Philosophy Essay

· With either of these options, you are expected to draw details of the Pinto case from the other reading assignments, including “The Engineer’s Lament”, the Mother Jones article, the How Stuff Works article, and the assigned readings for Week 7, especially the DeGeorge article (in the Johnson text) on whistleblowing in large organizations (which uses the Pinto case as an example). No outside research is expected.

· You should type double-spaced an approximately 3 page essay on one of these themes, which I describe in more detail below. Your essay may be longer than 3 pages but should not be longer than 5 pages. An 11 point font is preferable. Your essay should not be shorter than 2 pages of 22 lines each.

Reading material:

http://auto.howstuffworks.com/1971-1980-ford-pinto12.htm Pinto Case

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/1977/09/pinto-madness Pinto Case

CITATION POLICY: Remember to include citations to any reading assignments, to my own power point presentations, and, if you do use any additional sources (which is not required or encouraged), you must also cite these other sources, even if you do not directly quote from them. Include a “Works cited” list or “Bibliography” at the end of your paper. However, you should also be including citations (including page numbers when available) throughout the body of your essay. For my policy on academic integrity/plagiarism, see the syllabus.

THEME #1: ETHICAL DIMENSIONS OF RISK AND SAFETY: Include the following in your paper interwoven into one, coherent essay:

ANALYSIS OF DIFFERENT APPROACHES TO RISK AND ACCEPTABILITY OF RISK, AS REGARDS SAFETY: Analyze the different approaches to defining and determining what counts as risk and what counts as acceptability of risk by the public, engineers, and regulators, and discuss what this has to do with safety. Be sure to read and understand the entire arguments of the assigned readings – do not simply “cherry pick” quotes taken out of context that happen to support your own point of view. There will also be an opportunity to discuss your own point of view (see below).

Be sure to make clear when you are drawing upon the reading assignments and when you are putting forth your own observations. You may use “I” in a philosophy and ethics essay.

WHAT PARTICULAR RISKS EACH GROUP PERCEIVES IN REGARDS TO AUTOMOTIVE SAFETY: Although your main focus should be on how to define risk and how to define and determine acceptability of risk, and the diverse ways these can be defined (the two required readings approach this somewhat differently), you may also include what particular risks each group perceives. Do all groups focus on the same concerns? How do the required text readings define “risk”? How do different groups perceive risk and decide when a risk is acceptable. Do not rely only on the article, “The Engineer’s Lament”, and, if you do, you will not receive full credit for your essay. Do all groups focus on the same “facts”? Moreover, chapter 5 of the Martin text also discusses failure modes , safe exits, factors of safety, margins of safety, etc., which you may include in your discussion, insofar as these items are relevant to your overall discussion of what is important to safety for an engineer, for regulators, and for the public.

TAKE A POSITION: You should also take a position in terms of what you think should be done in the future (and what role engineers might or might not play in this), in respect to automotive safety, and provide an argument, in relation to your discussion of risk and safety, to support your position: for instance, (You need not answer every question below and you may consider relevant questions that I have not asked below):

· is further research needed, and, if so, what type of research do you think is most important and who should be doing it?

· are further regulations necessary, and, if so, what type of regulations do you think are necessary or desirable? If not, why not?

· should the public’s responses and demands be taken into account, and, if so, how (and what role should engineers play or not play in this process); if not, why not?

· Any of the quotes and questions on Week 7’s discussion board, insofar as they are relevant to your discussion and argument.

I am asking you to consider your position on questions related to how to increase safety and reduce risks, what role the engineer might play in this process, and what role other groups, such as regulators, the public, and perhaps, other experts or political representatives, or management, should play in the process. In doing this, you may consider the questions have asked under “TAKE A POSITION”, but you need not answer them all.

REQUIRED READING ASSIGNMENTS AND SUGGESTED QUOTES TO CONSIDER: If you do this theme, you are expected to draw upon required reading assignments for Weeks 4 – 5 on the unit on risk and safety, especially ch. 5 in the text and Charles Harris, “Risk and Liability in Engineering” (as found on course reserves through Blackboard Learn), as well as the various readings on the Pinto case and automotive safety from Weeks 6 - 7. You may also draw upon my power point presentation on these readings and/or the video lecture. I have listed some quotes from the readings below (and as also found on my power point presentation for Week 4’s reading assignments) which you should take into consideration when making your own argument. Some of these quotes might more clearly apply to the case of the Ford Pinto than others, but they are all worth thinking about. You may also draw upon questions raised in the power points on whistleblowing for Week 7 only if they are relevant to how to pursue safety and the options available to pursue safety. This essay should not focus on whistleblowing.

“Under what conditions, if any, is someone in society entitled to impose a risk on someone else on behalf of a supposed benefit to yet others?” [Martin, p. 120]

“…social policy regarding risk must take into consideration wider perspectives than the risk expert approach….” [Harris, p. 147]

Should professional engineers “continue to follow the risk expert’s approach to risk and let public debate take care of the wider considerations” or do “engineers have a wider professional obligation” “to participate in democratic deliberation regarding risk by contributing their expertise to this debate”?