Product Safety Refusal Right Applied to BER 65-12 Engineers
P · Principle
Individual
http://proethica.org/ontology/case/139#Product_Safety_Refusal_Right_Applied_to_BER_65-12_Engineers
Properties
Instance of
Applied to
Unsafe product processing and production refusal
Balancing with
Loyalty
Whistleblowing as Personal Conscience Right Without Mandatory Duty Principle
Concrete expression
Engineers in BER 65-12 who believed a product was unsafe were ethically justified in refusing to participate in its processing or production, even at the cost of employment, because their professional judgment about public safety took precedence over employer directives.
Confidence
0.93
Importance
high
Interpretation
Public welfare paramount generates a right — and implicitly a duty — to refuse participation in work the engineer believes to be unsafe, with employment consequences being an accepted cost of professional integrity.
Invoked by
BER 65-12 Engineers Product Safety Refusers
Tension resolution
The Board finds that the public welfare obligation justifies refusal even at personal employment cost, distinguishing this from the BER 82-5 situation where no public health and safety danger was present.
Source Evidence
Source text
The Board then determined that as long as the engineers held to that view, they were ethically justified in refusing to participate in the processing or production of the product in question.
Text references
As early as BER Case No. 65-12, the Board dealt with a situation in which a group of engineers believed that a product was unsafe.
The Board recognized that such action by the engineers would likely lead to loss of employment, but the engineers had a right to maintain their position based upon the provisions of the NSPE Code.
The Board then determined that as long as the engineers held to that view, they were ethically justified in refusing to participate in the processing or production of the product in question.
TTL
@prefix case139: <http://proethica.org/ontology/case/139#> .
@prefix owl: <http://www.w3.org/2002/07/owl#> .
@prefix proeth: <http://proethica.org/ontology/intermediate#> .
@prefix prov: <http://www.w3.org/ns/prov#> .
@prefix rdfs: <http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#> .
@prefix xsd: <http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#> .
case139:Product_Safety_Refusal_Right_Applied_to_BER_65-12_Engineers a proeth:PublicWelfareParamount,
owl:NamedIndividual ;
rdfs:label "Product Safety Refusal Right Applied to BER 65-12 Engineers" ;
proeth:appliedto "Unsafe product processing and production refusal" ;
proeth:balancingwith "Loyalty",
"Whistleblowing as Personal Conscience Right Without Mandatory Duty Principle" ;
proeth:conceptCategory "Principle" ;
proeth:concreteexpression "Engineers in BER 65-12 who believed a product was unsafe were ethically justified in refusing to participate in its processing or production, even at the cost of employment, because their professional judgment about public safety took precedence over employer directives." ;
proeth:confidence "0.93" ;
proeth:discoveredincase "139" ;
proeth:discoveredinpass "2" ;
proeth:discoveredinsection "discussion" ;
proeth:firstdiscoveredat "2026-02-28T10:48:17.782690+00:00" ;
proeth:firstdiscoveredincase "139" ;
proeth:generatedattime "2026-02-28T10:48:17.782690+00:00" ;
proeth:importance "high" ;
proeth:interpretation "Public welfare paramount generates a right — and implicitly a duty — to refuse participation in work the engineer believes to be unsafe, with employment consequences being an accepted cost of professional integrity." ;
proeth:invokedby "BER 65-12 Engineers Product Safety Refusers" ;
proeth:principleclass "Public Welfare Paramount" ;
proeth:sourcetext "The Board then determined that as long as the engineers held to that view, they were ethically justified in refusing to participate in the processing or production of the product in question." ;
proeth:tensionresolution "The Board finds that the public welfare obligation justifies refusal even at personal employment cost, distinguishing this from the BER 82-5 situation where no public health and safety danger was present." ;
proeth:textreferences "As early as BER Case No. 65-12, the Board dealt with a situation in which a group of engineers believed that a product was unsafe.",
"The Board recognized that such action by the engineers would likely lead to loss of employment, but the engineers had a right to maintain their position based upon the provisions of the NSPE Code.",
"The Board then determined that as long as the engineers held to that view, they were ethically justified in refusing to participate in the processing or production of the product in question." ;
proeth:wasattributedto "Case 139 Extraction" ;
prov:generatedAtTime "2026-02-28T11:01:04.764106"^^xsd:dateTime ;
prov:wasGeneratedBy "ProEthica Case 139 Extraction" .
Metadata
Extraction details
Discovered in case
139
Discovered in pass
2
Discovered in section
discussion
First discovered
2026-02-28T10:48:17.782690+00:00
First case
139
Generated
2026-02-28T10:48:17.782690+00:00
Attributed to
Case 139 Extraction
Generated
2026-02-28T11:01:04.764106
Generated by
ProEthica Case 139 Extraction