final paper attachment

Whistle-Blowing and Morality Mathieu Bouville

ABSTRACT. Whistle-blowing is generally considered

from the viewpoint of professional morality. Morality

rejects the idea of choice and the interests of the profes-

sional as immoral. Yet the dreadful retaliations against the

messengers of the truth make it necessary for morality to

leave a way out of whistle-blowing. This is why it forges

rights (sometimes called duties) to trump the duty to the

public prescribed by professional codes. This serves to hide

the obvious fact that whether to blow the whistle is indeed

a choice, not a matter of objective duty. One should also

notice that if it fails to achieve anything then blowing the

whistle was the wrong decision (or maybe the right deci-

sion that nobody would want to make). There is never-

theless a tendency to judge it based on the motivation of the

whistle blower. In a way, whistle blowers should strive to

act like saints. Yet, it is logically impossible to hold both

whistle-blowing as mandatory and whistle-blowers as

heroes or saints. Moreover, this tends to value the great

deeds of a few over the lives of the many, which is

incompatible with the basic assumptions of morality. But

consistency is not a main feature of professional morality.

KEY WORDS: business ethics, code of ethics, duty,

engineering ethics, moral luck, moral obligation

Introduction

Whistle-blowing is the act, for an employee (or

former employee), of disclosing what he believes to

be unethical or illegal behavior to higher manage-

ment (internal whistle-blowing) or to an external

authority or the public (external whistle-blowing).

Its status is debated: as Rothschild and Miethe

(1999) note, ‘‘some see [whistle blowers] as trai-

torous violators of organizational loyalty norms;

others see them as heroic defenders of values

considered to be more important than company

loyalty (e.g., the public health, truth-in-advertising,

environmental respect).’’ Since ‘‘those who raise

ethical issues are treated as disturbed or morally

suspect’’ (Alford, 2007), Near and Miceli (1996) ask

‘‘are whistle blowers really crackpots?’’. On the

other hand, to Rothschild and Miethe (1999),

whistle-blowing is a ‘‘new form of worker resis-

tance’’ relevant to the ‘‘unending battle between

labor and management to control the workplace.’’

Grant (2002) calls whistle blowers ‘‘saints of secular

culture.’’ Edward Morgan Forster famously said ‘‘If

I had to choose between betraying my country and

betraying my friend, I hope I should have the guts

to betray my country;’’ It seems that whistle-

blowing is the choice between betraying one’s

company and one’s humanity.

In order to study whistle-blowing from an ethics

viewpoint, one obviously needs to know what is

meant by ‘ethics.’ Some treat ‘ethics’ and ‘morality’

as synonymous. Others consider morality as a special

form of ethics:

the word ‘morality’ has by now taken on a more

distinctive content, and I am going to suggest that

morality should be understood as a particular devel-

opment of the ethical, one that has a special signifi-

cance in modern Western culture. It peculiarly

emphasizes certain ethical notions rather than others,

developing in particular a certain notion of obligation,

and it has some peculiar presuppositions. In view of

these features it is also, I believe, something we should

treat with a special skepticism. (Williams, 1985, p. 6)

Whereas ‘‘ethical life itself is important, but it can

see that things other than itself are important’’

(Williams, 1985, p. 184), morality tends to claim

control over everything. To Nietzsche (1888),

‘‘morality is the best of all devices for leading

mankind by the nose.’’ I shall follow Williams in

using ‘ethics’ broadly and ‘morality’ narrowly and I

shall ask, taking whistle-blowing as an example, to

what extent professional ethics is in fact professional

morality.

