On today's edition of Ethics Q&A, we bring you a proposition from the head of SCORPIO, a corporate executive whom one of our ethics consultants happened to meet in a chance while "weathering out" a weather delay in one of our country's many and beautiful airport lounges:

Fricking HELLO Hades, I am sorry it took me so long to reach out after our chance encounter at the American Express Centurion Longue but you know how it is, sometimes it takes an idea a few goes around before it finds the right words. Any how I believe I have distilled my ethics question at this point. Basically it's an idea for improving the ethical safety of the workforce that draws informatiom from the highly safety conscious world of automotive engineering.

As you probably know, autos have "crumple zones" in them which are parts of the car that are designed to go crunch in the event of an accident. The idea is that something has to go crunch so let's design the car so that that something is like, the radio instead of the driver.

As I told you over our shrimp cocktails in the Centurion Longue, my own business (which is somewhat hard to explain but it involves software and sex) has been facing some ethical headwinds in the form of, legal team has informed us that some of the paperwork we filed for our recent finding round was, so to speak, the numbers were wrong.

The thing is, the funding all came through and we have lots of room to play with, so my idea is to just pay a bunch of junior employees to function as an ethical "crumple zone" for our company. Specifically, if we ever get in a "crash" (i.e. someone notices the off numbers) then the juniors agree to say it was all their fault and we can just pay their severance and protect our bottom line.

So this idea of ethics crumple zones for business safety is obviously has a lot of potential. My question is, though, if we can take it any further. Do you have any ideas for other industries we could break into by marketing our crumple zone idea? If so let me know and I would be happy to explore a branding partnership.

SCORPIO, here at HEC one of our favorite things we love about our readers is how they constantly ignite the field of ethics with new ideas and passions. Your proposal for using junior employees as an ethics "crumple zone" is a great example of the burgeoning field of ethics engineering, which refers to using the basic units of ethical principles as building blocks to construct systems that achieve a specific objective.

Like all engineering, though, ethics engineering is subject to its own code of ethics. You can't build a flimsy bridge to save on construction costs and you can't build a solid ethical foundation out of shoddy principles.

One of our favorite ethical principles that we start from here at Hades Ethics Consultancy is the principle of nurturing the next generation. Your proposal, though it may seem an even exchange on its face, asks junior employees to sign up for risks to their reputation and credit score that cannot be compensated with money. For example, if they are caught they may have to go to jail. That's one reason why we can't endorse with whole heart your idea for letting junior employees crumple so that seniors can keep driving.

As for your underlying problem of "wrong numbers" in an SEC filing: Have you considered writing a sincere, apologetic letter to your investors explaining your oopsie and asking for forgiveness? Our experience with "big money" types is that they are fairly generous folks who understand that getting lied to here and there is just part of the cost of doing business.

We at HEC, though, have a different set of values, and that's why we are a not-for-profit ethics consultancy: because we like to hear the raw truth and dig in in search of the profound facts at the bedrock of the ethical universe. And we won't stop until every ethics question is answerable.

Care to jump in with us? Then send us an email at hades@acaciavalleyhoa.org and we would love to respond in the next edition, of Ethics Q&A.