Michael Hurley

Electrical Engineering 394

3/5/2023

Ethics in Engineering

Ethics are an important topic in today's engineering world as companies

expand further and technological advances accelerate at a blinding pace. Looking

and discussing historical events and applying moral consideration and modern

ethical codes helps us to understand where mistakes have been made in the past

and how to improve and prevent future ethical and moral faults from occurring.

A code of ethics is a guiding set of values and principles that a group or an

organization will use to inform decisions and conduct when issues arise involving

ethical conflicts. This code assures that a baseline of values is held and allows for

correction and accountability when violations and unethical choices are made. This

reinforcement of the code also allows a positive attitude to form in the community in

which it is used and builds trust and professionalism in the group from others who

see these standards set in action.

When going about making decisions that involve ethical issues many factors

come into account including personal values and morals, advice from peers and

mentors, and the code of ethics for the position that I am in.

In class I feel the most interesting ethical discussions came from the Ford

Pinto issue as it contains many of the precursors to ethical violations from the 5 P’s
which include pressure, pride, priorities and power. Ford had the goal of creating a

$2,000 car that weighed in at 2,000 lbs. These strict limitations and pressure from

executives led to a flawed design that would’ve required a fix at a cost of $11 per car.

However when the fix was presented the executives at Ford decided to follow their

priorities regarding their stockholders and believed that Ford would be able to

overcome and avoid any significant backlash from the car's release due to their

position in the market. Our group discussions showed that the members all had

similar views on this issue and saw that clearly Ford valued profits over human lives

and leadership showed a lack of responsibility by failing to fix the fatal flaws. In this

case the obvious decision would be to implement the engineers fix or go back and

redesign with improved safety and more lenient design criteria in mind until a

suitable product is made.

The three virtues from the virtue ethics that apply most directly in this case

are responsibility, fidelity and integrity. In this case the ones in charge at Ford had

the responsibility to look out for the greater good of the public over the company's

profit margin but failed to do so. Fidelity also describes that one should be faithful to

themselves, clients, employers and ones profession. By going forward and releasing

the Pinto executives tarnished their companies name, caused harm and distrust in

the automotive industry and directly harmed their customers. Finally they showed

little integrity and backbone as they could not stand up for those out of the

conversations taking place who would be most impacted by the decision and

knowingly allowing a flawed product to go out and create harm. I feel these three are
more applicable than the others as honesty and charity are seldom found in

corporate decisions and companies should be allowed to hide internal mistakes and

seek profits as long as any issues that would negatively impact consumers and the

public are fixed before harm can be done. I also feel self discipline is not applicable

here as no one making the decision made the decision with excessive greed or

malice in mind and had they been responsible and acted with integrity the outcome

would have been much different.