Journal of Business Ethics (2008) 81:579–585 � Springer 2007 DOI 10.1007/s10551-007-9529-7

Whistle-blowing and codes of morality

In the case of engineering, authors typically

mention that the first canon of the code of the

National Society of Professional Engineering (duty

to the public) should trump the fourth canon

(duty to the employer): ‘‘the health, safety, and

welfare of the public are to be placed first’’ (Harris

et al., 2005, p. 183). (I shall take it for granted

that human lives are indeed more important than

obedience – especially to people who feel other-

wise.) Consequently, whistle-blowing is manda-

tory: ‘‘it is permissible to whistleblow when the

following conditions have been met. Under these

conditions there is also an obligation to whistle-

blow’’ (Martin and Schinzinger, 2005, p. 174).

A dreadful obligation

Alford (2007) notes that ‘‘theirs is an act of

considerable consequence, especially when one

considers that among fired whistle blowers, most

will lose their homes and ultimately, their mar-

riages;’’ Rothschild and Miethe (1999) indeed found

that over half the whistle blowers they interviewed

had family problems. That Gunsalus (1998) wrote

an article entitled ‘‘How to blow the whistle and

still have a career afterwards’’ is significant. Roths-

child and Miethe found that two-thirds of whistle

blowers ‘‘lost their job or were forced to retire’’ and

‘‘were blacklisted from getting another job in their

field.’’ Consequently, two-thirds of them also had

severe financial problems. They also found that 84%

suffered from ‘‘severe depression or anxiety’’ and

over two-thirds of them also had ‘‘declining physical

health.’’ A whistle blower mentioned by Oliver

(2003) ‘‘estimates that his legal costs have exceeded

$130,000.’’ Alford (2007) sees suffering as an essen-

tial part of whistle-blowing: ‘‘the whistle blower is

defined by the retaliation he or she receives. No

retaliation, and the whistle blower is just a respon-

sible employee doing her job to protect the com-

pany’s interest.’’ If ‘‘often the protest is most

effective if one has already resigned from the orga-

nization’’ (Harris et al., 2005, p. 206) then one can

only choose between a total self-sacrifice and a

partial and pointless self-sacrifice.

How can one make any of this mandatory? 1

Duality of engineering ethics

Engineering ethics classes and textbooks are based on

case studies asking ‘what should an engineer do in

this situation?’. Since ‘‘technological, scientific,

humanistic, and social issues are all mixed together’’

(Williams, 2003), the answer typically mixes the

ethical and the non-ethical: engineering ethics is

then the finding of a creative solution incorporating

concerns of many kinds.

On the other hand, codes of conduct are

morality – ‘‘many of the standard provisions of

engineering codes are simply specific applications of

common morality to the engineering profession’’

(Harris et al., 2005, p. 52). Codes are obligations,

duties. They require a very sharp distinction be-

tween the ethical and the non-ethical. There are

two separate questions: ‘what should a professional

do, from an ethical point of view?’ (i.e., ‘what are

his duties?’) and ‘what should a professional do,

from a non-ethical point of view?’ (e.g., technical

concerns). The first question is supposed to trump

the second. The whole issue of whistle-blowing is

then framed in terms of obligations (or absence

thereof ).

Morality and the self

The following three statements are obviously true,

but their relative importance is debated.

(1) I exist.

(2) Others exist.

(3) I am not someone else.

Morality stresses 2 (e.g., duty to the population) and

undermines 1 and 3 as much as possible. For

instance, Harris et al. (2005) take self-interest as one

of the ‘‘impediments to responsible action’’ (p. 37).

Rejection of 3 is obvious in the universalization at

the core of Kant’s categorical imperative and in the

utilitarian view that my welfare is on a par with that

of others – ‘‘utilitarianism does not take seriously the

distinction between persons’’ (Rawls, 1971, p. 24).

In other words, the fact that it is me and not

someone else we are talking about should not be

brought into the picture (or rather should be taken

out of the picture): ‘‘there is a tendency to associate

580 Mathieu Bouville

professionalism with setting aside personal values in

order to be objective and to meet shared standards of

the profession’’ (Martin, 2002).

