Battle Cards 1–4
Card 1 — Ethical vs Legal
| Dimension | Legal | Ethical |
|---|---|---|
| Core question | What is required/permitted by law? | What is responsible given dignity, fairness, harm, trust, ownership and public responsibility? |
| Coverage | Codified rules for defined circumstances. | Broader judgment where law may be incomplete or silent. |
| Role clue | Legal counsel interprets requirements/legal risk. | Governance, leaders and practitioners still evaluate ethical impact. |
Deciding distinction: legal compliance is a floor, not proof of ethical responsibility.
Scenario: contract language probably permits sensitive inference from behavior, but customers were not clearly told. Strong response: examine purpose, transparency, autonomy, harm and Governance — not “Legal approved it.”
Trap: “It is legal, so there is no issue.”
Memory hook: Law asks may/must we? Ethics also asks should we, and under what safeguards?
Purpose: prevent “permitted = responsible” reasoning.
Typical users: Governance, legal counsel, Data Owners/Stewards and practitioners making data-use decisions.
Card 2 — Privacy vs Data Ethics
| Privacy | Data Ethics |
|---|---|
| Personal-data purpose, collection/use, safeguards, transparency, retention, rights/participation. | Responsible handling more broadly: quality, bias, ownership, interpretation, visualization, transformation, social impact. |
Deciding distinction: privacy is inside Data Ethics; Data Ethics is not reducible to privacy.
Privacy clue: consent, purpose, minimization, retention, access, erasure, confidentiality.
Broader ethics clue: misleading chart, biased sample, weak lineage, invalid comparison, harmful scoring, ownership/value.
Scenario: a truncated-axis dashboard exposes no personal data but can still be unethical because it manipulates interpretation.
Trap: treating every ethics question as privacy/security.
Purpose: keep privacy in the broader ethical frame without missing non-privacy harm.
Card 3 — Respect for Persons vs Beneficence vs Justice
| Principle | Protects | Best clue |
|---|---|---|
| Respect for Persons | Dignity, autonomy, meaningful choice; extra protection where autonomy is diminished. | consent, agency, vulnerable persons |
| Beneficence | Maximize possible benefit; minimize/avoid harm. | safer alternative, unnecessary invasiveness |
| Justice | Fair and equitable treatment. | group disparity, historical disadvantage |
Deciding distinction: choose the principle most directly triggered by the stem; a situation can implicate several.
- No meaningful choice about sensitive secondary use → Respect.
- Same business result with much less invasive data → Beneficence.
- Qualified applicants in one disadvantaged group rejected much more often → Justice.
Trap: choosing Beneficence whenever “harm” appears even when unequal group treatment makes Justice more specific.
Memory hook: Respect = agency. Beneficence = harm/benefit. Justice = fairness.
Card 4 — Principle vs Risk vs Practice vs Control
| Role | Meaning | Question |
|---|---|---|
| Principle | Value / ethical expectation. | What should be protected? |
| Risk | Possible harmful outcome. | What could go wrong? |
| Practice | Expected behavior / way of working. | What should people do? |
| Control | Mechanism that enforces/verifies/tests the practice. | How will we make/check it? |
Example
- Principle: respect health-information privacy.
- Risk: unauthorized access/public disclosure.
- Practice: only care-related users with a need get access.
- Control: periodic access review removes unnecessary users.
Deciding distinction: do not call a value statement a control.
Trap: “be ethical” or “respect privacy” has no testable enforcement mechanism.
Memory hook: Principle = value; Risk = harm; Practice = behavior; Control = check/enforcement.
Source anchors: Chapter 2 pp. 53–55 and 63–64.