Joseph Ellin

I

Philip Harding figures out how to improve a part right in the middle of production on an order. He's convinced that the customer, GFI, would prefer the perfected part. Should he delay further production while he verifies his new idea, or go ahead and finish the order as is? What Philip should do is talk to GFI and find out what they prefer. Maybe he's right and they want the perfected part, despite the extra cost and small delay in completing the order. But it's their choice, not his.

II

Evidently Philip agrees with this and wants to talk to GFI, but first he presents the new design to other people at WPI, which is reasonable for him to do. All he wants to do is offer the design to GFI. However there is a cost problem to be worked out, as the financial and sales people quickly tell him. But it's not clear from the case why WPI should pay any part of the cost of the new component, since presumably development costs go into the final product price. There seems to be an assumption that WPI is locked into the $100/unit price, but that was the price for the unperfected part, to which GFI agreed. So the perfected design can be offered to GFI at the $3 increase in price, which seems fair since it only covers WPI's costs. Again, the cost question would seem to be one of the points to be negotiated with GFI; if they aren't willing to pay a fair price for the new part, they are free to use the ones they originally contracted for.

But Philip now has another point, which is that WPI is at fault in not designing the part properly in the first place. His argument seems legalistic; what was offered was the best design WPI could think of at the time of the contract, not the best design WPI might ever think of, stretching out to all eternity. Connie's financial reservations ought to carry the day, though her unwillingness to offer the new design immediately doesn't seem justified. Sales manager Tim's point is well-taken, that GFI will be displeased to learn later that a better design was available.

So I select option 3: tell GFI and offer the new part at GFI's expense. However suppose GFI doesn't go for this, and wants the new design at the old price. WPI can then well fall back on option 1, sharing expenses. If GFI won't accept this compromise, then WPI should stand by its original contract. GFI gets the old part at the set price.

III

If there is more money at stake, the case for (3), with (1) as fall back, is made even stronger. Actually the case for not supplying the improvement free to GFI is weak due to the small cost involved. Because of the small cost, WPI's third fall back position should be (2), to tell GFI and offer to pay, but only after discussion. If GFI insists on getting the improvement without paying, WPI can probably agree as a good will investment.

I

Engineer Scott Lewis objects to Tom Treehorn's method of disposing of leaking drums. It is a violation of EPA regulations, as Tom admits. EPA may have good reason for the policy of requiring that leaking drums not be returned to the home site, but in this case, Scott may well think, the policy serves no purpose and may cost ABC company money. Since the method of disposing of the waste chosen by Tom apparently is superior to that required by the EPA, we evidently have a violation that seems more a matter of regulations than of realities.

We could look at this case as an example of the conflict between act utilitarianism and rule utilitarianism. Presumably the EPA's rule is warranted and generally produces good results. But in certain cases, as in this one, this may not be true. (Many automobile traffic regulations are like this). Is it permissible to violate the rule in the given instance? Perhaps; but in any event, we can say that the case for Scott interfering with Tom or for reporting Tom's infraction to Tom's superior is weakened. What is to be said for option 1, that Scott should inform Tom that he will report Tom's infraction to the superior, is, that Tom is violating the law and putting ABC at risk and his superior ought to know this. However reporting Tom seems a rather hostile way of proceeding, especially if Scott thinks that Tom is well intentioned and committing a technical infraction in a good cause. Scott might report Tom anyway because Tom's superiors ought to know what Tom is doing. But under the circumstances Scott might be allowed to reason that if Tom's superior wants to know how Tom disposes of waste, it is his business to ask; if he doesn't inquire, it's not Scott's job to tell him what he doesn't want to know. Scott has done what's required of him by calling in Tom to dispose of the waste; other questions are internal to the operations at ABC. The situation might be different if there were a real risk to someone from Tom's irregular procedure, but it's premised in sections I and II that there isn't. The risk is entirely secondary, a risk to ABC, Tom and Scott of prosecution, created by regulations which over-reach.

Therefore the balance falls on option 3, that Scott does not report Tom but advises him that he shouldn't do it. Whether this is the best option might depend on what is meant by 'advice.' If Scott merely goes through the motions of saying, don't do this, knowing that Tom will ignore him, this option looks less attractive. If however he makes his arguments and then lets Tom come to his own conclusions, trusting Tom to consider Scott's advice and arguments seriously, then perhaps option 3 is best.

II

Should Scott help Tom dispose of the waste illegally? It would be terribly imprudent, because he is exposing himself to legal liability. However I find no statement in the Code that engineers may not expose themselves to legal liability if they think it's justified to do so. By helping Tom, maybe Scott thinks he's protecting the environment and saving ABC money. On this last point, however, both he and Tom are apt to be mistaken, since ABC stands to get into serious legal difficulty as a result of Tom's action. So they cannot be said to have met their responsibility to ABC, even though they may have met their responsibility to the environment. The money they save now for ABC may seem like pennies later. Tom's action would be much more justified if the EPA-approved method were actually more risky to the environment than the method Tom employs, which might be true if the EPA enacted its regulations in part for its own administrative convenience, (saving the government money but costing private companies unnecessary expense). But as the case does not say this, it should not be assumed, and therefore neither Tom nor Scott are justified, even from the point of view of saving ABC money.

III

Now the premise of the case changes; it turns out that ABC has been doing harmful dumping under Tom's direction for years. Scott has been a fool to ever believe that Tom was serious about protecting the environment. Should Scott testify about the little he knows about this to the court? This question admits of only one possible answer: since Scott will be under oath he has no choice but to tell what he knows. Evidently Tom managed to deceive him about Tom's disposal methods. Too bad for Tom and ABC. But if they engaged in a pattern of environmentally harmful violations over several years, they will have to face the consequences. As for Scott, due to his naivete he may now be guilty of concealing illegal dumping, or of being a party to it, if he acted as stated in section II. The lesson from this is that one should never be ashamed to protect one's rear and minimize your own legal exposure. Never assume that illegal actions are really harmless and can be ignored; for even if they're harmless to everyone else, the fact that they're illegal and you know about them, is itself harmful to you.

I

Poor Dan Dorset! After weeks of looking forward to his ski trip, both it and his deposit are about to go down the drain--and unnecessarily at that, because Jerry Taft is qualified to supervise installation of the tardy equipment. It's too bad Dan is going to lose his vacation, but he has no choice, as his responsibility is to supervise installation of the units. What can he do about it? It's not that he's without recourse. What he can do is to try to get his company, Rancott, to reimburse him for his lost condo payment, and perhaps give him a free vacation to compensate for the one he lost. If he's a valuable employee, this seems like a good investment on Rancott's part. However if Dan doesn't think this option will work out, there's no harm done in phoning home and seeing if Rancott will let him leave early; perhaps there's another engineer available who can fill in. Although Rancott has good reasons for their policy of having one of their own engineers supervise installations, it doesn't necessarily have to be Dan, and in any case it is Rancott's company policy, not required by law or contract. So they can make exceptions if they choose (and Taft is said to be fully capable). But if Rancott turns him down, he's got to sacrifice his vacation. You can't just walk away from a job responsibility, even if you think nothing will go wrong.

II

Later, Dan asks his chief, Ed, what Ed would have done if Dan had taken the vacation. Ed replies that he probably would have done nothing, at least not if nothing had gone wrong, but nevertheless 'officially' he wouldn't have approved of Dan's leaving, because to do so would be to risk his own neck. Is this a defensible position for a chief to take? No: Ed's position is mealy-mouthed and unconscionable. If he doesn't think Dan is needed, he should give him permission to leave. Since he won't authorize him to leave, and is afraid of "his neck," this is an implicit admission that Dan is needed; something might go wrong in Dan's absence. Ed is trying to be a nice guy and 'reasonable' by not telling Dan straight away that he isn't allowed to leave; he's afraid to authorize Dan to leave and doesn't have the courage to order him to stay and do the job. He wants to avoid making any definite decision so as to appear blameless no matter what happens. Ed needs to learn to accept the responsibilities of his position.

On the other hand, Dan's way of going about this is not above reproach either. He has no right to push Ed into making hypothetical commitments Ed is reluctant to make. His approach to his lost vacation should be to request compensation from Rancott; he ought to simply assume that he would have be subject to disciplinary action if he absents himself from the work site without authorization. In fact, this assumption is part of his claim to compensation. Clearly, were it the case that he would not have been disciplined, then his claim for compensation is weaker, since in fact he would not have lost anything had he taken the vacation.

III

In this scenario, Dan asks Ed for permission to leave, and doesn't get it. Ed's avoidance of responsibility is at least consistent: he won't authorize Dan's departure, but he won't threaten punishment if Dan departs without authorization. On the other hand, Ed isn't obligated to tell Dan what he would or would not do if Dan takes unauthorized leave. Given that nothing goes wrong, Ed might regard it as within his discretion to overlook the infraction; there is no rule saying that every infraction must be punished, nor is there any rule that he must decide in advance and notify Dan whether he'll be disciplined or not. Actual outcomes ought to be taken into account in determining punishments (as they are in the law: the drunken driver who kills someone is punished more severely than the drunken driver who manages to get home safely). Dan knows the rules and can assume violations will be punished. When Ed says he's given Dan his assignment and the rest is up to him, this is strictly speaking correct, (and in fact a tautology), but Ed's problem is that he's saying this as a way of evading his own responsibility to tell Dan in unmistakable terms that he's supposed to be on the assignment. Ed is not giving orders, he's covering his own neck.

Ed's position is that Dan takes the risk by leaving without authorization; if something should go wrong, Ed will have no choice but to come down on Dan. This is a fair position to take, but not a fair proposition to put before Dan, who is thereby not given any clear directives.

Given Ed's mealy-mouthed direction, and given that Dan really thinks his own presence at the site is unnecessary, would it be all right for Dan to leave? No, since he's not authorized to do so; the fact that Jerry can do the job and Rancott isn't legally obligated to have anyone present means that Dan could very well have been allowed to leave; but he wasn't. From his conversation with Ed, he's discovered that he works for a boss who doesn't like to accept responsibility. This makes it more difficult for Dan to make decisions, but doesn't change the picture about this one. Even assuming that he's correct in thinking that he isn't needed because nothing will go wrong if he's not there (an assumption which may not be justified), the fact remains that he's been told to be there and so has no choice.

IV

Therefore Dan's decision to leave is wrong, and now he shows that he's also dishonest and untrustworthy by being willing to falsify documents and expecting Jerry to do so as well on his behalf. Jerry would be a fool to sign, since obviously he's got a lot to lose if something should go wrong. Since Dan knows that Jerry will have to lie on his behalf, his willingness to take the vacation involves more than (arguably, minor) dereliction of duty on his own part, but subornation of dishonesty as well. Now Jerry is forced to choose between falsifying the documents, or in effect revealing that Dan took unauthorized absence. Maybe Dan didn't foresee the dilemma this creates for Jerry, or maybe he didn't think it would be a dilemma because he thinks Jerry is just as dishonest as he is; but the inevitability of putting his colleague on the spot in this way is another argument against taking the leave.

