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    Public identification pitfalls

  1. Action is not associated with the agent. The most common pitfall is failure to associate the agent and the action. The action may have bad consequences and it may treat individuals with disrespect but these points are not as important in the context of this test as what they imply about the agent as a person who deliberately performs such an action.
  2. Failure to specify the moral quality, virtue, or value of the action that is imputed to the agent in the test. To say, for example, that willfully harming the public is bad fails to zero in on precisely what moral quality this attributes to the agent. Does it render him or her unjust, irresponsible, corrupt, dishonest, or unreasonable?

Gray matters in hughes exercises

These exercises present three decision points from Hughes, solution alternatives, summaries of ethics and feasibility tests, and a solution evaluation matrix. Carry out the exercise by filling in the solution evaluation matrix.

This timeline is taken from the Computing Cases website developed and maintained by Dr. Charles Huff at St. Olaf College. Computing Cases is funded by the National Science Foundation, NSF DUE-9972280 and DUE 9980768.

Time line
1979 Ruth Ibarra begins working for Hughes Aircraft company's Microelectronic Circuit Division (Hughes MCD) in Newport Beach, CA
1981 Margaret Goodearl begins working for Hughes MCD as a supervisor for assembly on the hybrid production floor and as a supervisor in the hybrid engineering lab
1984 Ibarra becomes supervisor for hybrid quality assurance
1985 Goodearl asks Ibarra to look at errors in paperwork, Ibarra brings errors to the attention of her supervisors and was told to keep quiet. This begins time period where Goodearl/Ibarra become aware of problems in hybrid chip testing and paperwork.
1986 Goodearl becomes supervisor for seals processing in the environmental testing area.
1986 False Claims Act (31 U.S. C 3729-3733) becomes False Claims Reform Act of 1986 making it stronger and easier to apply.
Oct. 1986 Goodearl/Ibarra report problems ot Hughes management, and, after the problems were not fixed, Goodearl/Ibarra reported the allegations of faulty testing to the United States Department of Defense.
Jan 9, 1987 Earliest date that Hughes may have stopped neglecting environmental screening tests.
1988 Ibarra leaves Hughes feeling that her job had been stripped of all real responsibility.
March 1989 Goodearl is laid off from Hughes.
1995 Goodearl and her husband are divorced.
Civil suit timeline
1990-1996 United States of America, ex rel. Taxpayers Against Fraud, Ruth Aldred (was Ibarra), and Margaret Goodearl v. Hughes Aircraft Company, Inc.
1990 Goodearl files wrongful discharge suit against Hughes and a number of individual managers, which was eventually dropped in favor of the civil suit.
May 29, 1990 Thinking the government investigation was taking too much time, Goodearl/Aldred file civil suit against Hughes under False Claims Reform Act of 1986 with the help of Taxpayers Against Fraud and Washington law firm Phillips and Cohen.
December 1992 Under provisions of the FCA, the U.S. Department of Justice Civil Division takes over the civil case.
Sep. 10, 1996 Hughes found guilty in civil trial. Pays U.S. Government 4,050,00 dollars and each relator 891,000 dollars plus a separate payment of 450,000 dollars to cover attorney's fees, costs, and expenses.

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Source:  OpenStax, Professional ethics in engineering. OpenStax CNX. Aug 29, 2013 Download for free at http://legacy.cnx.org/content/col10399/1.4
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