The act

EMOTIONS
 Emotions – that is to say feelings and intuitions – play a major role in most of
the ethical decisions people make. Most people do not realize how much
their emotions direct their moral choices. Inner-directed negative emotions like
guilt, embarrassment, and shame often motivate people to act ethically.

REASON
 Reason is the capacity of consciously making sense of things, applying logic, and
adapting or justifying practices, institutions, and beliefs based on new or existing
information.

DECISION MAKING
 Decision making is shaped by individual personality and behavioral
characteristics. Subjective biases can influence decisions by disrupting objective
judgments. Common cognitive biases include confirmation, anchoring, halo
effect, and overconfidence.

7 Common Challenges
Related to Decision
Making Process

7 Common Challenges Related to Decision Making Process
Making effective decisions is vital in any business. Every business comes with a set
of challenges related to this particular aspect, and the same goes for fleets. Having
a sound decision-making process means solving problems by examining different
solutions and deciding on the way to go, though very often the way is not
necessarily smooth and there are often pitfalls. With this post we would like to
explore the main ones faced by those of you holding management-executive
positions in fleets—what then are the key challenges when it comes to the fleet
decision-making processes?

 Information overload. Having a lot of information is often viewed as beneficial,
but if that information is not collated properly or only available via a multitude of
methods, processing it all can become overwhelming. You should be accustomed
to accessing the kind of user-friendly data that is key to your decision-making
options, or you might feel misguided and confused.
 Not having enough information. Of course extremes are never good: not having
enough information to support your decision is not good either; and you should
definitely be up to speed with all the relevant information in order to come up
with the best solution for any issue.

 Misidentifying the problem. In many cases, the issues surrounding your decision
will be obvious. However, there will be times when the decision is complex
and you aren’t sure where the main issue lies, as the actual cause may be elusive.
Being able to conduct thorough research, receive useful data and speak with
internal experts could be ways to mitigate this situation.
 Overconfidence in the outcome. We are not by any way devaluing the
importance of positive thinking, but rather that you should identify realistic,
viable, achievable options rather than ones that are overly optimistic and
unrealistic.

 Impulsiveness. Stress, time constraints or any other circumstance such as the
pressure to decide upon a course of action can compromise the desired results if
decisions are taken too quickly. You might inadvertently skip important data or
forget about the impact of some action or other on the team.
 Opinions and objectivity. It is natural to involve other people in the decision-
making process, but you need to avoid falling for something similar to the halo
effect (preconceived ideas and prejudices based solely upon appearances). Try
and be coolly objective in your decision-making—compliance, safety and the
business should be the priority—that’s something you can only achieve
with objective data.

 Not a one-off. If you make a decision, you will have to follow-up on it to
understand if it has really been the correct one; it could be a way to improve
your decision-making process and set a useful precedent if you have to take a
similar step in the future.

Gather the facts
Is there a moral dilemma?
Not every choice we make needs to be deliberated upon as a moral
dilemma. Choosing what clothes to wear today, what food to eat for lunch –
while involving some tension, are not what moral dilemma is all about.

Determine the Ethical issues
Trigger Event: Identifying and setting up the Ethical Problem
“The issue…”
Every ethical problem has more than one component and that not every
component involves an ethical decision.
For instance, we should be able to separate a client's right to advertise from
a possible ethical problem involving the way the product is to be
advertised. And the issue should be stated clearly. The question is not
whether the client should advertise, but whether the client should advertise
in a particular manner that might be ethically problematic.

Choose principles which have a bearing on the case
Who are the stakeholders? It is important to identify the stakeholders who
will be affected by the ethical decision to be made. This is also the first
point at which ethical theories might be applied since the idea of moral
stakeholders can be tied both to consequential and non-consequential
theories.

