Whistle-blowing and Its Features
Whistle blowing is an act of conveying information about a significant moral problem by a present or former employee, outside approved channels (or against strong pressure) to someone, in a position to take action on the problem. The features of Whistle blowing are: • Act of Disclosure: Intentionally conveying information outside approved organizational channels when the person is under pressure not to do so from higher- ups. • Topic: The information is believed to concern a significant moral problem for the organization. • Agent: The person disclosing the information is an employee or former employee. • Recipient: The information is conveyed to a person or organization who can act on it.
Professional Rights & Ethical Theories
1. Rights Ethics: - The most basic human right, which needs no justification, as per A.I.Meldon, is to pursue one’s legitimate (those that do not violate others’ rights) interests. - The right to pursue legitimate interests gives a person right to pursue professional moral obligations. - This may be viewed as a human right of conscience directly derived from the basic human right. 2. Duty Ethics: - I have a right to something only because others have duties or obligations to allow me (And not interfere) to do so. - If we derive the meaning of ‘others’ as employers, then the basic professional right is justified by reference to others’ duties to support or not interfere with the work related exercise of conscience by professionals. 3. Utilitarianism: - Public good can be served by allowing professionals to meet their obligations to the public. - These obligations arise due to the professional’s role in promoting public good. - The basic goal of producing the most good for the greatest number of people is enough to justify the right of professional conscience.
Right to Recognition
Right to Recognition involves two parts. The right to reasonable remuneration gives the moral right for fighting against corporations making good profits while engineers are being paid poorly. Also is the case where patents are not being rewarded properly by the corporations benefiting from such patents? The other right to recognition is non-monetary part of recognition to the work of engineers. But what is reasonable remuneration or reasonable recognition is a difficult question and should be resolved by discussions between employees and employers only.
Right of Conscientious Refusal
The right of Conscientious refusal is the right to refuse to engage in unethical behaviour and to refuse to do so solely because one views it as unethical. Two situations to be considered. 1. Where there is widely shared agreement in profession as to whether an act is unethical Here, professionals have a moral right to refuse to participate in such activities. 2. Where there is room for disagreement among reasonable people over whether an act is unethical. Here, it is possible that there could be different ethical view points from the professional and the employer. In such cases the engineers can have a limited right to turn down assignments that violates their personal conscience only in matters of great importance such as threats to human life. This right also depends on the ability of the employer to reassign the engineer to alternate projects without serious economic hardships to the orgn. The right of professional conscience does not extend to the right to be paid for not working.
Right of Professional Conscience
- There is one basic and generic professional right of engineers, the moral right to exercise responsible professional judgment in pursuing professional responsibilities. - Pursuing these responsibilities involves exercising both technical judgment and reasoned moral convictions. - This basic right can be referred to as the right of professional conscience.
Engineers’ Moral Rights
Engineers’ moral rights fall into categories of human, employee, contractual and professional rights. Professional rights: The right to form and express one’s professional judgment freely The right to refuse to…
Employees Endangering Lives of Employees
Employers indulge in exposing their employees to safety hazards. They escape criminal action against them, by paying nominal compensations even if their crimes are proved in court. And even this happens only when the victim sues company for damages under civil law.
What is mega-science?
Mega-science projects are high-budget global experiments that involve thousands of scientists and make fundamental breakthroughs in science. These projects attempt to answer some of the most basic yet inexplicable questions…
Price Fixing
An act was passed, which forbade (prevented) companies from jointly setting prices in ways that restrain free competition and trade. Unfortunately, many senior people, well respected and positioned were of the opinion that ‘price fixing’ was good for their organizations and the public.
National Intellectual Property Rights policy
Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) refers to the legal rights resulting from invention, innovation, and discovery in scientific, literary, artistic, and industrial sectors etc. IPRs entitle any individual or group to…