V

In this scenario, Ed wants to leave early, not to take his vacation, but to begin another assignment. It's not stated how Dan got into this conflict. If he works under assignment from Rancott company, the fact that he'll be late for the next job is their problem which they can handle as they wish; since they can't have their engineers in two places at once they'll have to decide which is more important. Presumably Dan would point out to Ed that he's needed elsewhere, and let Ed decide where to send him. Whether Rancott sends someone else to look after the other job, or seeks a delay from the client, or decides to let Jerry finish the installation at Boulding, is not a problem for Dan.

On the other hand perhaps the next assignment is one Dan is doing on his own. In that case, given the constraints of the question, Dan has a real problem that's not easily resolved, since he's apparently got inconsistent ethical obligations, to do work for two different employers at the same time. In the first place, one wants to know how he got himself into this situation. Presumably he relied on completing the Boulding job on time, which turns out to have been unrealistic, so his contract with the new client should have made allowance for this. Second, one should look for a solution: maybe he can overcome the late start and meet the deadline anyway, or persuade the second client to waive the on-time completion requirement, or persuade his boss Ed to let him leave the Boulding site. But third, if no solution presents itself, Dan will have to make some precise calculations. Since he can't fulfill both obligations, he ought to fulfill the one that's the most important. One consideration would be risk. Just how risky is it to let Jerry finish the first job? Is it correct that serious injuries may be possible from improperly installed equipment on the Boulding job? Against this possibility, how important is it to get the second job started on time? The risks of late installation at the second site are not given: do they involve safety, or just time and money for everybody? If there are equal risks involved, or if the risks to safety at the Boulding job are really insignificant, then if the second job is very important for Dan in terms of compensation and career advancement, he might be justified in opting for his self-interest and letting Jerry finish at Boulding. But if he does so, he'll take the risk that many other people won't agree with this decision, and he'll be blamed if something goes on the first job.

VI

The question of whether evaluations should be based on actual outcomes or on foreseeable outcomes is important in law and ethics, but the answers are not the same. In law, crime is generally measured by the harm actually done rather than foreseen or attempted; if you shoot at me and kill me you've committed murder, but if you miss you've committed only attempted murder. In ethics however the situation is different, since ethics, which evaluates character as well as behavior, depends much more heavily on intention than does law, which regulates in the first instance behavior, not thinking. If you do shoot at me, I might be thankful that you missed, but I'll evaluate you by your murderous intention and not by your inaccurate aim. Therefore ethical evaluation should be based on what is intended or foreseeable rather than on what actually happens. Putting aside all other considerations such as his responsibility to his company, whether Dan's decision to leave would be justifiable or not should depend on the risk he is running rather than on what actually happens. equal unwarranted risk deserves equal condemnation, regardless of actual outcomes in the two cases. Since a bad outcome is said to be unlikely, Dan's decision to leave, though wrong, is less to be condemned than were the odds of an accident greater, whether or not the bad outcome actually happens. However punishment is another question, since to punish is a law-like activity rather than a strictly ethical activity. Since punishment imposes harm on the person punished, in part in order to compensate for the harm he/she has done to some victim, there is always an argument that punishment should be reduced where no actual harm has occurred. Hence, two risks being equal, the one with no bad outcome should be punished less than the one where the bad outcome occurs; and it is at least open to question that someone ought to be punished at all for taking a small, though unwarranted, risk which does not in fact eventuate. It could be said then that whether or not a person is subject to punishment, should be determined by the risk he runs; but whether the punishment be administered, and how much, by outcomes. In actual fact, this seems to be Ed's position in II and III. Since ethically however we judge Ed by his intention, which is to save his own neck, and not by the actually outcome of his reflection, which is to arrive at a philosophically valid position, he gets little moral credit for it.

I

One should always look first at the legal question. Clarke's suppliers fail to provide certain American-made bolts and Clark is tempted to violate its contract with its customer, USAWAY, by substituting foreign bolts so that the order can be finished on time. Is the supplier of the bolts liable under the contract for failing to provide American-made parts? If so, any cost to Clarke can be recovered, so Clarke is foolish not to inform USAWAY that it can't meet its contract obligation with regard to the bolts. Clarke would be in violation of its contract with USAWAY, but the supplier will eventually have to pay the costs.

But even if Clarke will have to pay a penalty which it can't recover, it can not take the risk of concealing the violation from USAWAY, for its hopes that USAWAY will not discover that the bolts are foreign-made may prove groundless. Second, Clarke has a responsibility to USAWAY. Presumably something is at stake for USAWAY in wanting all-USA parts: patriotic image, advertising selling point, or whatever. So it needs to know if it's product isn't in fact all-American. It's not fair to USAWAY and puts it in potential jeopardy not to tell it about the foreign bolts. USAWAY can then make the decision whether to use them, or wait until the American ones are available.

II

Under scenario 1, Clarke deceives USAWAY, which finds this out. What does Clarke do next? Once Clarke's deception is discovered, it's in trouble from which there is no graceful way out. This should be a lesson to somebody! Clarke people better consult with their lawyers to see what their liability is. Ethically, they have little alternative but to confess to USAWAY and try to explain and apologize.

III

Under scenario 2, John doesn't initiate the deception but is told to do it. Presumably all John's good arguments against deception fall on deaf ears at Clarke. So let John follow orders. Clarke deserves whatever it gets when the deception is discovered. (Maybe the deception won't be discovered, in which case both Clarke and USAWAY got lucky). Should John inform USAWAY? No, that's disloyal. Consumer safety and such things don't seem to be involved in this, but rather client image. This isn't important enough to justify ratting on your employer.

I have to confess that I'm biased on this case: I like trees, and I would never hire a road engineer named Clearing. However I don't exactly see an ethical problem either. There's a question of balancing aesthetics and safety, a problem of values to which there's evidently no correct answer. Clearing is an engineer who evidently favors safety over all other values, but this is not the unanimous view of the citizens of Verdant County. It is not, it seems to me, unethical to take Clearing's position (how can it be unethical to do what you can to protect human life?), though it may very well be unwise, shortsighted, undemocratic and not for the best for the citizens of the county.

Law suits have been filed, and to a certain extent the courts have decided that the trees are not an unreasonable hazard with regard to excessively speeding drivers. Evidently no law suits have been filed against the VCRC by the victims of the five or more other fatal accidents, nor by the victims of the many non-fatal accidents, which is some reason to think that, at least in the opinion of lawyers practicing law in Verdant County, the trees do not represent an unreasonable hazard. One expedient might be to wait until the next accident and the next law suit, and let the courts decide further issues; if the County were to lose a suit on grounds that the trees should not be so close to the road, that would perhaps settle the question. Since the County would be the defendant, they would have to defend their trees in court, and whatever arguments they use can then be used later to protect the trees should the courts rule in the county's favor.

There is a factual question which Clearing should clear up, namely, to what extent the trees are a safety hazard to drivers proceeding lawfully and within the speed limit. If the risk to such drivers is small, the case for retaining the trees is proportionately greater. There is also the question of future road traffic volume as Forest Road becomes more and more a main artery. Some degree of volume growth will inevitably mean the end of the trees, but acting prematurely would be unfortunate. Clearing could also research or devise possible alternative solutions, such as non-rigid barriers to deflect cars from the trees. The point is that everything ought to be done to protect the trees, within reasonable safety limits; but no one can say what these are. The emotional arguments of the environmental group, who seem ready to sacrifice real lives in order to make symbolic gestures, ought not to be taken too seriously, except as political posturing.

There is also the fact that a wide straight road is not necessarily safest, since drivers are encouraged to speed, beat the lights, etc. This is especially true if there is in-coming traffic from unprotected curb cuts, which tends to create hairy battles for road space. Furthermore, even drivers like trees, as long as they don't themselves crash into them, which they think they won't do if they drive safely (here is the factual issue Clearing could resolve). But if the traffic on Forest Drive continues to increase, widening the road will eventually be necessary, in order to avoid traffic congestion if for no other reason. Therefore the VCRC ought to begin planning for this. Consult with citizens' groups to see what they want. Find out if the drivers are willing to assume some risk in order to avoid destroying the trees. Assign more police patrols to keeps speeds down. Try to design a safer road which preserves natural beauty. Be prepared to offer new trees, planted in a safe but accessible location, as a trade-off for the ones taken down. Trees don't last forever and (as environmental groups tell you in other contexts) are renewable resources. So sacrificing all other values (safety, speed, convenience in travel) in order to preserve specific trees is irrational. The goal is to preserve natural beauty and other environmental values over-all, not necessarily to preserve specific trees.

I

This case involves a violation of environmental regulations which may be more 'technical' than real. Wolfog Co is faced with $200,000 unnecessary expenses to prevent small excess omissions which are not believed to be harmful to anyone but a few fish. The obvious course here is for Wolfog to apply to the DNR for a variance. Their lawyers can try to convince the DNR that the slight excess poses little danger. If they don't get the variance, they'll have to conform, or go to court; though all this will probably cost Wolfog more than the cost of compliance.

However there's nothing to be done on an individual basis. Manager Edgar Owens should not expect engineer marvin to 'adjust' the data and Marvin shouldn't do it. Edgar's reasoning is self-serving:if he's worried about image and tourism he should comply with the regulations. It may well be true that if Wolfog has to spend the $200,000 which they can't afford, they're in trouble, but the answer, if there is an answer, is not to fake data.

II

This might be one of those cases in which most people are better off if the law is violated rather than obeyed. Such situations are probably more common than realized. It's not the discharge itself which does any harm, but the fact that it's not in conformity to the regulations, since this creates the image problem and scares away the tourists. This obviously makes an excellent case for loosening the regulations: regulations should not be more onerous than necessary to achieve their purpose. The more people who have a stake in economic development, the more likely is this case to be heard by the authorities.

III

Whether Deborah, the DNR water quality official, would agree that the violation is a 'mere technicality,' depends on Deborah. We don't know enough about her; if she's a radical environmentalist, she thinks zero dead fish is the only tolerable condition, and no cost is too great to achieve it. She also may think there is no such thing as a technical violation: a violation is a violation,may be her enforcement motto. One might take the view that if she thinks this, she shouldn't be in her position, but perhaps her boss thinks so too. Perhaps this is the motto of the entire DNR, which if it is shows something about the irrationality we've gotten ourselves into.

IV

Would the parents agree that the violation is merely technical? Probably not; the local parents have been whipped up by the environmentalists and the media to think that any drop of anything is dangerous. They want jobs, economic progress, low taxes, low prices, and a pristine environment as well, (who doesn't?) and they are not wiling or able to understand the issues involved. And they vote.

V

So given this hypothetical gloomy situation, is the over-all best solution that Marvin should just fake the data? One might make such an argument from a narrow act utilitarian point of view, but for all sorts of reasons including long-range utility it isn't right for anyone to submit a fake report, so the question whether everyone might do so is purely hypothetical. Another question would be, if it's right to grant a variance to Wolfog, is it right to grant a variance to every plant? And the answer would be yes, which is not an argument not to grant the variance to Wolfog, unless there is a comparable compelling reason at the other industries (for example, it might not cost everybody $200,000 to clean up). If there is, then the DNR is within its rights in denying the variance. If all the factories together produce a total discharge that is dangerous, the situation changes by that fact. But if there are no other plants in Wolfog's situation, then the so-called principle of universalizability should not be used as an excuse to impose hardships on one firm without any compensating gain for anyone except the few fish.

