Step 4: Full View

Three clusters of competing obligations bear on this decision. First, the AV Risk Assessment Team Harm Minimization Participation Obligation and the Faithful Agent Informed Decision Enablement Obligation jointly require Engineer A to fully and actively participate, express concerns clearly and unambiguously, and provide the manufacturer with a complete risk assessment. Second, the Do No Harm Obligation and the Autonomous Vehicle Third-Party Harm Minimization Safety Consideration Obligation require Engineer A to ensure that the welfare of pedestrians, cyclists, and motorcyclists is explicitly identified and presented as a material safety consideration: not subordinated to passenger-protective commercial interests. Third, the Technical Recommendation Business Pressure Non-Subordination Obligation and the Further Study Recommendation Before Deployment Obligation require Engineer A to base the recommendation solely on technical and ethical findings, and to recommend further study if material questions remain unresolved, regardless of financial impact, competitive delay, or client pressure.

Four obligations converge on the disclosure question. First, the Completeness and Non-Selectivity in Advisory Opinions principle requires Engineer A not to present a recommendation grounded in a specific moral philosophy as though it were a technically mandated norm, selective silence about the utilitarian basis of the recommendation would itself be a form of incomplete and potentially misleading professional advice. Second, the Informed Decision-Making Enablement Obligation requires that the manufacturer be able to give genuine informed consent to the embedded ethical framework, which is impossible if Engineer A does not identify the framework's philosophical basis and acknowledge that alternative frameworks exist and yield different algorithmic outcomes. Third, the Autonomous System Moral Framework Transparency Obligation requires public disclosure of the decision logic governing the fate of users and third parties who cannot intervene in real time. Fourth, the Regulatory Gap Safety Escalation Obligation, drawn from BER Case 96-4, establishes that the absence of applicable standards is itself a safety-relevant fact that heightens rather than relieves the professional advisor's disclosure obligations.

Three sequenced obligations govern Engineer A's response to a manufacturer override. First, the Graduated Internal Escalation Before External Reporting principle requires Engineer A to formally document the disagreement in writing and communicate it to the manufacturer's responsible decision-makers, ensuring the override is made with full awareness of its third-party safety consequences rather than by default or inattention. Second, the prohibition on approving engineering documents not in conformity with sound engineering principles, Code II.1.b, requires Engineer A to assess whether the passenger-priority system crosses the threshold from a debatable design choice into a design Engineer A cannot professionally certify as safe for public deployment; if it does, Engineer A must decline to certify or approve the system. Third, the Public Welfare Paramount obligation is not discharged by internal voicing of concern alone when that concern is overridden and a harmful design proceeds, if internal escalation fails and the severity and foreseeability of third-party harm risk is sufficient, Engineer A must evaluate whether external reporting obligations are triggered.

The Public Welfare Paramount obligation (NSPE Code I.1, II.1) requires Engineer A to hold paramount the safety, health, and welfare of the public, including third parties not party to the client relationship. The Aggregate Harm Minimization principle directs that when lives cannot all be protected, the ethical directive is to minimize the total number of persons harmed. The Third-Party Non-Client Welfare Consideration requires that pedestrians, cyclists, and motorcyclists be afforded professional protection. The Active Risk Assessment Team Participation Obligation requires Engineer A to engage substantively rather than passively. The Technical Recommendation Business Pressure Non-Subordination Obligation prohibits Engineer A from softening or suppressing safety findings to accommodate commercial preferences. Competing against these is the Faithful Agent Obligation Within Ethical Limits, which requires Engineer A to serve the manufacturer's interests, but only within the bounds the paramount obligation defines.

The Completeness and Non-Selectivity in Advisory Opinions principle requires Engineer A not to present a recommendation grounded in a specific moral philosophy as though it were a technically mandated or universally accepted engineering norm. The Informed Decision-Making Enablement Obligation requires that the manufacturer be able to give genuine informed consent to the embedded ethical framework it is adopting. The Autonomous System Moral Framework Transparency Obligation recognizes that users and affected third parties have a legitimate interest in knowing the pre-committed decision logic governing their fate. The Regulatory Gap Safety Escalation principle, drawn from BER Case 96-4, establishes that the absence of external standards heightens rather than relieves the professional advisor's disclosure obligations, because Engineer A's judgment substitutes for the absent standard and must therefore be rendered fully transparent. The Public Welfare Paramount principle extends protection from physical harm to protection from material deception about the nature of safety-affecting products.