Capstone Project – Essay – Abdullah Kiran (540235)
Topic 2: Colin is an out of work engineer with a family to support in a highly competitive job market. He’s offered a job in a company that develops chemical and biological weapons. From an ethical standpoint, should he take the job? Why, or why not?
Currently unemployed engineer, Colin is granted the opportunity to work at a chemical and biological weapons company. He is confronted with a moral and ethical dilemma as a result. Should he work for this company and potentially be a part of something he will regret? Or does it simply boil down to Colin’s role at the company and whether the company’s actions are legally justified? Despite the ambiguity of ethical constructs in general engineering …show more content…
Colin’s decision to work for such company could very well imply the following: that any work he does, minor or major will eventually lead to a product whose prime goal is to cause some form of irreversible destruction. Ultimately this notion relies on the following concepts: how involved the person is in the product, how brutal it really is and where it will be used. I believe that with the company in question, all of these concepts are ethically bounded and cannot be ignored, if one is to assume to role of an engineer. This paper will explore the implications of this kind of work through theories and examples, and will ultimately attempt to show that undertaking a job as such, is immoral and unethical.
To start I will explore the theory of Utilitarianism and the public view. Classically defined as the “the view [in which] the morally right action is the action that produces the most good” (Driver, 2014), utilitarianism can be considered to be the “most powerful and persuasive approach to ethics” (Driver, 2014). The public view on the chemical/biological weapon industry can be used to draw a good parallel to utilitarianism. Generally,
Topic 2: Colin is an out of work engineer with a family to support in a highly competitive job market. He’s offered a job in a company that develops chemical and biological weapons. From an ethical standpoint, should he take the job? Why, or why not?
Currently unemployed engineer, Colin is granted the opportunity to work at a chemical and biological weapons company. He is confronted with a moral and ethical dilemma as a result. Should he work for this company and potentially be a part of something he will regret? Or does it simply boil down to Colin’s role at the company and whether the company’s actions are legally justified? Despite the ambiguity of ethical constructs in general engineering …show more content…
Colin’s decision to work for such company could very well imply the following: that any work he does, minor or major will eventually lead to a product whose prime goal is to cause some form of irreversible destruction. Ultimately this notion relies on the following concepts: how involved the person is in the product, how brutal it really is and where it will be used. I believe that with the company in question, all of these concepts are ethically bounded and cannot be ignored, if one is to assume to role of an engineer. This paper will explore the implications of this kind of work through theories and examples, and will ultimately attempt to show that undertaking a job as such, is immoral and unethical.
To start I will explore the theory of Utilitarianism and the public view. Classically defined as the “the view [in which] the morally right action is the action that produces the most good” (Driver, 2014), utilitarianism can be considered to be the “most powerful and persuasive approach to ethics” (Driver, 2014). The public view on the chemical/biological weapon industry can be used to draw a good parallel to utilitarianism. Generally,