ENG 410: Professional and Ethical Practice

Lecture 4

Dr. Adel Ben Mnaouer

Office: B3-05

Email: [email protected] Phone : (04) 709 6146

 Clicker Question
George was showing Amita a copy of a drawing software
package he got from a friend.
Amita says to George, “Hey this is great, but you didn’t
pay for it, you shouldn’t really be using it.”
George says, “Look, I wouldn’t have bought it because I
can’t afford it, so the company hasn’t lost a sale. I don’t
really see any problem.
Talk to your neighbor and record what you think:
a)George is right – there is no problem, he isn’t stealing from the company
b)George should delete the software from his computer
c)George shouldn’t pirate software, but the company is not going to find out, so
he should not delete it
 Clicker Question
On his way home from work, George goes into a
Walgreens, picks up a candy bar and walks out
without paying. Ethically, is this the same as
pirating software?

A.YES
B.NO
C.In some ways yes and some ways no
 Outline:

• Moral Reasoning & Case Analysis –

Techniques

• Applying Techniques to a Real Case

Part 3:
Moral Reasoning & Case
Analysis
 What is required in Moral Reasoning
• Identifying the situation.
– What is being asked of you or your company?
• Recognizing the relevant factors.
– Who are the parties? What are their rights? What are your
companies obligations and their rights?
• Applying moral considerations.
– What are the consequences? What are the intentions of the
actors? What prima facie duties are at play? What virtues
are at play?
• Proposing a position-of-action.
– What do you think should be done in the situation? Why do
you propose what you propose? Defend what you propose.
 What is not required in Moral
reasoning
• Having a defensible and thought out position-of-
action does not require that there are no other
defensible alternative positions of action.

• Having a defensible and thought out position of action

does not mean that you don’t have to listen to and
reason with others who are relevant parties.

• Having a defensible and thought out position of action

does not mean you should not seek advice also.
 Case Analysis (I)
We learn to reason morally and come up with a
position-of-action by doing case analysis.

Studying cases gives us an environment in which we can

practice reasoning about morality and what to do in
problematic situations without causing harm.

Some cases are hypothetical, in that they never actually

occurred, but they could occur. Some cases are actual,
in that they actually occurred.

In case analysis it is important to study both

hypothetical and actual cases.
 Case Analysis (II)
The steps for case analysis:

1.Read the case carefully.

2.Identify all the parties involved.

3.Identify all the obligations and rights involved.

4.Apply moral considerations.

5.Come up with a position-of-action.

 The Table Technique I
Step 1: make a table charting the relevant
factors.

Party Intention: Consequences: Rights /

Involved Positive or Cost and Duties
Negative Benefit
 The Table Technique II
• Using the information in your table:

• Choose some combination of relevant factors to

come up with a position-of-action.

• Write out your position-of-action as an argument that

uses the factors you have chosen as reasons for your
position-of-action.

• Attempt to defend your position of action against

responses a person may have to your position.
 Reasoning from all sides
A person that is good at moral reasoning can
often perform the following task:

Defend a position, regardless of whether they

believe it.

Reason for the opposing position, regardless of

whether they believe it.

Identify possible positions that further

discussion.
Part 4:
Application to Real Case

Discovery April 23, 2012

 A Recurring Ethical Dilemma
Engineering commitment to safety
vs.
All of the other factors management must consider

VS
• “It’s time to take off your engineering hat and
put on your management hat.”
Morton Thiokol Senior Vice President Jerry Mason

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 ..the conflict between
Professional goals or virtues of engineers
A. Upholding high standards of
professional competence and expertise

B. Holding paramount the health, safety & welfare

of the public
Professional goals or virtues of managerial decision-makers:
A. Maximizing the well-being of the organization

B. Upholding organizational employee morale and welfare

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Today we will consider a case with this
potential conflict

A famous case and a national disaster:

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The Challenger Disaster
(January 28, 1986)
 http://images.jsc.nasa.gov/luceneweb/caption_direct.jsp?photoId=S85-44253

Challenger Crew
(front row) Michael J. Smith, Dick Scobee, Ronald McNair
(back row) Ellison Onizuka, Christa McAuliffe, Gregory Jarvis, Judith
Resnik
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The Short Story

Challenger lifts
off at 11:37 AM

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73 seconds after lift-off, smoke was seen billowing out
from the right solid rocket booster followed by several
explosions

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 Challenger disintegrated
73 Seconds into flight

Smoke plume of the Space Shuttle, Challenger at 73

seconds after launching
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 Technical Details

The primary component of the

vehicle assembly was the
Orbiter, the reusable, winged
craft containing the crew that
actually traveled into space and
returned to land on a runway.

Orbiter containing flight deck and crew

Challenger disaster photos copied and text adapted from Aerospaceweb.org (2004) Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster, Retrieved November 3,
2008 Aerospaceweb.org, Web site: http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question/investigations/q0122.shtml

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• The Orbiter alone did not
generate enough thrust or carry
enough fuel to get into orbit.

• Additional thrust was provided by

two large Solid Rocket Boosters
– Attached to the side of the External
Tank by means of two struts

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External Tank Right Solid
Rocket
Left Solid Booster
Rocket
Booster

Three main
engines of the
orbiter
Once the two solid rocket boosters had lifted the Shuttle
to an altitude of about 45,760 m (roughly 28.4 miles), they
were jettisoned
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 - Two-thirds of the External Tank was filled with liquid hydrogen;

the top third with liquid oxygen

-This fuel supplied the three main engines of the Orbiter until
about 8 1/2 minutes after liftoff
- Then the External Tank would be jettisoned at about 111,355m
(roughly 69.2 miles) .

