Part D - Multi-scale Ethics and Conflict Optimization
D.1 - Clarify an Ethical Claim’s Value Basis (Value Plurality)
Type: D-family ethical boundary pattern Status: Stable Pattern role: This compact pattern gives the stable entry boundary and conformance checks for value-plurality use; fuller ethical theory remains outside FPF unless a direct pattern names it.
Use this when. Use this pattern when an FPF claim, method, work plan, architecture move, policy, recommendation, model, or system change has ethical force, but the value theory or ethical concern behind the claim is not yet explicit.
If that ethical claim is current but a possibly consequence-bearing System has not yet been identified, or the current affected-System set is not adequate, use A.1.CSD first. Return to D.1 with the bounded discovery account or its exact blocker; discovery alone does not make a claim ethical or complete the value frame.
Not this pattern when. If the current question is already a conflict across declared levels or scopes, use D.3. If the current question is how to mediate that conflict or use it in a decision, use D.4. If the current question is bias, fairness, human or group impact audit, causal-fairness audit consumption, or ethical assurance, use D.5.
What goes wrong if missed. FPF looks ethically neutral because it names evidence, method, architecture, or work but leaves the value frame and affected EntityOfConcern implicit.
What this buys. The reader can see whose concern is at issue, what is valued, and which ethical question to address next. A judgement additionally states its basis and the use that basis supports.
D.1:1 - Problem Frame
FPF cannot prescribe one final ethics doctrine and still remain usable across engineering, research, organizational, public, and AI-enabled work. But FPF also cannot treat ethical neutrality as permission to omit ethics. Many working claims already carry values: who may be harmed, who benefits, which consequences count, which responsibilities are accepted, what evidence is enough, and which sacrifice is treated as admissible.
D.1 supplies the boundary rule. When the ethical claim matters, make the value concern explicit enough that neighboring FPF patterns can inspect it. Do not hide it inside words such as “responsible”, “safe”, “fair”, “humane”, “acceptable”, or “aligned” without saying what is being valued, for whom, in which context, and with what evidence.
D.1:1.0 - Problem
Ethically loaded FPF claims often arrive as ordinary technical, architectural, method, evidence, or publication claims. The failure is that the reader cannot recover who or what is affected, what is valued, or what the ethical claim is meant to support. A conclusion can also overstate the evidence or hide a limitation that changes its use.
D.1:1.1 - Forces
| Force | Tension |
|---|---|
| Value plurality vs. shared use | FPF must work across ethical traditions, but the current claim still needs an inspectable value frame. |
| Technical adequacy vs. ethical force | Evidence, assurance, method, architecture, or work quality may be strong while the value concern remains implicit. |
| Local usefulness vs. overreach | A bounded ethical claim can guide work, but it must not become universal moral permission. |
| Plain language vs. hidden doctrine | Words such as responsible, safe, fair, aligned, or humane are useful only after the valued object and affected parties are named. |
| Boundary entry vs. conflict handling | Use D.1 to surface the value frame, D.3 for conflict structure, D.4 for mediation, and D.5 for bias audit and assurance use. |
D.1:2 - Solution
Start with the ethical claim or question, the affected EntityOfConcern, the value concern, and the present use of the answer. Name evidence and material uncertainty when the answer relies on them. If the task is to recognize the concern, a short statement of the value concern and next question completes that task; use D.3 when its sides and tension need description.
To judge a use ethically admissible, explain how the value premises and available evidence support that judgement and where it remains limited. Recognizing a concern supplies neither that judgement nor permission to act.
Use an EthicalValueFrame@Context when the present reasoning or a later reader needs to compare value premises, distinguish the uses a judgement supports, or revisit a premise that can change it. This content can remain in the answer or an existing decision record. The following form groups the applicable content:
EthicalValueFrame@Context:
ethicalClaimRef
affectedEntityOfConcernRef
intendedEthicalUse
claimScopeRef?: U.ClaimScope
qualificationWindowRef?
valueConcernRefs
valueFrameEditionRefs?
ethicalTheoryOrTraditionRefs?
affectedHolonRefs?
affectedSystemRefs?
affectedEpistemeRefs?
directResponsibilityRelationRefs?
systemRoleAssignmentRefs?: FinSet(U.RelationRef constrained to U.SystemRoleAssignment)
methodOrWorkRefs?
transformationRefs?
evidenceRefs?
uncertaintyOrCurrentnessCondition?
admissibleUse
inadmissibleOverread?
strongerSourceReturnCondition?
Include a source-return condition when a particular stronger claim or changed use needs it. Use C.11.DUA when the contribution or burden of a proposed frame, report, or evidence request is unresolved. The form creates no obligation to invent a further check or explain an inactive one.
This frame makes the value premises inspectable; the ethical judgement still needs its own reasoning. A utilitarian consequence claim, a deontic constraint, a virtue or character claim, a care-ethics concern, a rights claim, a professional-duty claim, and a project-specific value trade-off may all be admissible starting points, but they must not be presented as the same claim merely because the same word “ethical” appears.
D.1:3 - Boundaries
D.1 keeps value plurality and FPF boundary discipline. It does not replace:
| Question | Subject pattern |
|---|---|
| Which levels, scopes, holons, interests, responsibilities, methods, work, and consequences are in ethical tension? | D.3 |
| How should a mapped ethical conflict be mediated, refused, escalated, or used in a decision? | D.4 |
| Is a model, metric, policy, publication, or release-bearing claim biased, unfair, or ethically unsafe? | D.5 |
| Does the causal fairness claim have the required C.28 evidence value and verdict? | C.28, with D.5 for ethical-audit use |
| Is the ethical claim supported, and can that support be relied on for this use? | The applicable subject and evidence patterns for support; A.10 for bounded reliance on the result |
| Is an assurance claim being made? | B.3 |
| Is an architecture residual current? | C.30.ILC |
D.1:4 - Archetypal Grounding (Worked Slice)
A team says that a triage model is “ethical because it maximizes total benefit.” Asked which ethical question this leaves open, the practitioner can answer: the claim values aggregate benefit, while equal access and avoidable subgroup harm may lead to a different judgement. The next question is how those concerns apply to the affected patients. That answer completes the initial recognition task.
If the team instead proposes this claim as a reason to adopt the model, identify the affected patients and institutions, the meaning of “total benefit”, the consequence theory, the excluded concerns, the evidence relied on, and the use that evidence warrants. D.3 describes any live conflict over access or harm; D.4 governs its mediation or decision use.
D.1:4.1 - Bias-Annotation
| Bias risk | Failure | Mitigation |
|---|---|---|
| Ethical label as permission | A word such as responsible or fair is treated as enough to act. | Name the value concern, affected EntityOfConcern, evidence, and admissible use. |
| One doctrine by default | The local text silently assumes one ethical theory while claiming neutrality. | Name the ethical theory, tradition, or project value frame when it changes the claim. |
| Technical proof substitutes for value frame | Evidence, model quality, or architecture adequacy is read as ethical adequacy. | Keep evidence-use and assurance patterns separate from the ethical value frame. |
| Ethics becomes universal owner | Every difficult concern is assigned to D.1. | Use D.1 only for value-frame boundary; return conflict, mediation, bias, causal, assurance, and architecture claims to their subject patterns. |
D.1:5 - Conformance Checklist
| ID | Requirement | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| CC-D1-1 | The ethical claim or question, affected EntityOfConcern, value concern, and intended use are named. Relied-on evidence and material uncertainty qualify the answer. Value-frame editions, ClaimScope, qualification window, affected Systems, and direct responsibility relations are added when they change the claim or its warranted use. | Keeps “ethical” from becoming a label without content or a generic context premise. |
| CC-D1-2 | A judgement of ethical admissibility states its warranted use and any limitation that changes it. A separate frame or stronger-source return serves a particular reasoning or receiving need. | Prevents value wording from authorizing action by itself. |
| CC-D1-3 | Ethical theory, tradition, or project-specific value frame is named when it changes the claim. | Keeps plural value frames inspectable. |
| CC-D1-4 | Multilevel conflict, mediation, bias or fairness audit, causal use, evidence, assurance, and architecture residuals use their subject patterns. | Keeps D.1 as boundary pattern rather than universal ethics owner. |
D.1:7 - Common Anti-Patterns and How to Avoid Them
| Anti-pattern | What goes wrong | Repair |
|---|---|---|
| Neutrality theater | The work claims to avoid ethics by naming only technical evidence or method quality. | Recover the value concern or explicitly state that no ethical claim is being made. |
| Slogan ethics | Responsible, safe, humane, aligned, fair, or beneficial is used without affected parties and warranted use. | Name the affected parties, value concern, and intended claim; qualify the basis relied on. |
| Doctrine smuggling | A utilitarian, rights, duty, care, virtue, professional, or project-specific value frame is treated as obvious. | Name the value frame and the pattern for the stronger claim for any conflict. |
| Universal D.1 | D.1 is used to decide mediation, bias, causal fairness, or assurance. | Use D.3, D.4, D.5, C.28, A.10, B.3, or the subject pattern. |
D.1:6 - Consequences
This pattern makes ethical claims portable across FPF without pretending that FPF has one final ethical theory. It also prevents a common failure: a technical pattern silently inherits one ethical theory because a word such as “safe”, “fair”, “beneficial”, or “responsible” sounded ordinary.
Explicitness follows the claim being used: recognition needs a clear concern and next question, while a judgement needs its supporting basis and use limits. A durable frame earns its effort through the comparison or later reliance it supports.
D.1:8 - Rationale
D.1 is an entry boundary for ethical value plurality. It is intentionally modest: it does not settle ethical theory and does not decide an interlevel conflict. It makes the live value frame visible enough for neighboring FPF patterns to carry the next claim without hiding ethics inside technical adequacy, evidence, architecture, method, work, or publication wording.
This keeps FPF usable in engineering, research, organizational, public, and AI-enabled contexts where ethical traditions differ but value-bearing claims still need explicit affected entities, value concerns, and warranted use, with the evidence and return conditions that this use needs.
