With regard to your assigned case try to outline the moral dilemma (or dilemmas).
Answer
- What are the competing moral reasons involved? For example rights, responsibilities, duties, good consequences, admirable features, etc.
- What factual inquiries do you think might be needed in making a reliable judgment about your case?
- What are the options you see available for solving the dilemma?
Case 1 - A software engineer discovers that a colleague has been downloading restricted files that contain trade secrets about a new product that the colleague is not personally involved with. He knows the colleague has been having financial problems, and fears the colleague is planning to sell the secrets or perhaps leave the company and use them in starting up his own company. Company policy requires him to inform his supervisor, but the colleague is a close friend. Should he first talk with the friend about what he is doing? Or should he immediately inform his supervisor?
Case 2 - An aerospace engineer is volunteering as a mentor for a high school team competing in a national contest to build a robot that straightness boxes. The plan was to help the students on weekends for at most 8 to 10 hours. As the national competition nears, the robot's motor overheats and the engine burns out. He wants to help the dispirited students, and believes his mentoring commitment requires that he does more. But doing so would involve additional evening work that could potentially harm his work, if not his family.
Case 3 - During an investigation of a bridge collapse, Engineer A investigates another similar bridge, and finds it to be only marginally safe. Engineer A contacts the governmental agency responsible for the bridge and informs them of the concern for the safety of the structure. Engineer A is told that the agency is aware of this situation, and has planned to provide in next year's budget for its repair. Until then, the bridge must remain open to traffic. Without this bridge, emergency vehicles such as police and fire apparatus would have to use an alternate route that would increase their response time about twenty minutes. Engineer A is thanked for their concern and asked to say nothing about the condition of the bridge. The agency is confident that the bridge will be safe.
Case 4 - An engineer notified his firm that for a relatively minor cost, a flashlight could be made to last several years longer by using a more reliable bulb. The firm decides that it would be in its interest not to use the new bulb, both to keep cost lower and to have the added advantage of "built-in obsolescence" so that consumers would need to purchase new flashlights more often.