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

TERZET 25 JAAR- DIGITAAL CONGRES 2018 8 As I well know, if there had been no extramarital affair, my client would have been given an open-ended contract as of January 1, 2013, thereby completing his rehabilitation. Because that process was cut short, I now had no other option than to start the mediation process over again. Given the circumstances, this new mediation process is likely to become significantly harder than the first one. The island where my client lives is a very conservative community. The babysitter’s parents have sent their daughter away to stay with relatives in the Veluwe, a devoutly Christian region on the mainland, where she can finish high school. As a job seeker my client will now be known as “the man who slept with his young babysitter.” The alternative, finding my client a job on the mainland, will be impractical if not impossible because of the necessary travel time and his limited mobility. As a professional vocational rehabilitation counselor, I want to analyze the ethics of this case so I can make a well-founded decision as to how I will deal with my client, those who hired me (the liable party and my client’s personal injury lawyer), and the employer. To my mind, the main questions are: ‘What would be the most professional, ethical position to take as a vocational rehabilitation counselor and why?’” The Three Stage Model applied Since the case description given above offers enough details and poses a clearly defined question, we can immediately move on to the first stage of the decision-making process: the ethical analysis (Van Es, 2014). Stage 1: Ethical Analysis - Stakeholders, Values and Interests At this stage, we need to answer the following question: “What, exactly, is ethically at stake in this issue?” To do so, we look at the issue from three angles. Firstly, the intuitive, associative angle from the undercurrent: “What are my ethical intuitions with regard to this issue?” This is followed by the journalistic, or even political angle from the surface current: “What, exactly, are the facts and who are the stakeholders?” And finally, we must give our interpretation from both surface and undercurrent simultaneously: “What values are at stake for the stakeholders?” Some stakeholders make their values quite clear, while for others we must deduce and assign them. Taken together, these three angles allow us to define the ethical issue at stake. We do so using a standard format: a question centering upon an actor and an action. This is important; formulating the ethical issue clearly in terms of action increases the chance that we will arrive at an adequate answer. Short observation A counselor’s first reaction to an ethically loaded case is to place it on a spectrum ranging from strongly emotional to strongly rational. Some counselors would be inclined to give their moral outrage free rein and openly show their disgust with the employee (“bastard”, “pervert”) or the employer (“two-faced”, “manipulator”). Others would put aside all emotions and direct their attention solely towards the functional requirements of the job (“just get on with the mediation”). However, between getting lost in emotions and ignoring them entirely, there is a wide area in which we can strike a balance between emotions and reason and arrive at an even-handed judgment. The first step towards that goal is identifying and formulating ethical intuitions, in which emotions reappear in a more subtle form. This is also the time to make assumptions explicit: about the client, about the employer, about the local context, about your own moral sensitivities. Ethical intuitions In this case, the counselor’s first ethical intuition is: “The employee cheated on his wife, jeopardized his marriage and got the babysitter into trouble. He has himself to blame.” The counselor’s second ethical intuition is: “The employer claimed the moral high ground over his employee, but at the same time he lied, either to me, to my client, or worse, to both of us.” And his third intuition is: “This is unfair to me as a vocational rehabilitation counselor. Just when there was light at the end of the tunnel, all my hard mediation work went down the drain and I can start all over again, only now the job will be much harder.” This emotional aspect of ethical decision making returns in the final stage when we deal with commitment, before making the final decision. Right now, we need to continue our analysis.