D.1:9 - SoTA-Echoing
| Source line | Practical implication for this pattern |
|---|---|
| Value pluralism and applied ethics practice | FPF should not pretend that one ethical doctrine resolves every project claim; it should expose the current value concern, affected EntityOfConcern, and excluded concerns, and qualify the basis of the judgement being used. |
| Engineering ethics and assurance practice | A method, work plan, architecture move, recommendation, system, or holon can be technically adequate while shifting harm, benefit, responsibility, or coercion elsewhere; technical verification does not settle the ethical claim. |
| Human-impact, AI governance, and dual-use practice | Fairness, responsibility, alignment, safety, and misuse claims need affected parties, context, and warranted use; relied-on evidence and the consequence horizon qualify that use. |
| FPF subject-pattern discipline | Ethical entry does not absorb evidence, causality, assurance, architecture, or bias-audit owners. |
D.1:10 - Relations
-
Builds on
A.1andA.7for EntityOfConcern and description distinction. -
Coordinates with
A.1.CSDwhen a current ethical claim still lacks an adequate set of Systems that may bear consequences; D.1 consumes the returned account and does not add value fields to its neutral core. -
Coordinates with
A.10for descriptive provenance and bounded reliance on the source or evidence used. -
Coordinates with
C.11.DUAwhen a proposed ethical record or evidence demand needs appraisal of its contribution, feasibility, burden, or requirement merits. -
Coordinates with
B.3when an assurance claim is current. -
Coordinates with
D.2,D.3,D.4, andD.5for multilevel entry, conflict structure, mediation, bias audit, causal-fairness audit consumption, and ethical assurance. -
Coordinates with
C.28for causal fairness use and withC.30.ILCwhen an architecture residual is current.
D.1:End
D.2 - Recognize Ethical Concerns Across Levels and Scopes (Multilevel Ethics)
Type: D-family ethical entry pattern Status: Stable Pattern role: This compact pattern helps a practitioner recognize multilevel ethical concern and identify the next exact subject assertion and predicate; it does not settle conflict or supply a fixed level ladder.
Use this when. Use this pattern when a system, holon, method, work plan, work occurrence, policy, recommendation, architecture move, or publication use may improve one declared level or scope while harming another, or when responsibility is assigned across levels.
Not this pattern when. If only the value frame is missing, use D.1. If D.3 has already described the conflict, use that result. If the conflict has to be mediated or used in a decision, use D.4. If the current concern is bias, fairness, impact audit, causal-fairness audit consumption, or ethical assurance, use D.5.
What goes wrong if missed. A local improvement is treated as ethically sufficient while another declared level, scope, or affected holon carries the harm.
What this buys. The practitioner names the affected levels or scopes, the current value frame, and the next pattern to apply before mediation, assurance, bias audit, or architecture return.
D.2:1 - Problem Frame
Ethical trouble in system-holon work often appears because the current action is good for one level and bad for another. A person may benefit while a team is damaged. A project may benefit while a community pays the cost. A standard may improve coordination while excluding a minority case. A model may improve one metric while moving harm to a less visible scope.
Do not force these cases into a fixed ladder such as local, group, ecosystem, planetary. Declare the levels and scopes present in the situation—for example, a person, team, organization, community, polity, economy, built asset, project, environment, episteme family, standard, publication, AI-enabled system, or another admitted holon or declared scope.
D.2:1.0 - Problem
A change can be beneficial at one declared level or scope while imposing harm, exclusion, or risk elsewhere, or while changing a direct responsibility relation. The failure is to treat the local gain as ethically sufficient before the affected levels, scopes, holons, epistemes, Methods, actual Work, evidence, and next subject pattern are named. Recover role wording through E.10.ROLE; do not infer responsibility from a kind or assignment.
D.2:1.1 - Forces
| Force | Tension |
|---|---|
| Local benefit vs. cross-level harm | A change can improve one declared scope while imposing cost, risk, or exclusion elsewhere. |
| Situation-defined levels vs. fixed ladders | Multilevel ethics needs declared levels and scopes from the case, not a universal moral hierarchy. |
| Holons in life vs. descriptions | The affected object may be a system, episteme, publication use, policy, or architecture move; the entry must not collapse these into one document concern. |
| Early recognition vs. premature mediation | Use D.2 to make the conflict visible, D.3 to describe its sides and tension, and D.4 for mediation. |
| Ethical concern vs. architecture residual | Cross-scope residuals can be architectural, ethical, or both; the next pattern to apply must be named by value. |
D.2:2 - Solution
Name the local gain, who or what may bear a loss, and the levels or scopes that make this an ethical concern. State the next question to settle. Recognition is complete when those sides and the next use are clear; an already qualified D.3 conflict or D.4 decision question can be used directly.
Use MultilevelEthicsEntry@Context when the practitioner or a recipient needs to recover these connections for comparison or revision. Keep its content in the existing answer or working note when that suffices. Add evidence, value-frame editions, and supporting relations where the stated concern actually relies on them:
MultilevelEthicsEntry@Context:
ethicalConcernRef
affectedEntityOfConcernRef
valueFrameEditionRefs?
claimScopeRef?: U.ClaimScope
qualificationWindowRef?
declaredLevelOrScopeRefs
affectedHolonRefs
affectedEpistemeRefs?
roleWordRecoveryRefs?: E.10.ROLE results when role wording occurs
localSystemRoleKindRefs?: FinSet(U.KindRef)
systemRoleClassificationAssertionRefs?: FinSet(U.EpistemeRef)
systemRoleAssignmentRows?: FinSet({
assignmentSpeciesRef: U.RelationKindRef constrained under U.SystemRoleAssignment
assignmentOccurrenceRef: U.RelationRef constrained to an obtaining occurrence of assignmentSpeciesRef, with actual participants, holder, applicability, and extent recoverable
})
participationOrAffectedPartyRelationRefs?: exact direct relation refs
participationOrAffectedPartyMissingGovernorRefs?: exact A.6.RCD results
responsibilityRelationRefs?: exact direct relation refs
responsibilityMissingGovernorRefs?: exact A.6.RCD results
commitmentRelationRefs?: exact direct relation refs
commitmentMissingGovernorRefs?: exact A.6.RCD results
permissionRelationRefs?: exact direct relation refs
permissionMissingGovernorRefs?: exact A.6.RCD results
authorityRelationRefs?: exact direct relation refs
authorityMissingGovernorRefs?: exact A.6.RCD results
interestOrConcernRefs
capabilityOrFunctioningConcernRefs?
methodRefs?
workRefs?
transformationRefs?
expectedConsequenceRefs
evidenceRefs?
uncertaintyOrCurrentnessCondition?
nextSubjectPatternLocator
The entry has one job: make the multilevel concern recognizable and choose its next use. It does not require a separate dossier or new inquiry before the concern can be discussed. A proposed inquiry goes through C.11.DUA when its receiving contribution or feasibility is unresolved; conflict description and decision use remain with D.3 and D.4.
For this pattern, holon work includes material systems and epistemes when they are the affected EntityOfConcern. An architectural description, standard, model card, policy publication, or research program may be the affected episteme; the pattern still asks which levels, scopes, affected holons, interests, responsibilities, and consequences are live.
D.2:3 - Recognition Matrix
| Working situation | What to recover | Next pattern to apply |
|---|---|---|
| A Method helps one team meet its target while increasing risk for another team or for users. | Affected holons, any independently current assignment, Method, actual Work when present, expected consequences, evidence, and each responsibility, commitment, permission, authority, or participation relation that the concern relies on. | D.3 conflict description |
| A public policy helps a city-level goal while making one neighborhood or profession worse off. | Declared scopes, value concerns, responsibility claims, evidence, uncertainty. | D.3 conflict description |
| A technical standard improves interoperability but excludes a minority device, language, publication form, or data source. | Standard or episteme whole, affected systems, publication and use relations, consequence horizon. | D.3, with C.2.1 and E.17 as needed |
| A model or metric looks fair at one aggregate level but hides subgroup harm. | Metric, affected groups, causal claim, evidence set, audit condition. | D.5, with C.28 when causal fairness is claimed |
| An architecture move reduces residual at one holon level while creating cross-scope residual elsewhere. | Architecture structure, selected scopes, residual, affected value concerns. | C.30.ILC; use D.3 if ethical conflict is live |
D.2:4 - Boundaries
D.2 is an entry pattern, not a general ethics doctrine and not a conflict solver. It keeps ethics from being omitted when levels and scopes of holons matter. It also keeps multilevel ethics from replacing architecture, assurance, causal, evidence, or publication patterns before the ethical EntityOfConcern is clear.
D.2 does not create U.Level, U.Frustration, U.Emergence, or a fixed moral scale. Levels and scopes are declared relations in the current situation. If a mathematical lens is needed for scale, frustration, optimization, Pareto comparison, or renormalization-like reasoning, use C.29 and the applicable pattern for the current object.
D.2:5 - Archetypal Grounding (Worked Slice)
A product team wants to reduce service cost by making a medical device harder to service outside authorized centers. At the first discussion, the team expects better manufacturer quality control and lower liability risk, while patients in regions without authorized service may lose timely access. Name those sides and their scopes, then return the next question: which service restriction, if any, addresses the particular hazard without imposing avoidable access harm? This is a useful D.2 result. D.3 can describe the tension in a short note from the available account.
Now suppose a release decision depends on whether a proposed servicing method can leave calibration outside the declared tolerance. A qualified test team can perform the discriminating check before the release window closes, and the release authority needs its result under the applicable rule. Preserve that focused investigation and the rule’s actual force. Use C.11.DUA to compare the restriction’s protective contribution with access harm, feasible alternatives, delay, and displaced work; a safety label settles none of those merits. D.4 carries the resulting decision, including the authority needed to change a requirement or accept a residual. If the required basis cannot be obtained, the proposed release remains unsupported; a narrower continuation must meet its own conditions.
