Network Management
Today more than ever, the question of what is the most “ethically sound” manner in which we can model the justifications for the way that important decisions are made in events that can involve just one individual, a group of individuals, an entire nation, religion, or culture. These events can be of no real importance, some real importance, or so much importance that they can present a circumstance of life or death.
Early in man’s history, the question of right and wrong in decision making was pretty simple; what was good for majority was good for all, and if a few (the weak and or poor) had to pay a price including their life for the enrichment of the majority, then so be it. But in today’s technically industrialized profit motive minded society, it seems as if though anyone who wants to enjoy any of the modern innovations that surround us may have to pay a price, up to and including their life, weather if they are weak, strong, poor, or rich for that benefit.
Although both of the cases that I have considered for this report “The Ford Pinto case” and “The Challenger disaster,” are related as to how the wrong decisions that were made in both cases lead to the non-necessary loss of life, I will concentrate most of my report on the Challenger disaster. The decision in the Ford pinto case was to keep manufacturing a car which had exhibited a gas tank flaw causing the loss of life, because the belief of the company was that enough cars could be sold to offset the lawsuits brought on against the company, this was selfish and just stupid. This turned out to be a tragic decision which leads to more deaths; the decision was purely profit motivated. These types of ethical decisions in the profit motivated world are common and should be addressed by the government to ensure the safety of the consuming public.
The second case the Challenger disaster, had more to do with notoriety and ego than profit motivation; it was quite simply a nation with a space program run by big headed, too overconfident, and know it all scientists trying to show the rest of the world that nothing could stand in their way. The fact that the first school educator, Christa McAuliffe participating in this space mission, caused the overlooking of specific pragmatic variables which were in play the day of the launch. The biggest was the cold weather; and specifically the O-rings, which rocket engineer Roger Boisjoly, who worked for NASA contractor Morton Thickel, became embroiled in discussions with four of his colleagues involving the fatal decision to launch the space shuttle Challenger, with the predicted weather conditions. He had presented evidence six months prior to the tragedy, saying “a catastrophe of the highest order” involving “loss of human life” in a memo to the managers at Thickel. He had found some disturbing data in his review of information about the booster rockets which would lift the shuttle into space. He suspected that there would be a failure of the O-rings in extremely cold weather.
“The disaster resulted in a 32-month hiatus in the shuttle program and the formation of the Rogers Commission, a special commission appointed by United States Ronald Reagan to investigate the accident. The Rogers Commission found NASA’s Organizational culture and decision-making processes had been key contributing factors to the accident. NASA managers had known contractor Morton Thiokol’s design of the SRBs contained a potentially catastrophic flaw in the O-rings since 1977, but failed to address it properly. They also disregarded warnings (an example of “go fever”) from engineers about the dangers of launching posed by the low temperatures of that morning and had failed in adequately reporting these technical concerns to their superiors”.
In any event the fact that the concerns were overlooked by NASA officials the night before the launch was a sign of unreasonable neglect on their part. Pressure from so many sections of society to see someone other than an astronaut, especially a school teacher venture into space, became a reason for NASA to overlook something so obvious, by practically dismissing it, and not treating it like something that in most to all other cases would have caused them to delay the launching until better weather conditions were present.
The fact that there was scientific evidence to back up everything the Thickel engineers tried to relay to the NASA managers and the fact that it was disregarded, was selfish, retarded, backwards, and makes a good case for manslaughter.
In the Ford Pinto case, greed was obviously the cause of an ethical breakdown; with the Challenger disaster the need to be at the forefront of a “We are the first nation to send an educator into space,” lead to the disaster. Putting overall wants and needs before logical decision making is not at all ethically sound. It is simply Ludicrous and dumbfounded to assume that just because you want something, it will happen.
