MORAL CHOICES

AND ETHICAL
DILEMMAS
IE 52A

3
Case: Designing Aluminum Cans
• The first aluminum can was designed in 1958 by Kaiser
Aluminum, in the attempt to improve on heavier and more
expensive tin cans. Features:
strong enough to keep pressurized liquid inside
thin enough to be cost-effective
fit conveniently in consumer’s hand

• The first aluminum cans, like the tin cans before them, were
opened with a separate opener, which required additional
manufacturing costs to make them readily available to
consumers. This caused inconvenience to consumers.
• Ermal Fraze suggested a built-in lever to open the can.
• Discarded pull tabs caused pollution, foot injuries, and harm
to fish and infants who ingested them.
• In 1976, Daniel Cudzik designed a stay-attached opener.
• Ethical dilemmas – situations in which moral reasons come
into conflict, or in which the applications of moral values are
unclear and it is not immediately obvious what should be
done
• Moral choices – decisions involving moral values
Ethical Dilemmas
• Public safety and welfare
• Data integrity and representation
o Fabrication -inventing data or results
o Falsification - manipulation of data or results
o Plagiarism - appropriation of another’s results without proper credit
• Trade secrets and industrial espionage
o Trade secret – proprietary company intellectual property that has not been
patented
o Industrial espionage – occurs when trade secrets are publicized without
consent
• Gift giving and bribery
o Bribery - something, such as money or a favor, offered or given to someone
in a position of trust in order to induce him to act dishonestly. It is
something offered or serving to influence or persuade.
Ethical Dilemmas
• Principle of informed consent
- Refers to the right of each individual potentially affected by a
project to participate to an appropriate degree in decision-making
concerning that project

• Conflict of Interest
- Refers to the potential to distort good judgment while serving
more than one employer or client

• Accountability to clients and customers

• Fair treatment
 Reasonable
solutions to ethical Knowing and
Clarity about
which moral dilemmas are appreciating the
implications of
values are at clear, informed, morally-relevant facts;
stake and how
they pertain to and well- Being aware of
the situation alternative courses of
reasoned. action and what they
entail

Good judgment is exercised in

integrating the relevant moral
values and facts to arrive at a
morally desirable solution
Steps
1. Moral clarity
Identify the relevant moral values.

2. Conceptual clarity
Be clear about concepts.

3. Informed about the facts

Obtain relevant information.

4. Informed about the options

Consider all (realistic) options.

5. Well-reasoned
Make a reasonable decision
Case:
• A chemical engineer working in the environmental division
of a computer manufacturing firm learns that her company
might be discharging unlawful amounts of lead and arsenic
into the city sewer. The city processes the sludge into a
fertilizer used by local farmers. To ensure the safety of both
the discharge and the fertilizer, the city imposes restrictive
laws on the discharge of lead and arsenic. Preliminary
investigations convince the engineer that the company
should implement stronger pollution controls, but her
supervisor tells her the cost of doing so is prohibitive and
that technically the company is in compliance with the law.
She is also scheduled to appear before town officials to
testify in the matter. What should she do?
Types of Issues in Ethical
Problem Solving
• Moral issues
- which moral principle is applicable to the situation
- resolved by agreement as to which moral principles are pertinent and
how they should be applied
• Conceptual issues
- the meaning or applicability of an idea
- resolved by agreeing on the meaning and applicability of terms and
concepts.
• Factual issues
- involve what is actually known about a case—i.e., what the facts are
- resolved through research to establish the truth
SAMPLE CASE:
• In 1980, Paradyne, a computer company, bid to supply the
Social Security Administration (SSA) with new computer
systems. The request for proposals clearly specifi ed that
only existing systems would be considered. Paradyne did not
have any such system running and had never tested the
operating system on the product they actually proposed to
sell to the SSA. The employment of a former SSA worker by
Paradyne to help lobby SSA for the contract is also clear.
Paradyne asserted that it had done nothing wrong and was
simply engaging in common business practices.
Identifying the issues:
Moral Issues
• Is lying an acceptable business practice?
• Is it alright to be deceptive if doing so allows your company to get
a contract?
Conceptual Issues
• Is bidding to provide an off-the-shelf product when the actual
product is only in the planning stages considered lying or is it an
acceptable business practice?
• Is placing a Paradyne label over the real manufacturer’s label
deceptive?
• Does lobbying your former employer on behalf of your current
employer constitute a conflict of interest?
Factual Issues
Seatwork:
1. An inspector discovers faulty construction equipment and applies a
violation tag, preventing its continued use. The inspector’s supervisor, a
construction manager, views the case as a minor infraction of safety
regulations and orders the tag removed so the project will not be delayed.
What should she do?
2. A software engineer discovers that a colleague has been downloading
restricted files that contain trade secrets about a new product that the
colleague is not personally involved with. He knows the colleague is
planning to sell the secrets or perhaps leave the company and use them in
starting up his own company. Company policy requires him to inform his
supervisor, but the colleague is a close friend. Should he first talk with the
friend about what he is doing, or should he immediately inform his
supervisor?
3. During an investigation of a bridge collapse, Engineer A investigates
another similar bridge, and finds it to be only marginally safe. He contacts
the governmental agency responsible for the bridge and informs them of
his concern for the safety of the structure. He is told that the agency is
aware of this situation and has planned to provide in next year’s budget for
its repair. Until then, the bridge must remain open to traffic. Without this
bridge, emergency vehicles such as police and fire apparatus would have to
use an alternate route that would increase their response time by
approximately twenty minutes. Engineer A is thanked for his concern and
asked to say nothing about the condition of the bridge. The agency is
confident that the bridge will be safe.
Techniques in Ethical Problem
Solving
1. LINE-DRAWING
• performed by drawing a line along which various
examples and hypothetical situations are placed