D.2:5.1 - Bias-Annotation
| Bias risk | Failure | Mitigation |
|---|---|---|
| Local optimum becomes ethical sufficiency | A benefit at one level is treated as enough while another scope carries harm. | Declare affected levels, scopes, holons, value concerns, and next subject pattern. |
| Fixed ladder bias | A generic hierarchy such as individual, team, and society replaces the levels present in the case. | Derive levels and scopes from the affected EntityOfConcern, named holons and Work, value frames, and responsibility relations that are current. |
| System-only bias | Multilevel ethics is limited to material systems and misses epistemes, standards, publications, or descriptions. | Treat affected systems and epistemes as admitted holons when the case makes them current. |
| Architecture absorbs ethics | A cross-scope residual is treated only as architecture because it has a structural shape. | Use C.30.ILC for architecture residual and D.3 and D.4 when value, harm, responsibility, or admissible sacrifice is live. |
D.2:6 - Conformance Checklist
| ID | Requirement | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| CC-D2-1 | Declared levels or scopes come from the situation and are named by value. | Prevents fixed moral ladders and false U.Level. |
| CC-D2-2 | Affected holons, epistemes, Methods, actual Work, and consequences are named when current. Role wording is recovered through E.10.ROLE; a local kind and a C.2.1 System-classification assertion episteme remain separate. Every assignment recovers its directly declared species and obtaining occurrence. Participation or affected-party status, responsibility, commitment, permission, and authority each use their own direct relation or exact missing-governor. | Keeps the entry usable without making assignment imply participation or responsibility. |
| CC-D2-3 | The result identifies the next live question and D.3, D.4, D.5, C.30.ILC, or another subject pattern that answers it. The entry record is used only when its recoverable content contributes to that use. | Keeps D.2 as entry recognition, not conflict solver. |
| CC-D2-4 | Mathematical scale, threshold, optimization, or Pareto reasoning uses C.29 or the direct measurement pattern. | Prevents math wording from becoming ethics ontology. |
D.2:8 - Common Anti-Patterns and How to Avoid Them
| Anti-pattern | What goes wrong | Repair |
|---|---|---|
| One-level ethics | The case is treated as good because one declared level improves. | Name every affected level or scope that changes the ethical claim. |
| Ladder import | A fixed level list is imported before the case is understood. | Recover the situation-defined scopes first. |
| Entry as solution | D.2 is used to decide the conflict. | Name the concern and select D.3, D.4, D.5, C.30.ILC, or another subject pattern for its next use. |
| Hidden episteme harm | A standard, model, policy, or architecture description is treated only as a document, not as an affected episteme with use consequences. | Separate the episteme, its publication relation, use relation, and affected systems or people. |
D.2:7 - Consequences
This pattern makes ethical level structure visible early. It prevents two opposite errors: treating ethics as a late bias audit only, and treating every interlevel residual as architecture without first asking whether value, harm, responsibility, or admissible sacrifice is being claimed.
D.2:9 - Rationale
D.2 makes multilevel ethical concern visible before the work jumps to conflict mediation, bias audit, assurance, or architecture. This matters because many cases look technically local but ethically cross-level: a method, standard, architecture move, publication, or work plan can improve one scope while pushing cost, risk, exclusion, or responsibility elsewhere.
The pattern deliberately avoids a fixed ladder. It asks for declared levels and scopes from the situation, then selects the next pattern to apply. That keeps FPF holon-aware without making every cross-scope case an architecture residual or every ethical case a bias audit.
D.2:10 - SoTA-Echoing
| Source line | Practical implication for this pattern |
|---|---|
| Multilevel selection and holonic systems thinking | Ethical effects often appear across nested, overlapping, or situation-defined scopes; the case must declare the levels or scopes it uses instead of importing a fixed moral ladder. |
| Applied ethics and responsibility practice | Responsibility and harm cannot be assigned only at the most local level when a method, work plan, policy, standard, architecture move, or recommendation moves consequences across scopes. |
| FPF holon and episteme ontology | Affected systems, collections, work occurrences, disciplines, and epistemes may be current; value-frame editions, ClaimScope, and qualification windows delimit the ethical claim, while descriptions and publication use remain separate from the affected in-life object. |
| Architecture residual discipline | A cross-scope residual can require architecture repair, a D.3 conflict description, or both; D.2 names the next pattern to apply instead of treating architecture shape as ethical proof or ethics as architecture by default. |
D.2:11 - Relations
- Builds on
D.1for ethical value frame boundary. - Builds on
A.1,B.1, andC.13for holon, level, scope, and part-whole grounding. - Coordinates with
D.3for the interlevel ethical conflict description and withD.4for mediation or decision use. - Coordinates with
D.5for bias, fairness, impact audit, causal-fairness audit consumption, and ethical assurance. - Coordinates with
C.11.DUAwhen a proposed inquiry or disputed protective requirement needs contribution, feasibility, and burden appraisal. - Coordinates with
A.15,A.3.4,C.16,C.29, andC.30.ILCwhen method, work, transformation, measurement, mathematical lens, or architecture residual claims are current.
D.2:End
D.3 - Describe an Ethical Conflict Across Levels or Scopes
Type: D-family ethical conflict-description pattern Status: Stable Pattern role: This compact pattern helps a practitioner make an interlevel ethical conflict inspectable and identify the result as an
InterlevelEthicalConflictDescriptionepisteme. Use D.4 for mediation and decision use, D.5 for bias, fairness, impact, and ethical assurance, C.28 for causal claims, and C.30.ILC for architecture residuals.
Use this when. Use this pattern when ethical claims at different declared levels or scopes cannot all be met as stated, and their tension must be clear before mediation, decision, assurance, or architecture work. State an ethical concern as the claim that makes it current in this case.
Not this pattern when. If only the ethical value frame is missing, use D.1. If only entry recognition is needed, use D.2. If D.3 has already described the conflict and the current question is mediation or decision use, use D.4. If the question is bias, fairness, impact audit, causal-fairness audit consumption, or ethical assurance, use D.5.
What goes wrong if missed. The team debates values or decisions before it can say who or what is affected, under which value frame and scope, over what horizon, and why the live claims are in tension.
What this buys. A reader can see each side, what it affects, and how the sides are in tension before deciding what to do. The same description can later support work under D.4, D.5, evidence, causal, assurance, or architecture patterns without turning its table or file into the conflict itself.
D.3:1 - Problem Frame
Interlevel ethical conflict is not just disagreement between people. It may involve a system part and a whole, a person and an organization, one organization and a community, a project and a society, a collection and its members, an episteme family and the decisions it shapes, or an architecture move and the holon levels it affects. The case supplies its levels and scopes; D.3 does not impose a universal moral ladder.
The practical problem is connecting each claim to what it affects. A list of affected entities, values, Methods, Work, evidence, and horizons does not show which claim concerns which entity or why two sides cannot both be satisfied. D.3 therefore records each side as one connected statement and then records the tension among the sides.
The reusable result is a description episteme, not the conflict in the situation and not the form used to show it. The phrase conflict structure remains useful ordinary shorthand for the connected claim content inside that description. It does not name a new public U.* kind or a generic direct relation.
D.3:1.0 - Problem
An ethical conflict is often argued before it is described. The affected objects, scopes, value frames, claimed benefits and harms, evidence limits, and consequence horizons remain implicit, so mediation begins from slogans rather than from inspectable claims.
D.3:1.1 - Forces
| Force | Tension |
|---|---|
| Conflict description vs. decision use | The sides and their tension must be inspectable before D.4 can mediate, refuse, or support a bounded decision. |
| Level and scope plurality vs. fixed ladder | A case may involve persons, teams, organizations, communities, systems, epistemes, or environments without one universal hierarchy. |
| Conflict vs. description | A narrative, table, graph, or formal expression can describe the conflict but is not the situation, claims, harms, or relations it describes. |
| Cheap first result vs. reusable precision | Most cases first need two clear sides and one tension statement; later reuse may need an identified episteme and typed supporting relations. |
| Agency evidence vs. responsibility | Evidence may support an agency characteristic or threshold. Responsibility still needs its own direct predicate and actual participants; no score, label, collection name, or assignment supplies it. |
| Architecture residual vs. ethical conflict | A cross-scope structure can be architectural, ethical, or both. C.30.ILC triages the architecture residual; D.3 describes the ethical conflict. |
D.3:2 - Solution
D.3:2.1 - First useful result
Start with two sides and one tension statement. For each side, write:
- the ethical claim that states the concern in ordinary language;
- the exact affected entity;
- the declared level relation, claim scope, or Work extent that locates the concern;
- the value-frame edition under which the consequence matters;
- the expected benefit, harm, or constraint and its consequence horizon; and
- the evidence use or uncertainty only when the side currently relies on it.
Then say why the sides cannot both be met as stated, what would be traded, or why they remain in unresolved tension. Name the next live use: mediation, refusal, a decision, an evidence or causal question, assurance, or architecture return. Stop there when this makes the conflict inspectable for that use.
This first result can remain a short working note. It does not need a schema, publication, assurance package, responsibility model, or complete account of every participant.
D.3:2.2 - Reusable conflict description
When another reader or later use must cite, compare, revise, or publish the result, identify one InterlevelEthicalConflictDescription. This is an ordinary local name for one C.2.1 U.Episteme, not a newly admitted U.* kind.
Apply the C.2.1 identity test:
- EntityOfConcern: one exact entity already recovered for the case, such as the plan, proposed system change, or decision situation whose ethical tension is being described. Do not use a loose bundle of several possible subjects.
- ClaimGraph: the exact claim content containing the conflict sides, their tension, and the next-use question. When those claims are explicitly restricted to part of the situation, it also identifies the description’s ClaimScope.
- effective ReferenceScheme: the designation, interpretation, measurement, comparison, and evaluation rules needed to read those claims.
Changed claim content, EntityOfConcern, or effective ReferenceScheme identifies another episteme. Say that a later description revises or supersedes an earlier one only when an exact C.2.1 EpistemeEditionRelation is asserted. A changed narrative, table layout, publication form, carrier, or publication occurrence does not by itself change the episteme.
Use this compact content shape when a reusable record helps:
InterlevelEthicalConflictDescription — C.2.1 identity:
entityOfConcernRef
claimGraph:
descriptionClaimScopeRef?
conflictSides: at least two rows
- sideId
ethicalClaim: plain statement that identifies the claim; add a ClaimAddress only when reusing an existing claim
affectedEntityRef
declaredLevelRelationRef?
sideClaimScopeRef?
affectedWorkExtentRef?
valueFrameEditionRef
expectedConsequence: what changes and why it counts, for example, as a benefit, harm, or constraint under that value frame
consequenceHorizon
evidenceUseRef?
uncertaintyStatement?
tension:
sideIds
plainStatement
directRelationDefinitionRef?
obtainingRelationOccurrenceRef?
missingGovernorRef?
nextUse: plain statement; cite a question episteme only when another use needs that identity
effectiveReferenceSchemeRef
When present, descriptionClaimScopeRef identifies the declared part of the situation covered by the whole description. Do not add it merely to complete the shape. A side’s ClaimScope or Work extent says where that side applies; it never substitutes for the whole-description scope.
