Making moral choices

Presented by:

PAJA,GLENN P.

Presented to:

NORBERTO DE JESUSINSTRUCTOR

MAKING MORAL CHOICESThe most difficult occasions for moral reasoning.

Constitute a relatively small percentage of moral choices,

Decisions involving moral values.

Are routine and straight forward

DESIGNING ALUMINUM CANSHenry Petroski chronicles the

development of aluminium cans with stay on tab openers. Aluminium cans are now ubiquitous – about 100 billion produced in the united states each year. The first aluminium can was designed in 1958 by Kaiser aluminium, in the attempt to improve upon heavier and more expensive tin cans.

MORAL DIMENSIONS IN FOUR GENERAL DIRECTIONS:

1. Human safety is obviously a moral value, rooted directly in the moral worth of human beings

2. Set of moral values concern the environment.

3. Moral values are masked under terms like “useful” and “convenient” products.

4. The economic benefits to stakeholders in the corporation have moral implications.

Design Analogy: WhitbeckWe have been discussing engineering design

as domain where moral choices are made. Turnings turn around, some thinkers suggest that engineering design provides an illuminating model for thinking about all moral decisions within engineering.

Thus, John Dewey (1859-1952) used engineering as a metaphor for thinking about ethics in general, in order to accent the practical nature of reasoning.

Outlook that emphasized intelligent choices made in light of both:

(a). Attention to practical contexts in which moral issues arise and find their solutions and,

(b). Imaginative awareness of wider contexts that illuminate dilemmas.

Caroline Whitbeck suggests that engineering design is in many respects a model for designing courses of action in many moral situations, in engineering and elsewhere.

Moral judgments and criticisms are involved in making moral choices, of course, but as a part of multifaceted courses of action, rather than as simple right versus wrong about another person’s choice.

Whitbeck identifies several aspects of engineering decisions that highlight important aspects of moral decision.

1. alternative solutions to design problems.2. Multiple moral factors.3. some design solutions are clearly unacceptable.4. design involves uncertainties and ambiguities, not

only about what is possible and how to achieve it but also the specific problems that will rise as solutions are developed.

5. design problems are dynamic.