Tuesday, April 5, 1988/The Battalion/Page 3
rofessor: Professional ethics Prosecutor begins
romote ‘greatest happiness’
By Dean Sueltenfuss
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Professional ethics should attempt
to promote the greatest happiness
for the greatest number of people,
A&M professor said Monday
inhg “Ethics in Engineering,” a
ogram sponsored Texas A&M
anch of The National Engineering
Honor Society in the Zachry Engi-
ering Center.
Dr. Manuel Davenport, an A&M
professor who has given a number
:hurc of presentations on ethics, said pro-
,| lr . fessional ethics are a small part of
liilosophy in general, and that
juch of philosophy involves asking
fuestions for their own sake.
J “Philosophers are really more in
terested in asking cjuestions than
Bley are in answering them,” he said.
■They’re a lot like mountain climb
ers— what they really enjoy is climb
ing — they’re not too crazy about
gening to the top.”
I Davenport said ethics involves the
Suestion of what actions are correct.
I “To answer this question, what we
dn is come up with ethical theories,”
he said.
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“Ethical theories, quite simply, are
definitions of right and wrong ac
tions. There must be hundreds of
ethical theories running loose in the
world and if you go into the history
of philosophy there have probably
been several thousand.”
Davenport said some ethical the
ories are particularly effective in
professional fields.
“Follow those rules of behavior
which generally promote the great
est happiness of the greatest number
(of people),” he said. “That, I sug
gest, is a very workable ethical the
ory— especially in the context of en
gineering.”
Davenport added that it can be
very difficult to apply a broad ethical
theory to a particular profession.
“Each profession really requires a
different professional ethic because
in each profession there’s a different
relationship between the profes
sional and the client,” he said.
Students do seem to gain a sense
of professional ethics from college
level courses, Davenport said, citing
some of his experiences as a profes
sor.
Photo by Jade Boyd
Manuel Davenport
“Eve taught professional ethics
for quite a while — long enough so
that students come back to campus
and come by and visit,” he said. “I
say ‘Did you learn anything useful?’
“What almost all of them say is
this: T’m not sure that I really acted
any more ethically than I would have
otherwise, but I was certainly aware
of it when I was not acting ethically.’
It (my class) increased their ethical
sensitivity.”
Jim Bayless, a junior electrical en
gineering student, said today’s engi
neers seem 'to have a higher stan
dard of ethics than engineering
students currently enrolled at A&M.
“I’ve seen a lot of them (students)
going down the tubes,” Bayless said.
“There are a lot of engineering stu
dents that I think really shouldn’t be
allowed to get their degree. I’ve seen
a lot of cheating going on and I
think it’s a pretty big problem at
A&M.”
Davenport said there are two
questions that should be asked when
the ethical actions of an engineer are
called into question — how you
would like to be treated if you were
in the same situation, and what the
practical consequences of that choice
would be.
“There’s no simple, clear-cut an
swer to these very, very tough kinds
of questions,” Davenport said.
closing arguments
in supremacist trial
ember of upcoming shuttle flight says
'accidents just an ‘occupational hazard’
■ PHILADELPHIA (AP) — His
mother sometimes wishes he’d
picked a different profession, but
ijni Bagian has waited seven years to
Avon the space shuttle, and he’s not
)ut to let the Challenger accident
in his dream.
Bagian, 36, a physician and engi-
neei from Philadelphia with bound-
enthusiasm for the space pro-
am, learned two weeks ago that he
bd been picked for one of the shut
tle crews that will get the program
k on its feet. It has been
unded since seven astronauts
Jed on the Challenger on Jan. 28,
1986.
■ Bagian is stationed at the Johnson
Space Center in Houston, although
he frequently returns to the Phila-
; delphia area to see his parents and
conduct shuttle-related experiments
at the Naval Air Development Cen
ter in Warminster, a suburb of Phila
delphia.
Bagian’s mother, Rose, realized
her worst fears about her son’s pre
carious profession when the Chal
lenger exploded as it lifted off from
Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
“That made it all a little worse. It
brought home that it can happen,”
she said. Still, she said she knows bet
ter than to try to talk her son out of
it.
For Bagian, who had worked with
five of the Challenger crew members
since becoming an astronaut in
1981, the accident was neatly placed
under the heading, “Occupational
Hazard.” He had been assigned to
fly on the Challenger himself during
1986, but all manned U.S. space
flights were put on hold after Jan
uary. •
“Commercial airliners crash, too.
That doesn’t stop you from doing
things. We want to get going,” Ba
gian said. “One of these days if we
keep flying the shuttle, we’ll proba
bly have another accident. That’s
just life, the way it goes. You knew
the job was dangerous when you
took it.”
Karl Scherzberg, a longtime
friend from high school and Drexel
University, said he never heard Ba
gian reconsider his commitment to
the shuttle program, although he be
lieves the accident must have pro
voked some serious thought.