The plainStatement must name the exact incompatibility, trade-off, parity, or other tension claimed among the sides. In an ordinary case, it remains claim content in the description. If a receiving use relies on a separately obtaining direct relation, cite the exact relation definition and occurrence with its participants, applicability, and identity. If no adequate governor exists, record the exact A.6.RCD missing-governor result. Merely filling a reference field never makes a direct relation obtain.
D.3:2.3 - Add detail only when it changes the conflict or its next use
| Open this branch when… | Add… | Keep separate… |
|---|---|---|
| A Method is part of a side’s claim. | the exact U.Method under A.3.1 and, when cited, its MethodDescription under A.3.2 | Method identity from any dated performance |
| Performance actually occurred. | use A.13 to identify the actual performer System; use A.15.1 to admit the exact dated U.Work independently from its history, Method, extent, and containing System; if the conflict account must also identify the assignment under which the Work was performed, check that relation separately through F.6 | keep a plan, intention, assignment, capability, permission, authority, and responsibility separate from performed Work |
| Assignment matters. | the exact assignment species and its obtaining occurrence under A.2.1, with actual participants and applicability | assignment from performance, responsibility, permission, or authority |
| Role-shaped wording or classification matters. | one E.10.ROLE recovery, then the local kind and a separate C.2.1 classification assertion episteme under C.3.2 after the candidate passes its admissibility test | the word role, kind, assertion, assignment, and acting System from one another |
| Evidence changes a side or its uncertainty. | the evidence episteme and the exact A.10 evidence-use or reliance result | stored evidence from reliance on it |
| A transformation changes who benefits or is harmed. | the exact transformation occurrence under A.3.4 and its affected participants | a transformation description from the occurrence |
| Membership or part-whole structure matters. | the exact collection-membership or part-whole predicate and obtaining occurrence | a plural name from an acting or responsible System |
| Agency is disputed. | the exact Characteristic, Scale, threshold, and supporting evidence use | an agency reading from responsibility |
| Responsibility, permission, authority, commitment, or participation is claimed. | the exact relation definition and obtaining occurrence, or the exact A.6.RCD missing-governor result | the relation family from an occurrence; the occurrence from evidence for it |
| A calculation or formal comparison changes the tension. | the exact C.29 representation, its correspondence to the independently recovered objects, and the operation used | a formula or score from the ethical conflict or decision |
| Publication or audience use changes the ethical claim. | the selected episteme edition, publication occurrence, form, carrier, audience, and bounded use under E.17 and E.24.PUB | the published episteme from its form, carrier, publishing Work, and availability relation |
| A harm or benefit depends on causality, assurance, or architecture. | only the affected C.28, B.3, D.5, or C.30.ILC return | the conflict description from causal proof, assurance, or architecture selection |
Open no branch merely because the field exists. The detail must change a side, the tension, or the next receiving use.
D.3:3 - Collection and Episteme Cases
A collection is ethically current only when whole-level characteristics, membership relations, environment-mediated effects, or aggregate consequences matter. Use A.14 for part-whole and membership relations and C.13 for constructive grounding. A plural or institutional name does not make the collection an acting or responsible System.
An episteme is ethically current when its claim content, source use, publication, described EntityOfConcern, or model use changes the affected systems or decisions. Use C.2.1 for episteme identity and exact edition claims, and E.17 with E.24.PUB for publication. The D.3 conflict description is a separate episteme about the selected case; it does not become identical to the policy, model, standard, or architecture description involved in one of its sides.
D.3:4 - Boundaries
| Do this in D.3 | Do not do this in D.3 |
|---|---|
| Derive the declared levels and scopes from the case. | Invent U.Level, U.Frustration, U.Emergence, or a fixed moral ladder. |
| Connect every side’s claim, affected entity, scope, value frame, consequence, and horizon. | Present flat bags of entities, values, evidence, and relations as if their connections were obvious. |
| Keep the conflict description, the situation it describes, and its narrative, table, graph, form, carrier, and publication separate. | Treat a file or diagram as the conflict, or treat description content as proof that a direct relation obtains. |
| Add Method, Work, assignment, classification, evidence use, agency, responsibility, publication, assurance, causal, or architecture detail only when current. | Require assurance-like apparatus before the first useful map exists. |
| Stop at an inspectable tension and next-use question. | Choose the compromise, refusal, override, or accepted residual; those are D.4 uses. |
Use C.30.ILC when an architecture residual is also current. | Route every cross-scope architecture problem to ethics. |
D.3:5 - Archetypal Grounding (Worked Slices)
Minimal engineering record. A consultant is asked to improve a surveillance project’s effectiveness.
Case: whether to accept the named consulting plan
Scope: the proposed consulting work and the intended deployment it would enable
Side A: the client receives more effective engineering advice; affected entity: client project;
value frame: client delivery edition 3;
consequence and horizon: near-term performance benefit during design.
Side B: the proposed capability increases foreseeable harm to monitored people;
affected entity: the named affected population; value frame: project ethics edition 2;
consequence and horizon: rights and safety harm over service life.
Tension: performing the plan would advance Side A by enabling the harm named in Side B.
Next use: D.4 refusal or conditions; C.28 first if the harm claim needs causal support.
This is enough to begin D.4 and does not decide who is responsible. If another reader must cite or revise the note, identify it as an InterlevelEthicalConflictDescription whose EntityOfConcern is the consulting-plan episteme. If consulting Work later occurs, use A.13 to identify its actual performer and A.15.1 to admit the dated occurrence independently. Add F.6 only if the note must also identify the assignment under which that Work was performed. Add agency, responsibility, permission, authority, or another assignment claim only through its independently obtaining relation or exact missing governor.
Conditional collection record. A fleet-wide maintenance change lowers cost but may raise failure risk for a small subfleet operating in harsh conditions. The description has a fleet-cost side and a harsh-service safety side, each with its affected entity, scope, value-frame edition, consequence, and horizon. Add the exact fleet-membership relation because it locates the subfleet. Add the reliability evidence episteme and A.10 evidence use because the safety side relies on them. Return the causal question to C.28 if the risk claim depends on the proposed change. None of those additions makes the fleet an acting or responsible whole; use A.1 for systemhood and the exact responsibility predicate for responsibility.
Episteme record. A published architecture description normalizes an interface assumption that excludes an alternative implementation. The EntityOfConcern of the D.3 description is the exact supplier-selection situation, not the architecture-description file. One side claims lower integration cost; the other claims unjust exclusion of affected suppliers under a named value-frame edition and horizon. Cite the architecture-description episteme and its publication or use only because that use carries the assumption into the decision. Use C.30.AD for description adequacy and use E.17 with E.24.PUB for publication; D.3 records the ethical tension that remains.
D.3:5.1 - Bias-Annotation
| Bias risk | Failure | Mitigation |
|---|---|---|
| Debate replaces a connected account | The team argues about values before connecting each claim to an affected entity, scope, frame, consequence, and horizon. | Write the side rows and tension statement before mediation. |
| Description becomes conflict | A diagram, matrix, or narrative is treated as the ethical conflict itself. | Identify the description as a C.2.1 episteme and keep its EntityOfConcern and presentation form separate. |
| Collection name becomes responsibility | Organization, society, public, market, or AI is treated as responsible by label. | Recover systemhood, membership, participation, assignment, and agency evidence separately; cite the exact responsibility relation or missing governor. |
| Formal completeness displaces use | A large record is filled even though two sides and one tension already answer the current question. | Stop at the first adequate description and add only detail consumed by the next use. |
| Architecture absorbs ethics | Cross-scope residual wording hides value, harm, responsibility, or admissible sacrifice. | Use the applicable architecture pattern for the residual and use D.3 with D.4 for the ethical conflict and its use. |
D.3:6 - Conformance Checklist
| ID | Requirement | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| CC-D3-1 | A reusable result is one C.2.1 episteme with one exact EntityOfConcern, ClaimGraph, and effective ReferenceScheme. Edition, form, carrier, and publication remain separate. | Makes the reference used by D.4 reidentifiable. |
| CC-D3-2 | At least two sides each connect one ethical claim, affected entity, declared level relation or applicable scope, value-frame edition, consequence, and horizon. Evidence use and uncertainty are added when current. | Shows what each claim affects rather than presenting a flat inventory. |
| CC-D3-3 | Any ClaimScope on the whole description remains separate from side-specific ClaimScopes and Work extents. | Prevents the description’s coverage from replacing the scope of a side. |
| CC-D3-4 | The tension names the sides and states why they cannot all be met as stated. Any direct relation claim cites its definition and obtaining occurrence, or the exact A.6.RCD missing-governor result. | Prevents a reference field from manufacturing a fact in the situation. |
| CC-D3-5 | Classification assertion, Method, Work, relation definition, relation occurrence, evidence episteme, evidence use, publication, form, and carrier remain separately typed when used. | Prevents the conflict description from absorbing neighboring objects. |
| CC-D3-6 | The first useful result is readable without the optional enriched branches, and every added branch changes the conflict or its next use. | Keeps D.3 affordable in ordinary project work. |
| CC-D3-7 | The next-use statement names D.4, D.5, C.28, C.30.ILC, evidence, assurance, or another receiving pattern by value. | Keeps mapping separate from mediation, decision, proof, and assurance. |
D.3:8 - Common Anti-Patterns and How to Avoid Them
| Anti-pattern | What goes wrong | Repair |
|---|---|---|
| Political label as structure | The conflict is named by a slogan such as society versus innovation. | Write the concrete sides, affected entities, scopes, value frames, consequences, and horizon. |
| Flat inventory | The map lists values, entities, evidence, and relations without showing which belong together. | Use side rows and one tension statement. |
| Actor by plural noun | A collection is made responsible because its name is plural or institutional. | Recover systemhood and each relation separately; cite an exact responsibility occurrence or missing governor. |
| Description-only conflict | The case becomes only a wording problem about a report, model, or standard. | Keep episteme identity and publication with their patterns while D.3 describes the affected systems, decisions, and ethical tension. |
| Mediation inside map | The description chooses the compromise. | Stop at the tension and next-use question; use D.4 for mediation or decision use. |
| Ontology as prose tax | Every simple concern is expanded into specialist relation language. | State the ordinary side first; add a formal identity only when another use relies on the distinction. |
D.3:7 - Consequences
Work under D.4, D.5, B.3, C.28, A.10, C.11, and C.30.ILC can cite one conflict description without mistaking that description for the ethical object. The cost is that a reusable description must keep its claims, subject, interpretation, and neighboring relations distinct. The gain is that ordinary mediation and decision work can start from a short, connected account rather than a slogan or a large assurance form.
