Ethics
Interstate -35 West Mississippi River Bridge
The collapse of the Interstate-35 West Mississippi River Bridge, which is also known as Bridge 9340, was one of the most dramatic cases of structural engineering failure in the history of the United States within the past five years. The abrupt collapse of the eight-lane structure in Minneapolis, Minnesota on August 1, 2007, which killed approximately 13 people and injured upwards of over 100 travelers, brought to mind several of the traditional ethical issues of engineering in the workplace as many of the deceased and their loved ones agonized over how such a structural failure could take place. Unfortunately, the bridge had a long history of safety issues dating back to 1990 in which it was determined to be deficient by the federal government. Subsequent reports as recent as 2006 found substantial amounts of cracking and weakening in the girders and approach spans, while the bridge's annual inspection by Mn/DOT (which had been conducting such inspections since 1993) was not held in 2007.
Consequently, several ethical issues and perspectives abound in a case as devastating as this particular one. The foremost ethical concern for any structural engineering work should ideally be the safety of those who will be accessing and using the particular structure. The safety of the users of the Interstate 35 West Mississippi Bridge, however, was considerably...
Utilitarianism is the concept that mandates the ethical or moral worth of an action is judged by the greatest amount of good produced by it. Whatever result the greatest amount of good is produced towards is the most moral or ethical path of behavior. When analyzing the modifications made to the Interstate 35 West Mississippi Bridge, however, one must examine the issue of whether or not the addition of the concrete barriers to this particular structure was worth the plethora of negative ramifications that were induced by the bridge's collapse. Such horrid consequences include, of course, the dead travelers and the effects of their deaths upon their families and friends, as well as the numerous injuries incurred by the several other travelers present, and the consequences of these injuries upon their surrounding environment, family members and friends. Furthermore, the monetary…
