Exploring General Ethical Theory, Self-Driving Cars, Ethical Engineering Cases, Cost-Benefit Analysi

Self-Driving Cars Proposals and General Ethical Theory

Discuss one or two (at most) proposals we might use to specify the ethics for self-driving cars. For each proposal you discuss, you should consider what seems right about the approach and any significant problemsthat you see with it. Whether you discuss one proposal or more, your answer should, ultimately, have a point of view i.e., by the end, you should have clear reasons for either accepting a proposal or rejecting it.

As we have seen, it’s very hard to defend any general ethical theory—they all seem to have serious problems. We might worry that this problem will extend to programming the ethics to be obeyed by selfdriving cars. What should we do if we cannot find a generally satisfactory ethical system to be obeyed by self-driving cars? Should we ban self-driving cars from the roads until we find a solution, or should we allow them on the roads, even if they might make the occasional ethically problematic decision?

Challenger, CITICORP, and Hyatt Regency. Make an ethical assessment of the actions of two or more of the prominent actors in the cases we discussed (these could be named individuals, particular institutions, groups of people e.g. NASA management, CITICORP, etc.). When you make an assessment, it will often be worth considering alternative courses of action that an actor might have pursued, and what is to be said for and against any such alternatives. In any case, when you make an assessment, you should explain why you’re making the assessment you do: is there some compelling ethical principle that is being violated or obeyed; does the actor’s behavior manifest some particular virtuous or bad character trait? Is the actor strategizing badly in pursuing their goal(s)?

(a) If you discuss the engineer of record in the Hyatt Regency case, it would be worth considering how he can responsibly ensure that the large number of engineers under his supervision, each working on quite a few projects, are all doing a good, or at least adequate, job. What measures should he be taking to ensure that those working under him are not crucially undermining the safety of the building?

(b) If you discuss the Challenger case, it would be worth considering how NASA management dealt with Boisjoly’s / the Morton-Thiokol engineers’ concerns. What, if anything, should they have done differently? Are there institutional changes that might be made in managing such projects that might make it easier for managers on high pressure projects to do the right thing?

Engineering Ethics Cases Assessment

Make an assessment of cost-benefit analysis as a way of deciding which commercial or governmental decisions are moral. Please bear in mind that cost-benefit analysis in the relevant sense is not the analysis that companies and investors commonly perform to determine whether a certain investment or policy will improve their bottom line. It is a similar type of analysis, but as in the Ford Pinto case, the idea is to assess the value to society of various policies or decisions by assigning financial values to various goods and evils such as safety, loss of life, gain or loss of quality of life (e.g., through air pollution or increased urbanization or building a public transport network and so forth). This is a potentially very challenging question.

So, I would strongly recommend that you give it some thought before rushing in. For instance, the Ford Pinto case seems to most like an egregious failure of cost-benefit analysis, but that might not mean the basic idea is wrong; perhaps the financial values they (or rather the NHTSA) assigned to human lives were way too low for instance. If you do discuss the Pinto case, you should certainly give those kinds of considerations some discussion. It’s also a rather broad question.

So, if you want to consider whether there is at least some sub-class of kinds of cases where it might be used to assess the societal value of policies or manufacturing decisions, that would be fine. In that case, you would need to identify the kind of case in question and then discuss why C-B analysis might prima facie be a good fit there, and then discuss potential concerns about using it for such cases.

Or alternatively, characterize or define some aspect of fairness. I can easily imagine someone giving an answer in terms of rights (e.g. you treat someone fairly only if you respect their rights), or in terms of opportunity (someone is treated fairly only if they have the same opportunity as everyone else), or more generally in terms of equality (someone is treated fairly only if they are treated equally / the same as everyone else), or desert / what people deserve (someone is treated fairly only if they get what they deserve). You could use any of those characterizations or fabricate one of your own. Whatever idea of fairness you choose, pick one or more of the moral approaches we have looked at thus far (act utilitarianism, rule utilitarianism, Kant’s universalization formula) and assess whether it plausibly captures your notion of fairness. If you can develop a clear counterexample, that’s great—that provides a refutation of the claim that it does accommodate your notion of fairness.

(If you do have a counterexample, please make it explicit that the theory really does not accommodate your notion of fairness e.g., if your notion of fairness is one of equality of opportunity, the counterexample should clearly manifest a case where the theory advocates actions that yield unequal opportunities.) If you think that some approach does accommodate it, that may be hard to argue, because that’s a very general thesis, but give it a go.

The primary purpose of this assignment is to develop your skills in analyzing moral problems and/or morally challenging situations. The end product, your paper, should present a considered opinion on the topic in question. For example, if you advocate for some particular approach to programming self-driving cars, you must consider the most pressing problems for that approach and provide some response to those problems. Ignoring salient problems will not make your approach seem more plausible; it’ll just make it appear that you haven’t given it enough thought.

Discussing potential problems should provide the main action in your paper and facilitate a realistic assessment of your approach. Similarly, if you choose the second paper topic, and are assessing some character’s actions, it’s generally going to be important to consider what realistic alternatives were available to this person—ways they might have handled their responsibilities better or worse than they did—rather than simply declaring their actions praiseworthy or blameworthy.