Codes embody this view: they pile up duties for

professionals without acknowledging that profes-

sionals are individuals, rather than mere vectors for

duty. It is then clear that the question of whistle-

blowing is just a matter of comparing duty toward

the public to duty toward the employer. But this

view relies on a bias in favor of alienation: it assumes

that I do not exist, that I do not count, or that I am

someone else. So the employee must account for the

interests of the public and of the company only –

thinking of oneself is selfish, i.e., wrong. ‘‘In any

deliberative contest between a moral obligation and

some other consideration, the moral obligation will

always win out, according to the morality system.’’

(Chappell, 2006). For instance, Fleddermann (1999)

never mentions possible harm to the employee: to

him whistle-blowing is determined wholly on

external criteria. Likewise, to DeGeorge (2005) the

difference between possible and mandatory whistle-

blowing is independent of the employee. The

whistle blower is part of the implementation, not

part of the decision. 2

One may decide to reject codes of morality so that

whistle-blowing is optional. But this is difficult since

‘‘the fact that a given agent would prefer not to be in

[the morality] system or bound by its rules will not

excuse him’’ (Williams, 1985, p. 177). Alternatively,

one may abide by the ‘‘mandatory requirements

expressed in codes of ethics’’ (Martin, 2002) and make

whistle-blowing a moral obligation. A third option is

to change the meaning of ‘obligation’ so that whistle-

blowing is a moral obligation without being obliga-

tory. We will now examine this paradoxical view.

Freedom by means of obligation

Armchair heroes

‘‘Blame is the characteristic reaction of the morality

system’’ (Williams, 1985, p. 177). But if one wishes

to blame as immoral an employee who remained

silent instead of alerting the public on a potential

danger one must first make sure that one would have

acted differently. (It is always easier to be a hero in

an armchair than on the battlefield.) Of course, this

may be difficult, even if it is attempted in good faith.

Let us try to simulate whistle-blowing in order to

have some idea of the kind of heroes we are.

Sell your house, your cars, and all your other

belongings; then send the money to starving Afri-

cans. You will thus lose everything and save more

lives than any whistle blower ever saved. Everyone

can do this (there is no need to be in a special place

at a special time as in the case of whistle-blowing),

yet nobody actually does this. I do not and neither

do you. We must then acknowledge that if we have

to choose between our little problems and the lives

of others, we choose ourselves. Claiming that those

who can save lives have an obligation to do so, even

at a great personal cost, is a lie: it is setting for others

a rule that we do not follow ourselves.

Duty manufacturing

But wait, my case is different: I have a reason not to

do any of this, I have overriding duties. ‘‘The

obligation [to whistleblow] is prima facie and in

some situations can be overridden by other moral

considerations’’ (Martin and Schinzinger, 2005,

p. 174). In other words, whistle-blowing is always

mandatory except when it is not. Thanks to this

concept of non-obligatory obligation, one can say

that there is a moral obligation without acting upon

it – all the moral superiority, none of the adverse

consequences. In order to make the whistle-blowing

obligation optional, one must first generate such

overriding moral considerations.

One cannot say ‘I do not want to sacrifice my

career’ to cancel the moral obligation of whistle-

blowing: ‘‘obligations have a moral stringency,

which means that breaking them attracts blame. The

only thing that can be counted on to cancel this,

within the economy of morality, is that the rival

action should represent another and more stringent

obligation’’ (Williams, 1985, p. 180). For instance,

one may say that ‘‘personal obligations to family, as

well as rights to pursue one’s career, militate against

whistleblowing’’ (Martin and Schinzinger, 2005, p.

175). In other words, instead of saying ‘I do not

want to sacrifice my career’ one says ‘I have a duty

(e.g., to my family) not to sacrifice my career.’

Paradoxically, one’s freedom comes from limiting

one’s freedom.

Whistle-Blowing and Morality 581

This is plainly bad faith: this trick aims at

making my personal interests look like a duty.

Somehow this highly contrived and intellectually

dishonest procedure seems more acceptable than

saying ‘I do not want to sacrifice my career.’

