Individual Ethics Paper Assignment
Every student will use the Hyatt Regency Hotel walkway collapse that occurred on July 17, 1981, in Kansas
City, Missouri as the case study. It is one of the deadliest accidental structural failures in U.S. history.
First, you must thoroughly study the case so you can complete the paper. No introduction is required to
be submitted as part of this assignment. I strongly suggest you research as much as you can about this
case from outside sources and not just the Engineering Ethics Concepts and Cases textbook by Harris,
Pritchard, James, Englehardt, and Rabins. The objective of this assignment is to show me what you
learned from this course and how you can apply this ethics knowledge to it.
This is an individual assignment. Please be creative and ethical when completing it. You are not to
engage in group discussions or complete this as a team assignment.
For this assignment, you will use Artificial Intelligence (AI) to complete it. You MUST use 2 different AI
apps to respond to each question. Do not forget to ask AI to include references in their response. All AI
apps can make mistakes. This is why you must double-check responses from AI. You will include the
prompts (question to ask the AI app), the AI responses, and the references that are supplied by AI to
answer the questions, as appendices in this assignment. Your task will be to determine if the AI
responses are hallucinations (false) or true statements. For this assignment, you will summarize the
responses in writing from each question and each AI and determine why the responses are true or false
based on the ethical tools you learned in this class. A list of AI apps you can use, but are not limited to,
are ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, ChatUltra, Grok, Perplexity and others. You must use 2 different AI apps
for each question.
The questions are as follows:
1. Did the engineers in this case follow the ASCE and NSPE Codes or Ethics and if so why or why not?
You MUST use the Oct. 2020 ASCE code and the latest NSPE code as presented in this class.
2. Did the engineers in this case follow the Utilitarian and Respect for Persons moral theories as
described in this course? Include in your response if they did and why and if not, why? You must use
the material taught in this class regarding these 2 moral theories.
3. You must choose any 6 of the Tests for Evaluating Actions and ask AI if these 6 tests were followed
by the engineers in this case. You must use any 6 of the tests that were covered in lecture (not from
an outside source). Twelve or more tests were covered in lecture.
The paper must include a cover page including at minimum of the course name, course number, your
name, my name, and the date.
The paper must be at minimum of 4 complete pages in length single-spaced with normal margins and
normal font size (10-11) not including the cover page and the appendices. You must divide the appendices
by separate cover pages to make it easy for me to locate and read the appendices.
This individual ethics paper is due on the date listed on the Simple Syllabus. Papers submitted after the
deadline will not be accepted unless students submit a doctor’s note in the case of a student illness, or a
death certificate, in the event of an immediate family member’s passing. NO RESUBMITTALS WILL BE
PERMITTED. NO PAPERS WILL BE ACCEPTED BY EMAIL. ALL PAPERS MUST BE SUBMITTED ON
CANVAS OR THEY WILL NOT BE GRADED.
Remember, this assignment will be submitted to Turnitin.com and will be graded using the Individual
Ethics Paper Assignment Rubic listed on Canvas.
Remember, this is an ethics course, and you must do your own work.
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