Two methods for ethics case analysis

Engineering instructors are often reticent about introducing ethics cases into their engineering courses. One way to overcome this reticence is to provide one or more simple methodologies that have been found effective both in stimulating class discussion and in providing ways of resolving ethical problems. The authors present two such methodologies. One is a methodology for resolving what the authors call conflict problems. The other is a methodology for resolving what they call line-drawing problems. Most practical ethical problems can be classified as either conflict problems or line-drawing problems, but one approach is usually more useful for resolving a given moral problem than the other.<>