Select any of the following cases and write a report about it. Your report (2-3 pages) will discuss the selected case containing the following parts:
1.Statement of the selected case.
2.The moral dilemma involved in the case.
3.What do societal or professional values require in the selected case?
4.What do professional ethical standards require in the selected case? Cite relevant parts of the Codes of Ethics.
5.What action would you recommend?
Case 1: A software engineer, Engineer A, 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 that the colleague has been having financial problems, and he 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.
Case 2: During an investigation of a bridge collapse, Engineer B investigates another similar bridge, and finds it to be only marginally safe. He contacts the governmental agency responsible for the bridge and informs them of his concern for safety of the structure. He 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 alternative route that would increase their response time by approximately twenty minutes. The engineer is thanked for his concern and asked to say nothing about the condition of the bridge. The agency is confident that the bridge will be safe.
Case 3: Engineer C, a chemical engineer working in the environmental division of a computer manufacturing firm, learns that her company might be discharging unlawful amounts of lead and arsenic into the city sewer. The city processes the sludge into a fertilizer used by local farmers. To ensure safety of both the discharge and the fertilizer, the city imposes restrictive laws on the discharge of lead and arsenic. Preliminary investigations convince the engineer that the company should implement stronger pollution controls, but her supervisor tells her the cost of doing so is prohibitive and that technically the company is in compliance with the law. The engineer is scheduled to appear before town officials to testify in the matter.
Case 4: Engineer D, an environmental engineer, is retained by a major industrial owner to examine certain lands adjacent to an abandoned industrial facility formerly owned and operated by the owner. The owner’s attorney requests that as a condition of the retention agreement that the engineer sign a secrecy provision whereby the engineer would agree not to disclose any data, findings, conclusions or other information relating to his examination of the owner’s land to any other party unless ordered by a court.
