Engineering Ethics

Lecture by
Md. Raihan Goni
Southeast University
Introduction
• One of the main differences between science and engineering is that
engineering is not just about better understanding the world but also
about changing it. Many engineers believe that such change improves,
or at least should improve, the world. In this sense engineering is an
inherently morally motivated activity. Changing the world for the
better is, however, no easy task and also not one that can be
achieved on the basis of engineering knowledge alone. It also
requires, among other things, ethical reflection and knowledge. This
book aims at contributing to such reflection and knowledge, not just
in a theoretical sense but also more practically.
• There is an increasing attention to ethics in the engineering curricula.
Engineers are supposed not only to carry out their work competently and
skillfully, but also to be aware of the broader ethical and social implications
of engineering and to be able to reflect on these. According to the
Engineering Criteria 2000 of the Accreditation Board for Engineering and
Technology (ABET) in the US, engineering graduates must have “an
understanding of professional and ethical responsibility” and “the broad
education necessary to understand the impact of engineering solutions in a
global and societal context” (Herkert 1999).
• The ethical cycle is intended as a didactical tool to deal with these
problems. It provides a guide for dealing with ethical issues which is
systematic without assuming an instrumental notion of ethics. By applying
the ethical cycle, the moral competencies will be acquired that are needed
for dealing with ethical issues in engineering and technology (see Figure).
Responsibility
• Responsibility is often linked to the role that you have in a particular situation.
You often have to fulfil a number of roles simultaneously such as those of
friend, parent, citizen, employee, engineer, expert and colleague. In a role you
have a relationship with others, for instance, as an employee you have a
relationship with your employer, as an expert you have a relationship with your
customers and as a colleague you have relationships with other colleagues.
Each role brings with its certain responsibilities. A parent, for example, is
expected to care for his child. In the role of employee it is expected that you
will execute your job properly, as laid down in collaboration with your
employer; in the role of expert it will be presumed that you furnish your
customer with information that is true and relevant and in the role of colleague
you will be expected to behave in a collegial fashion with others in the same
work situation. An engineer is expected to carry out his work in a competent
way.
• Professional responsibility is the responsibility that is based on your
role as professional engineer in as far it stays within the limits of
what is morally allowed. Professional responsibilities are not just
passive but they also contain an active component (see next reading).
We will examine the content of the professional responsibility of
engineers in more detail.
Passive responsibility
• Typical for passive responsibility is that the person who is held
responsible must be able to provide an account why he followed a
particular course of action and why he made certain decisions. In
particular, the person is held to justify his/her actions towards those
who are in a position to demand that the individual in question
accounts for his/her actions. We will call this type of passive
responsibility accountability. Passive responsibility often involves not
just accountability but also blameworthiness. Blameworthiness means
that it is proper to blame someone for his/her actions or the
consequences of those actions. You are not always blameworthy for
the consequences of your actions or for your actions themselves.
Usually, four conditions need to apply:
• 1. Wrong-doing. Whenever one blames a person or institution one usually
maintains that in carrying out a certain action the individual or the
institution in question has violated a norm or did something wrong. This can
be a legal or moral norm, or that is common in the organization.
• 2. Causal contribution. The person who is held responsible must have
made a causal contribution to the consequences for which he or she is held
responsible.
• 3. Foreseeability. A person who is held responsible for something must
have been able to know the consequences of his or her actions. The
consequences are the harm actually arising from transgressing a norm.
• 4. Freedom of Action. The one who is held responsible must have had
freedom of action, i.e. he or she must not have acted under obligation.
Individuals are either not responsible or are responsible to a lesser degree
if they are, for instance, forced to take certain decisions.
Active responsibility and the ideals of engineers
• We considered above questions of responsibility when something has gone wrong. Responsibility is
also something that comes into play beforehand, if nothing has yet gone wrong or if there is the
chance to realize something good. We will refer to this as active responsibility. If someone is
actively responsible for something, he is expected to act in such a way that undesired consequences
are avoided as much as possible and so that positive consequences are being realized.
• One way in which the active responsibility of engineers can be understood is by looking at the ideals
of engineers. Ideals, as we will understand the notion here, have two specific characteristics. First
ideals are ideas or strivings which are particularly motivating and inspiring for the person having
them. Second, it is typical for ideals that they aim at achieving an optimum or maximum. Often,
therefore, ideals cannot be entirely fulfilled but are strived for. Some of these ideals are directly
linked to professional practice because they are closely allied to the engineering profession or can
only be aspired to by carrying out the profession of engineer. We call such ideals professional
ideals. As professional ideals, these ideas are part of professional responsibility in as far they stay
within the limits of what is morally allowed. Examples of these professional ideals of engineers are:
1. Technological enthusiasm. This pertains to the ideal of wanting to
develop new technological possibilities and take up technological
challenges.

