According to Roger Boisjoly, “[whistleblowing] destroyed [his] career, [his] life, everything else.” What good, then, is whistleblowing?

For me, engineering is more than just the sum of technical practices and managerial leadership. ‘Good’ engineering firms utilize both parts for the common good of their clients. Engineering failures can come in many forms and are often layered, with smaller failures snowballing into larger ones. In the Therac-25 incident, there were a few red flags (at least in hindsight) that eventually enabled the machine failures. While no one individual is at fault, we can learn from the past to ensure similar red flags are caught earlier before bubbling over into a real disaster. The biggest example is pushing a new model of a product as simply a ‘new and improved’ version of an older product. Both the Therac-25 and Boeing 737 Max disasters were caused because of this mislabeling. It is the duty first and foremost of engineers to be fully aware of all changes they make, and to be on the lookout for any and all ramification of their design changes. Next the product managers and leadership have a responsibility to advertise the new product as its own independent entity, even if it means taking a hit to the bottom line. As seen from the mentioned disasters above, stretching the truth, even unknowingly, is not worth the possible risks, especially with these larger systems where failure can result in loss of human life.

To formally analyze whistleblowing, two different ethics frameworks should be used in tandem: Aristotle’s virtue ethics, and consequentialist ethics such as Utilitarianism or The Common Good Approach. Both are important in considering the morality of whistleblowing. The first focuses on motivations behind the act, while the second is cognizant of possible consequences and its effects on different groups of people.

  1. Even though motivation behind information leaks, especially in matters of National Security, has no legal binding, it is still important to consider from a moral standpoint. Leaks should not be done without good cause, which aligns with the Catholic Church catechism teaching on this issue. To go a step further, I believe this motivation should stem from a violation of some well-formed legal or moral principles. Personal revenge or saying “it didn’t feel right” are not valid reasons to justify a such momentous act as whistleblowing. From my reading of the Roger Boisjoly case, it seems like Boisjoly was (at least partially) motivated by a desire to clear his own conscious and shift the blame off of himself. If this is indeed the case,1 I have trouble fully justifying Boisjoly’s decision, even if he had other good intentions mixed in.
  2. Although whistleblowers have no way to see the full effect of this actions, they should minimally consider different possible affected groups, and weigh the best-case benefit against the worst-case loss. In instances of national security, this often involves thinking about potential threats to the American public or members of the armed forces if the leaked information were to be analyzed by any enemies of the state. Sometimes these effects are not as obvious: for example Roger Boisjoly’s leak and full cooperation with the investigation caused great harm to his company, even though a majority of his colleagues had no direct hand in the Challenger incident.

1I realize this is hard to detect, and is not always feasible to enforce in practice.