This week, we looked at two more
ethical codes—one for the Project Management Institute,
and one for Engineers.
(Find links to these professional codes in the Week 7 Assignment
tab along with the Week 7 readings.) You can see that both of them are
much simpler than the Legal code we looked at last week, and even simpler than
the Medical code of ethics. Appropriate professional behavior, p
...[Show More]
This week, we looked at two more
ethical codes—one for the Project Management Institute,
and one for Engineers.
(Find links to these professional codes in the Week 7 Assignment
tab along with the Week 7 readings.)
You can see that both of them are
much simpler than the Legal code we looked at last week, and even simpler than
the Medical code of ethics. Appropriate professional behavior, practice, and
discipline varies among professions and reflects the needs and values of the
professional society in question.
Let's then assume professional roles as we work on this fictional scenario:
It's 2020, and General Foryota Company opens a plant in which to build a
new mass-produced hover-craft. This hover-craft will work using E-85 Ethanol,
will travel up to 200 mph, and will reduce pollution worldwide at a rate of 10
percent per year. It is likely that when all automobiles in the industrial
world have been changed over to hovercrafts, emission of greenhouse gasses may
be so reduced that global warming may end and air quality will become
completely refreshed.
However, the downside is that
during the transition time, GFC's Hover-Vee (only available in red or black),
will most likely put all transportation as we know it in major dissaray.
Roadways will no longer be necessary, but new methods of controlling traffic
will be required. Further, while the old version of cars are still being
used, Hover-vee's will cause accidents, parking issues, and most likely class
envy and warfare. The sticker price on the first two models will be
about four times that of the average SUV (to about $200,000.) Even so,
GFC's marketing futurists have let them know that they will be able to pre-sell
their first three years of expected production, with a potential waiting
list which will take between 15 and 20 years to fill.
The Chief Engineer of GFC
commissions a study on potential liabilities for the Hover-vees. The
preliminary result is that Hover-vees will likely kill or maim humans at an
increased rate of double to triple over automobile travel because of collisions
and crashes at high speeds -- projected annual death rates of 100,000 to
200,000. However, global warming will end, and the environment will flourish.
The U. S. Government gets wind
of the plans. Congress begins to discuss the rules on who can own and operate
Hover-vees. GFC's stock skyrockets. The Chief Engineer takes the results of the
study to the Chief Legal Counsel, and together they agree to bury the study,
going forward with the production plans. The Chief Project Manager, who has
read the study and agreed to bury it, goes ahead and plans out the project for
the company, with target dates and production deadlines.
Our class is a team of young
lawyers, project managers, engineers, and congressional aides who are all part
of the process of helping get this project off the ground. In fact, according
to the first letter of your last name, you are the following team:
A-G: Attorney on the GFC
team
H-N: Project Manager on the GFC team
0-S: Engineer on the GFC team
T-Z: Congressional Aide
Somebody sent a secret copy of
the report to you at your home address. It has no information in it at all,
except for the report showing the proof of the increase in accidents and
deaths. The report shows, on its face, that the CLO, CE, CPM, and your
Congressional Representative have seen copies of this report. On the front
there are these words typed in red: They knew —
they buried
this. Please save the world!
Each of you feel a very loyal tie
to your boss and your company/country. You all have mortgages, and families to
feed. It is likely if you blow the whistle on this report, you will lose your
job and your livelihood. You're not even sure who wrote the study in your
envelope or who actually sent it to you.
Please be
sure to read the Week Seven Lecture in its entirety before posting to this
discussion.
This week we will work on creating your own statement of personal ethics.
To get started, read summarizing review of our great and famous ethics and what
they have taught us -- found in our lecture this week.
Then, let's work on creating one
for you.
Your goal for the end of
this thread is to have created a personal ethical philosophy and be able to
tell your classmates from which philosophies you created it and why the
contents are important and meaningful for you. List its precepts. (You will need to do this on the Final
Exam.)
After you have assembled and posted your personal ethics statement,
responded to what others may have said to you and thought about what you have
posted to others, then take your statement and use it to work through the
famous case of the Ring of Gyges.
One of the great examples of
ethics and morals in all of literature comes from Plato who wrote about the
Ring of Gyges in
The Republic, Book II, starting at paragraph 359a.
For those who wish to read the whole story, it is in the Doc Sharing tab and
here is a link to the story -- Ring of Gyges.
The story goes that Gyges was a
shepherd in the service of the King. In a most unusual circumstance he came
upon a dead man, removed the man's ring, and discovered that it made him
invisible. He conspired to take the periodic report of the shepherds to the
King -- once there he seduced the Queen and eventually took control of the
Kingdom by conspiring with the Queen. Plato continues the story:
"Suppose now that there were
two such magic rings, and the just put on one of them and the unjust the other;
no man can be imagined to be of such an iron nature that he would stand fast in
justice. No man would keep his hands off what was not his own when he could
safely take what he liked out of the market, or go into houses and lie with any
one at his pleasure, or kill or release from prison whom he would, and in all
respects be like a God among men. Then the actions of the just would be as the
actions of the unjust; they would both come at last to the same point. And this
we may truly affirm to be a great proof that a man is just, not willingly or
because he thinks that justice is any good to him individually, but of
necessity, for wherever any one thinks that he can safely be unjust, there he
is unjust. For all men believe in their hearts that injustice is far more
profitable to the individual than justice, and he who argues as I have been
supposing, will say that they are right."
This story raises up the question
of what sanctions prevent people from just taking any liberties they are
inclined to take.
The whole subject of ethics, seen in large scale, is that of accepting and
living under moral standards.
1. Using YOUR personal ethical
statement that you have created, what would you do if you had that second ring?
2. What else within this course helps in responding to this fictitious
situation or in explaining it?
3. Respond to your classmates' posts. Are they holding true to their own
personal ethical philosophies in their resolutions of this dilemma?
Pick one or more of the above, and
post below!
Imagine that! ;o)
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