Choose principles which have a bearing on the case
For example, from a utilitarian perspective, the interest of the majority
must be taken into consideration – therefore, the majority stakeholders
must be recognized as a group. Non-consequential theories (duty-based)
require us to be aware of all stakeholders potentially affected by our
decision.
Recognized duties – like justice, gratitude, self-improvement, etc. – allow us
not only to list stakeholders but also to decide on who they are. For
example, if, as a reporter, you are obligated by the duty of fidelity to honor
your implied contract with the public to give them the news you want them
to read, that reading public must be listed as a stakeholder in your decision.

List the alternatives
What are the available options? It is important to list down at least three.
As Aristotle remarks, there are at least two, and these two often represent
the extremes. Nothing is ever either black or white; sometimes one is
forced to think in terms of a compromise, even if that compromise doesn’t
exactly conform to your personal notion of what is the right thing to do.

Compare alternatives with principles
In considering and evaluating the options, it will help to be guided by the
following approaches. This is the point at which the various sources of
Christian morality, ethical theories and principles come into play. One will
discover here that there is much conflict among these. There are no easy
solutions.
While one person may use utilitarianism to support his decision (for
instance, to run the story in the interest of the many), another may decide
to cite Kant’s proscription against using a person as a means to an end (for
instance, for not running a story because one must respect the privacy of a
person). What is important here is to use only those justifications that apply
directly to one’s decision.

Assess the consequences
What benefits and what harms will each option produce, and which
alternative will lead to the best overall consequence?
Double-Checking one’s decision. It is important to take a second look at
the decision to be made.

Double-checking one’s decision to be done
 First, we must see to it that our arguments are consistent. Ethics is
supposed to provide us with a guide for moral living, and to do so, it must
be rational – that is, free of contradictions.
 Second, we must also ask if our arguments are both valid and sound. A
valid argument is one whose premises logically entail its conclusion. An
invalid argument on the other hand is one whose premises do not entail
its conclusion. In an invalid argument, one can accept the premises as
true and reject the conclusion without any contradiction. A sound
argument, on the other hand, has true premises and valid reasoning. An
unsound argument employs invalid reasoning or has at least one false
premise.

Double-checking one’s decision to be done
 Third, perhaps we can ask the following questions: What are the best and
worse-case scenarios if I choose this particular option? Can I honestly live
with myself if I make this decision? Will I be able to defend this decision
to that claimant who has lost the most or been harmed the most?
 Finally, our decision must be “enabling” rather than dis-abling. There are
decisions that prevent us from acting any more fruitfully or effectively.
These decisions cannot be moral! After all, a moral decision or action is
one that liberates us – develops our potentialities as a person. A decision
that dis-ables us prevents our growth as persons.

Make a decision
Ethicists claim that this is the most difficult part of the process of moral
decision- making. It requires courage – especially when reason suggests
one way and what we feel another way. Some people make their decisions
even prior to the reasoning process. When this happens, it is possible to
end up with a decision that one can then rationalize but not really justify.

Reason
Reason is the basis or motive for an action, decision, or conviction. As a
quality, it refers to the capacity for logical, rational, and analytic thought; for
consciously making sense of things, establishing and verifying facts,
applying common sense and logic, and justifying, and if necessary,
changing practices, institutions, and beliefs based on existing or new
existing information. It also spells the difference of moral judgements from
mere expressions of personal preference. In the case of moral judgments,
they require backing by reasons. Thus, reason commends what it
commends, regardless of our feelings, attitudes, opinions, and desires.

Impartiality
Impartiality involves the idea that each individual’s interests and point of
view are equally important. Itis a principle of justice holding that decisions
ought to be based on objective criteria, rather than on the basis of bias,
prejudice, or preferring the benefit to one person over another for improper
reasons. Impartiality in morality requires that we give equal and/or adequate
consideration to the interests of all concerned parties. The principle of
impartiality assumes that every person, generally speaking, is equally
important; that is, no one is seen intrinsically more significant than anyone
else.

Moral Courage
Moral courage is the courage to take action for moral reasons despite the risk of
adverse consequences. Courage is required to take action when one has doubts or
fears about the consequences. Moral courage therefore involves deliberation or
careful thought.

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