Ethics Essay

Nathan Tegeler
Having a code of ethics in engineering is important for each individual engineer to develop. A
code of ethics provides engineers with the ability to resolve conflicts by providing them with a
set of moral standards that can be used to back their decisions. A code of ethics can also
prevent an engineer from upsetting, endangering, and losing customers. It is important for
engineers to build trust and credibility so that employers can trust them to make good
decisions that will benefit not only the company but the customers they serve as well.
From personal experience when I am presented with a difficult decision having ethical
standards to look at can help me make a better decision. I will think about the problem I am
faced with and determine how this can negatively or positively impact others. I also think about
how I might be able to make up for mistakes in my judgement. One ethical obligation that I
have delt with in the past is honesty. Honesty is described as openness, truthfulness, fairness,
and sincerity (Virtue Ethics 1-6). Sometimes I have issues with concentration at work and spend
too much time talking with coworkers. To prevent dishonesty, I might stay late or take a shorter
lunch break to get caught up on work so that my employer can trust me to get my work done. I
feel like it would be dishonest and steeling from my employer if I were to waist time and not
make it up. Not only do I have to consider my own ethical code, I also need to fallow the ethical
policies of my employer. When I worked for Hy-Vee, they wanted to ensure honesty and back
their claims that their customers came before profits. They instituted a policy that said if the
store marked a product a certain price, but the register rang up the wrong price the customer
was given the product for free. This provided me as the cashier an opportunity to prevent us
from being dishonest with our customers. When mistakes happened, we would provide them
with a fare fix for our mistake. This example can be applied to my work as an engineer as well if
I commit to getting a product to a customer with certain features, I can be honest with them
about how well the product works. Through my honesty with customers and my employers I
build a relationship of trust. Having a trusting relationship is very important because an
employer is likely to keep me around as they can trust me to get things done. A trusting
relationship also will make customers return and do business with me again because they can
trust me to do a good job.
A good example of an ethical issue is the poor design of the Ford Pinto. The Pinto would catch
fire from a rear-end collision even at relatively low speeds. This led to multiple casualties that's
medical expenses far outweighed simple cost of redesigning and fixing the issue. Ford knew
about the problem from collision testing but did not inform the public about the issue or do
anything to fix it. Ford was then prosecuted for reckless homicide. The ethical issue presented
mostly relates to ethical virtues of honesty, integrity, responsibility, and respect.
The first value of ethics that Ford did not follow in this example was honesty. The engineers
who were responsible for testing the car were not honest about the results of testing the car in
rearend collisions. Though they could have lost their jobs for whistle blowing when Ford did not
issue a recall on their car, they could have informed the public the Pinto was not safe. They also
should have been honest when finishing the test by not signing off on the design. When
discussing with my peers most agreed Fords dishonesty was a big problem and they were
rightly convicted of reckless homicide. The whole chain of command in Ford was responsible for
the dishonesty too as the test engineers’ supervisors had to check off on it all the way up to
head executives in the company.
The fact that no one saw the issue with the report in the company’s chain of command leads to
explain how this situation is an example of moral integrity not being followed. Moral integrity is
defined as exercising good ethical judgment in your field of practice (Virtue Ethics 1-6). If any of
the people in the chain of command had any integrity, they would have done their job and
reviewed the report fully and seen the problem. Then they would have instituted the necessary
changes to the car to ensure that the problem was fixed. The test engineers reported that there
was an issue with the car, but their supervisors did not use good ethical judgment to fix the
issue. Furthermore, the supervisors did not think about the financial consequences of not fixing
the issue as the fix for the problem was very cheep and would have only cost $11 per car. The
consequencing cost of life far out wade the increase of price for the car especially considering
they could have simply sold the car for $11 more. They felt that this financial pressure to make
the car slightly cheaper was worth endangering the public. This was obviously the wrong course
of action to take though. Ford cost their customers hundreds of thousands of dollars in
damages from the issue and killed several people.
The next ethical value that this issue covers is responsibility defined as accountability
trustworthiness, dependability, reliability, and acting for the good of others (Virtue Ethics 1-6).
This value applies to how the executives had a responsibility to the company and its customers
to ensure that they could be viewed as dependable and reliable. By knowingly endangering the
public by producing the car with the defect they ruined their relationship with their customers.
The engineers had a responsibility to halt design and fix the issue before submitting the design
to their supervisors. This example shows how every stage in the design of the product is
important including the testing part. The engineers had a responsibility to use the information
from the test to fix their design. The engineers were essentially wasting time by completing
these collision test as they never bothered to do anything when they found something wrong.
Their actions were unacceptable and directly violated the virtue of responsibility. They were not
reliable enough to fully complete the process of designing the car so that it was safe and
dependable.
One more virtue not in the list of Virtue Ethics 1-6 that could also be applied to this situation is
respect. The precedent for automobile design and manufacturing was that when engineers
found a flaw in their protypes they would redesign and fix the problem. Ford test engineers did
not respect this precedent and ruined the trust that customers had for automobile companies.
Ford did not have respect for the quality that was formally expected of automobile companies.
Now it is almost impossible to get a car without expecting some issue to arise with a recall
especially as more technology is incorporated in cars. Though the pressure that Ford felt to
release the product before it was ready was wrong it is clearly a common occurrence as today
multiple examples of recalled cars exist. Though Ford might have felt the same pressure to
release the product before it was ready, they could have shown respect for precedent of fixing
issues found in testing by informing the public about the issue then recalling the cars once they
had a solution.
Though the virtues of charity, self-discipline, and fidelity could be applied to this situation as
well they do not play as large of a role to providing a good ethical consideration to this
situation. Fidelity may have played a role in exacerbating the problem as Fords employees
clearly supported each other’s decisions even though they knew they were wrong. Self-
discipline does not apply as greatly as responsibility because the test engineers did complete
their job of testing the car. The only short coming was not convincing their supervisor that the
problem was great enough that a redesign was necessary even though they found the test
failed. Charity applies as Ford should have been more considerate of the safety of its
customers. The situation more so applies to honesty as most people assume the risk associated
with driving and what really matters is that Ford was not honest about the increase risk from
the poor design.
The Ford Pinto example is a good example of why following a code of ethics is important for
engineers. If Ford had thought about some of the virtues of ethics that they were potentially
violating by releasing a defective product they would have avoided the criminal prosecution.
One thing I have learned from their mistake is that no matter how far down the line of
command you are in a company if you encounter an ethical problem like this you should try to
remedy it. The test engineers were even more responsible than the executives as they were the
first to sign off on the faulty design.