D.3:9 - Rationale
The description episteme resolves the pattern’s main ambiguity. The ethical situation is not a file or table, while D.4 still needs a stable object it can cite. C.2.1 supplies that object without inventing a universal conflict kind: the claims say what the sides are, one exact EntityOfConcern says what case they concern, and the effective ReferenceScheme says how to read them.
Side rows make the conflict inspectable because they preserve which claim affects which entity and scope. Conditional branches then recover Method, Work, transformations, evidence use, collection structure, agency, responsibility, publication, assurance, causality, and architecture only where the case actually depends on them. This keeps exact ontology available without making specialist prose the entrance price for ethical work.
D.3:10 - SoTA-Echoing
SoTA here means the best current contribution to the practical question of making value conflict inspectable before deciding it. The comparison is current to 2026-08-20; publication date, popularity, and official status are not sufficient by themselves.
| Practice question | Exact source and status | Selected contribution and limit | Decision, receiving locus, and reopen |
|---|---|---|---|
| How can design work expose affected parties, values, and long-horizon effects before choosing a solution? | Batya Friedman and David G. Hendry, Value Sensitive Design: Shaping Technology with Moral Imagination (MIT Press, 2019), established method account (https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/7585.001.0001). | Stakeholder analysis, value scenarios, and multilifespan timelines support explicit affected parties, values, and horizons. VSD does not supply FPF episteme identity, direct-relation identity, or a complete method for resolving value conflicts. | Adapt affected-entity, value-frame, and horizon prompts into D.3:2 and the worked cases; reject VSD as a conflict ontology or decision authority. Reopen if a later method connects conflict sides to affected entities more clearly at comparable effort. |
| How should ethical concerns remain traceable through system design? | ISO/IEC/IEEE 24748-7000:2022, Edition 1, published 2022-11, Standard model process for addressing ethical concerns during system design (https://www.iso.org/standard/84893.html; IEEE 7000-2021 remains the earlier lineage edition). | The standard traces elicited values through operational concepts, value propositions, requirements, and ethical risk-based design. Its full life-cycle process and organizational apparatus are much heavier than one D.3 map, and official status does not make it the default method. | Adapt traceability from each value-frame claim to the affected design move and receiving decision in D.3:2.2-2.3; reject compulsory transfer of the full process. Reopen on a new edition or evidence that a lighter method gives better traceability. |
| Must every value conflict become a single-scale trade-off or optimization? | Atay Kozlovski, “Parity and the Resolution of Value Conflicts in Design,” Science and Engineering Ethics 28, 22 (2022), DOI 10.1007/s11948-022-00375-4. | The paper compares three VSD conflict approaches and argues that incommensurable values may stand in parity rather than in a better, worse, or equal ordering. It is a proposed repair, not a universal conflict-resolution procedure. | Adapt the explicit tension branch and the rule against forcing one scale in D.3:2.1-2.2; send actual mediation to D.4. Reopen when stronger applied evidence changes how parity helps design decisions. |
| How can cross-scope benefits, harms, and uncertainty be mapped in a living technical programme? | NIST, Artificial Intelligence Risk Management Framework 1.0 (NIST AI 100-1, 2023-01-26) and its live Core, checked 2026-08-20 (https://doi.org/10.6028/NIST.AI.100-1; https://airc.nist.gov/airmf-resources/airmf/5-sec-core/). NIST states that a revised version is in progress. | MAP 1 and MAP 5 connect intended uses with positive and negative impacts across individuals, groups, communities, organizations, society, and the planet, while keeping uncertainty and changing conditions visible. The framework is AI-specific and its actor, governance, and responsibility language does not establish FPF systemhood or direct responsibility relations. | Adapt the multi-scope affected-entity, consequence, uncertainty, and horizon prompts into D.3:2 and the collection case; reject the AI taxonomy, full governance apparatus, and any responsibility inference. Reopen when the announced revision is published or another domain method outperforms it for this use. |
D.3:11 - Relations
- Builds on
D.1andD.2for value-frame boundary and multilevel entry. - Uses
C.2.1to identify the reusable conflict-description episteme and any classification assertion episteme. - Uses
E.10.ROLEonce when role-shaped wording must be recovered before kind, assertion, assignment, agency, or responsibility claims are made. - Uses
A.6.RCDwhen a needed direct relation has no adequate governor. - Builds on
A.1,A.14,B.1, andC.13when systemhood, part-whole, membership, collections, or constructive grounding are current. - Coordinates with
D.4for mediation and decision use and withD.5for bias, fairness, impact audit, causal-fairness audit consumption, and ethical assurance. - Coordinates with
E.17andE.24.PUBfor publication, form, carrier, audience, and availability claims. - Coordinates with
C.30.ILC,A.10,B.3,C.28, andC.29when architecture residual, evidence, assurance, causal, or mathematical-lens claims are current.
D.3:End
D.4 - Ethical Mediation and Decision Use
Type: D-family ethical mediation and decision-use pattern Status: Stable Pattern role: Develop and compare ways to act when an ethical conflict has already been described; return a recommendation, conditional continuation, refusal or impasse.
Use this when. Use this pattern when an InterlevelEthicalConflictDescription from D.3 must support mediation, refusal, a decision, an evidence demand, or a return to causal, assurance, or architecture work.
Not this pattern when. If the conflict has not yet been described, use D.3. If the issue is only value plurality, use D.1. If the issue is only entry recognition, use D.2. If the current work is bias, fairness, impact audit, causal-fairness audit consumption, or ethical assurance, use D.5.
What goes wrong if missed. Naming the conflict or filling in a decision record replaces the work of developing options and judging what each would require or change.
What this buys. The practitioner can compare available ways to act, recognize a useful change to the proposed means, and explain a recommendation or why the choice remains unresolved. Evidence, causal, assurance, architecture and bias-audit claims keep their own subject methods.
D.4:1 - Problem Frame
Once an interlevel ethical conflict is visible, the next risk is premature closure. A team may declare a compromise before evidence is sufficient, turn an assurance input into ethical permission, use one level’s value as a trump card, or hide a refusal behind technical language.
D.4 guides one use of the conflict described by D.3. It does not make FPF a final moral authority. It asks what move is admissible from the current description and what must return to evidence, causality, assurance, architecture, decision, or value framing before action is justified.
D.4:1.0 - Problem
A described ethical conflict can still be used badly. The failure is to treat its description, an assurance input, a formula, or an architecture return as if it already selected a compromise, refusal, evidence demand, accepted residual, or bounded decision use.
D.4:1.1 - Forces
| Force | Tension |
|---|---|
| Described conflict vs. premature closure | A conflict description makes action discussable, but does not by itself decide compromise, refusal, or permission. |
| Evidence demand vs. decision pressure | Work may need a decision, while the ethical claim still needs stronger evidence, causal analysis, assurance, or architecture return. |
| Mediation vs. universal authority | D.4 can guide one bounded use of a described conflict, but cannot become a general decision theory. |
| Residual acceptance vs. hidden harm | Proceeding under residual harm can be admissible only when residuals, the admitted Systems involved, prospective plans or assignment requirements, direct responsibility relations or exact missing governors, and return conditions are explicit. When the account asserts performed work, identify that occurrence and its performer; add assignment attribution when that claim is made. |
| Mathematical allocation vs. ethical decision | A formula or optimization can inform a decision, but it is not the ethical decision by itself. |
D.4:2 - Solution
Recover the conflict, develop feasible alternatives, compare their consequences and constraints under the stated value premises, and give a warranted recommendation or decision. Keep the concerns that remain unresolved visible in that result. A short answer can complete this work.
D.4:2.1 - Develop and compare a continuation
- Recover the decision and the affected concerns. Use the D.3 account to identify who or what may gain or lose, over which horizon, and why those consequences matter. Check whether the proposed chooser can make the decision in question. Paying for a project, being represented in a survey, being affected by its result and having authority to decide are different relations. Return a consequential missing party to A.1.CSD; return an unresolved value premise to D.1.
- Separate the end from the proposed means. A valued result can be pursued through means that create another objection. Ask which feature, condition or operation produces that objection and what could supply the valued result without it. B.5.QD.CF develops that question when an assumed necessary means creates the conflict; C.39 supplies construction of another way. Consider continuing the present work, narrowing the change, changing its conditions or refusing it when those are feasible alternatives. A proposed alternative remains a proposal until its required contributions are available.
- Compare the same alternatives under the live value premises. Preserve each side’s affected participants, consequences, constraints and uncertainty. An encompassing system’s gain does not by itself establish priority over a constituent’s loss. Where different value frames give different orderings, keep those orderings distinct. An alternative that is no worse under every retained ordering and better under at least one can remove a need to trade those values for this choice. This conclusion is limited to the alternatives, premises and affected concerns actually compared. If a trade-off remains, state the priority, compromise or other reason proposed for making it. Authority to choose does not make that reason correct or establish others’ agreement.
- Resolve only the uncertainty that changes this use. Separate disagreement about consequences from disagreement about which consequences or duties should govern. A causal inquiry can improve the former; it does not by itself settle the latter. Use available support and qualified uncertainty. Where an intended use requires a stronger claim, C.28 or the corresponding subject method supplies its basis; C.11.DUA compares an attainable inquiry with a narrower recommendation, a different option or a stop. Include delay, burden shifted to other parties and displaced work. Preserve a binding requirement’s current force while examining its merits or a feasible revision.
- Return the supported recommendation or decision. If the comparison basis and available options are settled, C.11 supplies the local choice. If the value conflict remains unresolved, give the conditional alternatives, the missing agreement or authority, or an explicit refusal or impasse. Do not manufacture a common scalar to force a winner. State a residual consequence and a reconsideration condition when they matter to this use. A recommendation does not establish consent, permission or performed work.
Use the same reasoning when the option is advice, publication, a technical change or a change to a method. Identify how its possible use can affect other participants; describing one’s contribution as analysis leaves that question open. The relevant causal and responsibility relations still need their own basis.