VI

Marvin shouldn't fake the data. The rest is up to the people at Wolfog.

I

Prof. Nice is asked by a former student, Jason, to send a copy of a report they had worked on together. Should Nice comply? Why not? No reason is given for not sending the report: a mere question of courtesy, one would think.

II

We are now told that Nice doesn't like the report and doesn't much care for Jason either. But he sends the report anyway, only to discover years later that Jason has plagiarized it for his MA thesis. There is no problem here either: plagiarism should be investigated and punished. Nice must initiate an investigation through the appropriate authorities at Jason's university. As to what he could have done to prevent this from happening, there are several things. He might have earlier protected himself a bit by indicating on the report that it had copyright protection: "Not for publication. Do not quote without permission." He might assure himself that his students understand what plagiarism is and why it's wrong. He might ascertain that his university has appropriate policies in place. These are more management problems than ethical ones; the ethical point is to try to create conditions such that ethical violations such as Jason's are less likely to occur. It means not trusting people to the extent Nice would like to; but when the protections are in place, you can then be free to trust them more.

This case is a bit unusual in that the conflict of interest here evidently occurred through trying to comply with state law. The law requires that two seats on the waste planning committee be held by industry representatives, but the two who are appointed, Matthews and Parkinson, are connected with a plan to site the county landfill in Barker township, where the residents charge conflict of interest. It is not clear in what the conflict consists, but presumably the accusation is that Matthews and Parkinson's firms will benefit if the dump is situated in Barker.

Conflict of interest is easy to charge and hard to disprove. Often it seems that appearance of conflict amounts to nothing more than someone saying that there is such a conflict. Since passions about things like landfills are apt to become intense, it is politically foolish, even if not necessarily ethically objectionable, for anyone to sit on a planning board where even the whisper of conflict of interest is possible. There must be other industry representatives who don't have proposals before the County Waste Board. Neither Matthews nor Parkinson want to resign. They seem to have made it a point of personal pride not to succumb to pressure which they consider unjustified. But it is a mistake to allow one's sense of honor to stand in the way of getting the task done. These accusations will poison the board's deliberations and cause the decision to drag on forever. Neither Matthews nor Parkinson should serve on the board. They have made their defense, which is their right, and they need not admit any culpability. Now they should resign for the public good.

I

You are a professor planing to apply for a research grant when you are asked to serve on the committee that will evaluate grant applications. What can you do? You will have a conflict of interest if you serve on the panel, so either you must refuse to serve or not submit your own proposal. If you're the only one who can serve (in which case your university and its plan to up-grade its research program, are both in big trouble), you might consider withdrawing your application. Otherwise, suggest someone else.

II

VP Jackson has a plan, but it won't work. You'll serve on the committee but won't evaluate your own proposal. But there is still a conflict of interest since the award is competitive. A person with a proposal might talk and vote against the competition in order to improve his own chances. Even if not, it might seem that way to those who lose.

III

You allow the VP to talk you into serving and you get a fellowship. The question is whether the losing professors should demand, and are entitled to, a review of the committee's decisions. I think they are and they should; the review process ought to be done again. However opening up the process from scratch would be unfair to all the other professors who were awarded grants. So the university is going to have to find a way out of VP Jackson's mistake without taking away the awards from the other winners. This may wind up costing some money, since the fellowships are worth $6000. Lack of ethics can be expensive.

I

This is a debate over who owns a software system, the company or the designer. Horace says the system is 'really' the property of the company, but Derek, the designer, claims to possess certain property rights in it. My contribution to the ensuing discussion would be to say: "Gentlemen. Questions of property are determined by law, not philosophy. It is true that some philosophers, such as Locke and Nozick, think there's such a thing as property apart from law; but this opinion is untenable, as no rational criteria can be provided by which 'natural' property can be determined. (For instance, Locke says that I own anything with which I 'mix my labor'; but what is that? If I build a fence around a forest, does that mean I own the entire forest? Or only the land under the fence? Or the fence itself and nothing else? And if I own the fence, do you have a right to climb over the fence to get into the forest?) Whether the system is or is not the property of the previous employer depends on what the law says. It's not a moral question whether Derek or his prior employer have legal control over the work Derek did there. This may or may not depend on any agreement Derek signed, or didn't sign. So Derek should consult his, or the company's, lawyer and determine what his rights are.

Derek's arguments are feeble rationalizations for his desire to fiddle with the software he invented. He'd be more honest to say, 'Look, if I had signed my rights away, my hands would be tied. But I never did, and the previous company didn't seem to care. So now I'm free as a bird to do what I want with this system. That's my understanding of my legal rights, and I intend to exercise them fully. If I'm wrong, they can sue me.'"

II

As the case develops, things go farther than intended and now Derek's new employer not only wants him to make greater use of the software system than he initially thought would be right, but claim to own it themselves. Derek has gotten himself into a moral pickle and he wants someone to rescue him from it. He signed an agreement with his new company that his work belongs to them. He then revised the work he did for the first company, half-thinking that he really shouldn't; and now he regrets that the new company claims that the whole thing is theirs! It's really to late for him to conclude that the old company is being treated badly, since he's the one who made it happen. The only remedy here is for the first company to sue the new employer and have the court determine the legal property rights.

III

Should Horace, Derek's friend, tell the old company that Derek is using the software? Why not? There are no secrets involved in this, unless Horace is under a pledge of confidentiality, which wasn't stated. The smaller company needs to know that their systems are at risk unless they secure legal title to them; it's surprising that they have never been told this before by their lawyers! (Maybe they need new lawyers).

Darnell, Inc. claims to have a strong commitment to affirmative action, and now it appears that a woman, Catherine, is about to get a promotion. Judy has reservations about Catherine's ability to do the job. If Darnell really has the strong commitment to affirmative action it claims to have, Judy should have no problem expressing her reservations to an appropriate superior. A strong commitment means that women who can do the job are the ones who will get promoted, and not 'pretty faces' who will eventually fail. Therefore Judy's problem is how to go about making her reservations about Catherine effective.

She might consider these strategies. 1. Talk to Catherine herself and ask her to withdraw her candidacy for the reasons given. Perhaps she risks losing her friend. On the other hand, maybe Catherine has her own doubts about her ability to fill the position she's in line for. Judy's frank discussion might help her do the job better if she gets it; or maybe Catherine will be able to put Judy's fears at rest. 2. Talk to other women in the company, first to see if they also have reservations about Catherine's impending promotion; and second, if they do, to organize opposition and make it known to the appropriate superior. All the women at Darnell have a stake in this promotion, evidently. If the other women don't share Judy's fears, maybe she should drop it (she could be wrong about Catherine); if they're afraid to act on their fears, Judy might reconsider whether 'affirmative action' is worth fighting for.

Under situation (b), Judy hears male engineers deriding women. The remark she overhears from the male engineers could indicate that Darnell's commitment to AA is more verbal than real. Judy should try to determine this by discussing what may be prevalent male opinion, with higher management, and seeing what they say. If the promotion of Catherine turns out to be a set-up, designed to discredit the affirmative action program, then Judy will have a real problem on her hands.

It might be a god idea for Judy to talk to some other male engineer whom she trusts, maybe Tom Evans. Tom may very well know more about the attitudes of the male engineers, and of the company officials, than Judy does. If she trusts him, he might be a good person to talk this problem over with before she does anything. She may get a better perspective on the real attitudes of people at Darnell, and advice from an experienced person.

In (c), Tom Evans rather than Judy hears the male engineers talking. Should he do something? It depends. If someone such as Judy asks him if he knows anything helpful, perhaps he might. But obviously he isn't gong to come running to Judy--"Guess what I heard"--unless he has reason to know that the Catherine promotion is bothering her. Should he do anything else? This depends on how he feels about affirmative action. He might make it his business to talk to the engineers at some point and try to correct their negative attitude; or if he feels strongly enough, he might talk to management about their (management's) problem. He takes a certain risk obviously but if he does this tactfully he might come out ahead.

In (d), there are no special problems since both hear the conversation together. If Judy trusts Tom she can rely on him for advice and support.

I

This case involves questions of employee freedom, loyalty, conflict of interest, and conflict between conscience and interest. In general, what you do on your own time is your own business. Employees ought to have the freedom off the job to participate in community affairs according to their own lights. The employer should not try to dictate or influence what form that participation takes. However it could be said that employees owe off-the-job loyalty to the their employer, at least to the extent of not opposing the company's interests. Employee off-the-job freedom extends first and foremost to questions not directly related to the company's business concerns, such as supporting political candidates or taking positions on issues such as abortion. When the company has a direct stake in some matter, however, the situation changes and the employee might well have an obligation to support the company or at least not to oppose it. This is especially true when the company has a lot at stake, such as whether it can expand or replace its physical plant. What you do on your own time doesn't affect your job performance, but if it hinders your company's operations, it might affect whether the company has a job for you to perform.

On the other hand, suppose your company is about to do something you disapprove of, because you think it is against the public good. Imagine further that the project does not any way relate to your normal job responsibilities. Are you obliged to go along out of loyalty? Are you obliged to help the company accomplish its unworthy goal, if you should be asked to do so?

Elizabeth Dorsey's employer, CDC Inc, plans to build a facility on environmentally sensitive land in the small community in which she lives. It is evidently important for CDC that the facility be built on this location. As luck would have it, Elizabeth not only values the quality of life in Parkville, she is a member of a citizen's environmental group, which has already successfully opposed rezoning of recreational land. Elizabeth, we may assume, does not like CDC's plans, and she is inclined to oppose them. However the case does not state what her reasons are for hesitating. Perhaps she is concerned only with her self-interest as an employee who is not expected to oppose the company, at least not in public. However she may wonder whether she is within her rights to assume that she's free to do what she wants, even on her own time. She may think that it's disloyal for an employee to cause problems for the company; or she may recognize how important this project is for CDC and not want to cause CDC harm. Also, she may feel a conflict of interest, since as a Parkville resident who enjoys small-town life, it would be better for her if CDC built somewhere else.

II

CDC official Jim Bartlett learns that Elizabeth lives in Parkville and tells her boss, David, to ask her to lobby for the CDC proposal with the Parkville City Council. Should David comply? No reason is given why David should not agree to the request to try and enlist Elizabeth on the side of CDC. Absent special circumstances, it doesn't seem unethical for a company to ask its employees to help it in the political process. For all CDC knows (circumstance #1), Elizabeth would favor the project and be happy to help by exercising her right to lobby her elected representatives. The ethical problem would be if Elizabeth were subject to undue pressure, but to this point such pressure is at most hypothetical and implicit, and Elizabeth is free to resist it. Even if David knew of E's environmental concerns, (circumstance #2), this should not prevent him from talking to her; to assume that she's necessarily opposed to the CDC proposal would be presumptuous. To this point, he hasn't been asked and doesn't intend to exert any pressure on her, merely to ask her assistance.

