Abstract
When there are disasters in our society, whether on an individual, organizational or systemic level, individuals or groups of individuals are often singled out for blame, and commonly it is assumed that the alleged culprits engaged in deliberate misdeeds. But sometimes, at least, these disasters occur not because of deliberate malfeasance, but rather because of complex organizational and systemic circumstances that result in these negative outcomes. Using the Boeing Corporation and its 737 MAX aircraft crashes as an example, this ethical analysis will examine some of the organizational problems that led to changes in management in Boeing and ultimately resulted in the fatal accidents. We will examine ethical blind spots within the company that led to the deadly accidents, and we will study the kinds of circumstances that are particularly acute in organizations such as Boeing, and which contributed to the malfunctions in the 737 MAX and the two resulting crashes. The Boeing 737 MAX example is not a singular case, but rather shares similarities with other engineering disasters such as the Challenger and Columbia explosions, and the ignition switch failures at General Motors each of which seem to have been at least partly the result of organizational shortcomings involving a compromise in commitment to safety. These parallels lead us to conclude that organizational malfeasance poses a serious ethical challenge for engineers and their organizations. We will conclude with some tentative suggestions for avoiding such tragic incidents in the future.
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Notes
The actual number of fatalities has not been calculated in this study, in part because of deaths from airbag failures and other mechanical malfunctions as well.
Interestingly, too, as Richard Griggs points out, many textbooks, and in particular widely-assigned psychology textbooks, that refer to these experiments often fail to mention its flaws (Griggs 2016). This neglect skews student thinking so that they often do not question the methodology of the experiments.
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Some of this paper benefited from input from Michael Gorman (2021, forthcoming) and commentators at our presentation of this material at the 2019 Association for Practical and Professional Ethics. Some of the essay benefited from Werhane’s (2021, forthcoming) article on the Challenger and Columbia explosions.
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Englehardt, E., Werhane, P.H. & Newton, L.H. Leadership, Engineering and Ethical Clashes at Boeing. Sci Eng Ethics 27, 12 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-021-00285-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-021-00285-x