PST 3109 Ethics and the Technical Professions
Spring 2004
SECOND ESSAY ASSIGNMENT
Rough draft due Friday, March 19, in discussion section.
Final version due Monday, March 22, in class.
Write a 4-6 page argumentative essay in which you propose and defend a solution to the
following case1:
You are a licensed electrical engineer, working for State University on
construction and renovation projects. Your immediate manager, Betty
Jones, is an architect, and next in the chain of command is an
administrator, John Smith, a man with no technical background. Smith,
without talking to the engineers, often produces estimates on project costs
that he passes on to higher university officials. In those cases, not
infrequent, where it becomes evident that actual costs are going to exceed
his estimates, Smith pressures the engineers to cut corners.
You are currently working on the renovation of a warehouse to convert
some storage space into office space. Among the specifications you detail
is the installation of emergency exit lights, which are mandated by the
building code. As part of his effort to bring the actual costs closer to his
unrealistic estimate, Smith insists that the specification for emergency
lights be deleted.
You object strongly, but Smith will not give you a hearing; you are not
certain that Jones would be willing to stand up for you in a confrontation.
What should you do?
Here, again, is a bunch of unsolicited advice on how to proceed:
Pre-writing
1. You should do a good deal of work on this essay before you begin to write anything
resembling a draft.
2. Start by doing a complete analysis of the case, including identification of facts, factual issues,
conceptual issues, and ethical issues, as well as application of various ethical perspectives
(i.e. utilitarian considerations, respect for persons, etc.).
3. Apply various problem-solving techniques to expand your options and reframe the problem;
use line-drawing as appropriate. This is important: break out of the habit of seeing all ethical
cases as dilemmas. There are almost always more than two possible solutions, and the best
solution is often the middle way.
Adapted from Stephen H. Unger, “Some Recent Engineering Ethics Cases,”
http://www.onlineethics.com/cases/unger.html, accessed February 29, 2004. The original case was reported directly
to the IEEE Ethics Hotline.
1
PST 3109 Ethics and the Technical Professions
Spring 2004
4. Decide which solution you favor, and formulate it as a thesis: a simple declarative sentence
that makes a concrete and specific claim or proposal. Your thesis should be refined enough
and modest enough to be supported adequately by a 4-6 page argument. Note that, as you
proceed and as your thinking about the case advances, you may need to revisit your thesis in
order to revise or even replace it.
5. Gather ideas and arguments that support your thesis. Be modest here, as well: your goal is
simply to show that you have found a particularly reasonable solution to the problem at hand,
not that yours is the only possible solution or that people who disagree with you are basically
evil.
6. Consider at least one serious objection to your thesis and/or one strong alternative solution.
Gather ideas and arguments that support those opposing views, and consider what ideas and
arguments you might bring to bear in addressing them.
7. At this point, you might consider outlining your entire essay. Remember, each paragraph
should have one and only one main idea.
8. You may ask others for ideas and advice only for the initial analysis and problem-solving
stage – asking around is, after all, a legitimate problem-solving technique. When it comes to
gathering arguments and counter-arguments, and planning your essay, you should work
alone.
Writing
1. At this point, you should be working entirely on your own. Anything you write and hand in
for credit in this course should consist of your own ideas expressed in your own words and
informed by your own judgment. If you quote or paraphrase ideas from any other source,
you must provide complete documentation in a consistent standard format; you must also
carefully distinguish between quotation and paraphrase through the use of quotation marks.
2. Write a good argument. This means that your premises should be more acceptable to your
reader than the conclusion, and that they should fit together in a way that compels the reader
to agree with you.
3. The order in which you present your ideas should have its own logic: all of the work you did
in the pre-writing phase should remain in the background, informing your judgment but not
obvious to the reader. You should not, for example, include the entire fact/concept analysis
in the text of the essay.
4. There are many different ways to organize an essay. The choice is yours, but keep in mind
that your goal is to give the reader reasons to agree that your solution to the problem is an
especially good one.
5. Consider objections. An argument is only as strong as its best counterargument. Raise at
least one strong objection or reasonable alternative to your thesis and provide the reasoning
behind it. Be fair to the opposition; make them look good. Then, respond with a reasoned
argument of your own. It will significantly reduce your credibility if you ignore other points
of view or, worse, to dismiss them out of hand.
6. Be concise. There is no need for a wordy introduction or for a conclusion that simply repeats
the main points of the argument. Get to the point as quickly as you can.
7. Write for a general audience. Assume that your reader is a generally well-educated person
who has no specific knowledge of the content of this course. This should give you an idea of
how much you need to explain and clarify the points you make.
PST 3109 Ethics and the Technical Professions
Spring 2004
8. Use plain English. If you write as though you were trying to impress someone with a Ph.D.
in Philosophy, you will end up not impressing anyone.
9. If you have trouble writing the first paragraph, start with the second paragraph; if you have
trouble with the second paragraph, start with the third. Then, go back and fill in gaps later.
10. As you write, feel free to go back and tinker with the outline, and even with the thesis, as
necessary.
11. Do not be anxious if the first draft does not turn out very well. That’s what post-writing is all
about.
Post-writing
1. The best writing you will ever do will happen as you rewrite. Never, under any
circumstances, should you hand in a first draft to be graded.
2. Revision must be more than checking the spelling and grammar of the essay. As the term
implies, you should see your essay again, which may lead you to change your thesis, the
overall structure, the relation of paragraphs to one another, the relation of sentences within a
paragraph, the choice of words within sentences, and so on.
3. Here, once again, you may seek the help of others: a good way to “re-vise” your essay is to
see it through other people’s eyes. The discussion sections on Friday, February 6 will be
devoted to peer assessment, a process through which you should receive concrete and
constructive ideas for improving your essay. As always, however, any revisions you make to
the essay should be in your own words and based on your own judgment, and the quality of
the final work will be your own responsibility.
There are many other resources to help you approach a writing assignment of this kind. Here are
a few of them:
1. Anthony Weston, Appendix, “How to Write an Ethics Paper,” in A Practical Companion to
Ethics, second edition (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2002)
2. Anthony Weston, A Rulebook for Arguments, third edition (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2001)
3. Michael Harvey, The Nuts and Bolts of College Writing (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2003)