CASE: Our company would like to dispose of a slightly toxic waste

by dumping it into a local lake from which a nearby town gets its
drinking water. How can we determine if this practice is acceptable?
• Problem: It is proposed that our company dispose of a slightly
hazardous waste by dumping it into a lake. A nearby town takes its
drinking water supply from this lake. Our research shows that with
the amount of waste we plan to put into the lake, the average
concentration of the waste in the lake will be 5 parts per million
(ppm). The EPA limit for this material has been set at 10 ppm. At
the 5-ppm level, we expect no health problems, and consumers
would not be able to detect the compound in their drinking water.
• Positive paradigm: The water supply for the town should be clean
and safe.
• Negative paradigm: Toxic levels of waste are put into the lake.
Now let’s establish some other hypothetical examples for consideration:
1. The company dumps the chemical into the lake. At 5 ppm, the chemical will be
harmless, but the town’s water will have an unusual taste.
2. The chemical can be effectively removed by the town’s existing water-treatment
system.
3. The chemical can be removed by the town with new equipment that will be
purchased by the company.
4. The chemical can be removed by the town with new equipment for which the
taxpayer will pay.
5. Occasionally, exposure to the chemical can make people feel ill, but this only lasts
for an hour and is rare.
6. At 5 ppm, some people can get fairly sick, but the sickness only lasts a week, and
there is no long-term harm.
7. Equipment can be installed at the plant to further reduce the waste level to 1
ppm.
There are many other considerations that might be factored into the final decision
• political aspects that should also be considered
• many people in the community are likely to regard the dumping of a toxin at any
level as unacceptable
• good community relations might dictate that another solution should be pursued
instead
• the company also might want to avoid the lengthy amount of time required to
obtain a permit for the dumping and the oversight by various government
agencies
Exercise: Pentium Chip Case

Apply the line-drawing technique in solving the following case:

In 1994–95, it was discovered and widely reported that the latest version of the Intel
Pentium chip had flaws. At first, Intel sought to hide this information, but later
came around to a policy of offering consumers chips in which the flaw had been
corrected.

Hint: For positive paradigm, use the statement that “products should perform as
advertised.” The negative paradigm will be “Knowingly sell products that are
defective and that will negatively affect customers’ applications.”
2. FLOW CHARTING
• helpful for analyzing a variety of cases, especially those in which there is a
sequence of events to be considered or a series of consequences that
flows from each decision
• gives a visual picture of a situation and allows you to readily see the
consequences that flow from each decision
 CASE: A disaster that happened at Union
Carbide’s plant in Bhopal, India, where
MIC, a toxic substance, was mixed with
water, creating toxic fumes.

Example flow chart >>>>>>

deals with the decision-making process that

might have gone on at Union Carbide as they
decided whether or not to build a plant at Bhopal
CASE: A disaster that happened at Union
Carbide’s plant in Bhopal, India, where
MIC, a toxic substance, was mixed with
water, creating toxic fumes.

<< Alternative flow chart

emphasizing decisions
made when considering
deactivating the flare tower
for maintenance.
3. RESOLUTION-OF-CONFLICT PROBLEMS

• Easy choice – when one choice is obviously more significant than

the other
E.g. protecting the health and safety of the public is more important
than your duty to your employer
• Creative middle way - attempt at some kind of compromise that
will work for everyone
E.g. rather than dumping a toxic waste into a local lake, one finds
ways to redesign the production process to minimize the amount of
waste products produced, finds ways to pretreat the waste to minimize
the toxicity, or offers to pay for and install the equipment at the
municipal water system necessary to treat the water to remove this
chemical before it is sent to homes
• Hard choice - relying on “gut feelings” for which path is the correct
one
CASE: There was an unknown probability that the Challenger shuttle would
explode, perhaps killing all aboard. On the other hand, the engineering manager,
Bob Lund, had a responsibility to his company and the people who worked for him.
There were consequences of postponing the launch, potentially leading to the loss
of future contracts from NASA, the loss of jobs to many Thiokol workers, and
perhaps even bankruptcy of the company.

Easy choice : not to launch

Creative middle ground : delaying the launch until later in the day,
when the temperature will have warmed up
inform the astronauts of the engineer’s
concerns and be allowed to make the choice
whether to launch or not
Hard choice : risk the launch
Seatwork:
• Use line drawing to assess whether the following scenarios of bribery/gift giving under are
acceptable.
• Use flow charting to analyze whether the examples are legitimate gifts or bribes. Be sure
to indicate what consequences will flow from each decision.

1. During a sales visit, a sales representative offers you a coffee mug with his
company’s name and logo on it. The value of the mug is five dollars. Can you
accept this item? Does the answer to this question change if this item is a
$350 crystal bowl with the name of the company engraved on it? How about
if there is no engraving on it?
2. Your meeting with a sales representative is running into the lunch hour. She
invites you to go out for lunch. You go to a fast-food restaurant and pay for
your own lunch. Is this practice acceptable? Does the answer to this
question change if you go to an expensive French restaurant? If she pays for
lunch?
3. A sales representative from whom you often purchase asks if you would like
to play tennis with him this weekend at one of the local municipal courts.
Should you go? Is the answer to this question different if the match is at an
exclusive local club to which he belongs? What if he pays the club’s guest
fee for you?