Terzet-Digitaal Congres-15-dhr. dr. R. van Es

TERZET 25 JAAR- DIGITAAL CONGRES 2018 6 Three-stage Decision Making Rhetoric developed since Aristotle usually distinguishes between three basic stages: inventio, dispositio and elocutio (Aristotle, 1991). The three stages are also used, in a slightly modified form, in psychological research into group dynamics (Bales & Strodtbeck, 1951). These authors point out a three-stage pattern that is consistently present in well-conducted business meetings. They identified these three stages as orientation, evaluation and decision making. Obviously, the three stages, as an ideal pattern, also apply to ethical decision making. Each stage can be characterized by its own basic question. For the orientation stage, the question is: “Morally speaking, what exactly is going on?” For the evaluation stage, the question reads: “How can you bring ethics to bear on this issue?” And for the decision-making stage, the central question is: “What stance do I take on this moral issue, and why?” The actual process of dealing with an ethical issue is seldom linear. Thinking about moral issues is often associative and people differ considerably in moral sensitivity and moral competence depending on the issue (Jones, 1991). Usually, dealing with an ethical issue is a spiraling process of evolving understanding. These dynamics are also visible in the three-stage ethical decision-making process represented in Figure 2. We move from the moral intuition at the outset to the moral standpoint at the end through an iterative process in which we continue to analyze and formulate what the key question is. In a sense, each stage constitutes a walk around the issue to look at it from all angles and form the best possible understanding of it. Figure 2: The Three-Stage Ethical Decision-Making Model The specific elements of these three stages will be made clear when we discuss how they apply to the case below. Before describing the case we need to say more on the specifics of the certified expert involved: the expert in vocational rehabilitation. The Profession: Certified Experts in Vocational Rehabilitation In 2010 the SRA (Stichting Register Arbeidsdeskundigen, Organization of Certified Vocational Rehabilitation