ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to define an "ethically" exigent decision making situation as one in which the decision maker seeks to make his or her decision with or without a defensible ethical rationale, but without loss of collegial status among other engineers. To maintain collegiality in such situations, engineers may transcend Western ethics by means called "ethics praxistics". In Western ethics, the decision-maker is the subject, and the lightness or wrongness of his or her actions its predicate. Among the Nigerian Hausa, however, the community is die subject, and the decision-maker's character the predicate. The chapter considers a systematic alternative to moral approximation in exigent decision making situations. A "scientifically" exigent decision making situation is one in which the decision maker seeks to make his or her decision with or without scientific certitude, but with the commitment of the parties to the situation.