2. Effectiveness and Efficiency. Effectiveness can be defined as the

extent to which an established goal is achieved; efficiency as the ratio
between the goal achieved and the effort required. The drive to strive
towards effectiveness and efficiency is an attractive ideal for engineers
because it is – apparently – so neutral and objective.
3. Human welfare. This ideal of engineers is that of contributing to or
augmenting human welfare. The professional code of the American Society of
Mechanical Engineering (ASME) and of the American Society of Civil Engineers
(ASCE) states that “engineers shall use their knowledge and skill for the
enhancement of human welfare.” This also includes values such as health,
the environment and sustainability. According to many professional codes
that also means that: “Engineers shall hold paramount the safety, health
and welfare of the public” (as, for example, stated by the code of the
National Society of Professional Engineers). It is worth noting that the
relevant values will differ somewhat depending on the particular engineering
specialization. In the case of software engineers, for instance, values such as
the environment and health will be less relevant whilst matters such as the
privacy and reliability of systems will be more important. One of the most
important values that falls under the pursuit of human welfare amongst
engineers is safety.
• The first two ideals are not always morally commendable and can in
fact even become immoral when pursued in the light of immoral
goals. The third ideal is morally admirable and, therefore, part of the
professional responsibility of engineers. Your professional
responsibility as engineer may sometimes conflict with your
responsibility as employee. Three models of dealing with this tension
and the potential conflict between engineers and managers are
separatism, technocracy and whistle-blowing.
1. Separatism is the notion that scientists and engineers should apply the technical
inputs, but appropriate management and political organs should make the value
decisions, which implies that the professional responsibility of engineers is
confined to engineering matters and all decisions are made by managers and
politicians. The disadvantage of this model is that engineers may end serving
immoral goals and lose sight of the engineering ideal of public welfare.
2. Technocracy means that engineers take over the decision power of managers and
politicians. One disadvantage of this model is that engineers do not possess
expertise on basis of which they can decide for others what human welfare is or
what is safe enough. Another disadvantage is that this model is paternalistic (i.e.,
that the making of decisions for others on the assumption that one knows better
what is good for them than those others themselves).
3. Whistle-blowing means that you, as an engineer, speak out in public about certain
abuses or dangerous situations in a company. Although whistle-blowing may
sometimes be required it is not a very attractive model for the relation between
engineers and managers.
• Instead of any of the three models, it might be better to work on a
relation between engineers and managers that is more cooperative
and mutually supportive, such as a model in which engineers think
about broader issues than just engineering decisions but do not
decide on these issues alone.
Case Study - At John's party
• At John’s party Paul has drunk far too much alcohol. Paul leaves the
party with his car, and he actually crashed his car into another car.
John could have expected that this could lead to an extremely
hazardous situation, since John saw him drinking a lot. It is evident
that Paul is blameworthy.

