Our interviews with various professionals in the science industries suggested that certain industries (e.g. biological research, bioengineering, etc.) tend to face ethical dilemmas more often than others. As a result, some industries have many resources for ethical counseling where others do not or rarely incorporate ethics resources in their training. Case in point, our interview with Ling Wang at Boeing highlighted the shortfalls of ethical training in large corporations where production involves largely uncontroversial goods in today’s society. When asked about what she could do if a perceived ethical problem was uncovered, she said it would be basically up to her superiors how to proceed. The sheer size of Boeing has been an advantage in this aspect because it is highly unlikely an unethical proposal will make it extremely far up the approval stages. When asked about the resources that were available, she said that there was ethics “training” which involved a single session that all new employees had to participate in where they learned more about company policies and etiquette (photography, etc.) rather than ethics in the sense of what we are discussing in class.
Our interview with Ling was eye opening and a bit troubling to us because we believe that any company should have a strong emphasis on employee ethics regardless of what is being produced. Airplanes may not be as hotly contested as genetic manipulation, but the impact of an unethical act that makes its way to production can be just as devastating. We think that an ethics resource that fosters ethical thought and resolves ethical debates will be beneficial to Boeing and other companies because it would ideally lead to a more unified and thorough knowledge base spread among its employees, thus leading to engineering that would more naturally consider the greater good of consumers and customers alike.
As a result of how we interpreted the problem, we determined that the solution was to be twofold. First, it’s imperative that there is a space which can be devoted exclusively to the discourse of ethics. Hence, we would propose a meeting consisting of a single representative from each department for a few hours on a monthly basis. This would be an arena where the ethical issues from each respective department would be considered and open to discussion or debate to the rest of those in attendance. In the event that a specific issue was considered controversial enough, the passage of the corresponding company action would be put to a vote, where each person at the meeting would receive an equal say regardless of their normal standing within the company. Consequently, the vote on this action would not be privy to overrule by higher-ups. Moreover, to ensure an all-encompassing discussion, any employee of the company would be free to submit topics or issues for consideration at the meeting. To allow for impartiality, the ‘representative’ from each department who attends the meeting would change every month, such that each meeting is composed of an entirely different set of people.
Second, we would require that every project proposal contain a short section on ethics outlining the debate on both sides of every conceivable ethical issue. This could be appended to the entire proposal, or included in each section that poses a potential ethical issue – i.e. cost, materials, scope, risks, etc. This would then be reviewed by an independent third-party public relations contractor that would then decide whether the ethical issues constituted enough to submit to the aforementioned ethics monthly meeting. This contractor, since not directly involved with the company, would not have the authority to give a verdict on whether the proposal would be approved, but would simply have the power to recommend that further discourse take place regarding said proposal.
In addition, if groups find that there is little to discuss for one reason or another, members can choose to bring in controversial technology topics from general news sources to discuss, much like we have done with Ethics in the News in discussion section. What we have found as a team is that regardless of the topic at hand that was brought up, we each learned to consider a different viewpoint on a topic that was once pretty clearly laid out in our minds. Just this act in itself develops a greater sense of understanding of the ideas that exist in the world. We believe that even though projects at Boeing may not directly be impacted by discussing unrelated news, the engineers will be able to expand their thought horizon and benefit the company and progress indirectly by participating in an Ethics in the News of their own.
Finally, during Jonathan Ma’s interview with Allison Ryan, he learned that genetics have a specialized counselor that consulted both the geneticists and the patients on ethical dilemmas that they may face. We believe that this addition role could be beneficial to other fields as well. Any employee with ethical dilemmas can now talk to a person who is trained in resolving these dilemmas. We believe that many employees do not talk about ethics because they do not know where to go, or perhaps just do not think about ethical problems because their co-workers do not bring up the topic. By introducing an employee specialized in solutions to ethical problems, not only will employee have that place to go, but the presence of this specialist may cause employee to take the first step in working out any ethical dilemmas they may face; realizing that said dilemmas exist and are important to talk about.
We expect the implementation of this new practice to cause multiple positive effects on the employees at Boeing, and maybe even spread to other companies. The first and most likely outcome we foresee is the creation of a more inclusive community. Opening these topics of conversation among all employees regardless of their position in the company will allow workers that are lower in the corporate hierarchy to voice out their ethical concerns related to the company’s products. This practice can help Boeing integrate its employees and unify them in goals and expectations, therefore establishing a more transparent working environment clear of uncertainties regarding the ethical implications inherent in their products.
A second effect we expect is an active practice and examination of ethical issues existing within Boeing. In engineering, ethics is unfortunately a topic that is often brushed under the carpet. The interview with Ling showed us how even in large companies ethical resources are sparse. We hope that by keeping these meetings available Boeing will integrate the ethical view of its workers creating more ethically conscious culture. Even though the products that the company works with does not provoke many ethical issues, we think that if the engineering teams execute more ethically conscious decision in their projects they will gain more trust from their customers since it shows the customers the level of caring of the company.
Lastly, depending on the effectiveness of this practice at Boeing we hope that it will be adopted by other companies increasing the overall consciousness of ethics in industry. Eventually, the ideal outcome is that this practice becomes part of the standard in companies like Boeing when interacting with their employees and customers.
