The Golden Gate Bridge

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Recommended: Essays on prevention in suicide

The Golden Gate Bridge is “considered to be one of the best and most beautiful examples of bridge design” (Poel and Royakkers 110). Unfortunately, this bridge is also "the US's most popular place to commit suicide" (110). Due to this fact, bridge designers decided that they needed to consider the option of installing some sort of suicide prevention system. Before any decision was made, the ramifications of both implementing a system and not implementing one had to be considered. Deciding whether or not to implement a system calls for an in-depth analysis of the ethics. One must identify the ethical dilemmas present, and provide analysis on the effects on all the stakeholders involved.
The suicide barrier presents numerous ethical dilemmas that one must consider in order to make the decision regarding the construction of the barrier with the best outcome. The text describes ethics as “the systematic reflection on morality,” and describes moral dilemmas as “a moral problem with the crucial feature that the agent has only two [or a limited number of] options for action and that whatever he chooses he will commit a moral wrong” (Poel and Royakkers 71, 138). Using these descriptions, an ethical dilemma would be a situation that involves more than one morally just action, where the choosing any action will still result in some moral wrong. The most significant of these dilemmas would be the conflict between hindering an individual’s free will and upholding the sacredness of human life. By the no harm principle, “one is free to do what one wishes, as long as no harm is done to others,” therefore everyone should have the right to free will and should be able to choose whether they wish to take their own life or not (85). Howe...

... middle of paper ...

...influences on the stakeholders and evaluating various arguments, one is able to formulate a solution that will result in the best possible outcome.

Works Cited

Effectiveness of Suicide Barriers on Bridges. Tech. N.p., n.d. Web. 9 Jan. 2014. .
Poel, Ibo Van De, and Lambèr M. M. Royakkers. Ethics, Technology, and Engineering: An Introduction. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011. Print.
Seiden, Richard H., Ph.D., M.P.H. Where Are They Now? A Follow-up Study of Suicide Attempters from the Golden Gate Bridge. Tech. University of California at Berkeley, n.d. Web. 9 Jan. 2014. .
"Traffic/Toll Data" Golden Gate Bridge Highway & Traffic District, n.d. Web. 09 Jan. 2014. .

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