THE DIMENSION
Revisiting effects and revising a decision or practice when relevant evidence changes.
The dimension in context
Revisiting effects and revising a decision or practice when relevant evidence changes.
You may look beyond the initial decision to its practical consequences.
You may consider the matter closed once an action is selected.
An illustrative work situation
A team reviews a decision that produced an unexpected adverse effect. With the outcome now known, the original choice can appear obviously mistaken even though some information was unavailable at the time. A useful review must consider both the original reasoning and what can now be learned.
Ethical learning is not simply apologizing after a poor outcome or defending the original choice. It involves examining who was affected, which assumptions failed, and what could reasonably change in future decisions. The review should not treat hindsight as evidence that every consequence was foreseeable.
A small practice to examine
Reconstruct the information and options available at the decision point. Add the later outcome in a separate column. Identify one foreseeable concern that deserved more attention and one genuinely new development. Agree a specific change in the process, then decide how to check whether that change addresses the relevant issue.
Repeated review without a trigger can undermine necessary closure.
A question for closer study
Can participants separate learning from hindsight-driven blame or a narrative that protects the original decision?
Read the example alongside the research
The following editorial passages come from the linked framework chapters. They provide context for the original teaching example above; the example is fictional and is not a reported study finding.
Consequence learning is another opportunity for careful interpretation. A favorable outcome does not prove that the original reasoning was sound, just as an unfavorable outcome does not automatically prove negligence. The participant can compare what was known at the time with what became clear later, identify which assumptions held, and decide what to change. The framework should not encourage hindsight certainty. Its value would lie in helping people reason more accurately about uncertainty and learning, a claim that still requires empirical evaluation for MED.
Continue: Using a deliberation profile to examine one real decision →
The original framework distinguishes explanation from justification. Explaining why a decision occurred can identify time pressure, unclear instructions, or missing information. Justifying the decision requires considering whether those conditions adequately support the action. A participant can acknowledge a constraint without treating it as a complete answer. This distinction should appear in examples because otherwise a report may either excuse every action through context or blame the individual while ignoring the surrounding system. Neither approach supports careful reflection.
Continue: Convenient explanations and the need to test assumptions →
An original reflection can begin by separating magnitude, uncertainty, and reversibility. A low-probability consequence may still deserve attention if its impact would be substantial. A reversible trial may be reasonable where an irreversible action is not. A delayed effect can be overlooked even when it matters greatly to the affected person. These are questions for deliberation, not a numerical severity formula embedded in MED. The framework should not claim to combine them into an objective ethical-risk score without a defined domain and evidence.
SOURCES AND FURTHER READING
Evaluating interventions to improve ethical decision making in clinical practice: a review of the literature and reflections on the challenges posed ↗Cohen et al. - Moral character in the workplace ↗Ogunfowora et al. - A meta-analytic investigation of the antecedents, theoretical correlates, and consequences of moral disengagement at work ↗Detert, Treviño & Sweitzer - Moral disengagement in ethical decision making: a study of antecedents and outcomes ↗Jones - Ethical decision making by individuals in organizations: an issue-contingent model ↗Kish-Gephart, Harrison & Treviño - Bad apples, bad cases, and bad barrels: meta-analytic evidence about sources of unethical decisions at work ↗