Duty of Care -- Ethics and Analytics in Health Psychology, PSY 320
Source: Course readings, lecture notes
Difficulty: Intermediate | Prerequisites: Introductory psychology or philosophy of ethics helpful but not required.
This topic sits at the intersection of ethics, data analytics, and health psychology. The course asks how professionals in health, education, and technology owe care to the people they serve, and how that obligation changes when data and algorithms enter the picture. You will need a working sense of what "ethics" means beyond just following rules, because this section challenges the idea that codes of conduct or checklists can fully capture ethical behaviour. The concept of "duty of care" connects legal liability, professional responsibility, feminist moral philosophy, and the everyday reality of caring for vulnerable people. If you missed earlier material on deontology, utilitarianism, or virtue ethics, revisit those before going deeper here.
"Duty of care" is the legal, ethical, and professional obligation to avoid acts or omissions that could foreseeably harm others. In law it traces back to the 1932 "snail in a bottle" case (Donoghue v Stevenson). In health psychology it extends well beyond legal compliance into moral, relational, and feminist territory, where care is not a checklist but an attitude shaped by lived experience, empathy, and context.
Duty of care
A legal obligation requiring adherence to a standard of reasonable care while performing any acts that could foreseeably harm others. In simple terms, it means you are responsible for not hurting people when you can reasonably predict your actions (or inaction) would cause harm.
Neighbour principle
The principle from Donoghue v Stevenson (1932) stating that "you must take reasonable care to avoid acts or omissions which you can reasonably foresee would be likely to injure your neighbour." Think of it as the legal origin of "look out for the people your actions affect."
Negligence
A failure to exercise the standard of care that a reasonably prudent person would have exercised in a similar situation, resulting in harm. In simple terms, negligence is when someone who owes a duty of care fails to meet it, and that failure causes damage.
Fiduciary duty
A legal and ethical responsibility held by company directors (or professionals) to act in good faith and in a reasonably prudent manner. Think of it as the business equivalent of duty of care, where decisions must be made with the interests of stakeholders in mind.
Data ethics of power
An action-oriented analytical framework concerned with making visible the power relations embedded in the "Big Data Society" and pointing toward a human-centric distribution of power (Hasselbalch and Tranberg, 2016). In simple terms, it asks: who holds the power when data is collected, processed, and used, and how can we make that fairer?
Deontology
An ethical theory that sees duty as the basis of morality, holding that some acts are obligatory regardless of consequences. Think of it as ethics driven by rules and obligations rather than outcomes.
Social contract
The implicit set of responsibilities held by individuals towards others within society. Duty of care can be considered a formalisation of this idea.
Hard law vs. soft law
"Hard law" refers to enforceable regulations governments establish (e.g. GDPR). "Soft law" refers to voluntary standards and guidelines that encourage ethical behaviour (e.g. ethical review board standards). In simple terms, hard law tells you what you must do; soft law tells you what you should do.
Origin: the "snail in a bottle" case
Donoghue v Stevenson (1932) established the neighbour principle in tort law.
Lord Atkin ruled that people must take reasonable care not to injure others who could foreseeably be affected by their action or inaction.
The neighbour principle itself dates back further, to Francis Buller's 1768 text: "Every man ought to take reasonable care that he does not injure his neighbour."
Tort law definition
Duty of care is a legal obligation requiring adherence to a standard of reasonable care while performing any acts that could foreseeably harm others.
It is the first element that must be established to proceed with an action in negligence.
The claimant must show a duty of care imposed by law, which the defendant breached.
The duty can arise between individuals who have no direct prior relationship.
Limits of duty in law
The law recognises that a general, universal duty of care is not appropriate.
There is no "Good Samaritan" law in many jurisdictions (including the UK), meaning you are not legally compelled to assist a stranger in distress.
A doctor outside a hospital has no pre-existing duty of care to a bystander, but acquires one the moment they choose to assist (Sokol, 2012).
Duty of care as social contract
Duty of care may be considered a formalisation of the social contract: the implicit responsibilities individuals hold towards others in society.
It does not need to be defined by statute; it often develops through case law.
Fiduciary responsibility
Company directors hold both an ethical and legal duty to make decisions in good faith and in a reasonably prudent manner (Kenton, 2019).
This duty extends to exercising the utmost care in business decisions.
CFA Institute Standards (2014)
Standard III covers Duties to Clients: loyalty, prudence, care, fair dealing, suitability, performance presentation, and preservation of confidentiality.
Standard IV covers Duties to Employers: loyalty, additional compensation arrangements, and responsibilities of supervisors.