What David should say is basically what Jim Bartlett asks him to say, assuming Jim hasn't asked anything outrageous: the CDC needs this facility and since Elizabeth lives in Parkville, maybe she'll support it. If he's aware of Elizabeth's environmental concerns, presumably he'd want to make the environmental pitch to her, as CDC has made it to the City Council. If CDC's environmental pitch is sincere, David thinks he's got a good case and a reasonable environmentalist ought not oppose the project. But even if CDC's environmental approach is window dressing, there's no good reason why David can't try it out on Elizabeth. She can always shoot it down if she sees it that way.

III

David's request puts Elizabeth on the spot and she had better be up front from the first. Although she's an environmentalist, to this point she hasn't made up her mind about CDC's request, though, she's inherently suspicious of it. She shouldn't conceal the fact that she's an environmentalist and that David or Jim will have to sell her on the environmental points, though there might not be much point in going into the gory details of past battles. CDC wants her help, and she owes it to David to give him the chance to convince her of the merits of CDC's plan. If she's not convinced, she should be able to explain why. She might, for example, point out that she has a conflict of interest because development would alter the life style in her quiet town.

One might even note that talking to Elizabeth is actually a good opportunity for CDC officials. If they can persuade Elizabeth, they should be able to persuade the City Council. If they can't persuade Elizabeth, they should at least have a better idea of the weakness in their plan and the kind of opposition they're about to run into.

Of course David and Jim may not appreciate this new turn, and may expect unquestioned obedience ('loyalty') from employees such as Elizabeth. If she suspects this, she may be tempted to conceal her involvement with the Council as a way of trying to get off the spot (option 1); but she should realize that pretending to be uninvolved is foolish as well as dishonest. She might foresee that David would press her further (as he does in IV). And her denial that she knows anyone on the City Council is a bit implausible. In a town of 5,000, there's probably a member of the Council living next door. Further, by denying involvement at this point, she's making it more difficult for herself to become involved later: if she ever does decide to act against CDC, her past activities will obviously come to their attention, which would be embarrassing to say the least.

IV

Elizabeth foolishly tries to pretend she's not in a position to help, and David foreseeably presses her to contact a member of the Council. Predictably, her feeble dodge hasn't succeeded in averting the issue. Elizabeth has to realize that sooner or later she's going to have to face the question of whether she wants to fight the CDC project, or not. Why doesn't she give David and Jim the chance to make the environmental pitch to her? If she's not convinced, she can make her rebuttal points and explain that therefore she can't help them. If she is convinced, then she has no excuse for not helping.

Elizabeth's action seems to be motivated by a fear that CDC will hold it against her if she doesn't co-operate. It may be this fear that leads her to try to dodge the issue by prevaricating. She may have some reason for this fear, based on what she may know about CDC, but to this point there's been no indication that the fear is warranted. But even if it is, it doesn't follow that deception is her best means to avoid the problem.

V

Now Elizabeth's ill-advised attempt at deception backfires. You can never escape the Mafia. Everyone knows everything in a small town and someone rats on Elizabeth to Jim: her dirty secret is out, she's an environmentalist! Now she's about to be given a direct order to cool it. The order itself may be illegitimate, but Jim is understandably angry with Elizabeth. David's been told to transmit this order, and perhaps he doesn't like this task. He may think Elizabeth has a right to do what she likes, and perhaps he might try to persuade Jim to let her alone. He might point out that there's no gain in antagonizing a valuable employee, and after all Elizabeth does live there. So she has a right to defend her town's way of life. On the other hand, Jim's reaction seems to suggest that Jim is worried that Elizabeth's opposition could influence the outcome, and the project is presumably quite important to CDC. David is not being asked to advice Jim, but to talk to Elizabeth, and all things considered perhaps he'd better do so. We don't know that David personally doesn't support the CDC project. So it's not that he feels Elizabeth is in the right. Even if he's sympathetic to her position, he's wearing his company hat at the moment; all he's being told to do is to relay Jim's message not to get involved.

What David should do after relaying Jim's message is another question, and that depends on how Elizabeth responds. David hasn't been told not to give advice and counsel to Elizabeth according to his best lights. So if she asks him what he thinks she should do, he is free to tell her.

VI

Under this hypothesis, (following III 2), Elizabeth very wisely comes clean with David from the beginning. But inconsistently with her own honesty, she asks David to prevaricate for her in order to cover her refusal to cooperate. She now has a reason, however, supplied by David: "Jim won't like it" (that she won't co-operate). Fear of Jim is her reason for concealing her opposition. But why should she be afraid of Jim before she's even heard CDC's case? David ought to ask Elizabeth for a chance to make the pitch. Time enough then to worry about what Jim will do; perhaps CDC's environmental case is so poor, Jim won't have the heart to retaliate. As for lying, David shouldn't do it. He knows that if she had told him that she didn't know anyone on the City Council, he was prepared to ask her to make such a contact. So he can now tell her that Jim will probably ask the same. Deception is still deception, and nothing's gained by passing it up the ladder from David to Jim.

David can tell Elizabeth that he understands that she can't cooperate with CDC, but he doubts that she can avoid the problem so easily. Even if Jim accepts her truthful but not quite honest response that she "can't help," she will still have to face the question of whether she will oppose the CDC request. Isn't it better to pass on to Jim that she doesn't approve the CDC proposal and so can't co-operate? She doesn't want the swamp paved over and a big facility built in her little town: Jim should be able to understand that. If she's fearful of saying that little, then she may really have a problem at CDC, which is very likely going to recur sooner or later; but at least she won't have the added problem of having tried to deceive her boss.

VII

As in V, Jim finds out through someone else what the true state of the question is: despite her attempt to conceal it, Elizabeth is an environmentalist. Again, David is told to relay the 'cool it' message, which he should do, as there are no grounds for his refusing to tell her what Jim has commanded. Whether David adds that he agrees with Jim depends on whether he does agree. If he does he can say so. If he does not, perhaps he shouldn't say that unless Elizabeth asks him for advice or help. He is certainly not under any obligation to Elizabeth to volunteer his own opinion, but he has no reason to conceal it if she asks. If David basically agrees with Jim, he might feel that he ought to make an attempt to get Elizabeth to see the light. Jim will expect this. It's the right thing (he thinks), and it's better for her. After all, Elizabeth could be in the wrong and tilting at windmills: maybe the CDC plan really won't hurt the environment, and no doubt Parkville, which is near a big city, can't remain a small town forever. If there's any reason why David shouldn't make these arguments to Elizabeth if he feels they're valid, it would be that Elizabeth could take the whole thing as threats from her boss. Whether this is realistic depends on circumstances not stated in the case, but in general, the fact that David is her boss shouldn't by itself prevent him from advising her to co-operate with the company.

David of course can anticipate that Jim expects him to persuade Elizabeth to obey, or at least make an attempt to do so (as happens in sec. X below). Given this, he'd better make the attempt, certainly if he believes in the CDC project; but even if he doesn't, Elizabeth has a right to hear the CDC arguments. David is free to point out that CDC won't like Elizabeth's opposition, but he should be careful not to appear to otherwise threaten her: she can hardly expect that by opposing the project, she's going to win any points with CDC officials! Disapproving what she does and using coercion against her aren't the same. The difficult question at this point for David is if he anticipates that Jim is apt to take an unfair tack and try to force Elizabeth to do something she doesn't feel she can do. If David tells Elizabeth he anticipates this, he might expect problems from Jim later. Since Jim has put David on the spot, he'd better think out carefully what view he takes of the situation. There's no point risking his own neck if he basically thinks Elizabeth is a disloyal employee who's digging her own grave. David might agree that Elizabeth has a right to her freedom of action, but that she's overstepped the lines. Maybe he thinks that the environmentalist concerns are wrong and that Elizabeth should show loyalty and help the company, and he should be free to try telling her this and see what she says. But if he thinks she's got a right to act independently and Jim is unfairly running over her, then he may feel he's got an obligation, based on friendship or his own loyalty to a subordinate, to help her; and if he thinks he can advise her or in some way run interference for her and protect her from Jim, he should offer to try.

David has to make a complicated assessment which we can't make for him because the case doesn't give enough information. For all we know, Elizabeth is a crank or an environmental extremist. She might be a romantic who thinks small towns are forever and who simply can't face inevitable change and development. Or she might be making a false choice of values, preferring another swamp for the pleasure of the wealthy Parkville suburbanites when real people lack jobs. David seems to be caught in the middle of the Elizabeth situation and has to take into account the realities as well as abstract questions of Elizabeth's rights.

VIII

In section II it is stated that CDC has made a presentation to the City Council. So it is not clear why it is said now that the Parkville environmental group is unaware of CDC's intentions. In any case, having made a presentation to a public body, CDC can hardly claim that its intentions are confidential. Elizabeth is perfectly within her rights to discuss the CDC proposal to the City Council with the other members of her environmental group or anyone else.

Assume however that CDC's plans, though known to Elizabeth, are still in the formative and confidential stage. Elizabeth should not rush to the environmental action group (CEQ) with what she knows. Confidential plans should be considered confidential until they have been explicitly said to be not confidential; employees should not draw inferences from what has been said to them that plans are no longer confidential. CDC's intentions are not public property and there may be good business reasons why they do not want their plans revealed prematurely. Until CDC makes an official move, it is always possible that it will change its plans, or that what it presents will be significantly different from what Elizabeth has heard about. Further, it is not clear what the environmentalists are going to gain by having advance knowledge of CDC intentions. Sooner or later CDC will have to come public, and then there will be time for study of the CDC plans and formulation of a response. (If no such adequate response time is given, the CEQ's quarrel will be with the City Council for acting in haste, and not with Elizabeth for failing to reveal company confidential information). That Elizabeth even considers violating company confidentiality in order to give an edge to the CEQ indicates that her loyalties are so much with her environmental interests that there may be a real question whether she can in good conscience continue as a CDC employee.

IX

The environmental committee learns of CDC's apparently still secret plans, and wants to mobilize quickly against them. But they have no right to ask Elizabeth what she knows or doesn't know. Such a question would be a provocation and could be construed as a deliberate attempt to cause problems for Elizabeth at CDC. If she answers, they may well press her for further inside information; she might be put in the position of undercover spy for the CEQ, which would totally undermine her position at CDC. She should reluctantly, even indignantly, refuse to answer. If the CEQ wants to mobilize, they can do so based on whatever they already know: it didn't take much knowledge to get the CEQ members up in arms, so why shouldn't they assume that the same knowledge is sufficient to mobilize everyone else?

Elizabeth actually has an acute conflict of interest problem with regard to CEQ. How can she support them while on the payroll at CDC? Can they trust her to do her best and give them honest advice? She is compromised as a member of CEQ from the beginning. Suppose she honestly comes to the conclusion that CDC's proposal is not so bad, can the other members of CEQ trust this judgment? May she not feel impelled to attack CDC more stridently than necessary just to prove her environmental correctness? It is probably best for Elizabeth to offer to quit CEQ as soon as this situation develops. No one is indispensable.