As Williams (1985) points out, ‘‘it is a mistake

of morality to try to make everything into

obligations’’ (p. 180).

To Martin and Schinzinger (2005), whistle-

blowing is mandatory but ‘‘may become super-

erogatory – more than one’s basic moral obligations’’

if the consequences would be too harsh (p. 175).

This concept of ‘mandatory but supererogatory’ is –

from a logical viewpoint – worse that ‘separate but

equal’ (and of no use to someone looking for

guidance in good faith).

The whistle-blower is condemned to be free

While this is actually a decision (I decide to invoke this

or that ‘duty’ and I decide that it trumps my duty to the

population), it is presented as an objective external duty,

which I cannot override. If I acknowledged that this is

really a decision of mine I could not hide under the

sheets and pretend that I am obeying some external rule:

I would have to make a decision explicitly, and as a

corollary I would have to accept the consequences:

‘‘man is condemned to be free; because once thrown

into the world, he is responsible for everything he does’’

(Sartre, 1943). Morality is the business of forging rights

(to a career) and duties (to one’s family), concealing

(from oneself?) 3

that one is actually making decisions.

Authors tend to look for ways to avoid whistle-

blowing, i.e., for policies that would make it

unnecessary. This is both necessary and pointless.

Necessary because whistle-blowing is not a satis-

factory solution. Pointless because when one faces a

choice, ‘it would be better if I did not have to make

such a choice’ is no answer. Likewise, discussions of

whistle-blowing often focus on a whole procedure,

of which whistle-blowing is only the last step, e.g.,

Harris et al. (2005), Martin and Schinzinger (2005).

But this bureaucratic approach does little to help

one make a choice. If everything else fails, the

question of whether to speak up (i.e., the need to

make a decision) remains, untouched by the whole

process.

Morality abhors a vacuum

One may retort that the concept of prima facie

duty (i.e., a duty that can be overridden at will)

may have weaknesses but is nevertheless better

than no concept at all, i.e., better than saying

that this is a pure decision for which one can-

not rely on any rule.

Imagine that an unknown disease kills a large

fraction of the population of a village untouched

by civilization (be it deep in Amazonia or in

medieval Europe). Some may make up an expla-

nation for the epidemic (e.g., divine wrath) while

others will acknowledge that they do not know.

Should one back the liars and the deluded or

should one side with the ones who can actually

solve the problem? (Indeed, a necessary condition

for finding the solution is awareness that one does

not already have it.) While this by no means

shows that the absence of answer is intrinsically

superior, it brings back to the fore the actual

criterion: truth. An answer is better than none

only if it is true, otherwise it is a source of

potentially damaging delusion.

And in fact optional obligations do not concretely

answer the question either: as I already pointed out,

they allow one to decide whether to invoke over-

riding duties. Facultative obligations only provide a

hollow and cumbersome framework to hide under

the sheets. It does not actually fill the vacuum, it just

hides it.

When is whistle-blowing worthy?

Moral luck

Overall, it became increasingly clear through the

interviews that whistle blowers are in the ultimate

no-win situation. By speaking out they face the wrath

of managers for being a squealer, but inaction makes

them potentially culpable and/or easy scapegoats when

and if the misconduct is discovered. In this sense, many

whistle blowers can be characterized as reluctant

dissenters, moved neither by altruistic nor selfish

concerns, but rather by a tide of events over which

they feel they have little control. (Rothschild and

Miethe, 1999)

582 Mathieu Bouville

What is the difference between someone who knew

of wrongdoing and said nothing and someone who

did not know of the wrongdoing but who would

not have said anything either had he known? The

difference is circumstances: one had to make a

decision and the other did not have to. Had the

circumstances been identical, they would have acted

identically. But the circumstances are independent of

them, so that praise and blame depend partly on

chance (Nagel, 1979; Williams, 1981).

