking yourself if there are ethical conflicts that are important to you. What are you interested in investigating? You can ask yourself questions about the moral stakes of values and virtues, important consequences or rights and responsibilities. Are certain rights being violated? Who is being violated? Who is violating the rights? Are some being harmed unjustly? Who is doing the harming? Who is being harmed? Are your or others' values being violated? Who is doing the violation? How are these violations being done? How are these conflicts among agents arising? You might find that people, animals, societies, kinship groups, nature, or other possible agents might be unjustly harmed or benefitted by certain actions. If some of these ideas interest you, or if some of these ideas enrage you, you may have a subject for further investigation in a SAGE in FOCUS project.

You can proceed in the project by doing a search on the internet looking for news items, stories, web sites, interest groups, or personal stories related to your subjects of investigation. While your SAGE in FOCUS project is presented in a structured manner (SAGE and/or FOCUS), your investigation may turn up information and ideas related to any part of the project so you should be ready to gather the information and place it in your draft project for use later when you finalize your work. A lot of your preliminary research will turn up information that will be part of the Analysis, or Obtain and Organize sections of the project. Load that up early. You might come across ideas on how to address some of the ethical issues. Put those in the Create and Craft area for possible use later. Continue to collect relevant information as you do your research.

You know your preliminary research is over when you have identified a major conflict among agents with respect to a moral stake (values or virtues, important consequences, rights and responsibilities). This is your major ethical issue, the main problem you will investigate. This will be the principle guide for your entire project as the project revolves around questions related to this main issue. Having found this, then you have begun.

Brief Introduction: You should begin an inquiry with a brief statement regarding the ethical issue/s you are investigating and why it is a significant issue. You can share the main problem you want to examine and why it is important to you and others. You can mention some of the media coverage the problem has had or has not received. You can share how you think this issue connects to other important issues of concern.

S: SEE:

Section 1: Here you want the reader to see the main problem, the main agent/stakeholders and some of the values/virtues, important consequences, and/or rights and responsibilities that are in conflict between the two main stakeholders. Sure, you may wish to discuss many agent/stakeholders, but here we are presenting the conflict that is the main thread of your SAGE in FOCUS project. You can bring in all the other agents in the Obtain and Organize step below as well as present lots of information that we need to have to address/resolve the main conflict presented here. Here you also present frames where you help the reader understand how each of the agents in conflict might see why their view of the conflict makes sense to them.

FIND the ethical issue AND Identify KEY FRAMES for seeing the issue

Steps for the Find and Frame section:

1. Identify the ethics issue that you wish to explore and title it THE ETHICS ISSUE or ISSUES I wish to explore. Be sure to characterize the ethics issue abstractly, as in terms of the conflict among certain stakeholders regarding certain moral stakes.

2. Identify news articles or other sources to provide examples of your ethics issue. If you are working on an ethical issue from your experience, you should like your personal experience to examples of others that may share with you the ethical issue that you experienced. (Be sure to reference the sources that you are using so you can document some of the information you are using here.)

3. Identify at least two different FRAMES for this ethics issue. A FRAME is an intellectual context for considering the ethics issue. If you can frame your issue from the point of view of agents that have different beliefs or roles in the situation, you should be able to bring more clarity in the issues that in conflict in your ethical issue

4. Show how two different FRAMES of this ethical issue demonstrate different ways of understanding the ethical issue.

WHAT I AM LOOKING FOR IN THIS SECTION:

Did you do each step above?

Did you clearly state the MAIN ETHICAL ISSUE as a conflict among values or virtues, important consequences or rights and responsibilities? Did you present two distinct frames to understand the main ethical issue? Did you present distinct differences that apply to your ethical issue when it is seen from the different frames?

A: ANALYZE:

Section 2: Here you want to present all the information needed to comprehend how the central ethical issue presented above is seen by all the main agent/stakeholders. You should include all the agents who can make a significant difference in the ethical issue. You should present an account of each agent's beliefs, desire, and/or intentions that explain why that agent is doing what they do in taking part in this ethics conflict. You should explain what moral stakes each agent has invested in this conflict. You should include some of the facts related to the ethical issue as well as present where agents may disagree on what the facts of the case are.

