Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
Case
Ben is assigned by his employer, Cartex, to
work on an improvement to an ultrasonic
range-finding device. While working on the
improvment, he gets an idea for a
modification of the equipment that might be
applicable to military submarines. If he is
successful, it could be worth alot of money
to his company. However, Ben is a pacifist
and does not want to contribute in any way
to the development of military hardware.
Case
So Ben neither develops the idea himself nor
mentions it to anybody else in the company. Ben
has signed an agreement that all inventions he
produces on the job arethe property of the
company, but does not believe the agreement
applies his situation. For one thing, his idea is not
developed. For another, his superiors know of his
antimilitaritary sentiments. Yet he wonders if he is
ethically right in concealing his idea from his
employer.
Vulnerability
Autonomy
Interdependency
Shared expectations and goals
Common moral traits
Factual Issues
What looks like a moral disagreement can be
disagreement over the facts of the situation
(possibly lack of sufficient information).
Example 1: Dialogue of Tom and Jim on OSHA
regulation.
Example 2: Disagreement of Judy and Jane related to
affirmative action to avoid sexual or racial
discrimination.
Health
Safety
Conflicts of interest
Bribery
Extortion
Confidentiality
Loyalty
Moral Problem
means that there is disagreement or
uncertainty about the moral
evaluation of the person or action!
Now we are going to focus more
directly on these kinds of moral
problems and consider some
techniques for resolving them.
Line-drawing and
Seeking a creative middle way.
techniques.
Line Drawing
Line Drawing involves viewing a moral
problem on a spectrum.
Where we have:
Action on one end
Being clearly right
(positive Paradigm)
.
Line Drawing
Sample Case page 60-63:(or 66-69 in 3rd edn.)
Suppose Amanda signs an agreement with
Company A (with no time limit) that obligates her
not to reveal its trade secrets. Amanda later moves
to Company B, where she finds a use for some ideas
that she conceived while at Company A. She never
developed the ideas into an industrial process at
company A, and Company B is not in competition
with Company A; but she still wonders, whether
using those ideas at Company B is a violation of the
agreement she had with Company A. She has an
uneasy feeling that she is in a gray area and
wonders where to draw the line between the
legitimate and illegitimate use of knowledge. How
should she proceed?
What does the NSPE code say about disclosure of business and trade secrets?
NSPE III.4:
test case
Positive Paradigm
(clearly acceptable)
Signed Agreement
X
Permission Granted
A and B competitors
X
A and B not competitors
Ideas jointly developed
X
Amandas Ideas only
Ideas developed on job
X
Ideas dev. off job
Used As lab Equipment
X
As equipment not used
Others
..
(Is the situation in question more like the action is clearly right? or
Is the situation in question more like the action is clearly wrong)
*some negative and positive features may be more important than others (heavily
weighted!!)
Conflicting Values:
Creative Middle Way Solutions
There are situations when two or more
moral rules or duties seem to apply and
when they appear to imply different and
incompatible moral judgments.
This situation arises in engineering ethics.
Sometimes when we take a closer look at
these situations we may find that one value
clearly has a higher priority than the other
THEN WE HAVE AN EASY CHOICE.
Example: p64 (common morality)
Conflicting Obligations
Forward for
further analysis
Easy Choice
Find Creative
Middle Way
Hard Choice
Fig.3.3 Resolving Conflicts
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STOP
Feedback to factual,
conceptual, application,
and moral issues as
necessary