Is it possible to mathematically calculate the ethical value of a decision? Yes — And that changes everything.
Imagine this dilemma: A key executive at the company engages in a controversial personal act — nothing illegal, completely outside the workplace — but if it goes public, it could seriously damage the company’s reputation.
Two options are on the table:
- Dismiss the executive to protect the brand’s image.
- Keep them in position, defending the boundary between personal life and professional conduct.
Sounds simple, right? Wait until we break it down. Keep reading — the answer may not be what you expect.
These dilemmas might seem simple at first glance (are they really?), but executives, board members, and leaders face complex moral decisions every day. Many of them won’t fit into reports or spreadsheets, yet must be made nonetheless.
The problem is that these decisions are often made based on instinct, as if ethical coherence were some kind of talent or intuition. But it’s not.
Even the most instinctive decisions follow some form of logic, and where there’s logic, there can be structure. And where there’s structure… math.
That’s what led me to develop the Applied Ethical Diagnosis™: a methodology that transforms ethical judgment into a structured, logical, and comparable process, without losing sight of the values that matter.
The idea is simple to explain, but powerful in practice: instead of defining the “right” decision, the tool evaluates, based on previously defined principles, which alternative is most ethically coherent.
Every dilemma is a game — not of winners and losers, but of values and consequences.
In practice, every decision is a strategic game — balancing values, contextual pressures, and future consequences. Sometimes, choosing integrity means sacrificing political capital. Other times, ensuring financial sustainability might lead to layoffs. Protecting one principle can come at the cost of another. So… how do we choose?
This kind of multi-variable scenario echoes Game Theory, developed by John Nash. His concept of equilibrium — where no agent can improve their outcome without others changing theirs — helps us understand how ethics can be optimized under real-world constraints.
In this context, we’re not aiming for collective efficiency, but individual coherence — aligned with the company’s declared principles.
It’s not about judgment. It’s about coherence.
That’s exactly what the Applied Ethical Diagnosis™ delivers: a way to identify the point of ethical balance, even in complex or conflicting situations.
The tool finds the decision that upholds ethical integrity without collapsing the real context.
Every dilemma is a strategic game. And there´s no winners and losers, but of values and consequences.
Nobel laureate Herbert Simon was one of the first to recognize that decision-makers do not operate with full rationality. We are always limited by time, context, and available information.
The Applied Ethical Diagnosis™ acknowledges this. It doesn’t aim for impossible perfection — it offers a structured, logical framework to guide coherence in the chaos.
The method: logic in service of purpose
Here’s how it works: The company — or the decision-maker — defines its ethical principles. Each decision is assessed based on its impact on those principles using three contextual coefficients:
• Visibility – How perceivable is the decision to stakeholders? • Reversibility – How reversible is the decision? • Elasticity – Does the decision confirm or deny the given principle?
These variables are weighted and used to calculate the Total Ethical Coherence (TEC) of each decision. The higher the TEC, the more aligned the decision is with the company’s declared values. The result? A numerical score, a ranked list of options, and structured reasoning to support each one.
That score won’t give you moral certainty and it shouldn’t. Perfect? No. And that’s a good thing.
The human factor, with its free will, will always bring unpredictability. Even coherent decisions can come from incoherent people, and vice versa.
That’s how it is — and how it has to be.
As Amartya Sen wrote in The Idea of Justice, real-world justice isn’t about perfection, but about coherent comparison between alternatives.
There is no “perfect decision.” Every choice involves giving something up. When principles conflict, one will inevitably weigh heavier than the others.
So the goal isn’t to find the absolute “right” — it’s to understand which decision best reflects the values we stand for.
Back to the opening dilemma:
Which option is more ethical?
That’s not the right question. The right one is: Which decision is most coherent with the values we claim to uphold?
It depends on the principles.
- If the company prioritizes reputation and social responsibility, option 1 is coherent.
- If it prioritizes individual freedom and technical competence, option 2 makes more sense.
Same case. Opposing decisions. Both are coherent — and that’s the ethical standard that matters.
The Applied Ethical Diagnosis™ doesn’t judge. It measures the coherence between speech and action — and reveals the reasoning behind the choice.
Ethics without purpose is not ethics, it’s just policy with a nicer name.
And this isn’t just about logic.
At the heart of the method lies one essential question: Why do you want to make this decision?
This question sits at the core of Simon Sinek’s theory of leadership, where integrity is consistency between speech and behavior — between what is said and what is done.
When leaders or organizations clearly articulate their “why” and act in line with it, integrity becomes a natural outcome.
The Applied Ethical Diagnosis™ drives this alignment. By calculating the impact of a decision against the principles the company says it follows, the method exposes whether there’s real coherence — or just branding.
Legality is not legitimacy.
The role of the Applied Ethical Diagnosis™ is to surface the values that are often left implicit and challenge them against the reality of what’s being proposed.
Instead of leaving decisions to convenience or tradition, the methodology encourages rational, ethical positioning based on logic, data, and conscious responsibility.
Ethics isn’t a refined instinct. It’s a structure of coherence.
And with the tools we have today, there’s no longer an excuse for leadership decisions to ignore their moral impact.
To decide ethically isn’t about being right. It’s about being coherent.
