Aaron Magnuson

EE 394
The purpose of ethics is to allow people who are using products, research, and methods to trust
that they were created correctly and work as stated. This is mainly to allow people to trust others
statements without worrying about whether or not there were ulterior motives involved in the creation
and publication of the products or information.
When I am faced with an ethical problem I try to look objectively at what the problem will
effect, if there is no effect that the problem will have, I will end up leaving the problem as is, if there is a
chance that it will effect something in a negative way I will attempt to fix the problem, if I cannot I will
place a note in the work that there is an issue, I have never come up against bribery, and I never
plagiarize my work.
The case study that my group discussed was the issue with the Launch of the space shuttle
Columbia. My ideas about the ethics of this situation were mostly consistent with my group members.
The consensus of the ideas about the case study was that the space shuttle should have been prevented
from taking off by issues that were a risk to the health and safety of the crew and observers, while issues
that posed no risk could have been waivered as they were before the disaster. This was both the
general consensus and the opinion of a majority of the group, there were no stated opinions that
differed from this.
The three Virtues that are most relevant to this case study are Responsibility, Integrity, and
honesty. These are the most important because this disaster might have been prevented if the
engineers had exercised more integrity in choosing whether or not to wave issues. Responsibility may
also have helped prevent this as with more responsibility there might have been more back checking
which could have led to the problem being found and fixed before the launch. Finally honesty could also
have helped prevent this as if the engineers had been more honest with themselves they might have
seen that some of the issues could not be waived. Charity was not a problem in this instance as it would
not have affected the outcome in any way as they do not relate to overlooking issues, the same holds
true for fidelity and self-discipline. I feel I could apply the ethical virtue of double checking, as the issue
that caused the crash was waived and therefore if there was more double checking involved in the
process there might not have been an issue.