Examine the proposed means and affected concerns

Name the purpose stated by the participant responsible for the receiving work. A supervisor may need a checked report to allocate work, while a supplier proposes obtaining named error histories to prepare it. Ask which part of the proposed action supplies the needed result and which part creates the objection. If a hidden motive is suspected, retain it as a hypothesis with its grounds. Agreement or disagreement alone does not establish it.

Use D.1 when the value basis needs recovery. Identify who may gain or lose, what consequence matters to each side, and why. Attribute the premise to a person’s statement, an applicable agreement or a representative whose remit includes that question. For an absent participant, say how the concern is represented. If that basis is unknown and could change the choice, obtain it or leave the proposal conditional. Representation for one decision does not supply assent to every use.

Distinguish the decisions and who may make each one. Permission to retrieve records can differ from permission to disclose them or use them in an employment decision. A purchaser’s agreement to a trial does not establish the data owner’s contribution, another person’s consent or authority over a decision outside the purchaser’s remit. Apparent assent under pressure and the absence of an objection leave those questions open.

When claims conflict, D.3 makes the sides and tension inspectable. State which proposed action prevents both concerns from being met as expressed. Then use D.4 to compare means that could meet the receiving need: for example, a narrower disclosure, a different provider or retaining the existing arrangement. Compare the same alternatives under each side’s attributed values, constraints and uncertainty. Include the work displaced and the burden of obtaining further information. Keep disagreement about consequences separate from disagreement about which consequences or duties should govern.

For this decision, an available option that is no worse under each retained value account and better under at least one can remove the need to trade those values. That supports a recommendation for those concerns and conditions. When different value accounts favour different options, state the proposed priority or compromise and the residual concern. Missing permission or an unresolved value premise may instead require inquiry, a narrower proposal, deferral or refusal. A recommendation still needs the named decision and the contributions that make it possible.

State what is being declined and which obligations remain. A buyer can decline a proposed purchase. An employee’s reasoned objection can reveal a defect in an assigned task or its means; it does not itself cancel every reporting obligation. Identify who can revise the task, permission or work allocation and what arrangement applies meanwhile. An organization’s authority to assign work does not establish voluntary agreement or resolve the objection to its means.

Use this reasoning for the conflict that can change the action. An ordinary requested explanation or an adequately supported permissible action needs no new ethics dossier. D.2 helps recognise a concern when that is the missing question; D.5 addresses a separate ethical-assurance claim. Recognising a concern, judging a proposed use and obtaining permission are different results.