The ethical matrix is a method developed by Mepham (2000) for rational ethical analysis. It comes from the discipline of applied ethics and is based on the acknowledgment that, in modern pluralistic society, the various actors involved in a given issue hold different and potentially conflicting values. Since decisions have to be made, and a potential exists for overriding the values of some stakeholders in the process, it could be useful to have available a structured process for surfacing, weighing and integrating those values in the decision-making process. The ethical matrix was developed to meet those needs.

The ethical components of the method reflect ‘commonsense morality’. They are derived from the work of Beauchamp and Childress (2001) on bioethics that has been widely taken up in medicine and medical ethics. Beauchamp and Childress introduced the ‘four principles approach’ through which decision makers were guided to consider four core values: non-maleficence (doing no harm), beneficence, autonomy and justice. Mepham has combined the principles of non-maleficence and beneficence to become ‘respect for wellbeing’.

The ethical matrix is an analytical tool and in itself is value neutral. It has the three principles (wellbeing, autonomy and justice) on the horizontal axis. On the vertical axis one lists the interest groups—that is, the people, organisations, communities, and so on—who stand to be affected by the decisions being made. The task then is to identify and document the ethical impacts of the matter under consideration in each cell of the matrix. While this task can be undertaken through desk-based research, it is also a dialogue tool when undertaken through group discussion. As Mepham (2000:168) clarifies in relation to introducing a new technology, ‘actors (e.g., members of a regulatory committee) are asked to imagine themselves to be members of each specified interest group in turn, and to assess the ethical impacts of the introduction of the proposed technology’.

Once the cells of the matrix have been filled in, its users need to weigh the relative importance of the issues identified. Different people might give different weights to a given potential ethical impact on a particular interest group. Through discussion, the users of the matrix reach agreement about how the options under consideration, if implemented, will affect the different interest groups with respect to their wellbeing, autonomy and entitlement to justice. They seek to reach consensus.

As noted above, ethical matrices can be developed as a desktop exercise (for example, Food Ethics Council 2001) or as a participatory exercise with interest groups (the steps involved are detailed in Mepham et al. 2006). A mixed approach has also been used, in which subject-matter experts and ethicists develop the ethical matrix (that is, they fill in the boxes in the matrix) and then workshop it with stakeholders to produce ‘[a] practical consensus on the content of the matrix…followed by a weighing of the most important values’ (Kaiser and Forsberg 2001:193).

The ethical matrix is a tool for identifying and analysing the potential ethical impacts of decisions. It is particularly applicable when decision makers bring to the table and/or have awareness of diverse values potentially influencing their decisions, and feel that these need to be integrated to produce a decision that is value informed and that has been attained in an explicit manner: ‘While it might guide individual ethical judgements, the principal aim of the Matrix is to facilitate rational public policy decision-making by articulating the ethical dimensions of any issue in a manner that is transparent and broadly comprehensible’ (Mepham 2000:169).

It deals head-on with the reality that, in decision making on important issues facing communities, ‘some values seem to weigh heavier than others’ (Kaiser and Forsberg 2001:193). Integrating stakeholders’ values through developing an ethical matrix can reduce the potential for decision makers to ignore the values of the weakest actors.

The ethical matrix is a tool for integrating the values held by different stakeholders in an initiative, or for anticipating what their values might be and how they will be differentially impacted on by the options available for implementing the initiative. A particular strength is in raising the salience of values and value conflicts, and the importance of dealing with these in research integration. The method is grounded in people’s own ways of seeing values, rather than using an imposed framework, and is conceptually straightforward.

The example provided goes beyond research integration to involve, in the values exploration and integration, a number of other entities—namely, an NGO group, a national women’s organisation, a technology/regulator group and two general public groups. A narrower focus on research integration would have occurred if the participants were researchers, from various disciplines, using the method to reveal and explore the values underlying their individual practice and their disciplinary orientations. Similarly, the ethical matrix could have been completed through dialogue between researchers and decision makers, achieving similar goals of transparency about values and their impacts on evidence-based decision making.

While the surfacing of values (filling in the cells of the matrix) is a strength of the method, a weakness is that it does not provide any clear guidelines for how to move towards a consensus on the values so identified. Methods for discussing and reaching agreement on the relative importance of the opposing values brought to the surface, and on the relative impacts on the different stakeholders of the initiative being examined, are not included in the process. Instead, users rely on skilled facilitators to guide this process and assist the participants to find consensus through group discussion.

There are probably occasions in which people could use the ethical matrix effectively to identify important stakeholders and to elicit the value issues important to them, but are unable to reach consensus on the relative weight of the conflicting values and the implications for action flowing from this. When much diversity exists between participants—for example, in an interdisciplinary research team or a situation in which researchers, policy people, practitioners and affected communities are involved—significant challenges may exist in finding consensus on values.

It is possible that using another dialogue method to integrate the judgments of participants (or of another group of stakeholders) about the relative importance of the values brought to the surface and of the likely impacts of the intervention, could follow the ethical matrix exercise. The Delphi technique or the nominal group technique would be suitable for this task.

This tool was introduced by Professor Ben Mepham, Special Professor in Applied Bioethics at the Centre for Applied Bioethics at the University of Nottingham, in 1994. Since then it has been applied and modified in various settings, focusing on a range of ethical issues, many of which deal with food security and natural resource management. The UK Food Council (<http://www. foodethicscouncil.org/>), of which Mepham is a member, has used the ethical matrix tool extensively and promotes its further development and application.