can you give me any engineering ethical issues? help!?

Answer 1

A common engineering ethical issue is cost-effectiveness and efficiency.

For example, we could build an automobile that would almost completely mitigate any injuries. However, you'd probably quadruple the cost of the car, and everyone would be all but epoxied to the seat.

Every engineer, and every company, has to also decide when a product is ready. It's rare that a complex product ships with no defects or side effects or problems - there's always going to be some flaw. The ethical question becomes: is it cost-effective, efficient, ethical, etc to release the product now, or hold it in for more testing (during which time the company is still taking a loss). This becomes even more important if you're designing a safety feature: do you want to release a new safety feature early, if there's a possibility that said safety feature may actually have a measure of inherent danger?

A famous example is the fuel tank and door jamming problems of the Ford Pinto: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Pinto

Answer 2

engineering a better mouse trap so as to catch mice in a more humane and ethically sound manner .

The traditional mouse trap will do the job fine but is very barbaric and primitive . Then there is the chemical method which involves poisoning the poor things with things like arsenic than there is the old glue traps where mice get stuck in a tray of glue and starve to death all of them are effective but ethically wrong. but if you were to engineer a mouse trap that would have a trap door that is activated once the mouse goes inside it with a batteries activated alarm to signal a captured mouse you would have a round of applause from PETA.