These standards set forth expected fiduciary duties of loyalty, care, and prudence for finance professionals.
Key tension
A professional may face conflicting duties to employer, client, public interest, and personal conscience.
The upshot: a professional is not a "mere hired gun"; responsibilities go with knowledge and position.
Multiple layers of duty
Healthcare professionals hold not only a legal duty of care but also moral, ethical, and professional duties (Cornock, 2014).
Cranmer and Nhemachena (2013) describe moral duties as triggers for how we "ought, should, or are expected to behave."
When duty of care is established (Cornock, 2014)
A patient is assigned to you personally.
A patient is assigned to your team or department.
You touch or intervene with a patient.
A patient is in the care of your employer.
Essentially, you have a duty of care to any patient you come into contact with as a result of your job.
The "should I stop?" problem
A doctor outside a hospital setting (e.g. a bystander at a road accident, "Is there a doctor on the plane?") has no pre-existing duty of care.
If they do assist, they acquire a duty of care. The person becomes their patient (Sokol, 2012).
The ethical question of whether they should help in the first place remains separate from the legal question.
Ethics function like other professional standards
Same purpose: standardise the profession's work, protect the public, serve the client.
They begin with common sense, are modified by experience, and are never final.
Professional judgement, not just knowledge
Each profession is defined by a certain sort of judgement, not merely by the knowledge that judgement presupposes.
You are not an engineer because you know what engineers know, but because you can show the good judgement characteristic of engineers.
Judgement can only be exercised in context: an engineer sees a problem of forces, a lawyer sees a problem of liability.
Individual professional obligations (IIT framework)
Derived from the profession's code, tradition, societal expectations, contracts, laws, and ordinary morality.
A professional has obligations to: employer, clients/customers, other professionals (collegiality), the profession as a whole, and society.
Five dimensions of individual responsibility
Sphere of tasks: daily and regular responsibilities.
Outcome: responsibility for the consequences of one's actions or decisions.
Liability: answerability for one's actions or decisions.
Capacity: the ability to appreciate and control one's behaviour.
Moral responsibility: looking ahead to and caring about what happens to oneself and others.
Duties often conflict
As a company representative you have one set of responsibilities; as a private citizen, another. These do not always converge (Feffer, 2017).
A doctor may refuse service if a patient cannot pay. An educator may be required to report a student's substance abuse or immigration status.
If a company is skewing data to sway a model's outcomes, does an employee have a duty to disclose this to the media?
Widening scope of duty
A duty to support a learning programme abroad may conflict with a duty to preserve the environment for future generations (Saugstad, 1994).
Peter Singer argues for a duty to animals, which may conflict with everyday choices like eating meat.
Singer also argues for a duty to the poor ("The Life You Can Save") and a duty to the helpless.
Acquired (involuntary) duties
It has been argued that patients have a moral duty to adhere to treatment prescriptions once they have accepted treatment (Resnik, 2005).
However, the level of moral duty varies by case. Refusing to lose weight may not be unethical; refusing vaccination during an epidemic (e.g. Samoa measles crisis) can have fatal consequences for others.
Duties in learning analytics
Does a student have a duty to a teacher? Are they morally obligated to perform at their best?
When given demographic questionnaires, are students obligated to answer accurately? What are the ethical implications of answering "none" when asked about race?
No universal duty
The law recognises that a general, all-encompassing duty of care is not appropriate. There is no "Good Samaritan" law in most common-law jurisdictions.
The question of when professional ethics exceeds legal obligation is central to this course.
Beyond checklists
Defining duties as universal laws or principles (in the Kantian sense) leads to an infinite regress of finer and finer definitions.
Steven Forth describes "competency PTSD": rigid, top-down models that are out of date by the time they are developed, and in which workers do not recognise themselves.
The same applies to prescriptive duty frameworks. They become more precisely defined through checklists and principles until they resemble predefined obligations from above, rather than the compassion-motivated approach originally outlined by Gilligan.
Recognising ethical action
We know what constitutes "ethical action" in the same way we know what constitutes a "qualified surgeon": through a process of recognising an overall approach and attitude, not via rules or principles or checklists.
Care is more than a moral stance; "it involves affective, ethical, and hands-on agencies of practical and material consequence" (Puig de la Bellacasa, 2017).
Competence and autonomy
Competence entails knowledge and responsibility, i.e. meeting an appropriate standard of care.
Professional autonomy means governing one's own conduct, exercising discretion, but accepting limits within a cooperative practice.