But suppose this difficulty is resolved because of the trust the other people on CEQ have in Elizabeth's environmentalism. They may not accept her offer to quit, since they have a strong interest in her propaganda value against CDC. (Headline: "CDC Engineer Denounces Project"). Should she take an active role in opposing CDC? This is really the core problem of this case. It is useful to remember that activity can take many forms, not all of which require a front-line presence. Perhaps CDC will accept her opposition if it isn't also faced with very loud and embarrassing public protest by one of its own employees. Elizabeth should remember that as a citizen, she's got the right to act politically, and that her employer has no right, legal or moral, to determine what she does. Yet at the same time she might very well want to take into account the claims of loyalty to the company which pays her salary. And she also needs to remember that her right to political action is one that is going to be difficult to enforce and might prove costly for her if her action makes the employer sufficiently angry. So she has to make a judgment taking all this into account. She has to decide how important it is to oppose this project, whether there aren't other people who might oppose it as effectively as she but at less personal risk (too bad for the CEQ if any of its members is indispensable), how angry CDC is likely to be at her, etc. Perhaps there are certain things she can do, like provide behind the scenes technical advice, which won't upset CDC at all; other things-marching, making speeches, etc. might prove more embarrassing to her company and costly to herself.

X

We now imagine that David has had his little heart-to-heart with Elizabeth (as in section VII), but in vain: the next thing Jim knows, one of his engineers is all over the newspaper speaking against development of the CDC target area. Jim is understandably not pleased and asks David what's going on? David can reply to Jim that he passed on Jim's message and urged Elizabeth to cool it. What else he says depends on what he told Elizabeth and how she replied. If he's promised to try to protect her, he'll have decided in advance how best to talk to Jim about her (as Jim sees it) disloyalty and disobedience. It's become pretty clear now that Jim is a person who brooks no interference; when he gives orders he expects results. David must have known this, and probably has acted to Elizabeth more or less as Jim would wish. If he hasn't, he's presumably prepared to stand up to Jim and persuade him to go easy on Elizabeth. Whether he's got an obligation to do so or not would depend on the considerations referred to in section VII.

Elizabeth has certainly not made life any easier for David by getting herself in the newspapers. Perhaps David didn't make it clear to her how big a problem Jim could be. Or perhaps she wasn't interested in knowing. By putting David in jeopardy, Elizabeth puts her own fairness and integrity into question. One wants to know whether Elizabeth alerted David about her statement to the City Council, and whether his support was conditional on her not going public is such a visible way. There are limits to how far you can help someone who won't help themselves. If Elizabeth is counting on David to get her out of trouble with CDC, she may be asking for more than anyone can deliver. She is going to have to accept that if you do risky things you may suffer the consequences.

XI & XII

There cannot be two different 'points of view;' what's ethical is ethical. Elizabeth has every right to act politically as she sees fit when she's off the job, and the company has no right to expect that she will act as its front. Nevertheless the company does have some call on her loyalty, which means that it's not unreasonable for them to think that if she can't support them, at least she ought not to oppose them either, or at the very least not to cause them too much embarrassment by overt public activity. If Elizabeth has decided that CDC's proposal is so destructive that it must be stopped at all costs (to it and her), then perhaps she can no longer honorably continue to work for them. Can you work for a company that is as bad as all that?

Much depends on the merits of the case: if the CDC proposal really is as good as CDC says it is, or at least arguably so, then the company could take the position that Elizabeth shows both disloyalty and bad judgment in opposing it as vigorously as she has. But if the CDC proposal is essentially a snow job, then Elizabeth might think she has no choice but fight it. She's certainly within her rights and the company would be entirely unjustified to penalize her for exposing its fraudulent claims. If this should happen, CDC is probably not the kind of company Elizabeth wants to work for anyway.

I

Tony is told to lay off his entire unit the afternoon before Christmas. What a mess. Naturally he's unhappy with what he's been told to do, but he fails to contest the order. He might talk to VP Arnold again and try to get him to change his mind. Arnold has not given Tony any reason for the rush; Tony has a right to know why the layoffs have to be made in such haste. If Arnold's reason is inadequate, or if Arnold tells Tony he doesn't know the reason and doesn't care to know, Tony is within his rights in delaying, and in telling Arnold he won't do it until someone explains to him why it's necessary, although to do so would risk insubordination. If Arnold has a good reason, Tony has little choice but to carry out the order.

II

What Tony decides to do is disobey Arnold's order without telling Arnold and without finding out what's behind the fast move, and naturally fate is such that things instantly go wrong. Arnold, who finds out about Tony's insubordination through a chance encounter which is also embarrassing to Arnold, is understandably irate at Tony, and Tony had better apologize and hope for the best. He can only make things worse for himself by trying to make excuses. He might ask himself why he didn't tell Arnold that he wouldn't deliver the lay-off notices? Is he afraid or disrespectful of Arnold? Is he unsure that his action is correct? Tony's action behind Arnold's back may be a sign that something is very wrong in their relationship.

III

Now things get worse and worse. Even the victims suffer from Tony's attempt to be Mr. Nice Guy, as Shirley spends big money assuming she still has a job. The moral is that the sooner people receive bad news, the better: attempts to spare them grief may backfire since people make plans based on what they think they know. However you can't blame Tony for not being able to foresee every possible outcome. If he's entitled to use his discretion at all (which is questionable), then he's entitled to act on what is reasonably going to be best for most of the people affected. He's probably right that most would not want their Christmas spoiled by a layoff notice; but there's no guarantee that everyone will be pleased by the delay.

I

Due to an unforeseen family emergency, Gerald Wahr needs a job fast, and one is available--with a company whose business Gerald opposes. Should he try for the job at the pesticide company, given that both he and his farmer father think that pesticides harm the environment and are bad for farming--a belief which Gerald's chemical engineering training has only reinforced? If not, as the case puts it, his family may lose its farm.

Unfortunately, there is no real solution for the person who needs a job but has moral objections to the job he's able to get. If Gerald is sufficiently dismayed by the pesticide industry, it will obviously be impossible for him to work in it. So he has to think out his options. There is no reason stated in the case why he couldn't get a job at McDonald's in order to tide the family over the crisis caused by his father's illness. Maybe the money isn't good enough, but the point is that there doesn't seem to be any absolute reason why Gerald has to work as a chemical engineer, rather than something else altogether, in order to pay the medical bills until the crisis is over.

Gerald's position is a bit strange. His fondness for his father has led him to adopt his father's dedication to the cause of anti-pesticides. He intends to follow his father into farming, and has apparently studied engineering specifically to learn enough to prove his point against pesticides: "to fight fire with fire," as his father puts it. He seems to have no other interest in chemical engineering, and does not intend to practice the profession but use his knowledge as a propaganda tool. Given all this, it is difficult to understand how he could even consider taking the job in question.

II

His friends make three arguments. Allen says that if Gerald doesn't take the job, someone else will, which is obviously true; but evidently Gerald's immediate problem is not how to stop the pesticide industry from making pesticides, but only to avoid helping them do it. (When it is time to stop the industry, he will join an environmental group, become active in farm politics, etc). From a strictly utilitarian point of view, however, there is something to be said for Allen's advice. For given that the pesticides will be made anyway, and given that eventually Gerald intends to challenge the industry, it might be the case that his position as critic would be strengthened if he first works in the industry and gets to know it 'from the inside.' So in view of his long-term goals, Gerald might consider swallowing his distaste and taking the job. Bob suggests that Gerald might be able to subvert the company from within, by 'slowing things down a little,' and Don raises the possibility of introducing reforms. Assuming that these are legitimate options, and that their success can't be entirely ruled out, Gerald would have to balance the (no doubt high) unlikeliness of either strategy succeeding, against the certainty that he will be helping the industry do something he opposes, namely, produce pesticides.

However both Bob's and Don's suggestions are dishonest, and would involve deceiving the employer Pro-Growth. So there is a question whether Gerald can follow this advice. In addition Bob is advising Gerald to do a poor job at Pro-Growth, which will not help Gerald's future employment, if he should seek any, as an engineer. Don at least is advocating that Gerald act openly, through internal reforms; but Bob is advising Gerald to accept the job even though Gerald not only knows he does not share the goals and objectives of Pro-Growth, but actually has the deliberate intention to subvert these goals. Few companies would hire a person with such an intention, claiming the right to hire only employees who are dedicated to the company's success as the company defines it. While it is true that Gerald could take the position that his opinions, even regarding his company's products and policies, are his own business, so long as he performs his job diligently, Bob's advice is that he not perform his job diligently, but the reverse. Were Gerald to accept the job with the intention to subvert Pro-Growth's goals, he could be accused of a kind of employee fraud. (There might be an analogy with a person who took a job in order to spy out trade secrets and reveal them to a competitor).

IV

Therefore, it is important for Gerald to consider his situation before he puts his qualms aside and goes for the interview. Should he anticipate that the interviewer will not ask him about his opinions, and should he then volunteer what they are? Or if he is asked, how will he reply? He might say that his opinions are not the company's business, and see what happens. Or he might say that he does have reservations about pesticides, but that he intends to perform the work required to the best of his ability nonetheless (if this is true). If Gerald were truly honest, he'd explain his opinions, since he wouldn't want the company to hire him under false assumptions. On the other hand, Gerald may well be fearful that any indication of a reservation on his part would kill his chances for job. He needs the money, and to this point he's apparently willing to put his objections to pesticides aside, in the interests of family finances. In that case, he might as well put aside honesty also and lie to the interviewer. At a pesticide company, you make pesticides. If you're willing to work at a pesticide company even though you don't like to make pesticides, you're contradicting yourself if you're not prepared to tell them you want to make pesticides: he who wills the end, wills the means. If Gerald gets the job he'll probably have to lie sooner or later, (suppose they find out about his farm background and ask him to pitch the product to farmers?) unless he thinks he can successfully stay in the closet all his life. So why not get used to it?

IV

To what extent should there be a match between one's ethics and one's job selection? This general question can't be answered other than in terms of cliche. You shouldn't accept jobs which grate on your conscience. Some people don't have consciences, and will take any job, including executioner. They are lucky. Other people have to work things out as best they can, including being willing to compromise sometimes if necessary, but hopefully not too much. Many people have jobs they don't like, or even detest, but they manage to perform at standards nonetheless. The employer is interested in the employee's job performance; the employee must consider his/her duty to him/her own conscience. It's not easy to find a job these days which might not worry our conscience at some point. Dow Chemical used to make napalm; Westinghouse ran a polluting nuclear bomb factory; electric companies cause acid rain; AT&T admitted discriminating against women; Upjohn makes a medication that, according to 60 Minutes and the British government, turns people into murderers; even Kellogg's has been accused of anti-trust violations and of putting too many raisins in the Raisin Bran! Must one seek a morally pure company? If not, it's a question of how bad you take the company to be. No doubt some people have no problems with pesticides but would never work for a company which tolerates sexual harassment in the workplace. In that sense, ethics is the art of knowing what you want to fight and where you are willing to compromise.

I

Here we have an engineer who, on his first day on the job, discovers a waste disposal system which he doubts is up to par. Should he point this out to someone? Yes; if Carl has concerns about the system, why shouldn't he express these concerns to the plant manager? His buddy Rick has a 'don't rock the boat' attitude, but why assume Rick adequately represents the position of management? As a new employee, perhaps Carl in a position to see things or make suggestions which old-timers wouldn't notice, and which management might be glad to correct. Rick thinks management doesn't want to spend the money to make changes in the system, but whether they do or not is not Carl's decision. His professional responsibility would seem to be to make recommendations where appropriate. If management doesn't choose to follow the recommendations, Carl can consider what to do next; if Rick's view turns out to be correct and management doesn't even want to hear about the problems, then Carl has some fundamental reevaluation of his own place in such a company.

