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Ethics Tests: Set Up and Pitfalls

26 July, 2019 - 12:01
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III. Solution Evaluation Tests

  • REVERSIBILITY: Would I think this is a good choice if I were among those affected by it?
  • PUBILICITY: Would I want to be publicly associated with this action through, say, its publication in the newspaper?
  • HARM/BENEFICENCE: Does this action do less harm than any of the available alternatives?
  • FEASIBILITY: Can this solution be implemented given time, technical, economic, legal, and political constraints?

Harm Test Set-Up

  • Identify the agent (=the person who will perform the action). Describe the action (=what the agent is about to do).
  • Identify the stakeholders (individuals who have a vital interest at risk) and their stakes.
  • Identify, sort out, and weight the expected results or consequences.

Harm Test Pitfalls

  • Paralysis of Action considering too many consequences.
  • Incomplete analysis considering too few results.
  • Failure to weigh harms against benefits.
  • Failure to compare different alternatives.
  • Justice failures ignoring the fairness of the distribution of harms and benefits.

Reversibility Test Set-Up

  • Identify the agent
  • Describe the action
  • Identify the stakeholders and their stakes
  • Use the stakeholder analysis to select the relations to be reversed.
  • Reverse roles between the agent (you) and each stakeholder: put them in your place (as the agent) and yourself in their place (as the target of the action
  • If you were in their place, would you still find the action acceptable?

Reversibility Pitfalls

  • Leaving out a key stakeholder relation.
  • Failing to recognize and address conflicts between stakeholders and their conflicting stakes.
  • Confusing treating others with respect with capitulating to their demands (Reversing with Hitler).
  • Failing to reach closure, i.e., an overall global reversal assessment that takes into account all the stakeholders the agent has reversed with.

Public Identification Set-Up

  • Set up the analysis by identifying the agent, describing the action under consideration, and listing the key values or virtues at play in the situation.
  • Associate the action with the agent.
  • Identify what the action says about the agent as a person. Does it reveal him or her as someone associated with a virtue/value or a vice?

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

 GM Hughes_V2

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 fling 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.

Table 5.8 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 to 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 o_ from Hughes.

1995

Goodearl and her husband are divorced.

 
Table 5.9 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 _les 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.

 
Table 5.10 Criminal Suit Timeline

1991-1993

United States of America v. Hughes Aircraft Co., and Donald LaRue

December 13, 1991

After a lengthy investigation, the U.S. Department of Defense charges Hughes and Donald A. LaRue with a 51-count indictment accusing it of falsifying tests of microelectronic circuits (criminal suit).

June 15, 1992

Hughes found guilty of conspiring to defraud the U.S. Government in crminal case, co-defendant LaRUE acquitted following 4-week trial. Goodearl/ Aldred called as witnesses in trial. Hughes appeals.

Oct. 29, 1992

Hughes fined 3.5 million in criminal trial decision.

December 2, 1993

Appellate court upholds 1992 criminal conviction and sentence. Hughes appeals.

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