D.4:2.2 - Retain the decision basis when the work needs it
Use an EthicalMediationDecisionUse account when another participant needs to inspect, compare, authorize or later revise the result. The necessary content can remain in the existing answer or decision record. The following form groups that content; use only the optional detail needed for this decision:
EthicalMediationDecisionUse:
conflictDescriptionRef: exact C.2.1 U.Episteme identified through D.3
affectedEntityOfConcernRef
affectedSystemRefs?
valueFrameEditionRefs
decisionQuestionRef?
intendedDecisionUse?
intendedWorkUse?
claimScopeRef?: U.ClaimScope
qualificationWindowRef?
optionRefs
proposedMediationRefs?
refusalOrStopCondition?
evidenceDemandRefs?
causalReturnRefs?
assuranceReturnRefs?
architectureResidualReturnRefs?
acceptedResidualRefs?
decisionRecordRefs?
decisionOrRepairSystemRefs?: independently admitted U.System refs
localSystemRoleKindRefs?: exact local U.Kind refs
systemRoleClassificationAssertionRefs?: FinSet(U.EpistemeRef)
intendedWorkPlanOrCommitmentRefs?: prospective plan or commitment content
intendedAssignmentRequirementRefs?: prospective requirement content; creates no assignment occurrence
performedWorkRows?:
- performerSystemRef: exact U.System
workOccurrenceRef: exact dated U.Work
assignmentSpeciesRef?: exact directly declared species under U.SystemRoleAssignment, when assignment-bound attribution is claimed
assignmentOccurrenceRef?: obtaining occurrence of that species with actual participant values, applicability, and extent covering the Work
f6AttributionRef?: exact performedUnderAssignment occurrence, for that attribution
holderEquality?: performerSystemRef = assignmentOccurrenceRef.HolderSystemSlot, for that attribution
methodRef:
workExtentRef:
containingSystemRef:
responsibilityRelationRefs?: exact direct predicate, participants, applicability, and occurrence identity
responsibilityMissingGovernorRefs?: exact A.6.RCD results
authorityRelationRefs?: exact direct relation refs
authorityMissingGovernorRefs?: exact A.6.RCD results
permissionRelationRefs?: exact direct relation refs
permissionMissingGovernorRefs?: exact A.6.RCD results
commitmentRelationRefs?: exact direct relation refs
commitmentMissingGovernorRefs?: exact A.6.RCD results
admissibleUse
inadmissibleOverread?
strongerSourceReturnCondition?
The record names the current ethical use of the conflict: mediate, refuse, continue under explicit residual, demand evidence, ask a causal question, ask for assurance, return to architecture, or make a bounded decision.
Name the affected EntityOfConcern and any affected Systems, the value-frame editions, the decision question and options, and the intended decision or Work use. Add ClaimScope and a qualification window when they delimit that use. State the proposed mediation or refusal and any accepted residuals. If evidence, causal adequacy, assurance, architecture residuals, responsibility, permission, or actual Work remains unresolved, return only that question to the pattern that defines it. These values delimit the mediation; a generic context field does not.
D.4:3 - Mediation Moves
| Current situation | Admissible D.4 move | Neighboring subject pattern |
|---|---|---|
| A compromise is proposed but the D.3 description omits a side, affected entity, scope, value frame, consequence, or horizon. | Return to D.3 and complete the affected side or tension. | D.3 |
| A causal claim can change the recommendation or decision. | Use its C.28 support and retain the uncertainty that changes this use. If stronger support is needed, use C.11.DUA to compare a feasible inquiry with a narrower use, another option or stopping. | C.28, C.11.DUA |
| Evidence is too weak or outdated for the proposed use. | Name the affected claim and use. Use C.11.DUA to compare a feasible evidence request with a narrower use, explicit residual acceptance or refusal; obtain stronger or fresher evidence when the selected use needs it. | C.11.DUA; the evidence’s subject pattern for support, A.10 for reliance, and C.27 when temporal adequacy changes that use |
| Assurance claim is being used as ethical permission. | Keep assurance as an assurance or evidence relation, not moral authorization. | B.3, D.5 |
| Architecture move reduces one residual but creates ethical conflict elsewhere. | Return the architecture residual and keep the ethical conflict distinct. | C.30.ILC, D.3 |
| A decision must proceed with residual harm. | Record the accepted residual, admitted decision or repair Systems, prospective plan, commitment, permission, authority, or assignment requirements, direct responsibility relations or exact missing governors, evidence limits, and return condition. If Work has actually occurred, recover each precise performer’s A.13 core and independently admit the Work under A.15.1; add F.6 only when the decision account also needs exact assignment-bound attribution. | C.11, B.3, D.5, A.2.1, A.13, A.15.1, and F.6 as applicable |
When the basis required for a particular claim cannot be obtained, that claim remains unsupported. A narrower recommendation or decision must satisfy its own evidence, ethical and authority conditions. Preserve an accepted residual where it changes the use; an inactive inquiry creates no separate omission account.
D.4:4 - Archetypal Grounding (Worked Slices)
Fair-share case. A service outage plan can protect hospitals, households, or industrial customers, but not all at once. The D.3 conflict description connects each affected scope and value concern to its consequence and horizon. D.4 records the mediation use: options, accepted residuals, evidence demand, admitted decision Systems, prospective assignment requirements or commitments, direct decision-responsibility relations or exact missing governors, and return conditions. No assignment or Work is asserted merely because the plan names intended action. If the account reports execution, add the actual Work occurrence and its performer; add assignment-bound attribution when that further claim is made. A mathematical allocation Method may have a separate C.29 representation or lens-use assertion, but the allocation formula is not the ethical decision, assignment, or responsibility relation.
Override case. An assurance review says a release has the required technical assurance relation, but the D.3 description shows unresolved harm for a subgroup. D.4 does not let assurance override that conflict. It records whether release is refused, conditioned, delayed for evidence, handled under C.28 causal-use analysis, or allowed with an explicit residual and an independently obtaining responsibility relation or exact missing governor.
D.4:4.1 - Change the means, then reconsider when another constraint changes
A team wants colleagues to find an available specialist, while staff want private calendar details to remain private. The initially proposed means publishes every calendar detail to the whole organization. Turning the service off protects those details but loses the intended availability information.
The D.3 tension concerns staff information and the team’s coordination, not two interchangeable scores. Recover the needed contribution: finding somebody available for a question requires neither an appointment title nor its other participants. Suppose an existing feature lets each member publish an availability window without exposing the underlying events; the team has permission and support to offer this voluntary feature. This supplies a third available option.
For this constructed decision, the participants’ stated orderings are:
| Value concern and supplied judgement | First | Second | Third |
|---|---|---|---|
| Useful access to a willing specialist | Voluntary availability windows | Full calendar publication | Service off |
| Staff control of private event details | Voluntary availability windows | Service off | Full calendar publication |
Both orderings prefer the voluntary option to either original alternative. The team can recommend it on this basis without adding the ordinal ranks or deciding how much privacy one unit of access is worth. The judgement concerns these supplied preferences and feature conditions; it does not establish universal approval or a measured productivity gain. The technical feature, the permitted voluntary arrangement and each participant’s choice are separate contributions to its use.
Now suppose the team instead needs guaranteed coverage of a required shift. Voluntary windows do not guarantee that contribution. The previous recommendation remains an answer to finding a willing specialist, but does not answer the changed staffing question. Return to the staffing arrangement and its affected commitments. A new assignment, another resource or a changed service promise may be needed; relabelling participation as voluntary cannot supply guaranteed coverage.
D.4:4.2 - Keep a useful decision when a stronger claim is unavailable
A comparison has two feasible options under an agreed value frame: retain the current arrangement or make a reversible change. The available basis bounds the change’s net benefit between 2 and 4 units for every scenario retained in the comparison; all relevant constraints and affected concerns are already included in this stipulated example. The present question is which option is preferable under that basis, not what its precise effect will be.
The change is preferred throughout the supplied range. A study costing 5 of the same units solely to select between these options cannot improve their choice: its possible refinements within that range leave the selected option unchanged and impose that cost. C.11.DUA therefore supports the bounded recommendation without the study. The conclusion retains its conditional range and makes no precise-effect claim.
If a newly identified consequence can reverse that preference, or the intended use now needs a supported precise effect, the question changes. Examine that missing contribution and the feasible investigation that could supply it. The earlier decision does not authorize a stronger claim or ignore a newly affected party.
D.4:5 - Boundaries
D.4 does not define the conflict description, bias audit, ethical assurance, architecture residual, causal identification, evidence provenance, or decision theory in general. It defines one ethical use of a conflict already described by D.3.
Do not name a mediation move “calculus” unless a mathematical lens is selected and the lens is actually doing work. Do not name a mediation move “operator” unless the current pattern explicitly governs an operation. Most D.4 use concerns a practical recommendation or decision. A mathematical representation can support that comparison; its premises and result still need their ethical interpretation.