When obligations conflict, ask: What is the primary obligation? Which violation causes more harm? Is there a way to make the obligations compatible?
The duty of care is how engineers design safety protocols, how doctors decide whether to assist a stranger on a plane, and how data scientists determine whether their algorithm unfairly disadvantages a group. In the analytics context specifically, duty of care asks: if your model skews outcomes in a way that harms a vulnerable population, who is responsible, and what should they do about it?
Students often think duty of care means the same thing in every context. It does not. Legal duty (tort law), professional duty (codes of conduct), and ethical duty (care ethics) are overlapping but distinct.
Students often assume there is a universal legal obligation to help others in distress. In most common-law jurisdictions, there is no Good Samaritan law requiring you to act.
Students sometimes conflate "following the rules" with "being ethical." The course material explicitly argues that ethics cannot be fully captured by codes of conduct, checklists, or even single frameworks.
Students often overlook the idea that clients and patients can also acquire duties. Resnik (2005) argues patients have a moral duty to adhere to treatment when non-adherence threatens others.
⚠️ Be able to explain the neighbour principle and trace it to Donoghue v Stevenson (1932).
⚠️ Know the difference between legal, ethical, and professional duties of care.
⚠️ Understand why prescriptive rules and checklists are insufficient to capture ethical behaviour (the "beyond duty" argument).
⚠️ Be prepared to discuss scenarios where duties conflict: professional vs. personal, client vs. public, present vs. future generations.
⚠️ Be familiar with the concept of acquired/involuntary duties (e.g. a patient's duty to adhere to treatment).
True or False: In the UK, a doctor walking past a road accident is legally required to stop and help. (False)
Fill in the blank: The neighbour principle was established in the landmark case ______ v ______ in 1932. (Donoghue v Stevenson)
True or False: Duty of care in business (fiduciary duty) requires decisions to be made in good faith and in a reasonably prudent manner. (True)
Fill in the blank: Negligence can only be established if the defendant first owed a ______ to the claimant. (duty of care)
True or False: Following a professional code of conduct is always sufficient to meet ethical obligations. (False)
Q: What is the neighbour principle, and where does it originate?
A: The neighbour principle states that one must take reasonable care to avoid acts or omissions that could foreseeably injure one's "neighbour" (anyone who could be affected). It originates from Lord Atkin's ruling in Donoghue v Stevenson (1932), though the idea dates to Francis Buller's 1768 legal text.
Q: Why does this course argue that codes of conduct and checklists are insufficient for ethical behaviour?
A: Because prescriptive accounts of duty lead to an infinite regress of finer definitions, and they inevitably fail to capture the complexity and ambiguity of real situations. Ethical action is recognised through an overall approach and attitude, not through rule-following alone.
Q: Give an example of conflicting duties a health professional might face.
A: A doctor may have a duty to their patient (to provide treatment), a duty to society (to report a communicable disease), and a personal duty (to protect their own safety). These obligations can pull in different directions, and there is no single formula for resolving them.
Q: What does Resnik (2005) argue about patients' duties, and what are its limits?
A: Resnik argues that patients have a moral duty to adhere to prescribed treatment once they have accepted it, especially when non-adherence threatens others. However, the strength of this duty varies by case: refusing to lose weight is not clearly unethical, but refusing vaccination during an epidemic can have fatal consequences for others.
Q: Explain the difference between "hard law" and "soft law" as they relate to AI and data ethics.
A: Hard laws are enforceable government regulations (e.g. GDPR). Soft laws are voluntary guidelines and ethical standards (e.g. ethical review board standards) that encourage responsible behaviour. The UNICEF (2019) workshop recommended building on existing legal frameworks rather than adding new compliance exercises, and accompanying hard laws with soft laws to embed human rights in technology design.
This material connects directly to the Care Ethics topic (Gilligan, Noddings), which reimagines duty of care not as a legal or rule-based concept but as a relational, feminist ethical framework. It also connects to the Social Justice and Equity topic, where duty of care extends to questions of who is harmed by data systems and who benefits. The discussion of moral sentiment (Hume, Adam Smith) later in the course provides the philosophical grounding for why we "feel" ethical obligations rather than simply reasoning our way to them.
duty of care, neighbour principle, Donoghue v Stevenson, snail in a bottle, negligence, tort law, fiduciary duty, professional ethics, data ethics, data ethics of power, Big Data Society, GDPR, hard law, soft law, social contract, deontology, ethics of care, Good Samaritan, acquired duties, conflicting obligations, professional responsibility, competence, autonomy, PSY 320, health psychology, Michigan State University