Ethics are defined as, according to Google, the moral principles that govern a person's

behavior or the conducting of an activity. This definition highlights that everyone has guiding

principles for how they act and why they do what they do. When we look at a specific discipline,

like an engineering career path, it is easy to see that there are certain principles that must be

shared amongst all members of that discipline for it to be successful. This is the very reason that

there is an IEEE code of ethics. We, as electrical engineers, must all act responsibly to ensure no

shortcuts are taken, we are acting in the best interest of our company and the customer, etc. If we

don’t work in this way, we will lose the public's trust and not be working towards the shared goal

of advancing technology for the betterment of humanity. For me, many of the ethical situations I

have faced have come down to whether or not it feels like the right thing to do. This certainly

isn’t a scientific way of doing things, but an example of this comes from my background in the

remodeling of rental properties. In many cases, I’m not one hundred percent sure how something

needs to be done to be “correct.” In these cases, it's up to me to think through any safety issues

that may arise when a tenant moves in, along with thinking about the stakeholders and how much

it is going to cost them for the fix. The biggest consideration for me is if I’m unsure of

something. I never want to be naive and think that I know how to do something when I in fact,

don’t. In these cases, I do the research to ensure I understand all aspects of the problem in order

to come to the best solution possible. In general, I don’t think there is any one set of factors I

take into account when I’m facing an ethical dilemma. It all depends on the specific situation and

the information I have available to make the decision.

Within this class, my group discussed four different real-life ethical dilemmas. Each of

the articles we read had different factors that needed to be taken into account or mistakes that

occurred. When we analyzed each of these articles, I was amazed to see that we were all pretty
well aligned on what mistakes were made and what things could have been improved upon to

have a better outcome. The Big Data Issue discussed a computer scientist’s handling of

personally identifiable information. We all agreed that the computer scientist needs to bring the

issue up with his superior and discuss the importance of handling this type of information very

carefully. The next article we read was the Pinto Issue, which was about Ford’s handling of

known structural issues to the Ford Pinto car. This was yet another example where we all agreed

that Ford should have implemented the fix and that there were issues within Ford’s chain of

command since it made it through so many levels of management and was never flagged. The

third article we read was the VW issue. This article discussed Volkswagon's use of a defeat

device to make their vehicles appear to pass emissions tests. Yet again, we all agreed that

Volkswagon should have acted in an honest manner and never attempted to come up with a

defeat device as they did. Instead of looking for other solutions, they took the easy way out and

lied to their customers and world governments about their vehicles. The final article we read was

the Amazon Echo Issue. This article discussed the handling of the troves of data that companies

have on their users. In this case, we actually all agreed that Amazon did the right thing by

withholding their customers' information without a court order. It is important that this

information is not given out to anyone who asks to maintain their customers' trust.

The specific article that I read and discussed was the Pinto Issue. As I have already

discussed, this article discussed Ford’s knowledge of a structural issue with their Pinto line of

cars that could cause the fuel tank to be punctured when the vehicle is involved in a rear-end

crash. Obviously, this dramatically increases the risk of fire if the vehicle is involved in a crash.

Unfortunately, Ford decided to push this car to market with knowledge of the issue. With this in

mind, I would have to say Integrity, Honesty, and Responsibility are the virtues that I feel are
most related to this case. Integrity was not shown when it came to the building of the Ford Pinto,

with the simple disregard for all the potential fatalities and injuries that could occur with the

design they pushed to market. Honesty was also not upheld by management or the engineers who

did the testing on these vehicles by not taking into account the true scale of this issue.

Responsibility was also related to this issue since nobody lived up to the responsibility of taking

safety into account for all of Ford’s customers. None of the other virtues really had any relation

to this issue nor would I say there are any other ethical virtue that could apply to this Ford Pinto

issue.