• Test questions: Class work

• As we have seen from the practice test John ‘fulfills’ the following
three conditions of blameworthiness: foreseeability, freedom of
action, and causal contribution? Do you think that John is also
blameworthy (in a moral sense) for the accident of his friend who had
caused the car accident? In other words, does John ‘satisfy’ the
condition wrong-doing (since John satisfies the other three
conditions)?
Whistle-blowing
• The term whistle-blowing is used if an employee discloses certain abuses
in a company in which he or she is employed without the consent of his
superiors and in order to remedy these abuses and/or to warn the public
about these abuses. Abuses do not only include the endangerment of
public health, safety or the environment but also indictable offences,
violation of the law and of legislation, deception of the public or the
government, corruption, fraud, destroying or manipulating information,
and abuse of power, including sexual harassment and discrimination.
Whistle-blowing may well lead to conflicts with the employer. In fact,
whistle blowers often pay a huge price possibly involving not only losing
their job but also the very difficult task of getting hired again, and even
the loss of friends and family.
Guidelines for whistle-blowing
Business ethicist Richard De George (1990) has proposed the following
guidelines, for when whistle-blowing is morally required:

1. The organization to which the would-be whistleblower belongs will,

through its product or policy, do serious and considerable harm to the
public (whether to users of its product, to innocent bystanders, or to the
public at large);

2. The would-be whistleblower has identified that threat of harm, reported

it to her immediate superior, making clear both the threat itself and the
objection to it, and concluded that the superior will do nothing effective;
3. The would-be whistleblower has exhausted other internal procedures
within the organization (for example, by going up the organizational
ladder as far as allowed) – or at least made use of as many internal
procedures as the danger to others and her own safety make reasonable;

4. The would-be whistleblower has (or has accessible) evidence that

would convince a reasonable, impartial observer that her view of the
threat is correct; and

5. The would-be whistleblower has good reason to believe that revealing

the threat will (probably) prevent the harm at reasonable cost (all things
considered).
Precautionary principle
• The precautionary principle originates from the Rio Declaration, the
closing statement of the first conference of the United Nations on
sustainable development, which was held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992:
“Where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage, lack of full
scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason for postponing cost-
effective measures to prevent environmental degradation.” The
important connection between sustainable development and the
precautionary principle lies in the notion that we should not leave
environmental loans to the coming generations. In other words, we
should not give future generations problems that we allow to continue
because we cannot agree about the question whether there are serious
environmental effects. In this way, we are not guilty of falling into the
trap of a wait-and-see policy.
• The precautionary principle suggested that where there is an
identifiable risk of serious or irreversible harm, it may be appropriate
to place the burden of proof – which advocates inaction until cause is
proven – on the person or organization proposing the activity that is
potentially harmful to the environment or risky. The principle permits
the taking of preventative measures without having to wait until the
reality and seriousness of the threat become fully known.
• The main problem of the precautionary principle is that it seems to
forbid too much. Opponents point out that a number of important
technical innovations that we now consider to be desirable would not
have been implemented is we adhered to the precautionary principle.
According to them, the precautionary principle places absurdly high
demands – in fact they are nonsensical demands since you can never
prove that something will not cause damage. It seems more
justifiable, though, to demand that we have reasonable grounds
rather than incontrovertible proof that there will be no damage. But
what is reasonable? Another problem lies in the cost effectiveness. If
we are ignorant of which damage will occur and especially what the
chances are of such damage occurring, it is particularly difficult to
say something about when a measure will be cost effective.
• The principle can, however, also be applied to unknown risks and we
will discuss that application here. The principle is mainly suitable for
situations in which we cannot fully express hazards as risks because
we have insufficient scientific knowledge. In general, the
precautionary principle states that precautionary measures must be
taken if there are indications of a certain hazards, despite the fact
that the hazards cannot be completely scientifically proven. The
precautionary principle as a prescriptive principle contains four
dimensions: If there is (1) a threat, which is (2) uncertain, then (3)
some kind of action (4) is mandatory (Sandin 1999).
Case Study
• Do you consider Roger Boisjoly morally responsible for the Challenger
disaster?
• Several months after the Challenger disaster Boisjoly said the following:
“I must emphasize, I had my say, and I never [would] take [away] any
management right to take the input of an engineer and then make a
decision based upon that input …. I have worked at a lot of companies …
and I truly believe that, … there was no point in me doing anything
further [other] than [what] I had already attempted to do” (Goldberg
1987, p. 156). Do you think his separatist argument is sound?
• Separatism is the notion that scientists and engineers should apply the
technical inputs, but appropriate management and political organs
make the value decisions.