Framing and Resolving the Problem (Essay Sample)

Case Study: Allowing Defective Chips to Go to Market Name: Course: Instructor: Institution: City/State: Date: Allowing Defective Chips to Go to Market Case scenario Allowing defective chips to go to market is a case study compiled by Jeremy Hanzik about a production-line engineer by name Shane. Shane is faced with an ethical dilemma between obeying his boss Rob, and adherence to the professional ethical issues. The organization has got three different means of handling defective chips, that is; fix them at additional cost, throw them away of even sell them as they are. His boss is insisting on selling the chips to the customers as they are to avoid that extra cost of repairing the chips (Hanzlik, 2006). However, Shane is much concerned about the professional ethics governing engineering profession and he is also considering the risk that the defective chips can bring to their customers. Ethical theory in case study The ethical theory brought out, in this case, is the utilitarian theory. The theory originated from normative ethics and was developed by English philosophers in the late 18th and 19th century. The theory describes ethics in a measure of the other party’s impact, unlike other theories that base ethical issues on egoism or self-interest. Utilitarianism theory provides that an act is right if it causes no harm to the other party and wrong if it causes harm to the third party. In this case, letting defective chips go to market may cause dangerous risks to the customers or the users. The defective chips can lead to great loss to the users who are fully relying on the expertise of the manufacturer. Therefore, selling such chips to the customers without letting them know of their condition is unethical in accordance to utilitarian theory. Utilitarian theory is much applicable i...