Truthfulness and Whistle Blowing

Global Issues and Justice

 Whistle Blowing
• Definition
Whistleblowing occurs when an employee conveys
information about a significant moral problem to someone
in a position to take action on the problem, and does so
outside regular in-house channels for addressing disputes
or grievances.
• The definition has 4 main parts
– Disclosure. Information is intentionally conveyed outside
approved organizational channels or in situations where the
person conveying it is under pressure from supervisors or
others not to do so.
– Topic. The information concerns what the person believes is
a significant moral problem for the organization (serious
threat to public or employee safety, criminal behaviour,
injustices)
– Agent. The person disclosing the information is an employee
or former employee.
– Recipient. The information is conveyed to a person or
organization in a position to act on the problem.
Controversies In Whistleblowing
• When is whistleblowing morally permissible?
• Is it morally obligatory, or is it beyond the call of
duty?
• To what extent, do engineers have a right to
whistleblow?
• When is doing so immoral and imprudent?
• When is whistleblowing an act of disobedience
and disloyalty to an organization?
• What procedures ought to be followed in
blowing the whistle?
Moral Guidelines for
Whistle Blowing
Under what conditions can or should engineers blow the whistle?
• Because going outside one’s organization with sensitive
information is a serious undertaking, it stands to reason that
certain conditions should be met before anyone blows the
whistle:
1. The actual or potential harm reported is serious and has
been adequately documented.
2. The concerns have been reported to immediate superiors.
3. After not getting satisfaction from immediate superiors,
regular channels within the organization have been used
to reach up to the highest levels of management.
• The information may then be released confidentially to a
relevant government authority, and only when that fails to
bring an adequate response should public disclosure be
considered.
 Types of Whistle Blowing
• External whistleblowing – the information is
passed outside the organization.
• Internal whistleblowing – the information is
conveyed to someone within the
organization (but outside approved channels
or against pressures by immediate
supervisors)
• Open whistleblowing – individuals openly
reveal their identity as they convey the
information.
• Anonymous whistleblowing – concealing
one’s identity.
 Counter Arguments
• Blowing the whistle openly could result not only in the loss
of one’s job but also in being blacklisted within the
profession.
• The public shares responsibilities in passing reasonable
laws protecting responsible whistleblowers. When those
laws do not exist or enforced, the public has little basis for
demanding that engineers risk their means of livelihood.
• Not all whistleblowing is admirable, obligatory, or even
permissible.
• Inaccurate whistleblowing can cause unjustified harm to
companies that unfairly receive bad publicity.
• The most common argument against whistleblowing
portrays it as an act of disobedience that therefore is
supposed to constitute disloyalty to the employer by a
disgruntled employee.
Protecting Whistle blowers

Whistleblowing is lonely, unrewarded, and fraught with

peril. It entails a substantial risk of retaliation which is
difficult and expensive to challenge. Furthermore,
“success” may mean no more than retirement to a job
where the bridges are already burned, or monetary
compensation that cannot undo damage to a reputation,
career and personal relationships.
• Yet the vital service to the public by whistleblowers has
led to public awareness of a need to protect them
against retaliation by the affected .
Beyond Whistle blowing
• The obvious way to remove the need for internal
whistleblowing is for management to allow greater
freedom and openness of communication within the
organization – “open-door” policies.
• The same sort of intra-organizational modifications can
be used to remove external whistleblowing.
• Engineers may simply decide to quit if they are unhappy
with certain situations (that could trigger
whistleblowing). The now unemployed engineer can
more freely blow the whistle but should keep in mind
that this may lessen chances of finding employment in
the future, especially when claims of wrongdoing are
greatly exaggerated, whether by the whistleblower or a
news medium.
Truthfulness
• Why is truthfulness important?
• Most moral theories defend truthfulness
• Honesty has two primary meanings:
(1) truthfulness, which centers on meeting
responsibilities about truth, and
(2) trustworthiness, which centers on
meeting responsibilities about trust

