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Lecture 20 April 2

Whistleblowing and Professional Behavior

Whistle Blowing (Davis, Paradoxes of Whistle Blowing) When CAN (permissible) and when MUST, from the moral standpoint, people reveal information that The institution, in which they work, does not want revealed AND The person is trusted with this information as part of the job (Why is this different from reporting an accidentally observed theft in Shipping?)

This is called Whistle Blowing

A person in a corporate body has some obligations to the other members Some of those are entitled to speak for the Corporation, but are not saying what the person thinks they should be saying

What justifies this kind of Disloyalty? (Assuming the organization is basically legitimate)

What justifies this kind of Disloyalty?

What is about the last two conditions that moves it from permissible (or excusable) to required? Three paradoxes arising from observed whistle blowing 1.

2.

Notice that (2) is not the same as preventing a “moral wrong,” it actually requires substantial HARM.

3. Nothing Changes: “The Paradox of Failure”

Because of these, perhaps a better theory is a

A Theory of Complicity in perpetuating a moral wrong, if information is not revealed!

Outline of a Complicity Theory

Outline of a Complicity Theory

When C6 is not true, the whistle blowing is excusable, but…(you owe your colleagues an apology?)

The Boisjoly/Challenger Test

The Boisjoly/Challenger Test

There may be something more here!

Boisjoly was not only a Thiokol manager, he was also an ENGINEER

Doing other than what he did would have undermined the duties that a learned profession owes to the PUBLIC (?) Which is supported by what engineers owe to each other in that capacity (?) Let’s start with professional codes of ethics Medicine is a well known case

Let’s start with professional codes of ethics

7. Corporate and professional codes of conduct are window dressing and do not really change...