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My Mechanical Engineering Degree At The United States Air Force Essay

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Upon completion of my mechanical engineering degree, I will commission into the United States Air Force as a Second Lieutenant, and enter the “profession of arms” tasked with the defense of our country. As a mechanical engineering student, with the scientific and technological understanding similar to those mentioned above, I have thought about the engineering of weapons that make our military incredibly well equipped and advantaged in conflict. Learning in this course however, we have been taught about the expectation of an engineer to “promote the welfare of human beings”, which conflicts with intent and design of weaponry. This yields the moral issue that is the focus of this essay; how does an engineer morally justify the engineering or weapons systems developed to damage or kill human property, infrastructure, and people.

This essay will explore this moral issue by assessing the identity and purpose of a weapon, and how they are used in modern day applications. The essay will highlight the conflicting nature of this field of engineering by examining the NSPE Code of Ethics, as well as analyzing the conflict from various ethical theories that have been covered in ENGR 482, followed by focusing on several weapons system projects that are paradigm examples for this moral issue. To conclude the essay, I will present my opinion on the matter, defended with my personal ethics accompanied with the ethical theories taught in this course.

To begin the analysis on the moral

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