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 Academic Integrity
• Honesty as an engineer begins with honesty in studying to become an
engineer. Academic dishonesty among students takes several forms.
• Cheating: intentionally violating the rules of fair play in any academic exercise,
for example, by using crib notes or copying from another student during a test.
• Fabrication: intentionally falsifying or inventing information, for example, by
faking the results of an experiment.
• Plagiarism: intentionally or negligently submitting others’ work as one’s own,
for example, by quoting the words of others without using quotation marks and
citing the source.
• Facilitating academic dishonesty: intentionally helping other students to engage
in academic dishonesty, for example, by loaning them your work.
• Misrepresentation: intentionally giving false information to an instructor, for
example, by lying about why one missed a test.
• Failure to contribute to a collaborative project: failing to do one’s fair share on
a joint project.
• Sabotage: intentionally preventing others from doing their work, for example,
by disrupting their lab experiment.
• Theft: stealing, for example, stealing library books or other students’ property.
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 Globalization and Ethical Issues
• With Globalization comes the Ethical question.
Several issues arise which need to be debated
and discussed
Globalization
Multinational Corporations and Ethical
Issues
Environmental Ethics
Computer and Internet Ethics
Proliferation of Weapons
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 Globalization
• Globalization refers to the increasing integration of nations
through trade, investment, transfer of technology, and
exchange of ideas and culture.
• Globalization has also come to involve the increasing
coordination trade, fiscal, and monetary policies among
countries.
• Today’s interdependence among societies—economic,
political, and cultural—is unprecedented in its range and
depth. So are the possibilities for increased unity and
increased fractures during the process of globalization.
• Global interdependency affects engineering and engineers in
many ways, including the internet issues and the
environmental issues as well as multinational corporations
and military work.
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 Multinational Corporations

• Multinational Corporations conduct extensive business in

more than one country.
• Several moral and ethical challenges arise such as off shore
drilling, environmental pollution, fracking and ecological
disasters
• Multinational corporations have the right to take the jobs off
shore when the conditions allow them to save money and
protect their profits.

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 Working for Profit Mentality
• The benefits to Multinational Corporations of
doing business in less economically developed
countries are
– Inexpensive labor
– Availability of natural resources.
– Favorable tax arrangements.
– Fresh markets for products.
• With some countries offering a much less
regulated conditions, multinational corporations
have free hand. One such example is the Bhopal
disaster.
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 The Bhopal disaster, also referred

The Bhopal Disaster to as the Bhopal gas tragedy,

was a gas leak incident in India,
considered the world's worst
industrial disaster.
• Union Carbide in 1984 operated in 37 host countries in addition to its
home country, the United States, ranking 35th in size among U.S.
corporations.
• On December 3, 1984, the operators of Union Carbide’s plant in Bhopal,
India, became alarmed by a leak and overheating in a storage tank. The
tank contained methyl isocyanate (MIC), a toxic ingredient used in
pesticides. As a concentrated gas, MIC burns any moist part of bodies
with which it comes in contact, scalding throats and nasal passages,
blinding eyes, and destroying lungs.
• Within an hour the leak exploded in a gush that sent 40 tons of deadly
gas into the atmosphere. It was the worst industrial disaster in human
history.
• Refusal to safety practices and low wages to Indian workers resulted in
a disgruntled worker to unscrew a pressure valve on a storage tank,
according to official account.
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Moral and Social balance of
Multinational Corporations
• The benefits to the participants in developing countries
are:
– New jobs
– Jobs with higher pay and greater challenge
– Transfer of advanced technology
– Social benefits from sharing wealth
• However, moral difficulties arise…
– Job loss at home country when manufacturing is taken offshore.
– Host country lose in resources, control over trade and standards,
and political independence.
– Influence of multinationals on the roles of national government
– Moral responsibilities of corporations and individuals operating in
less economically developed countries.

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Technology Transfer
• Multinational corporations usually practise technology
transfer.
• Technology transfer is the process of moving technology
to a novel setting and implementing it there. This
includes both hardware (machines and installations) and
technique (technical, organizational, and managerial
skills and procedures).
• Appropriate technology refers to identification, transfer,
and implementation of the most suitable technology for
a new set of conditions.
• Appropriate technology also implies that the technology
should contribute to and not distract from sustainable
development of the host country by providing for careful
stewardship of its natural resources and not degrading
the environment beyond its carrying capacity.
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A Critical View
• Three types of view on moral responsibilities of
multinational corporations;
– Ethical relativism – “when in Rome do as the Romans do”
– Ethical absolutism – moral principles have no justified exceptions
and that what is morally true in one situation is true everywhere
else.
– Ethical relationalism – moral judgments should be made in
relation to factors that vary from situation to situation, usually
making it impossible to formulate rules that are both simple and
absolute.
• Ethical relativism is false because it implies moral
absurdities. (e.g. low safety standards). Absolutism is
false because it fails to take account of how moral
principles can come into conflict, forcing some justified
exceptions.

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THANK YOU