Advancing ethics support in military organizations by designing and evaluating a value-based reflection tool

Area of Science:

• Military ethics
• Organizational psychology
• Design research

Background:

• Military personnel frequently encounter complex moral dilemmas impacting personal and societal outcomes.
• Current military ethics support relies heavily on compliance-based approaches, neglecting value-based learning.
• Inadequate support hinders ethical decision-making in challenging military situations.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and evaluate a value-based reflection tool for enhancing ethical decision-making in military employees.
• To address the gap in value-based ethics support within military organizations.

Main Methods:

• Employed a design research approach.
• Informed tool development and evaluation through five semistructured interviews.
• Utilized notes from 45 joint reflection meetings and evaluation data from 755 participants.

Main Results:

• The value-based reflection tool shows promise in fostering moral competence.
• The tool effectively triggers social mechanisms including reflection, empathy, and psychological safety.
• Demonstrates that value-based ethics support can successfully complement compliance-based methods in the military.

Conclusions:

• Value-based reflection tools offer a viable method to enhance ethical decision-making and moral competence in military organizations.
• This study highlights the potential of design research to create practical ethics support solutions.
• Value-based ethics support is a crucial addition to traditional compliance-based approaches in military settings.