OBTAIN and ORGANIZE the relevant background information on the ethics issue and the primary exemplification of the issue.

In this section we organize the ethical and factual information through ANALYSIS and RESEARCH. We FOCUS on the main ethical issue set out in the FIND and FRAME section. To obtain and organize information relevant to the main ethical issue in the essay (1) RESEARCH the facts of the issue and situations in reputable sources (this may be web sites, news articles, commentary, personal experience, books and scholarly articles). Be sure to reference each research item; and (2) Apply the Moral Navigation Tools to the agents in the ethical issue; (3) Analyze and evaluate factual claims and moral claims as needed. We combine the factual research, moral theories and analytical results into our Stakeholder Analysis. The stakeholders are agents in the situation who have moral stake in the ethical issue and/or the example situations under discussion. Remember that agents can be groups, organizations, professions, individuals, nations and more. An agent must be able to be interpreted as an actor in a situation. They must have beliefs, desires, and intentions on which their moral stakes are founded. If you are specifically included in the agents, then you should include your own beliefs desires and intentions in your stakeholder analysis.

1. Identify the main agents in the ethical issue. You should include all of the strategic agents (those who can effect change) as well as those agents whose moral stakes are violated or in jeopardy due to the actions of others.

2. Identify for each stakeholder the relevant beliefs, desires and intentions that ground their claim to a moral stake in this ethics issue. This should include both factual and moral claims. Use the Moral Navigational Tool to help develop a picture of each agent that explains how and why that agent plays the role they do in this ethics issue.

3. Analyze the agent analysis presented and apply critical thinking skills to the challenges the case presents. For example, "How are the claims in this issue or situation supported by the evidence provided? Is the evidence convincing or ambiguous? How much can you rely on the evidence and claims made by some of the sources?

4. Do further research into considerations relating to the facts and ethical aspects/claims of the main ethics issue agent conflicts. Be sure to identify and consider any exculpating and mitigating conditions for each agent.

5. Summarize the key conclusions in the ORGANIZE section above.

Your ORGANIZE section must contain sufficient information to allow you to develop options to address the main ethical issue.

WHAT I AM LOOKING FOR IN THIS SECTION:

Did you do each step above?

Do you clearly identify agent moral and practical stakes and identify them as values or virtues, consequences, rights and responsibilities based on beliefs, desires and intentions and the moral navigation tools? Do you show that you are aware of claims that may be mitigating conditions or exculpating conditions?

G: GENERATE OPTIONS:

Section 3: Here you want to present ideas for addressing/resolving the main ethical issue presented in the FIND part of FIND and FRAME at the beginning of the SAGE in FOCUS project. During the early draft of this section, you are urged to brainstorm ideas, be creative and think both inside and outside the box for possible solutions to the conflict. From the early draft you can retain the best two or three ideas for use In the final version of the project.

CREATE and CRAFT ideas for addressing the ethical issue.

In this section, you create options that address the main ethical issue in the project. You should consider at least two possible options to address your main ethical issue; or you can assemble a variety of ways that each agent could remove or reduce the conflicts in the ethical issue. If you opt to create a variety of possible ways for each agent to act, then at the end of this section you should present your preferred way of combining the actions into at least one coherent option/strategy that is your best idea for addressing the ethical issue.

Each option or action considered for a agent should improve the conditions of the agents involved by reducing the harms done or increasing the benefits, limiting the rights violated or the responsibilities not met, or reducing the violations of values or limitations on the exercise of virtues. You should take into consideration the moral navigation tools to be sure that your ideas for addressing the ethical issue at hand do not create additional ethical issues.

1. Each option/action of agent should have steps that need to be taken that can fix aspects of the main ethical issue.

2. Each agent action should be considered with respect to three things: A) how the option is possible, is it realistic or practical B) how that agent could be motivated to take the option, C) and how the action would effect the other agents for the better.

3. A coherent option considers how the various actions by different agents could be done together. Can this option be organized to make it a real and practical method of addressing the main ethical issue? If you answer yes, to the prior question then you have a coherent option
WHAT I AM LOOKING FOR IN THIS SECTION:

Did you do each step above? Does the option include each of the actions that each agent must take to make the option work? Is there a coherent plan that coordinates the agents and implements the option to address the main ethics issue?