“I’m sure after the accident he’s
been thinking about the reliability of
systems and equipment,” Scherzberg
said. “But there hasn’t really been a
difference in him because the acci
dent only confirmed what he knew
already about risk.”
Bagian said, “My own particular
background or style or upbringing is
that you don’t make too big a deal
about things.”
He said he may have inherited his
coolheadedness and love of aviation
from his father, a World War II
fighter pilot.
As someone who “was always at
the top of his class in everything,”
the younger Bagian “may have
traded security for the uniqueness of
being an astronaut,” his father,
Philip, said.
“I’m familiar with risk,” Philip Ba
gian said. He said he understands
his son’s excitement with the space
program every time he looks at the
moon and feels “awed” that people
set foot there.
FORT SMITH, Ark. (AP) — The
government asked a jury Monday to
convict 13 men, explaining defects
in government witnesses by saying,
“Plots made in hell don’t have angels
as partners.”
U.S. Attorney J. Michael Fitz-
hugh, whose witnesses have been
branded by defendants as dishonest
men looking out for themselves, said
government attorneys take their wit
nesses as they find them.
Attorney N.C. Deday LaRene,
representing Robert E. Miles, had
just called the key government wit
ness “a man who was filled with
madness and megalomania — a
mental disorder.”
The case went to the jury Monday
afternoon.
“It’s all in Yahweh’s hands now,”
Sheila Beam, 21, wife of defendant
Louis Ray Beam Jr., said. “If the
truth be known, they’ll be acquitted.”
Fitzhugh said nine defendants ac
cused of seditious conspiracy have
tried to convey the idea that they
only hoped to bring about a white-
supremacist nation through a peace
ful move by whites in the northwest
ern United States.
If that is the case, he said, why
did:
• Defendant David Lane say in a
tape-recorded conversation that he
needed to bomb a major telephone
facility?
• Some supremacists kill Walter
West, a man whose death in Idaho
has been reported but whose body
has not been found?
• Defendant Bruce Pierce be
came a member of The Order, a vio
lent white-supremacist group which
committed armed robberies purpor
tedly to finance supremacist activ
ities, by taking an oath declaring a
“full state of war”?
• Members of a white-supremac
ist group based in Arkansas under
the leadership of James Ellison col
lected an arsenal of automatic weap
ons, silencers, grenades and other
explosives.
Closing arguments began late
Thursday and continued Friday and
Saturday, concluding Monday with
the arguments by LaRene and Fitz
hugh.
The government contends that a
conspiracy was made in July 1983 at
Hayden Lake, Idaho, at the Aryan
Nations Congress sponsored by the
Rev. Richard G. Butler, 70, founder
of Aryan Nations.
Butler, Beam and Miles are lead
ers of white-supremacist activities,
while other defendants accused of
the attempt to overthrow the gov
ernment have convictions for racke
teering, murder, and civil rights vio
lations through murder.
Ellison is serving 20 years for
racketeering and hopes for a sen
tence reduction for cooperating with
the government, according to his
testimony. He had himself crowned
King of the Ozark Mountains, be
lieved he received messages from
God, and led the Covenant, the
Sword and the Arm of the Lord un
til his arrest in April 1985 at the CSA
compound in north Arkansas after a
four-day standoff with state and fed
eral authorities.
CS woman
reports rape
in apartment
A College Station woman told
police Sunday that she was raped
in her apartment that morning at
about 6:30 a.m. by a man who en
tered her home while she was
sleeping.
The incident occurred at the
Oakwood apartment complex,
503 Southwest Parkway, in Col
lege Station.
The woman described her at
tacker as a white male with a
heavy build, wearing blue jeans
and tennis shoes.
Sunday’s report brings the
number of reported rapes in Col
lege Station this year to six, half
of the number reported in all of
1987. Police records show that
two of the 12 sexual assaults re
ported last year resulted in ar
rests of a suspect. No recorcis
were available as to the number
of arrests resulting from reported
rapes this year.
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•learn about the performing arts
•get involved on campus
•help bring Broadway and
classical artists to A&M
•have fun/keep off the streets
%
Information Sessions:
^ues. April 5, 7:00 pm, 308 Rudder
^ed. April 6, 7:00 pm, 510 Rudder
Applications are also
available in 216 MSC
for more information call:
Paul at 268-8682 or 845-1515
^Memorial Student Center Opera and Performing Arts Society
SENIOR
WEEKEND 1988
Senior Bash
Friday, April 15, 8 p:fn;^,
Texas Hall of;Fame, $5/couple
Featurind Melissa Prescptt
PliT U ** 10m I
^ Saturday; April 16, 7 p.m.. . r
Coach of St/iLoui^Cardihals
*' o —" k.>i'
— -*ds&**
Saturday, April 16, 9 p.m.
MSC and Rudder Exhibit Hall, $35/coupie
Featuring Michael, Michael and the Maxx
Ed Gerlach Orchestra
The Senior Weekend Package at $65/couple,
includes all three events. Tickets are on sale
at Rudder Box Office at 845-1234.
All tickets are presale.