D.4:5.1 - Bias-Annotation
| Bias risk | Failure | Mitigation |
|---|---|---|
| Conflict description becomes decision | A D.3 description is treated as if it already selected an action. | Name the D.4 move and its admissible use. |
| Assurance becomes permission | Technical assurance is read as ethical authorization. | Keep assurance as an assurance or evidence relation and record the ethical use separately. |
| Formula becomes ethics | Allocation, optimization, or scoring is treated as the ethical decision. | Use C.29 for the mathematical lens; use D.4 to record the bounded ethical use without making the pattern an agent or responsible party. |
| Residual harm disappears | Action proceeds while residuals, admitted decision or repair Systems, and direct responsibility relations stay unnamed. | Name accepted residuals, prospective plans, commitments, permissions, authority and assignment requirements, the admitted direct responsibility predicates or exact missing governors, evidence limits, and return condition. Identify actual Work and its performer when performance is claimed; add assignment-bound attribution when that further claim is made. |
D.4:6 - Conformance Checklist
| ID | Requirement | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| CC-D4-1 | The conflict and its sides are recoverable through D.3; add a stable conflict-description reference when the receiving use needs to cite or revise it. | Keeps the decision connected to the actual tension without requiring a separate record for a short answer. |
| CC-D4-2 | The recommendation or decision connects the affected concerns, value premises, feasible alternatives and comparison to its intended use. Retain differing orderings and residuals when they change the conclusion; add scope, qualification window and reference detail when that use needs them. | Makes the chosen continuation follow from its basis instead of merely listing decision fields. |
| CC-D4-3 | Evidence, causality, assurance, architecture, and decision claims use their subject patterns. | Prevents D.4 from becoming universal decision authority. |
| CC-D4-4 | When proceeding under residual harm, name accepted residuals and admitted Systems; keep any local kind, C.2.1 System-classification assertion episteme, prospective plan or assignment requirement, and actual relation distinct. Every responsibility, authority, permission, or commitment claim has its independently obtaining direct relation or exact A.6.RCD missing governor. Every actual Work row first recovers each precise performer’s A.13 core and independently admits the Work under A.15.1; it adds F.6 only when precise assignment-bound attribution is also current. | Keeps bounded decision use reviewable without deriving responsibility or performance from an assignment or decision. |
D.4:8 - Common Anti-Patterns and How to Avoid Them
| Anti-pattern | What goes wrong | Repair |
|---|---|---|
| Decision-ready by map | The mapped conflict is treated as solved. | Choose a D.4 move: mediate, refuse, demand evidence, return, decide with residual, or stop. |
| Trump-card level | One level’s value automatically overrides all others. | Recover the affected sides through D.3 and compare their consequences and value premises through :2.1; a larger scale alone supplies no priority. |
| Unsupported stronger use | A decision or recommendation relies on a claim whose needed support is missing. | Qualify that claim and obtain the required basis for its use, or select a supported narrower continuation through C.11.DUA. An accepted residual does not make the missing claim true. |
| Permission by assurance | A passed assurance relation is treated as moral authorization. | Keep B.3 assurance and D.4 ethical use distinct. |
D.4:7 - Consequences
This pattern makes ethical action reviewable without pretending that every conflict has a clean optimum. It preserves refusal, evidence demand, and residual acceptance as first-class outcomes. It also prevents architecture, assurance, or causal evidence from quietly becoming moral permission.
D.4:9 - Rationale
D.4 exists because an inspectable ethical conflict still needs a bounded use. Some uses stop work. Some demand evidence. Some return to causal, assurance, or architecture patterns. Some proceed under an accepted residual with named responsibility and return conditions. Without this pattern, teams either freeze because conflict exists or move too fast because the conflict was mapped once.
The pattern keeps refusal, evidence demand, and residual acceptance visible as ordinary outcomes. It also prevents formulas, assurance labels, architecture residual repairs, or causal claims from silently becoming moral authorization.
D.4:10 - SoTA-Echoing
For turning a value conflict into a different design, adapt Value Sensitive Design’s joint examination of technical and social arrangements. Against choosing only between the initial proposal and abandoning its aim, :2.1 and :4.1 follow the needed contribution to another means. The VSD Lab’s current account distinguishes designer and stakeholder values, direct and indirect stakeholders, and several levels of analysis. Miller, Friedman, Jancke and Gill’s Value Tensions in Design (2007), §§6.1–6.2, supplies a concrete design comparison: useful usage information need not disclose who searched. Its local survey thresholds are not ethical constants or a voting rule for every project. The retained contribution is changing the means while keeping the affected values visible. Developing another design costs work; select it when it could improve the available choice. Reopen when the new arrangement fails a retained value or excludes an affected party.
For reasoning with several value frames, adopt the comparison problem made explicit by MacAskill, Bykvist and Ord in Moral Uncertainty (2020), Chapter 3, Introduction and §I: ordinal orderings do not supply comparable numerical differences. Against adding arbitrary ranks, :2.1 preserves separate orderings and uses agreement where it suffices, as in :4.1. Adapt this limited contribution without making the book’s Borda rule or expected-choiceworthiness proposal a universal FPF rule. C.11 already supports a partial ordering; D.4 keeps unresolved ethical aggregation visible rather than duplicating a decision calculus. Reopen when the present choice needs a trade-off or comparison across frames that the available basis cannot justify.
For deciding how much investigation this mediation needs, adopt C.11.DUA’s comparison of attainable information work with its receiving contribution and full burden. Against either an automatic demand for causal certification or ignoring a missing basis, :2.1, :3 and :4.2 distinguish a supported bounded continuation from a stronger unsupported claim. C.28, A.10 and B.3 retain their own causal, evidence and assurance meanings; they do not supply moral permission. This comparison can end with required inquiry, a narrower result or refusal. Reopen when a changed consequence, intended claim, requirement or available inquiry can change that continuation. C.29 supplies a mathematical representation only when its operations improve the comparison; a calculated ranking remains conditional on its ethical premises.
D.4:11 - Relations
- Builds on
D.3for the exact conflict-description episteme used by this mediation or decision. - Coordinates with
D.1andD.2when value frame or multilevel entry is incomplete. - Coordinates with
D.5when bias, fairness, impact audit, causal-fairness audit consumption, or ethical assurance is current. - Coordinates with
A.10,B.3,C.11,C.11.DUA,C.28,C.29, andC.30.ILCwhen evidence, assurance, choice, inquiry value, causal, mathematical-lens, or architecture-residual questions are current. - Uses
B.5.QD.CFandC.39when a conflict over the proposed means calls for another construction;A.1.CSDsupplies inquiry into a consequential missing party.
D.4:End
D.5 - Bias Audit and Ethical Assurance
Type: D-family bias-audit and ethical-assurance boundary pattern Status: Stable Pattern role: This compact pattern owns bias, fairness, impact-audit, causal-fairness audit consumption, and ethical-assurance boundary use; it does not replace D.1 through D.4.
Use this when. Use this pattern when a model, metric, policy, publication, decision system, recommendation, method, work plan, system, holon, or FPF claim may create bias, unfairness, human or group impact, causal-fairness overclaim, or ethical assurance risk.
Not this pattern when. If the ethical value frame is missing, use D.1. If the current question is multilevel ethics entry, use D.2. If the current question is to describe the sides and tension of an interlevel ethical conflict, use D.3. If the current question is mediation or decision use of that conflict, use D.4. If the current question is only evidence, causality, assurance, measurement, or architecture residual without bias, fairness, human or group impact, or ethical assurance, use the direct owner.
What goes wrong if missed. A model, metric, policy, publication, or decision system passes ordinary evidence or assurance checks while representation, proxy, visibility, metric, language, or human-impact bias remains hidden.
What this buys. Bias, fairness, human-impact, causal-fairness, and ethical-assurance concerns become auditable without replacing D.1 through D.4, evidence, causal, measurement, or architecture owners.
D.5:1 - Problem Frame
Bias and fairness failures often survive ordinary verification. A metric may be accurate while hiding subgroup harm. A model may be predictive while reproducing past exclusion. A policy may look neutral while moving cost to people or groups who were not represented in the evidence. A publication may look technically clear while licensing a harmful use.
D.5 keeps this audit and assurance question explicit. It does not replace multilevel ethics. It asks whether the current object and its intended use are ethically unsafe because of bias, unfairness, impact, causal fairness without the required C.28 evidence value, or assurance without the required assurance relation.
D.5:1.0 - Problem
Bias, fairness, human-impact, causal-fairness, and ethical-assurance concerns can remain invisible after ordinary technical verification. The failure is to let the model, metric, policy, publication, method, work plan, system, or holon be treated as admissible for use while the audited EntityOfConcern, intended use, affected people or groups, evidence, mitigation, and residuals are not explicit.
D.5:1.1 - Forces
| Force | Tension |
|---|---|
| Ordinary verification vs. subgroup harm | Evidence or accuracy can look strong while representation, proxy, metric, visibility, language, or impact bias remains current. |
| Bounded answer vs. stronger reliance | A current concern may need only a qualified answer; a release or assurance claim can need a fuller account of the basis, mitigations, and residuals it relies on. |
| Fairness wording vs. causal claim | Metric disparity, associative fairness, interventional fairness, and counterfactual fairness are different claims. |
| Assurance relation vs. ethical permission | Assurance can record examined evidence and residuals, but cannot turn unresolved bias or harm into moral authorization. |
| Audit frame vs. neighboring owners | D.5 must keep bias and ethical assurance visible without replacing evidence, causality, measurement, architecture, or D.1 through D.4. |
D.5:2 - Solution
Identify the object, the bias or fairness concern, and the use the answer must support. Give the result warranted by the available basis, with the affected groups and limitations that change that use. A metric comparison can finish at its qualified measurement result; recognizing a value conflict returns to D.3 or D.4.
An intended audit, fairness, or assurance conclusion must satisfy its own evidence conditions. A missing basis leaves that conclusion unsupported. Select further investigation and the record it needs for that particular claim or decision, using §3.1.
Use BiasAuditAssuranceFrame@Context to organize an audit whose recipient needs to inspect the connection among claims, evidence, constraints, and residuals. The applicable content may already be present in the result being used:
BiasAuditAssuranceFrame@Context:
auditedEntityOfConcernRef
intendedUseRef
claimScopeRef?: U.ClaimScope
qualificationWindowRef?
affectedPopulationRefs?
affectedSystemRefs?
affectedHolonRefs?
metricOrModelRefs?
policyOrPublicationRefs?
biasConcernRefs
ethicalClaimRefs?
fairnessClaimRef?
impactClaimRef?
causalFairnessUseRef?
causalUseSupportResultRef?: CausalUseSupportResultRef
evidenceRefs?
assuranceClaimRefs?
assuranceUseRef?
mitigationOrConstraintRefs?
acceptedResidualRefs?
admissibleUse
inadmissibleOverread?
strongerSourceReturnCondition?
The frame organizes the audit account. It is neither the object being audited nor evidence that its use is fair. Include relied-on evidence and any stronger-source return needed by the particular conclusion.
D.5:3 - Bias and Fairness Recognition
| Current claim | What D.5 requires | Neighboring owner |
|---|---|---|
| “This metric shows the system is fair.” | Distinguish metric disparity, proxy choice, subgroup impact, and intended use. | C.16 for metric construction |
| “This intervention makes outcomes fair.” | Declare the causal fairness use, C.28 support components and causal-use support result. | C.28 |
| “The model is unbiased.” | Name represented and missing groups, data-generation limits, model-use limits, and evidence. | A.10, C.16, D.5 |
| “The release is ethically assured.” | Separate audit findings, mitigations, accepted residuals, and the assurance or evidence relation. | B.3, D.5 |
| “The policy is acceptable because it helps the whole.” | Check whether a multilevel conflict is live. | D.2, D.3, D.4 |
D.5:3.1 - Optional Audit Records And Depth
D.5 may use a compact BiasRegister@Context when the live need is to keep concerns visible during ordinary work:
BiasRegister@Context:
auditedEntityOfConcernRef
intendedUseRef
claimScopeRef?: U.ClaimScope
qualificationWindowRef?
affectedPopulationRefs?
affectedSystemRefs?
biasConcernCode
evidenceRefs
mitigationOrConstraintRef?
acceptedResidualRef?
nextReviewTrigger?
