Observations on authority

 

 

 

-    An employer who has institutional authority may direct engineers to do something that is not morally justified.

-  Engineers may feel that they have an institutional  duty to obey a directive  that is morally unjustified, but their moral duty, all things considered, is not to obey.

-    To  decide  whether  a  specific  act  of  exercising  institutional  authority  is  morally justified,  we need  to know  whether  the institutional  goals are themselves  morally permissible or desirable and whether that act violates basic moral duties.