C.T.Y.

Engineering and Ethics: Ethics case-studies

Project Description

Each group—two, three, or four, with at least one member from the “other”
class—will pick one of the case-studies below: first-come, first-served! Your
task is to summarize the case and analyze its ethical implications. In doing
so, each group will deliver a presentation (approximately seven minutes),
allowing time for questions. You will present Thursday morning, week 3.

Instructions
Your presentation should do three distinct things:

(1) summarize the case;

(2) analyze the ethical implications, buttressed by critical analysis and
tools and techniques developed in our classes (one approach is to
consider the case from the viewpoint of key philosophical schools of
thought, such as utilitarianism, deontology and virtue ethics);
(3) give your thoughts on the issues (you can agree to disagree within
your groups).

Each case contains a description and questions to consider. Given the time
constraint, you are not required to address all of the questions—pick those
few that you find most interesting. You may even focus on a single question
if you have a lot to say about it. Quality and depth count.

Case-Study List
Sources: the author, Dr. Todd Kukla, and Harris/Pritchard/Rabin’s
Engineering and Ethics: Concepts and Cases.

(1) “Clean”-bomb development

In a high-tech consulting company, your employer is excited to

have their company awarded a contract with the military to
design a “cleaner” bomb that will result in fewer civilian
casualties and cause more damage to physical structures,
buildings, etc. Also, “clean” means that those people the bomb
does affect will be killed instantly and not allowed to suffer
prolonged radiation sickness before succumbing. How do you
respond?

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 Some issues to consider:
• How much do you need the job?; what is your family
situation?
• Is there something positive (or not) about a “clean” bomb?
• How would development proceed if another person took
the job—would you proceed more “morally”?
• Are you being true to yourself if you take the job?
• If you accept the job and don’t put your “all” into it, are
you behaving ethically with respect to your employer or
your country?

(2) Safety at what cost?

How safely do you design a bridge? Complete safety is

impossible—it would cost infinite dollars. Engineers
acknowledge safety and affordability as prima facie values often
in conflict with each other. A bridge that can withstand the
every-twenty-year storm might cost ten times one that can
withstand the every-ten-year storm.

Some issues to consider:

• What guidelines can you give regarding the difficult
trade-off between cost and safety?
• When should safety give way to cost, and when should
cost give way to safety?
• What ethical principles or concerns underlie your
guidelines?

(3) Process redesign

Your company pollutes a nearby river, but the amount of

effluent is within E.P.A.-acceptable guidelines. The pollution is
believed to kill some of the river’s aquatic life and to pose a
meaningful, but minimal danger to land animals.

Some issues to consider:

• How much are you willing to spend to redesign the
process so it is cleaner?
• What ethical principles or concerns underlie your
decision?
• Should ethical principles in this case give way to the
“bottom line?”

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 (4) Nuclear energy

Nuclear reactors provide an important source of energy in the

modern world, and we are all too aware of both their costs and
benefits. What future, if any, should they have in energy
production?

Inherent in nuclear fission as an energy source are these

considerations:
• A finite amount of uranium exists for fission.
• Fission produces energy in a relatively clean manner.
• There is always possibility of an accident—this is rare,
though when it happens, it can be major: reference
Chernobyl and Three Mile Island (mostly this occurs
through operator error, not from malfunctioning failsafe
systems).
• We need to dispose of waste—where? Note conflict
possible in a utilitarian vs. deontological argument.

An issue to consider:
• What future, if any, should reactors have in energy
production?

(5) Medical experimentation on convicted criminals

Bob is a very bad man. I won’t go into the details, but take my
word for it. Fortunately, Bob is now behind bars. But the other
day I heard Judge Judy raise an interesting question. She said,
“The judicial system has done its job. But why stop there? Bob
may yet prove to be of some value to society. We have all sorts
of diseases that stand in need of a cure, and we know that the
use of human experimental subjects is beneficial to the
advancement of medical and scientific research. So why wait for
volunteers when we have an entire prison system of potential
subjects?”

Some issues to consider:

• Have prisoners lost rights in this scenario?
• Should their consent be required?
• Have they lost their humanity or personhood?
• Should progress of an induced disease or effect of a drug
be allowed to progress without intervening medical
attention?

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 (6) Rainforests

Rainforests contain a majority of the world’s species, many of

which have yet to be catalogued; they are an important source of
drug ingredients, and they help maintain the balance of oxygen
and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Many poor farmers who
own rainforest land slash-and-burn to make way for soil to grow
crops for local or industrialized markets. These farmers believe
this is the only way to ensure survival of their families. The
nutrient content in the canopy is far greater than that in the soil
below, so the revealed land for crops only supports growing for a
few seasons before more slashing-and-burning is required.
Deforestation gives rise to loss of species, increasing greenhouse
gases, and decreasing resources—perhaps resources that are
non-replenishable.