The collapse of the Quebec Bridge in 1907 was

due to the ‘‘selection of a design concept beyond

the technically proven range’’ (Roddis, 1993). The

only reason why the engineer can be blamed for

this daring design is that it failed. Christopher

Columbus sailing toward the possibility of a con-

tinent was far more foolhardy. ‘‘The only thing that

will justify his choice is success itself’’ (Williams,

1981, p. 23). The difference between Columbus

and the civil engineer is that the latter failed. Blame

and praise depend in part on the consequences of

our decisions, even though we have no control

over them.

The right decision that nobody wants to make

If a whistle blower succeeds both in having the

release of a potentially dangerous product postponed

and in keeping his job, then he did make the right

decision. Even if the product is released anyway and

he loses his job, some will still say that he made the

right decision. One of them is Kant (1785), who

famously wrote

Even if, by a special disfavor of fortune or by the

niggardly provision of a step motherly nature, this

[good] will should wholly lack the capacity to carry

out its purpose [...] then, like a jewel, it would still

shine by itself, as something that has its full worth in

itself.

But nobody would want to make this kind of right

decision. Everybody would want to be a hero but

nobody wants to be a martyr. 4

When someone

successfully prevents a catastrophe, we may call him

a hero and envy him (even be resentful: ‘he did not

do much to deserve this, I would have done just the

same.’) On the other hand, we do not envy an

employee who lost his job for blowing the whistle

on a product that turned out to be perfectly safe.

Instead, we pity him. Pity is paradoxical because it

requires that the employee did something right 5

(otherwise we would blame not pity) and that we do

not want to be in such a situation, otherwise we

would envy not pity. Even if in theory one might

consider that the unlucky whistle blower made the

right decision, in practice one would not want to

make this kind of right decision.

Immaculate whistle-blowing

When one takes motives to be more important than

outcomes, one concludes that what is important is

not the public but purity of heart: ‘‘whistle-blowing

is an activity that should only be entered into with

pure motives’’ (Oliver, 2003), ‘‘it is acceptable to

blow the whistle to protect the public interest, but

not to exact revenge upon fellow employees,

supervisors, or your company’’ (Fleddermann, 1999,

p. 90).

But if someone saves my life out of revenge or

greed, should I not say ‘thank you’ rather than ‘this

was wrong, never do it again’? While one may argue

that saving my life for the ‘right’ reasons is better

than saving my life for ‘wrong’ reasons, it is quite

obvious that saving me is better than not doing so.

Making the right decision for the wrong reasons is

still making the right decision (Carson et al. (in

press) argue similarly). As Mandeville (1997) pointed

out, greed and other flaws of character may give

better results than virtue. What to think of someone

who reflects ‘what I am about to do is wrong

because I would save lives for the wrong reasons’

and decides not to act? Should such a twisted

morality be praised?

Rewards are such an issue. For example, to Grant

(2002), ‘‘any indication that reward was anticipated,

or in any way entered into the decision to blow the

whistle, compromises the ethical quality of the act

itself’’ so that these would not be ‘‘genuine

instances’’ of whistle-blowing. Can one reject the

idea of rewards, even if they increase the probability

that lives will be saved (by motivating potential

whistle blowers)? This kind of morality has the

peculiar consequence of favoring the great deeds of a

few over the lives of the many. At what exact point

did the proponents of morality turn Nietzschean?

Whistle-Blowing and Morality 583

Issues with heroism

The purity of their motives and the hazards they faced

leads to the construal of whistle blowers as heroes or as

‘‘saints of secular culture’’ (Grant, 2002). (Would they

qualify as Übermenschen?) To Alford (2007), ‘‘ ‘The

little man who stood up against the big corporation

and won’ is a type of folk hero.’’ But one cannot be a

hero just by doing one’s duty: if whistle-blowing is a

moral obligation then whistle blowers cannot be

heroes. The source of this error is easy to track: in

order to incite people to report unethical activities –

e.g., Near (1989) wrote an article entitled ‘‘Whistle-

blowing: Encourage it!’’–, one makes whistle blowers

heroes and whistle-blowing a moral obligation. These

two tactics are logically incompatible: since a hero

necessarily goes beyond the call of duty, when one

extends moral obligation nearly to infinity it is

impossible to do more than what one has to do.

