Engineering Ethics

11/12/2014

Ethics Case Study

Henry’s Daughters

First question:

The movie “Henry’s daughters” reflects a big amount of ethical issues at individual and societal level. Sorted by importance and the impacting level, the following list shows the highlighted ethical issues based on my perception.

1. The selfish perception of benefits that Henry had. Such selfish that even his family would be affected. If his daughters cannot trust him, how his employees will?

2. The Invasion of privacy. There are issues existing with gathering private data about individuals using the technology. For instance: cameras in the offices.

3. The fact that some work done by Julie for OUTOCAR was used without giving her credit.

4. The negative daring from Julie’s co-worker. This intentional and disrespectful interaction with sexual intentions or the sexist jokes throughout the movie should not be tolerated.

5. The influence of political and social factors when taking a decision that should be based on technical and engineering aspects.

6. Commented issues between family and friends that might be confidential. For example: Laura and Julie are housemates, where they do not avoid talking about the project. The problem appears when both discussed proprietary information of the company.

7. The unhealthy competition of three family members at their professional areas. Bad business, at the end the movie shows that there is more to lose when we involved family in such unethical way.

Second question:

Engineers are responsible for creating the everyday tools that everyone uses. Because engineers create the tools that people use, of course there needs to be an ethical code which every engineer must respect and follow. The film (Henry’s Daughters) takes a peek into many of the ethical issues raised by engineers. However, all of them might be solved by the proper moral propositions. Some ideas are in establishing: the proper environment, ethics as a priority when...