Case #1: Campus Labor Action Project

Descriptive Dimension

What is going on here? What is the central problem? What are the pertinent facts of the case? What interpretation of the facts of the case is necessary to describe the situation both accurately and sensitively? What are the morally relevant issues and what is morally irrelevant?

Normative Dimension

What are the basic human goods that the parties involved are trying to realize? What general principles or specific rules are the parties in the case using to sort out the conflict in question?

Practical Dimension

How should the individual or the parties involved arrive at a final judgment about this issue? Is the disagreement among parties involved and intractable? If there is agreement, is there anything preventing them from acting in accordance with what they agreed to do?

Fundamental Dimension

Do the parties involved have freedom to make a decision or are they constrained? How does the decision in question contribute to the formation of character of the parties involved?

Sources for Discernment

On what basis are the goods, principles and practical judgments in this case defended to those who would question the decision? What reasons are given? Do those involved appeal to scripture, tradition, reason, personal experience, or some combination of these?