Morality leaves no place for praise, only blame can

exist when duties are infinite.

On the other hand, if whistle-blowing is

‘‘supererogatory’’ (Bowie and Duska, 1990; Martin,

2002) or ‘‘represents an extreme that defies the

reasonable expectation of the most prominent

versions of ethics’’ (Grant, 2002), there is room for

‘‘saints.’’ Yet, Grant seems to value this adversity

because it creates ‘‘saints of secular culture,’’

thereby making this culture less secular. This view

is similar to the common reply to the so-called

problem of evil where the existence of evil is

deemed good because it leads to certain goods (e.g.,

there can be no forgiveness without a prior mis-

deed): losing one’s job, career, house, family, etc. is

good because there can be no saint without it.

Naturally, there is no need to value evil to consider

whistle blowers as praiseworthy, one needs only

recognize a limit to obligations. Yet, the bigger the

risk, the rarer the whistle blower, and thus the

more praiseworthy.

Conclusion

Professional ethics is in fact professional morality. In

particular, it leaves no room for choice or the

interests of the professional. Yet the dreadful retali-

ations against the messengers of the truth make it

necessary to bring the needs of the whistle blower

back into the picture. To conciliate the necessary

public acknowledgment that whistle-blowing is a

moral obligation and the deeper interests of the

professional, morality forges rights (which it calls

duties) that trump the obligations prescribed by

codes (e.g., to the public). Morality tries to thereby

hide the obvious fact that the choice of speaking up

or remaining silent is indeed a choice, not something

decided externally: if the employee somehow has a

duty not to blow the whistle then he cannot be

blamed. Yet, accounting for the interests of the

individual directly and calling a decision a decision

would be more honest than manufacturing ad hoc

rights and duties.

One should also notice that whether whistle-

blowing is the right decision depends to a great

extent on its outcome: if it fails to achieve anything

then blowing the whistle was the wrong decision

(some would maintain that is was the right decision

but it is far from clear that they would want to make

such a right decision themselves). Yet there is a

tendency to judge it based on the motivation of the

whistle blower – saving lives is wrong if one’s heart

in not pure. Whistle-blowing is then seen as essen-

tially self-sacrifice. In a way, whistle blowers should

strive to act like saints. Yet, being a hero or a saint

requires to do more than one’s duty, which is

impossible if whistle-blowing is mandatory: heroism

and moral obligation are logically incompatible.

Moreover, there cannot be saints who act out of

impure motives, so that rewarding whistle-blowing

would taint motives and bring the saints down from

their pedestals. But this means that the great deeds of

a few are more valuable than the lives of the many

(who may be saved by more wide-spread whistle-

blowing). Morality leading to Nietzsche.

In the context of morality, what is deemed right

or wrong depends on how the question is framed.

For instance it depends on whether we are talking

about me or someone else: I am more likely to in-

voke duty to my family than to grant others such a

right. One can also praise deeds as moral but be

unwilling to perform them oneself. There is a ten-

dency to construe whistle-blowing as mandatory and

whistle blowers as heroes, even though these are

logically incompatible. And the rejection of rewards

as tainting motives is incompatible with the basic

assumptions of morality. Consistency is not a main

feature of professional morality.