II

Now there is an unacceptable discharge caused in part by employee negligence. But Carl is also responsible because he forgot to check one valve. Carl has little choice but to acknowledge responsibility for failing to check C-2. Anything else would be evasion, dishonest, and avoidance of responsibility. However once he accepts responsibility there's no need to identify the culprit unless he's asked, but if he is asked, he has no choice but to do so. It's his job to know who's doing what, and he's the agent of management in evaluating his subordinates.

Carl is obviously at fault for not remembering the open valve, but there's a question why Carl wasn't provided with a checklist of cut-off valves to be referred to in such an emergency. Simply telling everybody to check the valves doesn't seem like an adequate safety procedure. Carl is a new employee so perhaps he can't really be expected to implement better procedures than are provided.

III

Kevin needs to talk to the WTW people and explain the situation, which is that caustic waste is moving towards the waste treatment works. Kevin estimates a range of values for the quantity of caustic waste likely to reach WTW, and offers to send however much acid is necessary, according to the estimation of the WTW people. (They are in a better position to know their current pH level than he is). His obligation is to avoid down-stream damage or danger. Evidently he is tempted to try to avoid the issue entirely on the basis that WTW wouldn't be able to trace the waste to its source at Emerson. Presumably this means he would ignore the spill and let the excess waste reach WTW, where it would do whatever damage such stuff does. This 'the hell with you' attitude is about as unethical as you can get. Being less than candid, as also suggested by the question, is not much better, since it implies doing less than necessary to fix the problem or limit the damage.

IV

Kevin acts responsibly and notifies the authorities: it's not clear why there should be disagreement about this from any differing points of view. His rationale is a self-interested one, which ought to convince management and stock-holders. The cost to Emerson is not given ($60,000 +) but it should not seem excessive, even from a self-interested point of view, considering the risks involved in trying to cover-up. Kevin Rourke indicates he's worried about losing his job, which should reassure Emerson management and stockholders that company incentives work to encourage appropriate behavior. Although Kevin does not mention any obligation Emerson might have to correct its errors before actually damage or harm is caused, this additional rationale ought to please WTW and local citizens. As for other industries, they should be pleased that Kevin has given them a model of responsible crisis management.

V

Rick's excuses for his mistake are rather pitiful, and he has to expect discipline. One hopes there are company policies and procedures regarding employee gross negligence. Unfortunately it's up to Carl to impose the necessary discipline. Clearly personal considerations have to be left out of it; he can't treat one employee more leniently than another because of a past relationship. If Carl is inclined to favor Rick, he might try to pass the buck to someone else who's more impartial, but this attempt at a cop-out probably won't raise his stock in the company. He's best off steeling himself to the task. From Rick's point of view, it might actually be fairer if Carl does excuse himself, since Carl might be overly harsh in order to overcome the possibility of being too lenient. As for Rick's personal situation, this might give him a case for easy treatment based on mercy or personal hardship, so if he wants to make a plea for mercy, he should have that right, but the proper place to make it would be not at Carl's level, where even-handed discipline should be administered, but at a higher level in the company somewhere. Of course this assumes the company has proper policies in place for giving a fair hearing to accused employees, and it should be stressed how important it is to have such policies, since situations such as the Rick error are inevitably going to arise. It also might be noted that it is Rick who has the bad attitude about 'don't rock the boat.' He attributes this to the company, but there's nothing in the case to substantiate that, and one point against it: the fact that Kevin acted responsibly in part due to fear for his job were he to cover-up and fail. Perhaps Rick's failure at the switch that day is in part due to his own attitude of indifference to job performance. And perhaps also he has too many things on his mind at this point in his life to act as a responsible employee.

VI

Carl is at fault for forgetting about valve C-2, and should be disciplined also, though there's not enough information in the case to know how serious was his failing to remember that no one was at the "seldom used area." Evidently three hours or so passed before the open valve was finally noticed; what was Carl doing during that time? Shouldn't he have remembered about the "seldom used area" sooner than that? Shouldn't he have called all the lead operators together to brain-storm the problem, and if so wouldn't one of them have remembered the "seldom used area"? On the other hand, Carl is a new employee, who has evidently not been given any training in how to handle a situation like this, so there's a lot of mitigation. Kevin ought to be able to take all these factors into account if he is to arrive at a just solution regarding Carl.

VII

Carl gets off easy when Kevin decides not to take any action against him and he should be relieved. In my view Kevin is too kind; he ought to tell Carl that his performance was less than sterling and that he's got to do better. Carl in his turn should complain to Kevin about the lack of training and of standard procedures for dealing with crises. There's enough responsibility here so that no one needs to feel that his performance was superior.

At the same time, Kevin's way of talking to Carl is a bit odd. His discipline against Carl seems to be to require him to fire Rick. Perhaps Kevin has read Carl correctly and understands that he is not about to let this mistake occur again, and that tightening up his unit is exactly what he intends to do. If so, Kevin is probably correct in not taking further action against Carl. At the same time, it may seem unfair to fire Rick and let Carl off scott free. But there is a difference: Rick had an ordinary responsibility which was easy to perform, but which he forgot due to other things on his mind. Carl on the other hand was faced with an unanticipated crisis for which he had neither experience nor training. Carl's failure was not improvising a solution under pressure, whereas Rick failed to perform a routine task in the course of ordinary business. So their situations are not at all comparable.

If Carl wants to protect Rick, he better not try it by lying. Kevin is going to tell him that it's his responsibility to find out who left the valve open; this can't be too difficult, and he ought to have known by now anyway. If Carl thinks friendship requires him to protect Rick, he can try and defend Rick to Kevin. If Rick has a good case, Kevin may respond favorably: there's nothing to indicate that Kevin is especially tough-nosed or insensitive (and in fact given his responsible action in notifying WTW, there's reason to believe he is ethically sensitive). Perhaps Kevin shouldn't order Rick fired without knowing all the facts, which Carl can put before him. Of course there's a risk that Kevin doesn't want to hear any excuses from Carl, and won't be pleased at Carl for defending a negligent employee; but if Carl feels he owes it to Rick, he will take that risk.

VIII

Rick gets Carl off the hook by resigning. Now he needs a job and asks Carl for references! His gall is almost beyond belief. He totally screwed up, cost the company big bucks, nearly knocked out the wastewater plant, put both Carl's and Kevin's jobs in jeopardy, and now wants a recommendation. If I were Carl, I'd agree to write it. First I'd tell Rick what I'd put in it. I'd think of all the good things I could say about Rick (which are not insignificant, considering his willingness to work hard, study and get ahead) but also I'd feel obliged to mention the circumstances of his departure from Emerson. If I felt that Rick's action was an isolated incident, I'd say so. If I were worried about his possible bad attitude and mounting personal problems, I'd say that. The point would be to provide enough information so that the potential employer can determine on his own judgment whether Rick's goof at the valve was an unfortunate and understandable mistake of a basically conscientious person who would likely become a valued employee, or was a sign of irresponsibility. And I'd leave it to Rick to decide whether that's the kind of letter he wants potential employers to read.

IX

Carl goofs again by failing to do the above, and lets himself in for the unpleasant but not unforeseeable consequence of having to explain himself on the phone. Should he explain to the new employer what the negative is in Rick's background? He might then have to excuse his failure to mention it in the letter, which might prove a bit awkward and might not do Rick and good by making his mistake seem more serious than Carl would like.

Why mention it at all? It's usually possible to evade such questions. It might even be possible to argue that Carl has no obligation to the unknown potential employer, but he does have some ties to Rick. It could be also argued that letters or even personal conversations concerning recommendations are all part of the 'recommendation game:' They are expected to contain puffery and little else, and readers discount them accordingly. A great recommendation means the candidate is no worse than fair, a mildly positive recommendation means the candidate is poor, and a recommendation containing any negatives at all means the candidate is terrible and essentially unhirable. This may be an unfortunate situation, it could be said, but that's the way the game is played and Carl as a very junior person is in no position to change the rules.

The short answer to this is that even if these are the rules (which is doubtful) by playing according to them Carl is both reinforcing them and putting his own credibility in danger. Bad rules should be circumvented where possible, not strengthened by being followed. And even if Carl has no obligation to the unknown potential employer, he does have an obligation to people he might write recommendations for in the future; it is better for them that he establish a reputation for candor. Anyway it's not clear that he doesn't have an obligation to the potential unknown employer; we have obligations to strangers, and among them is the obligation to tell the truth. Carl's obligation to Rick, based on ties of family friendship, is to do his best for him, but not to the extent of concealing material facts. Therefore Carl ought to tell the truth about Rick's lapse, but try to convince the employer that Rick really is a worthy person, as presumably Carl believes. (Of course if Carl really doesn't think Rick can be trusted with another job, then he never would have written the letter of recommendation in the first place).

X

In this scenario, another company, Nurrevo, by odd coincidence has an accident similar to Emerson's on the very same day. Since Kevin's responsible action in dispatching hydrochloric acid to WTW has solved Nurrevo's problem, Nurrevo may be tempted to pretend that nothing happened at their place. Despite this natural temptation, Nurrevo should inform Emerson and offer to share costs, though they might be forgiven if they feel that in doing so they are going the extra mile. Emerson costs would have been the same in any case, Nurrevo might reason, so why should they offer to share them? They probably have no legal obligation, since their spill has been cleaned up, although Emerson might want to contest this in court. Sharing costs would be the decent thing to do, however, since Nurrevo has benefitted by Emerson's expenditure. What they actually do might depend on whether there's a cooperative atmosphere, or whether the two companies are in cut-throat competition, in which case Nurrevo might be tempted to rejoice at Emerson's bad luck.

XI

Andrea Smith is Kevin's counterpart at Nurrevo, which means she's a plant manager. I imagine this is not a terribly exalted position and does not put her in a very strong position to challenge higher management, or to search up the ladder for someone who might take her view of things. She wants to report her spill to WTW, but her superior, Fred, doesn't want to move too quickly, hoping that there's been some mistake somewhere. As it turns out, Fred's faith in Higher Providence is rewarded: news of Emerson's spill arrives just in time to forestall Nurrevo's report to WTW. Andrea is not too pleased with Fred's decision.

Not to confess is a higher management decision which Andrea seems powerless to alter without excessive risk to herself, and so she should be guided by the rule of prudence, which says pick your battles carefully and remember how little ammunition you have. Not everything with which you disagree needs to be challenged. The ethical failure here does not involve any risk to public heath or safety, nor any harm to employees, nor does it involve theft, fraud tax evasion, stock manipulation etc. It involves failure to admit responsibility, which is dishonest but not itself harmful, and failure to share costs with a competitor, which is not very nice but perhaps not a mortal sin. So Andrea might want to consider filing the incident away for future reference in her memory banks.

