The Hunt-Vitell model of ethical decision-making produces decisions that beautifully balance preconditions and consequences. However, it does not explicitly show where situational awareness enters into the decision-making process. Situational awareness, or lack thereof, can in some cases completely change the decision being made.
Four locations in the existing model were proposed for situational awareness: as a part of the preconditions, as a condition applied after the decision has been made, as a condition parallel to the analysis of consequences, and as a condition parallel to the preconditions. These locations were analyzed from the decision-maker’s point-of-view and then validated by looking first at Finland’s decision to join NATO and then at a phone use-case in which malware forces applications to be blocked. It was found that the best location for situational awareness in the decision-making model is as a parallel condition to the preconditions. The validation showed that with good situational awareness, a decision could be made that was markedly different from the decision that would have been made without it. Even though the decision is different, if it has been made using the ethical principles used in the model, the decision can still be considered ethical.
Editors
Kai Rasmus, Tero Kokkonen
Cite as
Rasmus, K., Kokkonen, T. (2026). If You Have Situational Awareness, Then Where Would You Put It in an Ethical Decision-Making Model?. In: Rocha, A., Adeli, H., Poniszewska-Marańda, A., Moreira, F., Bianchi, I. (eds) Emerging Trends in Information Systems and Technologies. WorldCIST 2025. Lecture Notes in Networks and Systems, vol 1583. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-032-01234-0_10
Publication
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-032-01234-0_10
Acknowledgements
This research was partially funded by the Resilience of Modern Value Chains in a Sustainable Energy System project of the Jamk University of Applied Sciences, co-funded by the European Union and the Regional Council of Central Finland (grant number J10052). The authors would like to thank Ms. Tuula Kotikoski for proofreading the manuscript. The University of Jyväskylä has supported this work through its doctoral programme.