References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Challenger_disaster
“Remembering Roger Boisjoly: He Tried To Stop Shuttle Challenger Launch” by Howard Berken, February 06, 2012 http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2012/02/06/146490064/remembering-roger-boisjoly-he-tried-to-stop-shuttle-challenger-launch
“Engineer tried to halt shuttle launch,” by Ralph Vartabedian, Los Angeles Times February 07, 2012
http://articles.latimes.com/2012/feb/07/local/la-me-roger-boisjoly-20120207
“Challenger: Shuttle Disaster That Changed NASA,” by Elizabeth Howell, SPACE.com Contributor October 6, 2010
http://www.space.com/18084-space-shuttle-challenger.html
Ethics for Digital Communications ll Dennis Trotter Jr. December 17, 2013
In my evaluation of a comparison of the IEEE code of ethics and the statement on academic integrity for Citytech, I have found that honesty is the main principal that should be adhered to. Being honest with yourself, your classmates, and your professors, has an interest in every caption of both areas. To be honest one cannot cheat, spread untruthful rumors, engage in disruption, represent another’s materials as your own, treat anyone any differently than you would want to be treated yourself, put your worst foot forward in any endeavor, maintain an unstable attitude due to other personal situations outside the given environment, allow yourself to be brought at any price, physically harm anyone, allow yourself to be physically harmed, or be dishonest in any manner, unless it is to save a life.
As a root cause, money contributes a lot to the outbreak of unethical acts, but there are also other factors such as inferiority, a lack of self esteem, or just having too much power which causes people to look for other methods to obtain or achieve what they want and not necessarily what they need.
In a recent ethics report for another class, I cited the “Ford Pinto” case as one where the company decided to keep manufacturing a car which had exhibited a gas tank flaw causing the loss of life, because the belief of the company was enough cars could be sold to offset the lawsuits brought on against the company, this was selfish and just stupid. This turned out to be a tragic decision which leads to more deaths; the decision was purely profit motivated. These types of ethical decisions in the profit motivated world are common and should be addressed by the government to ensure the safety of the consuming public.
I also noted that the Challenger disaster, had more to do with notoriety and ego than profit motivation; it was quite simply a nation with a space program run by big headed, too overconfident, and know it all scientists trying to show the rest of the world that nothing could stand in their way. The fact that the first school educator Christa McAuliffe participating in this space mission, caused the overlooking of specific pragmatic variables which were in play the day of the launch. The biggest was the cold weather; and specifically the O-rings, which rocket engineer Roger Boisjoly, who worked for NASA contractor Morton Thickel, became embroiled in discussions with four of his colleagues involving the fatal decision to launch the space shuttle Challenger, with the predicted weather conditions. He had presented evidence six months prior to the tragedy, saying “a catastrophe of the highest order” involving “loss of human life” in a memo to the managers at Thickel. He had found some disturbing data in his review of information about the booster rockets which would lift the shuttle into space. He suspected that there would be a failure of the O-rings in extremely cold weather.
Both of these cases exhibited bare greed of some sort and a lack of plain old common sense, which should be the guide on how a world as populated as ours, should treat each individual’s rights to a peaceful safe existence. The facts of what is necessary to achieve this state are quite evident as they were in the two cases I cited, but the human aspect only allows for this process to be talked about, and for the creation of many different decrees that are put in place stating this, but never to be completely followed and to only exist in the real world as a good idea!
References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Challenger_disaster
“Remembering Roger Boisjoly: He Tried To Stop Shuttle Challenger Launch” by Howard Berken, February 06, 2012 http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2012/02/06/146490064/remembering-roger-boisjoly-he-tried-to-stop-shuttle-challenger-launch
“Engineer tried to halt shuttle launch,” by Ralph Vartabedian, Los Angeles Times February 07, 2012
http://articles.latimes.com/2012/feb/07/local/la-me-roger-boisjoly-20120207
“Challenger: Shuttle Disaster That Changed NASA,” by Elizabeth Howell, SPACE.com Contributor October 6, 2010
http://www.space.com/18084-space-shuttle-challenger.html