Choose depth from the claim and consequence that the recipient needs to judge. A bounded finding, corrected metric statement, or identified conflict can complete the present use, including when it concerns an affected group or appears in a publication. Retain the limitation that prevents that result from being read as a wider fairness or assurance claim.
Use a fuller BiasAuditReport@Context when the receiving decision needs to inspect the combined evidence, mitigations, and residuals behind an audit or assurance conclusion. A consequential or reusable causal-fairness audit retains this report and the C.28 support it consumes. A release that relies on a particular protective claim needs the evidence and audit account required to support that claim. Reuse a matching existing account; after a material change, reopen the claims whose basis or use changed. The report is a Description episteme or publication-use object, with scope and depth set by that reliance.
A concrete indication of harm, a missing basis for an intended claim, or an applicable assurance requirement can make further investigation necessary before that use. Name what its result could change, who can obtain it, and whether its contribution warrants its full cost and delay; use C.11.DUA when this appraisal is unresolved. If the needed basis remains unavailable, state which intended claim remains unsupported and give any feasible narrower use, mitigation, or stop with its conditions. Neither a short record nor a large report supplies missing evidence.
Exposure, repetition, automation, publication, and changed populations are cues to examine the actual use and consequence. They do not by themselves prescribe a full audit or a separate explanation for omitting one. When a protective or documentation requirement is disputed, use C.11.DUA to examine its hazard, threshold basis, protective contribution, feasibility, and distributed burden, while keeping its current force and amendment authority explicit.
D.5:3.2 - Compact Bias Concern Taxonomy
| Code | Concern | Typical question |
|---|---|---|
| REP | Representation, coverage, sampling, proxy choice, missing group, or shifted population. | Who or what is missing, over-weighted, proxied, or moved out of scope? |
| ALG | Algorithmic, modeling, objective, ranking, optimization, or threshold behavior. | Which model or optimization choice changes outcomes for whom? |
| VIS | Visibility, interface, dashboard, presentation, or publication framing. | What becomes easy to see, hard to see, or too authoritative by display? |
| MET | Metric, measurement, scale, comparator, normalization, or threshold. | What does the metric count, hide, compare, or turn into a pass or fail claim? |
| LNG | Language, naming, category, definition, group label, or claim wording. | Which words change what can be asserted, counted, blamed, or done? |
The codes are only concern locators. They do not replace the governed object, affected people or groups, intended use, evidence, mitigation, or accepted residual.
D.5:4 - Causal Fairness Boundary
A fairness claim may be associative, interventional, or counterfactual. C.28 supplies the causal-use question, rung, estimand, separate support components, common-threat result, and CausalUseSupportResultRef. D.5 keeps the bias/fairness audit and its conclusion.
When counterfactual fairness is consequential, reusable, published, or used for assurance, the cited C.28 components expose the additional counterfactual-identifiability assumptions required for that question. If the audit relies on an estimated fairness result, they also expose the estimate and its estimation-consistency result. Missing identification or consistency lowers the C.28 result to bounded or unsupported; more of the same data does not repair either gap.
Cite the C.28 result from the existing BiasAuditReport@Context. Do not open a separate C.28 fairness card; D.5 defines no such output. Metric-only fallback remains cheaper: when only metric disparity is claimed, record the metric or evaluation result and stop. An interventional proxy may support a bounded interventional fairness statement, but it does not establish counterfactual fairness without the required estimand and support components.
The C.28 result is one evidence basis. It does not certify fairness, approve a release, or supply ethical assurance; D.5 and any downstream decision or assurance pattern make those separate conclusions.
D.5:5 - Ethical Assurance Boundary
Ethical assurance is not a stamp of moral permission. It is an assurance claim that bias, fairness, impact, and accepted residuals have been examined for the current use.
Use B.3 for the assurance relation. Use A.10 for evidence provenance and source currentness. Use D.3 to describe an interlevel ethical conflict and D.4 to mediate or use it in a decision. Use C.30.ILC when the issue is an architecture residual rather than a bias or fairness audit.
D.5:6 - Archetypal Grounding (Worked Slice)
A hiring-screening model has high aggregate accuracy and an internal note says it is “fair.” D.5 first asks what fairness claim is being made. If the claim is only a metric disparity comparison, give the metric or evaluation result with its affected groups, intended use, and material limits, then stop. A recipient can reuse or publish that bounded comparison without treating it as a conclusion that hiring is fair. An intended stronger conclusion reopens its actual missing basis. If the team claims counterfactual fairness, C.28 must expose the causal estimand, additional counterfactual-identifiability assumptions, and an estimate with its consistency result when that estimate is relied on. Missing conditions lower the C.28 support result before D.5 decides its audit use. If the audit exposes a conflict between company efficiency and applicant harm across declared scopes, D.3 describes that conflict and D.4 guides its decision use.
D.5:6.1 - Bias-Annotation
| Bias risk | Failure | Mitigation |
|---|---|---|
| Audit as document ritual | A register or report exists but does not change intended use, residuals, or constraints. | Tie each concern to audited EntityOfConcern, intended use, evidence, mitigation, and accepted residual. |
| Metric fairness overclaim | A metric comparison is published as causal or counterfactual fairness. | Recover the fairness claim kind. For counterfactual fairness, require C.28 identification assumptions and estimation consistency when an estimate is used before D.5 consumes the support result. |
| Assurance as authorization | Ethical assurance is treated as permission to proceed. | Record assurance as assurance or evidence relation and keep D.4 and D.5 use separate. |
| Bias category replaces object | REP, ALG, VIS, MET, or LNG code is treated as the governed object. | Use codes only as concern locators; keep audited EntityOfConcern and intended use explicit. |
D.5:7 - Conformance Checklist
| ID | Requirement | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| CC-D5-1 | The result names the audited EntityOfConcern, intended use, affected populations or Systems, and the bias, fairness, impact, or ethical concern being answered. Relied-on evidence and material limitations qualify its warranted use. Assurance use, repair return, ClaimScope, and qualification window are explicit when they delimit the audit; record and investigation depth follow the particular reliance in §3.1. | Keeps audit scope inspectable. |
| CC-D5-2 | Metric, causal fairness, evidence, assurance, publication, and architecture-residual claims use their direct owners. | Prevents D.5 from swallowing neighboring patterns. |
| CC-D5-3 | Ethical assurance is recorded as assurance or evidence relation, not moral permission. | Keeps assurance from becoming ethical authorization. |
| CC-D5-4 | If the audit exposes interlevel conflict, use D.3 for the conflict description and D.4 for mediation or decision use. | Keeps D.5 connected to the D cluster without replacing it. |
D.5:3.3 - Common Anti-Patterns and How to Avoid Them
| Anti-pattern | What goes wrong | Repair |
|---|---|---|
| Ethics ghetto | Bias or fairness is left in a separate ethics note while the model, metric, release, publication, or work plan keeps operating unchanged. | Put the concern on the audited EntityOfConcern and its intended use, then name the mitigation, constraint, or accepted residual. |
| Checklist charade | A checklist is completed without answering the concern about affected people, evidence, use, or residuals. | Return the bounded finding or judgement; use a register or report when its content is needed for tracking or reliance. |
| Bias whack-a-mole | One disparity is patched while proxy, representation, metric, visibility, or language concerns move elsewhere. | Keep REP, ALG, VIS, MET, and LNG concerns visible until the admissible use and accepted residual are explicit. |
D.5:8 - Consequences
This pattern keeps bias, fairness, impact, causal-fairness audit consumption, and ethical assurance from being scattered across technical patterns. It also prevents D.5 from swallowing all ethics. The cost is that teams must say which bias or fairness claim they are making. The gain is that ethical assurance becomes a typed assurance or evidence claim rather than a comforting label.
D.5:9 - Rationale
D.5 exists because bias, fairness, human-impact, causal-fairness audit consumption, and ethical assurance often survive ordinary technical checks. It keeps those concerns in one audit frame while preserving direct owners: metrics and measurement remain with measurement patterns, causal fairness remains with causal-use patterns, assurance remains an assurance relation, and multilevel ethical conflict remains with D.2 through D.4.
Audit depth follows what a particular claim or decision needs from the result. A compact account can carry a useful finding; a stronger audit or assurance conclusion needs its supporting evidence and the record required for that reliance. Material changes reopen the affected basis, and a disputed requirement remains open to substantive appraisal without losing its present force.
D.5:10 - SoTA-Echoing
| Source line | Practical implication for this pattern |
|---|---|
| Fairness and bias audit practice | Representation, proxy, metric, visibility, language, and impact concerns must be tied to intended use, affected groups, source-currentness, and accepted residuals. |
| Causal fairness and causal inference | Associative, interventional, and counterfactual fairness claims need different evidence values and cannot be interchanged by wording. |
| Assurance and governance practice | An assurance record can support bounded reliance, but does not grant moral permission under unresolved residual harm or replace D.3 and D.4 when interlevel conflict is exposed. |
| FPF episteme and publication discipline | Bias registers and reports are descriptions or publication-use objects; they do not make the audited object fair by existing. |
D.5:11 - Relations
- Builds on
D.1and coordinates withD.2,D.3, andD.4for value frame, multilevel entry, conflict description, and mediation or decision use. - Coordinates with
A.10for evidence and source currentness. - Coordinates with
C.11.DUAfor the contribution and feasibility of further inquiry and the merits and current force of disputed audit or protective requirements. - Coordinates with
B.3for assurance relation and reliance. - Coordinates with
C.16for metric and measurement construction. - Coordinates with
C.28for causal fairness, including counterfactual-identification assumptions, estimation consistency when an estimate is used, and the bounded causal-use support result. - Coordinates with
E.17when publication or publication-use relation changes admissible use.