584 Mathieu Bouville

Notes

1 Codes that make whistle-blowing mandatory are like

generals that send soldiers get killed: the one giving the

order does not suffer any adverse consequences. Telling

others to sacrifice themselves is no sacrifice. 2

One can notice that, put in Kantian terms, this sig-

nifies that whistle blowers are a means not an end. 3

Nietzsche pointed out that ‘‘the most common lie is

that which one lies to himself; lying to others is rela-

tively an exception.’’ 4

Even though it does have advantages: as Schopen-

hauer noted, ‘‘martyrdom is the only way a man can

become famous without ability.’’ Of course, nowadays

reality TV offers an alternative. 5

Actually, it only requires that the employee did some-

thing one may have done as well in such a situation.

References

Alford, C. F.: 2007, ‘Whistle-Blower Narratives: The

Experience of Choiceless Choice’, Social Research 74,

223–248.

Bowie, N. E. and R. F. Duska: 1990, Business Ethics, 2nd

Edition (Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ).

Carson, T. L., M. E. Verdu and R. E. Wokutch: (in

press), ‘Whistle-Blowing for Profit: An Ethical Anal-

ysis of the Federal False Claims Act’, Journal of Business

Ethics. In press, DOI: 10.1007/s10551-007-9355-y.

Chappell, T.: 2006, ‘Bernard Williams’, in E. N. Zalta

(ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Available

at http://www.plato.stanford.edu/entries/williams-

bernard/

DeGeorge, R. T.: 2005, Business Ethics, 6th Edition

(Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ).

Fleddermann, C.: 1999, Engineering Ethics (Prentice Hall,

Englewood Cliffs, NJ).

Grant, C.: 2002, ‘Whistle Blowers: Saints of Secular

Culture’, Journal of Business Ethics 39, 391–399.

Gunsalus, C. K.: 1998, ‘How to Blow the Whistle and

Still have a Career Afterwards’, Science and Engineering

Ethics 4, 51–64.

Harris, C. E., M. S. Pritchard and M. J. Rabins: 2005,

Engineering Ethics: Concepts and Cases, 3rd Edition

(Wadsworth, Belmont, CA).

Kant, I.: 1785, The Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals.

Mandeville, B.: 1714/1997, The Fable of the Bees: Or,

Private Vices, Publick Benefits (Hackett, Cambridge,

MA).

Martin, M. W.: 2002, ‘Personal Meaning and Ethics in

Engineering’, Science and Engineering Ethics 8, 545–560.

Martin, M. W. and R. Schinzinger: 2005, Ethics in

Engineering, 4th Edition (McGraw-Hill, New York).

Nagel, T.: 1979, Mortal Questions (Cambridge University

Press, Cambridge).

Near, J. P.: 1989, ‘Whistle-Blowing: Encourage it!’,

Business Horizons 32, 2–6.

Near, J. P. and M .P. Miceli: 1996, ‘Whistle-Blowing:

Myth and Reality’, Journal of Management 22, 507–526.

Nietzsche, F.: 1888, The Antichrist.

Oliver, D.: 2003, ‘Whistle-Blowing Engineer’, Journal of

Professional Issues in Engineering Education and Practice

129, 246–256.

Rawls, J.: 1971, A Theory of Justice (Belknap, Cambridge,

MA).

Roddis, W. M. K.: 1993, ‘Structural Failures and Engi-

neering Ethics’, Journal of Structural Engineering 119,

1539–1555.

Rothschild, J. and T. D. Miethe: 1999, ‘Whistle-Blower

Disclosures and Management Retaliation’, Work and

Occupations 26, 107–128.

Sartre, J.-P.: 1943, Being and Nothingness.

Williams, B.: 1981, Moral Luck (Cambridge University

Press, Cambridge).

Williams, B.: 1985, Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy

(Routledge, London).

Williams, R.: 2003, ‘Education for the Profession

Formerly known as Engineering’, The Chronicle of

Higher Education 49(20), B12–B13.

Institute of Materials Research and Engineering,

3 Research Link, Singapore, 117602, Singapore

E-mail: [email protected]

Institute of High Performance Computing,

1 Science Park Road, Singapore, 117528, Singapore

Whistle-Blowing and Morality 585