Challenger disaster diagrams copied and text adapted from Aerospaceweb.org (2004) Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster,
Retrieved November 3, 2008 Aerospaceweb.org, Web site:
http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question/investigations/q0122.shtml 24
Design of the Solid Rocket Booster

• SRB built in Utah and shipped by

train to launch pad
• The four segments of each booster
were joined by what is known as tang
and clevis joints.

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 Each tang and clevis joint was
sealed by two rubber O-rings.

The intended design:

Rubber seals fill the joints,
preventing the hot exhaust from
escaping.

http://galaxywire.net/2009/07/06/solid-rocket-booster-cutaway-view /
O-ring

O-ring

As pressure increases inside the SRB, it pushes the tang

away, but also flattens out the O-ring to seal the gap.

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 This picture was taken on the morning of the Challenger
launch January 28, 1986.

With temps in 20os overnight and 36o at launch, it was the

coldest day in history that a shuttle had been launched.

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 Failure
• O-ring seal in the right SRB failed to remain
sealed.
• O-ring failure allowed a flare of pressurized hot
gas from the SRB
• Resulting flames burned the adjacent SRB
attachment hardware -- the strut -- and ignited
the liquid hydrogen and oxygen in the external
fuel tank.
• Various subsequent structural failures caused
orbiter to break apart
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 • Roger Boisjoly, chief O-
ring engineer at Morton
Thiokol, had warned his
colleagues that O-rings
lose their resiliency at
relatively low
temperatures
• August 19, 1985 - NASA
Level I management
April 25, 1938 – January 6, briefed on booster
2012
problem
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 Day of the Launch
• Engineers, including Roger Boisjoly, could not
supply conclusive data regarding at what
temperatures it would be unsafe to launch the
Challenger.

• According to a Marshall Space Flght Center

manager no one had performed a statistical
analysis correlating past O-ring performance
with either temperature or leak check pressure
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 Hindsight:
Each of the four
launches below
61o showed
thermal distress to
at least 1 O-ring

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 NASA Manager Anxious to Launch
• Economic considerations
– Delays are costly
• Political pressures
– Competition with European Space Agency & Russians
– Need to justify budget requests
– Possible pressure to launch before presidential speech
• Scheduling backlogs
– Many delays in previous shuttle mission
– Several days of bad weather, electronic switch malfunction
 Final Decision
• After much back and forth discussion with NASA,
Jerald Mason told Morton Thiokol supervising
engineer, Robert Lund: “take off your engineering
hat and put on your management hat.”

• Without firm figures to determine that the launch

was unsafe, the earlier recommendation to delay
the launch was reversed.

Rogers Commission, Report to the President by the Presidential Commission on the Space Shuttle Challenger Accident (Washington,
D. C.: June 6, 1986), pp. 772-773.

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 WHAT ARE THE CONFLICTS
HERE?
Based on What You Know So Far
 Was there a conflict between
Professional goals or virtues of engineers
A. Upholding high standards of
professional competence and expertise

B. Holding paramount the health, safety & welfare

of the public

Professional goals or virtues of managerial decision-makers:

A. Maximizing the well-being of the organization
B. Upholding organizational employee morale and welfare

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DO YOU THINK NASA
SHOULD HAVE LAUNCHED?
Is there a clear moral issue here?

Did NASA take unnecessary risks because of

external pressure?

Did M-K engineers violate their duty to put public

safety first?
Actually the Case is Much
more complex

Rather than only looking at the facts after the

disaster – let’s look at what was happening in
real time
 Quotes from Investigation
Larry Sayer – Engineer at Morton Thiokol
• [W]e had a very weak engineering position when we went into the
telecom

Ben Powers – Marshall Space Flight Center

• I don‘t believe they did a real convincing job of presenting their
data … The Thiokol guys even had a chart in there that says
temperature of the O-ring is not the only parameter controlling
blow-by. In other words, they‘re not coming in with a real firm
statement. They‘re saying there‘s other factors. They did have a
lot of conflicting data in there.
 More about Internal Discussions
• Unusual situation
– First time in the life of project that a contractor had
made a recommendation not to launch. Usually NASA
called for a delay
• NASA engineers did not know that the final M-T
“Launch” decision was not unanimous
• While concerns about O-rings had been raised, the
concerns had not been specifically about launching a
low temperatures – NASA taken somewhat by
surprise
 Benefit – Cost in Decision Making
• Wouldn’t the NASA manager think the potential
costs were too great?
– Human lives
– His reputation
– Criminal charges
– 100% of the blame on him
– Suspension of the shuttle program

• Wouldn’t the M-K managers come to the same

conclusion?
If you want to Dive into This Case
More Deeply
• Elements of whistle blowing
• Many more uncertainties associated with
technical issues – conflicting data
• Issues of poor communication
• Poor decision making based on “group
think”
• In the cases we’ve consider before, we’ve
frequently seen that ethical dilemmas
often appear as a hard choice. You have
to choose between the lesser of two evils.

In the Challenger disaster, obviously the

lesser of two evils choice should have
been to delay the launch.
• But we’ve also discussed that good ethical
reasoning arrives at a ‘creative solution’
which satisfies both the obligations that
are pressing on the decision-makers
 A final Question

• Can you suggest a creative middle way solution

between the disastrous decision to launch the
Challenger on January 28, 1986 and to postpone it?

The creative middle way solution should address

both the goal of eliminating the risk of the
malfunctioning O-rings and at the same time allow
NASA to keep its commitments for on-schedule
launches.
 Final Summary

1. Engineering professional goals or virtues,

such as protecting public safety and client and
employee honesty, lead to the trust and
progress of the engineering profession

2. Ethical problem solving, whether personal or

professional, strives to find a creative ways to
reconcile conflicting goals.

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