E: EVALUATE THE OPTIONS:

Section 4: Here is where you utilize and show off for the grader how the evaluation tools apply to your ideas presented in the CREATE and CRAFT section above. The evaluation tools that you use are the M.D. (Moral Development including the agent's developmental history, scientific insights from biology, psychology, sociology, and philosophy and, also, Ethical Egoism, Existentialist Ethics); Virtue Ethics (including Greek, Christian, Stoic, including Nussbaum Capabilities Approach); Consequentialist Ethics (act and rule utilitarianism); Deontology (including Divine Command Theory, Kant, W.D. Ross's pluralistic deontology); Social Contract Theories (including Nozick's Libertarianism and Rawls Communitarianism). Each of these theories may have positive, negative, or neutral evaluations of ideas presented in the CREATE and CRAFT section. Your job is to use these ethical theories to UNDERSTAND how the ethical evaluation tools evaluate the proposed ideas. Here is a great place to show your ethics instructor that you understand and can apply the ethical concepts and theories developed in the class. This is a very important section of the project.

UNDERSTANDING the ethical and practical/critical thinking evaluations of the proposed options and actions

In this section, we apply the Moral Navigational Tools to evaluate the proposed option(s) and actions. We consider how the moral development of the agents, how ethical egoism, how virtue ethics, how consequentialist ethics, how deontological ethics, how social contract theories would apply to each agent's action and to the combined actions in the option presented in section 3.

Here we evaluate the beliefs, desires, and intentions and identify the risks and uncertainties that are part of the actions suggested.

WHAT I AM LOOKING FOR IN THIS SECTION:

Did you apply the moral navigation tools? Did you demonstrate that you understand the moral psychologists, Aristotle, Mill, Kant, Rawls and Nozick and how to apply their ideas correctly to your options? I am looking for clear evidence that you understand the ethical concepts and theories discussed in the class. Go out of your way to show off your understanding of the ethical ideas and the critical thinking required to evaluate the option.

Section 5: Here is your conclusion for your SAGE in FOCUS project! You present your strategy for resolving the conflict in your main ethical issue present in the FIND and FRAME above. Your strategy can involve implementation plans for some of your ideas and the most persuasive practical and ethical arguments that support your ideas. Here you can present and address the most important objections that some may raise regarding your strategy to address the conflicts. This allows you to finish strong with your most eloquent reasons for doing what you suggest for mitigating or resolving the main ethical issue in this project. This section should make you proud of what you learned in the course and researched in this project.

SELECT, Strategize and Support the best ideas for addressing the ethical issue.

Here you select the ideas discussed above that you believe have the best chance to address/resolve your main ethical issue in this project.
Argue for the chosen option citing persuasive reasons why this is the best way to address the main ethical issue. You may consider moral, ethical, practical, prudential and factual reasons to persuade the reader why your option is indeed the best. Use everything you have to make your best case for your choice. You may mention information from the understand section to include in your arguments but you need not repeat it in full here. Be sure to include references to the Moral Navigational Tools to assist your arguments.

Be sure to identify the weaknesses in your options and explain why the weaknesses are not fatal to your selection. For example, you could argue that a good option that can be put into practice is better than a perfect option that cannot be implemented.

WHAT I AM LOOKING FOR IN THIS SECTION:

I am looking for a clear argument why your selected option is the best way to address your main ethical issue at this time. I am looking for moral and practical reasons that lead to the conclusion that your selected option is a great choice to fix (at least partially) the problems raised by your main ethical issue. I am looking for you to show off your knowledge of ethical concepts and theories and critical thinking skills. Write this section as though it is an answer to a test question in a final exam. You should do so since it is.

REFERENCES: List the key sources for information used in this project. Be sure to indicate who you relied upon when gathering information used here.

In a written SAGE in FOCUS inquiry you should be sure to identify the sources for all information you have gathered for this essay as well as be able to provide good reasons why you and others should be able to rely on the information in the reference.