Engineer A Benevolent Motive Non-Justification for Safety Compromise
O · Obligation
Individual
http://proethica.org/ontology/case/79#Engineer_A_Benevolent_Motive_Non-Justification_for_Safety_Compromise
Properties
Instance of
BenevolentMotiveNon-JustificationforPolicyViolationObligation
http://proethica.org/ontology/intermediate#BenevolentMotiveNon-JustificationforPolicyViolationObligation
Case context
Engineer A's motivation for concurring with the grandfathering ordinance was to obtain desperately needed additional code officials — a genuinely beneficial goal — but this benevolent motive did not cure the ethical violation of concurring with reduced safety standards.
Compliance status
unmet
Confidence
0.88
Importance
high
Obligated party
Engineer A
Obligation statement
Engineer A was obligated to recognize that his genuine and praiseworthy concern about the inadequacy of the inspection program and the need for additional staff did not render ethically permissible his concurrence with the grandfathering ordinance, and to refrain from using his benevolent motivation as justification for a safety-compromising concurrence.
Temporal scope
At the time of and following Engineer A's decision to concur with the grandfathering proposal
Relationships
defeasibleUnder
Engineer A Competing Public Goods Trade-Off Rationalization
derivedFromPrinciple
Benevolent Motive Does Not Cure Ethical Violation By Engineer A
Source Evidence
Source text
Engineer A agrees to concur with the chairman's proposal, and the chairman issues the order to permit the hiring of additional code officials for the building department, which Engineer A believes the city desperately needs.
Text references
Engineer A agrees to concur with the chairman's proposal, and the chairman issues the order to permit the hiring of additional code officials for the building department, which Engineer A believes the city desperately needs.
Engineer A believes that there is no way even the most conscientious code official can make 60 adequate, much less thorough, inspections in one day.
TTL
@prefix case79: <http://proethica.org/ontology/case/79#> .
@prefix owl: <http://www.w3.org/2002/07/owl#> .
@prefix proeth: <http://proethica.org/ontology/intermediate#> .
@prefix proeth-core: <http://proethica.org/ontology/core#> .
@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#> .
case79:Engineer_A_Benevolent_Motive_Non-Justification_for_Safety_Compromise a proeth:BenevolentMotiveNon-JustificationforPolicyViolationObligation,
owl:NamedIndividual ;
rdfs:label "Engineer A Benevolent Motive Non-Justification for Safety Compromise" ;
proeth-core:defeasibleUnder case79:Engineer_A_Competing_Public_Goods_Trade-Off_Rationalization ;
proeth:casecontext "Engineer A's motivation for concurring with the grandfathering ordinance was to obtain desperately needed additional code officials — a genuinely beneficial goal — but this benevolent motive did not cure the ethical violation of concurring with reduced safety standards." ;
proeth:compliancestatus "unmet" ;
proeth:conceptCategory "Obligation" ;
proeth:confidence "0.88" ;
proeth:derivedFromPrinciple case79:Benevolent_Motive_Does_Not_Cure_Ethical_Violation_By_Engineer_A ;
proeth:discoveredincase "79" ;
proeth:discoveredinpass "2" ;
proeth:discoveredinsection "facts" ;
proeth:firstdiscoveredat "2026-03-01T06:57:05.706240+00:00" ;
proeth:firstdiscoveredincase "79" ;
proeth:generatedattime "2026-03-01T06:57:05.706240+00:00" ;
proeth:importance "high" ;
proeth:obligatedparty "Engineer A" ;
proeth:obligationclass "Benevolent Motive Non-Justification for Policy Violation Obligation" ;
proeth:obligationstatement "Engineer A was obligated to recognize that his genuine and praiseworthy concern about the inadequacy of the inspection program and the need for additional staff did not render ethically permissible his concurrence with the grandfathering ordinance, and to refrain from using his benevolent motivation as justification for a safety-compromising concurrence." ;
proeth:sourcetext "Engineer A agrees to concur with the chairman's proposal, and the chairman issues the order to permit the hiring of additional code officials for the building department, which Engineer A believes the city desperately needs." ;
proeth:temporalscope "At the time of and following Engineer A's decision to concur with the grandfathering proposal" ;
proeth:textreferences "Engineer A agrees to concur with the chairman's proposal, and the chairman issues the order to permit the hiring of additional code officials for the building department, which Engineer A believes the city desperately needs.",
"Engineer A believes that there is no way even the most conscientious code official can make 60 adequate, much less thorough, inspections in one day." ;
proeth:wasattributedto "Case 79 Extraction" ;
prov:generatedAtTime "2026-03-01T07:16:01.174263"^^xsd:dateTime ;
prov:wasGeneratedBy "ProEthica Case 79 Extraction" .
Metadata
Extraction details
Discovered in case
79
Discovered in pass
2
Discovered in section
facts
First discovered
2026-03-01T06:57:05.706240+00:00
First case
79
Generated
2026-03-01T06:57:05.706240+00:00
Attributed to
Case 79 Extraction
Generated
2026-03-01T07:16:01.174263
Generated by
ProEthica Case 79 Extraction