At this point in the project, our group has agreed that leaving the job early in both scenarios would ultimately be the wrong thing to do.
When applying a pragmatic approach to scenario A, it is easy to see that the means in this scenarios do not justify the ends. In this scenario, it is evident that Jeff may be able to get away with not being there for the instillation of every unit. In scenario B, Nagelbett engineers are not required by law nor by company policy to oversee these installations, however it was Jeff’s assigned role to go Germany and make sure the units were installed properly. In this case , we dont believe that the ends justify the means because if Jeff did end up leaving early, he would be ignoring his assigned work duties in favor of enjoying his vacation. This would be a selfish act that could jeopardize the reputation of his company and could possible result in his termination of something goes wrong with the instillation of any unit. Therefore, the most ethical course of action to do in this scenario is to actually stay the extra two days to make sure that everything goes smoothly so that Nagelbett doesn’t lose any money or business and also to ensure job security.
In scenario B, however, the ethical choice seems to be a little less obvious. In this case, Jeff wants to leave not because he wants to enjoy his vacation, but because he has another project that requires him to start on time. He would have to leave early from the Treehorn to fulfill another obligation in a promptly manner, not because of a selfish reason such as wanting to spend a full week skiing. Due to the fact that Nagelbett provides very detailed instructions that any Treehorn engineer would follow, the cost benefit analysis would help us determine that leaving this job in the hands of a trusted Treehorn employee to go work on an other equally important project seems like an acceptable course of action. However, there is one factor that completely changes the scenario an that is that Jeff has a legal responsibility to supervise the installations of the units. There is a legal document that Jeff has to sign in order to verify that he did his job and if it turned out that one of the units was not installed properly then the consequences would be much more severe. It is for that reason that we can’t justify Jeff leaving the job early. Putting Nagelbett in major legal trouble would most likely result in Jeff being terminated would not be worth the risk of leaving early and falsifying documents. The course of action that we suggest for this scenario would for Jeff to stay for the entirety of the job and try speaking to the project leader at his next project and explain to them that he has a legal obligation to his current project.
On Wednesday, February 20th we met up as a group to read over our given scenario. This was helpful because it helped clarify any ambiguity in the text and come to a basis for what is occuring in both of the scenarios we are provided.
After the group reading was finished we summarized the events happening in Scenario A and discussed the following topics: the nature of the ethical dilemmas brought up, the responsibilities and liabilities each character in the scenario is currently assigned or needs to address in the future if they continue their current course of action, and the various resources presented to them in the scenario that can help them address the problems.
The same course of action was repeated for Scenario B.
Once both scenarios were discussed, each group member was assigned to write down their thoughts on the outcomes and their course of action in a Google Doc that was to be completed later on in the week. Along with that, team members were assigned to make seperate Google docs or on the same one where they address the information that is required in the blog posts.
These multiple Google Docs were put on a shared folder where the other team members can see their peers’ responses and comment on them. Once a Google Doc was discussed or no other comments were remaining they were put on the team blog.
On March 6th team members met to discuss the state of progress with the project. We set deadlines for each other on when parts of the project should be finished. For example, all Google Docs must be finished by March 7th so they can be reviewed, discussed and put on the blog by the deadline. Following the deadlines, we split our team into pairs to tackle the remaining aspects of the project. Our current plan looks something like this:
Deadlines:
Friday (3/8) – Finish all questions and post on blog
Sunday Night (3/10) – Report should be done and turned into TA
Tuesday (3/12) – Powerpoint presentation is done
Wednesday (3/13) – Meet up to split up parts for who covers what on the powerpoint
Nikki & Durva: Will do the report
Manuel & Victor: Remaining Questions
Deni & Rafa: Powerpoint
Team McGonagall 