You are designing a syringe to counteract a disease.  You want to add a safety feature that makes the syringe auto-disable after a single use. Adding the safety feature to the design will raise the cost. You are trying to keep the cost low so that more hospitals and clinics can afford access to the syringe. Not adding the safety feature will increase the chance of disease spreading. You must decide whether to keep or remove the design feature, otherwise finding an alternate solution that strikes a balance between safety and cost.

The stakeholders involved are yourself, the manufacturer, the hospitals and clinics, the healthcare workers (doctors, nurses, etc.), and the patients. You are interested in designing a product that makes you a profit while also protecting or improving upon your reputation as a designer. Facilitating the spread of disease with your product can damage your reputation, while increasing the cost of the product will reduce profits. The manufacturer wants to make a profit while spending the least time possible making the product. The manufacturer is a business, and wants to spend their time efficiently so that they can move on to the next project. The hospitals and clinics want to affordably distribute a safe syringe that works. Many of the hospitals or clinics in undeveloped areas do not have much funding and must be very deliberate in what they spend money on. The healthcare workers want to effectively stop the disease while also ensuring their own safety while interacting with it. By working with patients and syringes, healthcare workers risk exposure to the disease and would want to reduce possible risks. The patients are the final stakeholder in this scenario. The patients want to be treated for the disease cheaply and safely. They represent the group that most wants a balance between the product being affordable and safe to use, as they are directly affected by it.

One possible solution to this situation would be to forego the safety feature and distribute the syringe as it is now. This would satisfy the principle of justice while violating the principle of non-maleficence. It satisfies justice because it allows more equal distribution of the syringe by allowing more hospitals and clinics to afford it. It violates non-maleficence because it increases the potential for the disease spreading, leading to possible suffering. The pros of the this solution include: the lessened cost means more hospitals and clinics can afford it, and manufacturing can begin immediately. The cons include the increased possibility of spreading disease, the increased manufacturing time, and the potential to harm the reputation of those involved in making the syringe. Although this solution has some benefits, it (for the most part) does not align with the goals of the stakeholders and should not be pursued.

A second possible solution involves redesigning the syringe completely to include the safety feature and make it cost effective. Whether this involves altering the syringe itself of changing the actual route of administration, this solution aligns with the ethical principles of benevolence, justice, and non-maleficence. This solution helps people while reducing risks, as well as ensuring it is distributed fairly to as many people as possible. The pros of the solution include: the safety feature is part of it and will reduce disease spread, the final product is cost effective and easily distributed to many hospitals and clinics, and patients receive the help they need in a safe and accessible manner. The cons include the possibility that the redesign turns out to be a failure, the increased production time allowing the disease to spread unchecked, and the increased cost to the actual designers reducing profit. This solution solves many of the issues presented by the first, however the greatly increased time before a product can be distributed weighs heavily on it.

A final possible solution would be to sell the completed syringe with the safety feature to an international organization dedicated to healthcare. An organization like the Red Cross or Salvation Army could afford to buy the syringes and distribute them. This solution satisfies benevolence and non-maleficence while partially satisfying justice. People receive the help they need in a timely manner and distribution occurs equally. However, this comes at the price of hospitals and clinics that still cannot afford the syringe as well as introducing an additional stakeholder in the form of whatever organization buys the product. The pros include the fast manufacturing/distribution of the syringe, the inclusion of the safety feature, the resources that an organization has access to that could potentially help with distribution, and the effective combating of the disease. The cons include the inclusion of an additional stakeholder, the possibility of no organization buying the product, and the exclusion of some hospitals and clinics that cannot afford the product. This solution has the greatest potential to end positively for most of the parties involved, however it also opens many opportunities for failure (such as conflicting goals between the designer and an organization.

Overall, the final solution serves as the best. Due to the nature of the disease, many international organizations will jump at the chance to participate in its defeat. This encourages cooperation between designers and groups in order to work together to achieve the best results. By selling to an organization with a large amount of resources, the designer ensures that the syringe (with safety feature included) will be affordable to a group that can distribute it to large parts of the population. This ensures that the designer gets their product out, improves upon their reputation, and establishes connections with other groups. This satisfies the manufacturer because they can begin production immediately. This satisfies the hospitals and clinics that can afford the syringe but hurts those that cannot. However, the inclusion of international organizations can help with the distribution of the syringe in areas that otherwise could not afford it. This satisfies healthcare workers because they can safely administer the syringe with less risk of contracting the disease themselves. Finally, this satisfies patients because they receive treatment in a timely and safe manner.

This solution to the venture promotes cooperation between different groups in combating disease. This has extensive economic and social impacts as multiple groups come together to solve a problem. By encouraging organizations to work together, they will be more likely to pool their resources in the future to fight future disease and other maladies. The introduction of the syringe and the stopping of the spread of the disease also reopens economic and social activity that would have been closed due to the disease.