Professional Ethics - Ethics for the Information Age - page 440

4. Identify as many clauses as you can in the Software Engineering Code of Ethics and
Professional Practice that refer to issues related to intellectual property.
5. Identify five clauses in the Software Engineering Code of Ethics and Professional Practice
that reflect a utilitarian ethical viewpoint.
6. Identify five clauses in the Software Engineering Code of Ethics and Professional Practice
that reflect a Kantian viewpoint.
7. What is whistle-blowing? What harms does it cause? What benefits may it provide?
8. Which clauses in the Software Engineering Code of Ethics and Professional Practice
support the legitimacy of whistle-blowing? Which clauses in the code may be violated
by a whistle-blower (assuming the whistle-blower is telling the truth)?
Discussion Questions
9. The Challenger disaster led to the deaths of seven astronauts and the loss of hundreds of
millions of dollars' worth of equipment. How much moral responsibility should each of
the following groups hold for this tragedy: Morton Thiokol engineers, Morton Thiokol
senior management, NASA management?
10. In the criminal proceedings resulting from the government's investigation of fraud at the
Microelectronic Circuit Division, the jury found Hughes Aircraft guilty, but it found
supervisor Donald LaRue not guilty. The jury felt LaRue was simply following orders
from management. Was the jury's decision a just one?
11. Do you agree with Michael McFarland that a team of engineers has greater moral re-
sponsibility than any individual engineer on the team?
12. You are a manager in charge of a section of 30 employees in a large corporation. This
morning one of your employees—Jane Lee—enters your office and tells you she thinks
two members of your staff are having an affair. These employees are married—but not
to each other. Jane is afraid that if it is true, others in the office will inevitably find out
about it, harming morale and productivity. She suggests that you discreetly monitor
their emails to see if they provide evidence of an affair. If you find evidence, you can nip
the problem in the bud. If there is no problem, you do not have to embarrass yourself
by talking with the employees. What should you do? [22]
13. Two weeks ago you started a new job as system administrator for a computer lab at a
small college. Wanting to make a good impression, you immediately set out to learn
more about the various applications provided to the users of the lab. One of the pack-
ages, an engineering design tool, seemed way out of date. You looked through the lab's
file of licensing agreements to see how much it would cost to get an upgrade. To your
horror, you discovered that the college never purchased a license for the software—it is
running a bootlegged copy!
When you bring this to the attention of your boss, the college's director of infor-
mation technology, he says, “The license for this software would cost us $10,000, which
we don't have in our budget right now. This software is absolutely needed for our en-
gineering students, though. Maybe we can get the license next year. For the time being,
just keep the current version running.”