Ethical Analysis Of David Weber's 'Highway Safety Improvements'

Highway Safety Improvements.

Assuming that the improvements that David Weber suggests get to be implemented, he should recommend the site improvement which has the least ethical issues, maximizes happiness, the least cost and most benefit.
Utilitarianism can be used as the rationale to decide which of the two site improvements that David Weber should recommend. Act utilitarianism and cost/benefit analyses are the ethical theories best suited to analyze David’s dilemma.
When using the act utilitarian approach, the right action is the action with the best consequences (van Dyk, 2015). The rationale applied to concluding which is the right action is through a series of steps. The first step is to identify the conflicting values/obligations.
Next is to determine the alternate courses of action. Here David has to choose between implementing new safety signals in site A (major city) or in site B (rural area). The third step is to determine the relevant audience. In this case, this included the district, the road users in the major city and rural area, David and the district engineer. These are the people who will be affected by David’s decision. Thereafter, the consequences of each alternative act have to be listed for everyone in the audience. If the new safety signals are recommended for site A, 24000 (20 000 main road and 4000 minor road) (8X that of those in the rural area) major city road users are kept safer, fatalities and injuries in site A would be reduced by 50% to 1 and 2 per year respectively making more than 250 friends and family of victims happy, the PD accidents (property damage only accidents) will be reduced by 25% making 10 road users happy, 6000 road users in site B would be less safe, fatalities, injuries and
Dee and Lentz can argue that they (of the 3) are the least responsible while Gepp who is the manager should have known been more knowledgeable of all aspects of operations.
The Department of Justice was right in taking the violation as a serious matter but criminally convicting the engineers was too harsh. At most they should have gotten a heavy fine. Apart from them having a high social standing which was now tarnished, the conviction will tarnish their image and reputation as seasoned professionals even though this issue did not have a direct link to the work that they actually did. The military should have also taken the plunge through paying an even heavier fine because they should have had internal measures in place to ensure that all employees acted accordingly at all times.
The engineers’ behavior can be described as by the minimalist model as opposed to the more suitable Reasonable care model because they were more concerned going about their jobs without doing anything wrong as opposed to actively trying to ensure that they kept up with evolving knowledge and cared about public wellbeing.
The Aberdeen Three should serve as an example of how misguided loyalty, self-interest, ignorance and negligence can have dire