New smartphone app to help you make ethical decisions

LONDON: Facing a moral dilemma? New app can help!

A new smartphone app can help you do the right thing when struggling with a moral quandary.

The Ethical Decision Making app does not ask for the details of your problem or the options you are considering.

It works by asking the user to consider each solution and rate it from five standpoints: utility, virtue, rights, justice and the common good.

The user assigns a weighting to each of these factors. One could, for example, give justice more emphasis than the rest.

The app then scores the solution according to the customised moral framework the user have just set up, 'New Scientist' reported.

Miriam Schulman, associate director of the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University in California, where the app was developed, said people could use the app for anything from weighing up whether to put their parents in a nursing home to choosing ethical investments.

The app has been tested with a group of school principals and in a communications class focused on ethical issues.