Don is trying to research health problems he fears may affect workers at ABC Manufacturing. He shows admirable initiative and concern for fellow employees. But his supervisor, Cal, prefers that potential health problems remain unknown, presumably for fear that ABC will have to make costly changes in the factory. To this point, Don's actions indicate commendable concern for the welfare of others, extending beyond his official responsibilities.

Now we're supposed to believe that Cal has blocked Don's access to the library. Don should confront Cal with this and get it cleared up. If Cal has covertly refused Don's library access, he is being sneaky and shows himself to be untrustworthy. If he has reason not to want Don to use the library, he should order Don directly not to do so. Don should simply tell Cal that there are other libraries and he's going to get the article he wants somewhere, so Cal should stop being so petty. If Cal then orders Don to drop all further investigation into the problem, Don has the right to tell Cal that it's not within Cal's authority to control how he uses his free time.

Suppose Don confirms his suspicions about the workplace chemical. In that event, he should initiate whatever steps are necessary to obtain company and OSHA review. This may not be easy, or even possible, but Don's responsibilities don't go any further than putting the problem on the way to solution. Don is not himself responsible for seeing that the problem is resolved; there are labor unions, government regulations, law courts and all the rest for that. As an engineer, his responsibility goes no further than to see to it that these other channels are activated.

However Don might not want to do any of this in order not to antagonize his superior. He then obviously has a bit of a dilemma. If he's really afraid of Cal, he might be justified in dropping the investigation, or at least dropping it after discretely putting someone less exposed onto it, for example, the employee's labor union. He won't like this, but if he doesn't comply, he may have a fight coming, and may be disciplined or lose his job. This doesn't affect his ethical position, but he's entitled to temper ethics with prudence.

I

May Paul accept Duncan's invitation to play golf at Duncan's club? Duncan is a vendor from whom Paul makes purchases. So there is a potential for corruption in a friendship relationship. All things considered, however, I don't see why not. Duncan is a potential good contact for Paul. There are all sorts of opportunities at the golf club. And Paul has a right to his private life and his golf games. However Paul should be aware of the potential conflict of interest. There's no reason to worry about anything yet, but he ought to be alert to dangers.

II

Play for money? Why not? No reason to suspect a plot! Is he getting drawn into something? Maybe, but he's a grown-up and can take care of himself, one hopes, which means he isn't yet at the point where he wonders if he's being compromised in some way by betting with his suppliers. Presumably playing for money is illegal. But this does not seem to prevent everybody from doing it, and why should Paul set himself up as holier than thou, unless he has real scruples about gambling? If he does, then of course he shouldn't accept. What he has to be wary about is getting too deeply into debt, either financially or through friendship, with Duncan. At this point, he might protect himself by making it his business to remind Duncan from time to time that their relationship is purely golfing, which won't affect Paul's business decisions.

III

Things seem to be going along very nicely. Paul's golf game is flourishing and so is his sporting life. Several hundred dollars won over "years" is not really a lot of money. Paul has no reason to fear he's putting himself in a compromising situation with regard to the money. However his evidently close friendship with Duncan might compromise his judgment with regard to contract awards, so he'd better look carefully at his business dealing with Duncan. Perhaps he might have another person in his office look over some of his contract decisions, just to make sure he's not letting something slip by because of his friendship. And perhaps he ought to inform his superiors of his golfing relationship, so that there's no appearance of deception. And perhaps Bluestone Ltd. routinely reviews its contract procedures, in which case Paul can safely assume that such reviews would identify any problems. In any case, if Paul is prudent he's made it clear to Duncan that their relationship is purely golf and nothing in the way of business can come of it.

So Paul might be clear in his own mind that there is nothing amiss in his relationship with Duncan, but if there are competing vendors, they might raise the question of conflict of interest. Mere friendship without financial connection is however at best a flimsy ground for making conflict of interest accusations stick. Perhaps Paul should be sure that his superiors at Bluestone are aware of his golfing relationship, so they can assign Duncan's business to another contract officer, if they wish. If the superiors approve the golfing relationship, and Paul is happy with it in his own mind, there's no reason to suspect a problem before one arises.

IV

It is now necessary to cut back on vendors and the engineers must decide which ones will be dropped. At this point there is a potential problem since Paul might be expected to be biased in Duncan's favor. The other engineers should be told about Paul's golfing relationship with Duncan, if they haven't already. Were Paul not to reveal the relationship and then participate in the cut-back decision, he's be in the position of either having to vote against Duncan, or face the possibility that his favorable vote might some day be questioned.

V

Ideally Paul should not participate in the cut-back decision. However if the other two engineers are comfortable with it, accepting his word that he will appraise the situation without favoritism, it does not seem wrong for him to continue. On the contrary, the principle that no one should make decisions regarding friends might render all decisions impossible, since the other engineers might also have friends among the vendors. Making adverse decisions against those you are friends with is something that might have to happen, not only in business but any institution. If not a vendor, then a fellow employee, subordinate, or job candidate. The alternative to learning to live with this would be never to make friends with anyone within your business community.

Paul reluctantly concludes that Duncan should be the vendor who is dropped. He doesn't want to propose this himself, however. He thinks he will keep his view to himself, so that either Duncan will be spared or it will be the others who will decide to cut him. This contemplated strategy is clever but not entirely fair to the others, since they too may have friends whom they might be loathe to vote against. Furthermore by not speaking his mind he is biasing the discussion in favor of Duncan, since potentially persuasive adverse comments could be made about the other vendors. Paul by considering this strategy is covering himself and avoiding the problem rather than facing it.

At the same time, if Paul thinks he owes Duncan something, he's perfectly free to try to make the best case he can for Duncan in the committee. It's only fair that every vendor have someone on the committee who makes his case; perhaps Paul could convince the committee to set up such a procedure, or informally ask the other members to make the strongest case for each of the vendors in turn. Once this is done, however, Paul owes it to the other members and the other vendors that he state his mind frankly.

VI

The other two engineers recommend against Duncan. It's not clear why Paul doesn't oppose the other two engineers, unless he thinks the case against Duncan is so clear that counter-arguments would be not only useless but antagonistic. Since he feels he has a duty to protect Duncan, at least to a certain extent, he might at the least assure himself that every point in Duncan's favor has been made and considered by the committee. His failure to say anything therefore is puzzling.

Paul decides to give Duncan the bad news himself, and Duncan wants to know what Paul said in the committee. Since Duncan has asked Paul what he said, Paul might consider confessing that he didn't say anything. But first he should reflect whether the deliberations with the other two engineers are supposed to be confidential, and whether he might compromise their positions if he tells Duncan that it was they and not him who voted against him. If so, then he has to decline D's request. If there's no question of confidentiality, then he has to tell Duncan that the best he could do for him was not vote, since if he had voted he'd have voted against. This may be difficult to say to Duncan, but presumably Paul is confident that the decision was correct.

However his position with regard to Duncan is cloudy, since he knows he really did not do his best to put Duncan's case in the best possible light. He's probably going to want to evade any precise discussion with Duncan of what was said at the meeting. Vague reference to confidentially is not out of order at this point.

VII

Paul tells the truth to Duncan, whose reaction is not pleasant. Given that Paul apparently thinks he ought to have done more on Duncan's behalf, his admission that he said nothing is courageous. Duncan's outburst is childish and contemptible, and Paul should ignore it, though further friendship between them is going to be difficult unless Duncan apologizes. Duncan's admission that he has been craftily letting Paul beat him will probably poison any future relationship however, since Duncan reveals himself as untrustworthy and manipulative.

Answer: Paul's judgement may be influenced perhaps, but that doesn't mean that his judgement is determined or irrevocably altered by his friendship. As long as Paul can take steps to control or minimize the influence when necessary, there is no actual conflict of interests or roles. If Paul does take the right steps, there's no problem. If Paul doesn't take steps to control the influence, he is morally guilty of bad judgement, or giving in to temptation, etc. In other words, any moral problem is a problem about Paul's choices rather than about any conflict of roles. Hence there isn't any significant way in which Paul is morally compromised by the situation itself (i.e., by his playing several roles).

This example can be generalized. Cases where it is claimed that persons are involved in conflicts of interest (when these are not based on contractual considerations) are really just cases of moral temptation, when one is tempted to do something that one knows one should not do. 'Two-hat' cases naturally give rise to temptations, since often factors belonging to one could (physically rather than morally) be used to apply additional leverage to another. However, if one does give in to such temptations, it simply is a case of immoral action in convenient circumstances. It doesn't show that there was a real conflict of interests, or that there was anything inherently morally compromising about the combination of roles.

In order to be fair to the other side, let us consider a more extreme example in which Paul's business judgement is so influenced by his friendship with Duncan that psychologically he cannot be objective, no matter how hard he tries. (Note again that it is not the interests or roles which conflict, but rather that Paul is unable to think about the situation without mixing them up or confusing them.) First, if Duncan realizes he cannot be objective, he can take suitable action such as to inform his fellow committee members at Bluestone of this, and let them make the decision about Duncan's company.

Second, even if Paul does not specifically realize he cannot be objective in this case, it is part of his general duty as a engineer or manager to learn about the kinds of situations in which his decisions might be judged by others to be biassed, and so to withdraw himself from making a decision in such cases. In other words, there are always things which Duncan could do to prevent any moral harm occurring because of his confusion and general inability to 'handle' such situations. Hence he is not morally compromised by his roles in such cases. If Paul does allow himself to be swayed by undue influence from a friend, the blame is his alone.

It remains to relate my general view that 'roles don't really conflict' to my initial view that social rules or regulations prohibiting some specific conflicts can be legitimate. For example, it would be reasonable to prohibit a businessperson from submitting a bid on behalf of company B to a company C, while at the same time he himself is the individual at C who judges all bids submitted (this is a factually possible situation if he holds both jobs).

The reason for having a regulation against such a 'conflict' is because of the very strong temptations to bias in such a case, through a mixing or conflation of the person's role as advocate for B with his role as impartial judge for C. That is, as before it is the strong temptations to moral backsliding or failure which are our legitimate concerns here, not any conflicts between the roles themselves.

Such cases are closely analogous to other potential moral temptations or failings which regulations address, such as those preventing a manager from depositing corporate funds in his personal bank account with the intention of repaying it shortly. In such a case it is very clear that the rule seeks to remove the temptations, and no-one would say that the rule is really seeking to prevent a 'conflict of interest' between his roles as private depositor and as corporate depositor in his own bank account. In other words, talk about 'conflicts of interest' is at best a metaphor, and often a very unhelpful metaphor, for talking about moral temptations.

L. Bryan Springer is ordered to dump a drum of coolant in a way that seems to him to be both illegal and harmful to the environment. He 'ponders his options.' What are they? He has at least ten. He could comply and (1) keep quiet. He could comply, but report Max's illegal orders, either (2) within or (3) outside of the company. Or, (4) he could refuse, quit, and keep quiet; or refuse, quit, and report Max either (5) within or (6) outside of the company. Or, he could refuse and wait and see if Max fires him. If Max does, L. Bryan could (7) leave the company quietly and get another job; or (8) threaten Max with reporting him in the hope that Max will not fire him after all; or, report Max after being fired, again either (9/10) within or outside of the company.

