Engineering Ethics and the Internet
...any controversial issues may arise. The book makes some conclusions that may have more than one side to them. In knowing this, I will be giving my views on whether I agree or disagree with the books conclusion. The beginning paragraph of this section discusses how not telling the full truth is considered dishonest. However, the author goes on to say that concealing the truth may sometimes be the right thing to do. Having a society were every person is brutally honest about ever matter would create an intolerable environment for all people. This would mean every person would have to be cut throat on their opinions of each other which competes with the idea of having a polite and civilized society. I would have to agree with this idea. However, this may be turned into a controversial topic because it turns into a moral and personal debate. I believe that a person has to learn and understand when to come out and tell their opinion and when to hold back. Because at times okay to tell a person how you feel about them and at certain times it isn’t. It also becomes necessary to show your feelings about other people because others may begin to believe you are a “fake” person who doesn’t give their insight at all. So, to conclude with this idea, I would have to say I agree with what the author is saying, but individuals have to learn for themselves when and when not to give their opinion on certain matters. Especially when thinking about your peers, co-workers, or business partners. The next part of this section talks about the same idea except for professionals. By professionals the author aims towards the professions of lawyers, doctors, and engineers. The author gives the most examples directed towards physicians’; therefore I will be using that example. With regard to these professionals, requirement never to conceal truth would mean they could not exercise confidentiality or protect proprietary information. Doctors could never misrepresent the truth to their patients even when there is good evidence to support that it wasn’t what the patient wanted because it could prove to be devastating to that patient. In this case I believe to think in the way of the patients needs and wants. The patient is paying the professional to have work done on them, therefore the doctor needs to accommodate to that person’s needs and desires. So, the doctor should simply ask the patient what their needs and wants are and deliver that to them. After concluding on these two dishonesty issues, we now read a final conclusion the author has made. It states, despite possible exceptions, however, dishonesty and the various other ways of misusing the truth are generally wrong. A helpful way to see this is to consider dishonesty from the standpoints of the ethics of respect for persons and utilitarianism; each can provide valuable suggestions for thinking about moral issues. This is a very hard issue to conclude. It is in my opinion that the author shunned away from controversy by using ideas that are controversial in themselves like morals and ethics. With knowing that, I am going to have to remain neutral on this issue simply because it has remained unclear in my mind. However, if a person is to look at this issue in a simple sense of mind, I would have to conclude that it is important to keep the values of all people at heart, but a person should not feel that they are not allowed to keep everything from that individual. If you were to continue reading in this section, you will come to find that Immanuel Kant, a respective theorist, has the same view and the opinion I just stated in the previous sentence. This theorist also believes that the patients have to right to fulfill their wants and needs. The next point this section makes is directed more towards engineering dishonesty, and what disasters may occur if a professional decides to take the wrong path of dishonesty. The author shows this by explaining the case of the tragic Challenger disaster. This is an example of with holding information. The astronauts were informed of the ice build up on the launching pad; however, they were not informed of how this ice build up may affect the o-rings. Therefore, they were not given the full amount of information, and the result was tragic. The author goes on to say that these situation may be complex. The reason being is that decision makers must not on...