Some issues to consider:

• How should we respond to this?
• How should we find a trade-off between the needs of poor
farmers and long-term environmental impact?
• Do we—including these farmers—have obligations to
future generations? If so, how are such obligations
balanced against present needs?
• Imagine you are put into the following position: you have
complete legal jurisdiction over thousands of acres of
rainforest and you have been hired to design a policy
regarding the activities of the farmers within your
jurisdiction. What policy will you design?

The following introduction applies to the following three cases (7, 8, and 9):

Computer technology has changed the way we interact with one-

another. Speed of communication is increased, and less time
exists to reflect on the messages we exchange with one-another.
Many of us sense that something valuable might be lost in
modern forms of communication, and yet many of us also sense
that lamenting such loss is useless romantic nostalgia. How is
modern communication changing our social lives and our
understanding of who we are as a species? What is the best way
to think about this?

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 (7) Communication technology—friendship

Some issues to consider:

• How has Facebook (or substitute any other current
social-media platform) changed the nature of
friendship, if at all?
• Is there an ideal or perfect friendship? Can Facebook or
Twitter promote that ideal? Do they mostly act against
it? Or, are they neutral with respect to the ideal?: “it
ain’t the technology, it’s how you use it”.

(8) Communication technology—design of social media

Some issues to consider:

• Think about how Facebook (or substitute any other
current social-media platform) is designed. What types
of social interaction does the design facilitate and
encourage?
• What sorts of social interaction are discouraged in the
design of these social-media platforms?
• What might be a better design?
• How does design influence the way we define ourselves
to others and to ourselves?

(9) Communication technology—information

Some issues to consider:

• What are some of the dangers inherent in modern forms
of communication?—for example, increased potential for
plagiarism, theft, intellectual-property-rights
violations, personal and political violence.
• What are some of the growth potentials inherent in
modern forms of communication?—for example,
increased awareness of what is happening in the world,
greater opportunities to help people around the world,
and promotion of a free (or freer) society.
• Is the notion of “genius” no longer a property of
individuals, but instead a shared property?

(10) Chernobyl

This case is introduced, with issues to consider, at:

sites.bsyse.wsu.edu/pitts/be120/Handouts/cases/case29.htm

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 (11) “Ghost of an Executed Engineer”

This case is introduced, with issues to consider, at:

sites.bsyse.wsu.edu/pitts/be120/Handouts/cases/case38.htm

(12) “Smoking”

This case is introduced, with issues to consider, at:

sites.bsyse.wsu.edu/pitts/be120/Handouts/cases/case50.htm

(13) Ford Pinto

This case is introduced, with issues to consider, at:

sites.bsyse.wsu.edu/pitts/be120/Handouts/cases/case67.htm

(14) The Challenger

This case is introduced, with issues to consider, at:

sites.bsyse.wsu.edu/pitts/be120/Handouts/cases/case71.htm

(15) Deep brain stimulation

[Source: J. Pugh, L. Pycroft, A. Sandberg, T. Aziz, and J.

Savulescu, “Brainjacking in deep brain stimulation and
autonomy”, Ethics and Information Technology (2018) 20: 219–
232]

Electronic brain implants enable patients with Parkinson’s

Disease, dystonia (involuntary muscle contractions), clinical
depression, anorexia nervosa and other neural and/or motor
impairments to achieve functionality. It involves deep-brain
stimulation (D.B.S.) through implanted pulse generators
controlled by a brain-computer interface (B.C.I.).

Put yourself in the following scenarios, and justify your

response:

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 (a) [Case Two in J. Pugh, et al.—hypothetical] Betty suffers
from a severe case of anorexia nervosa which has been
fairly well controlled with D.B.S. Recently, Betty has
come to “embrace her anorexia as part of her identity.” As
a result, “her parents are becoming increasingly worried
about her deteriorating condition. They begin to consider
whether it might be possible to take control over Betty’s
stimulation.”

(b) Consider a situation where you would reject analgesics

because you would prefer to be lucid with pain, rather
than brain-foggy with substantially reduced pain.
Develop an analogy with D.B.S.

(c) In a much-discussed case, D.B.S controlled severe

Parkinson’s motor dysfunction, but had the side effect of
inducing a mania that could not otherwise be controlled.
The patient was given a choice: continue D.B.S and be
committed to a psychiatric ward or discontinue D.B.S and
be permanently bed-ridden from motor impairment.
Which would you choose? Why? [Source: A.F.G.
Leentjens, V. Visser-Vandewalle, Y. Tamel, and F.R.
Verhey, “Manipulation of mental competence: an ethical
problem in case of electrical stimulation of the subthalamic
nucleus for severe Parkinson’s disease”, Nederlands
Tïjdschrift voor Geneeskunde 148: 1394–1398.]

(d) D.B.S. could potentially be used for cognitive

enhancement or for controlling abnormal moral behavior.
Explore these potentialities.

(e) A major concern of D.B.S. is “brainjacking”, the

unauthorized control over someone’s implant through
hacking the B.C.I. How can this be controlled or
alleviated?

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