Should L. Bryan identify and analyze these options and try to figure out which is the best? One might wonder whether Bryan's position justifies his making a moral and intellectual crisis of this incident. One view would be that morality is 'situation independent'-- that every illegality or immorality must be confronted, no matter who you are or what your relation is to the wrongdoer. On this view, all that triggers the moral necessity to act is, knowledge of the wrongful act. Given that you are required to do something, it follows that you ought to carefully consider your options and try to determine which is the morally best. On the other hand, perhaps it is relevant that L. Bryan holds merely a summer job as a forklift operator, presumably low-level, though well-paid, unskilled labor. He has no personal, professional or financial connection to the company, which to him is merely a meal-ticket back to college. Is it his responsibility to see that this company's wrongful actions be corrected? In personal relations, there is a principle of minding one's own business: sometimes it is best to overlook what people do, even things you find distasteful or even shocking, just because it is not up to you to interfere. Might not such a principle apply to certain employees? On this view, more than knowledge of the wrong is necessary to justify some reaction to that wrong. It is hard to say exactly what that 'more' might be, but following the analogy of personal relations, perhaps one ought to have a sufficiently strong or close connection with the wrongdoer.

One reason for the 'mind your own business' principle is that one thing leads to another. If you do interfere in something you find unpalatable, you may find yourself drawn more deeply into a situation than you anticipated or are prepared to handle. Therefore unless you're already involved through your relationship with the parties, you should stay out. In this case, refusing Max's order might not only get L. Bryan fired, but would put him in the position of having a second and a third decision to make--whether to fight to retain the job, and whether to report Max within the company or to an enforcement agency. Refusing to dump the coolant and then just walking away from the bad situation (knowing that Max will just hire someone else who's probably going to be more compliant) might not seem like an ideal, or even an acceptable, solution. L. Bryan is not an engineer, not even a graduate student, but only a college student who has (presumably) neither the knowledge nor other resources necessary to make a long-term fight out of this violation. So perhaps L. Bryan might be forgiven if he were to take Max's advice and do what he's told.

Yet in the present case, L. Bryan does not merely find out about the illegal dumping; he is being ordered to perform it himself. This makes it more difficult--but not out of the question--to claim that it is not any of his business. L. Bryan evidently does not share Max's cynicism about environmental regulations, and his words to Max seem to indicate that he has strong convictions against violating the regulations and possibly harming the environment. So he must examine his conscience and see how strong these feelings really are. If they are as strong as his words seem to indicate, then it is clear that he has little choice but to refuse Max's order and see what Max does about it. He can hardly justify the claim that he's only following orders and that it isn't important enough to worry about, when on his own principles dumping toxins is important enough to worry about.

So L. Bryan has a lot to think about. Before he refuses Max's order, he might consider some of his options, for example, whether, should Max fire him, he wants to fight to keep the job, perhaps by threatening Max to report him to somebody, if he is willing and able to do that. But if he chooses to take this route, he has to be sure he's going to follow up. Of course he also has to consider what he'll do if Max backs off. Should he report Max's practice anyway? Suppose Max tells L. Bryan he doesn't have to dump the coolant and then assigns him to some other job. Should L. Bryan assume that the illegal dumping is going on as before (they've been doing it for years after all, long before L. Bryan came around); and if so, then what does he do? He might feel obliged to snoop around and find out, with a view to reporting Max anyway. After all, if he stops at simply getting himself out from under the order to do the dumping himself, all the while suspecting that the illegal practice is continuing, he might be guilty of 'clean hands'--i.e., the position that it's okay if dirty things go on as long as I don't have to do them. So the situation is more complicated than college-student L. Bryan is likely to imagine at first blush, when in the rush of indignation he challenges Max by contradicting his claim that "nothing's happened" so far.

Considering the open-ended commitment L. Bryan might find himself taking on if he decides to make an issue of this incident, I think there is room for the conclusion that given his limited relationship to the company, he might honorably decide that there is no real reason to get involved with this problem. The whole thing can be regarded as a marvelous learning opportunity.

I

In the course of a meeting with the customer XYZ, R&M engineer Walt Winters understands that failure of a part was the fault of R&M, probably due to insufficient testing. Should he blurt out this insight then and there? No, one should not talk about internal company problems in the presence of the customer. Call a recess, or wait. Walt's insight is confidential to R&M, and might embarrass them and cost them money and customer confidence. Wantonly damaging your own company is not appropriate behavior.

At the same time, what is left on the table is that R&M, through Norm, has asserted that the equipment is fine; which it isn't. Perhaps Walt should have called a recess in order to persuade Norm to abandon this position, if not expressly, at least implicitly. The engineer has the responsibility to see that management does not repeat errors, even if they might not confess to having made them.

II

Walt says nothing, and R&M people work out a solution with XYZ without admitting any fault. The solution presumably satisfies the customer, so it's not clear why R&M should have to go further. Nor is there any indication that XYZ is harmed in some way by R&M's failure to confess error. XYZ is free to draw their own conclusions about what went wrong; if they want R&M to tell them, then can make further inquiries. Nothing is to be gained at this point by Walt going further than management wishes to go. Candor is fine, but at times serves no purpose and can be counter-productive.

III

The lesson Walt might learn is that honesty is one thing, discretion another. Here R&M used discretion in not revealing something they weren't asked about. No harm is done, the client is satisfied, and presumably R&M was prepared to be more candid if asked.

Can Walt learn anything from negotiator Norm's stonewalling by stating R&M's 'official position' that R&M wasn't at fault? Apparently Norm believes in playing 'hardball,' and Walt doesn't. But the case doesn't give enough information about this. Does 'hardball' lead into an adversary relationship which is ultimately detrimental to both parties? Is hardball necessary to avoid legal problems, or to get a better position should there be a legal dispute? Was it really necessary for Norm to go out on a limb and adopt an 'official position' which turned out to be mistaken, and which potentially could have been embarrassing for R&M to retract? In a sense, R&M is lucky that XYZ hasn't pushed matters further. They are also lucky that the failure was not of such a nature to cause XYZ serious problems, or R&M might have had the obligation to confess their error voluntarily. Walt might learn something about this from this case, but evidently there were no further consequences so maybe he didn't.

I

Stephanie Simon is asked to 'rework those numbers' so that the environmental report no longer indicates an excessive chemical spill. Reworking numbers to fit management's pleasure is dishonest, wrong and should never be done. There is no ethical problem about this; the problem is a personal one for Stephanie since presumably her career is at risk. The problem may seem complicated because manager Adam Baines thinks the regulations are excessive and the company's spill is trivial, which could very well be the case (Stephanie may even agree with this assessment); nevertheless falsification of the report is not the way to handle the problem.

So what Stephanie should do is patiently explain to manager Adam why it would be wrong for her to falsify her data. Ultimately, her line must be that if he wants different data, he can provide it himself; let him write his own report. There's no need to indicate on the report why Stephanie didn't write it! Her course is to politely but firmly refuse, stating her reasonable grounds: it is a violation of ethics codes, it's legally risky, it compromises her credibility, it undermines public respect for engineers and for XYZ company. This refusal puts the ball in Adam's court; what move Stephanie will make next would depend on how Adam handles the situation. (Does he try to fire her for insubordination? Does he do nothing immediately, only to begin a campaign of harassment against her later? Does he refuse to recommend her for promotion? Each of these possibilities raises different problems. On the other hand, maybe he'll respect her integrity).

II

Unfortunately her way of handling the situation is confrontational and indeed apocalyptic. She quits! Is she really resigning because of this one incident? If so, she demonstrates in stable temperament at worst and bad judgment at best, so perhaps the incident may have served a useful purpose in provoking her departure. (Maybe manager Adam deliberately causes such incidents to see how his subordinates will react?)

As for her threat to send Adam's upstairs, this threat of course amounts to blackmail. Adam may have to face up to his own indiscretion in order to get out from under Stephanie's threats; otherwise she may find other opportunities to use it against him. So maybe he'd better write up the incident, admit what prompted her resignation, and send it upstairs himself. Presumably he'll learn not to ask subordinates to do something illegal and unethical.

III

There's no special problem here. Bruce, Stephanie's successor, is creating problems for himself by volunteering to alter the data. If 'rounding off' is within acceptable engineering practice, so that the state agency receiving the report may be expected to understand that figures might be rounded off, then Bruce is within his rights to round off, and might as well do so in a way that does save the company grief. (A note could be added to the report indicating that figures have been rounded off to nearest hundred, or whatever). If 'rounding off' is a grey area--no consensus on whether it's acceptable or not--then Bruce ought to follow company policy as presumably stated by manager Adam. To clarify that rounding off is company policy, Bruce might first ask Adam how he wants the numbers handled. But if rounding off is prohibited, Bruce can't do it.

IV

To evaluate from different points of view:

1. Presumably the state agency wants correct figures, and would regard Adam's demands as unacceptable and possibly illegal; the agency thus might consider legal action against XYZ company.
2. Does the CEO of XYZ share Adam's views about over-regulation? Probably he does; he therefore conforms to regulations in order to avoid legal problems and for reasons of image. There are costs which XYZ must bear, but finding out how to pay costs associated with regulation is part of the CEO's job. At the same time, if he thinks the regulations are excessively burdensome or environmentally unnecessary, the CEO has means of trying to get them changed, which he is undoubtedly pursuing. However skirting the regulations by falsifying data isn't among the CEO's options.
3. If the attorneys haven't told CEO officials to obey the law, they ought to.
4. It's not clear why other industries have any different problems from XYZ, or would have a different point of view. They may all be unhappy with the regulations, but they all share an equal interest in obeying them, while trying to change them via accepted channels.
5. That someone's health may be adversely affected seems to beg the question against Adam, who presumably thinks that the regulations are not necessary to protect anybody's health. We'd want to know more about what's behind Adam's views; he could be wrong in thinking that the industry is over-regulated. As for other employees, if Adam doesn't think the regulations are necessary, maybe the other employees at XYZ don't think so either. Since they have no responsibility for managing XYZ, they are in a good position to favor evasion of the regulations, which cost the company money and thus endanger profits and jobs. Of course someone could take the view that since the regulations are put into effect by a state agency, they must be necessary. Perhaps this is the view of some of the employees at XYZ. Obviously these employees will want the regulations obeyed, at least up to the point where their own jobs are threatened.

This question refers to "responsibly handle environmental problems." However the case doesn't raise this broad issue, but only the question of false reporting of marginal data. There is no challenge to Adam's statement that XYZ does a terrific job, environment-wise. Obeying regulations characterized as difficult to interpret and so on, should not be equated with being responsible. Nonetheless the community is likely to think so, because of the adverse publicity that attends revelations that certain companies violated regulations. What the community's real environmental interests are, is a question not within the scope of this case.

Should the actors take into account how the community is likely to react to revelations of data falsifying? Certainly; the reaction will be adverse and against the interests of XYZ. If the fact that it's wrong isn't enough reason not to do it, then this reason might be sufficient. However lower-level employees might be excused for not considering the wider interests of the company, or even of the community. They ought to be honest and obey the law, for ethical reasons. They are entitled to their opinions about other matters, but aren't necessarily required to incorporate these opinions into their actions.