ENGINEERING ETHICS

Lecture#7
By
Engr.Usama
 Engineering Ethics
• Engineering Ethics is the activity and discipline
aimed at
• (a) understanding the moral values that ought
to guide engineering profession or practice
• (b) resolving moral issues in engineering, and
• (c) justifying the moral judgments in
engineering. It deals with set of moral
problems and issues connected with
engineering
 Engineering Ethics
• Engineering ethics is defined by the codes and
standards of conduct endorsed by engineering
(professional) societies with respect to the
particular set of beliefs, attitudes and habits
displayed by the individual or group
• Another important goal of engineering ethics
is the discovery of the set of justified moral
principles of obligation, rights and ideals that
ought to be endorsed by the engineers and
apply them to concrete situations.
 Engineering Ethics
• Engineering is the largest profession and the
decisions and actions of engineers affect all of us in
almost all areas of our lives, namely public safety,
health, and welfare.
• Scope:
• The scope of engineering ethics are twofold:
• 1. Ethics of the workplace which involves the co-
workers and employees in an organization
• 2. Ethics related to the product or work which
involves the transportation, warehousing, and use,
besides the safety of the end product and the
 Approach
• There are conventionally two approaches in
the study of ethics:
• 1. Micro-ethics which deals with decisions and
problems of individuals, professionals, and
companies.
• 2. Macro-ethics which deals with the societal
problems on a regional/national level. For
example, global issues, collective
responsibilities of groups such as professional
societies and consumer groups.
 SENSES OF ENGINEERING ETHICS
• There are two different senses (meanings) of
engineering ethics, namely the Normative and
the Descriptive senses. The normative sense
include:
• (a) Knowing moral values, finding accurate
solutions to moral problems and justifying
moral judgments in engineering practices,
• (b) Study of decisions, policies, and values that
are morally desirable in the engineering
practice and research, and
 SENSES OF ENGINEERING ETHICS
• (c) Using codes of ethics and standards and
applying them in their transactions by
engineers. The descriptive sense refers to what
specific individual or group of engineers believe
and act, without justifying their beliefs or
actions
 VARIETY OF MORAL ISSUES
• It would be relevant to know why and how do
moral issues (problems) arise in a profession
or why do people behave unethically? The
reasons for people including the employer and
employees, behaving unethically may be
classified into three categories:
• 1. Resource Crunch
• Due to pressure, through time limits,
availability of money or budgetary constraints,
and technology decay or obsolescence
 VARIETY OF MORAL ISSUES
• Pressure from the government to complete the
project in time (e.g., before the elections),
reduction in the budget because of sudden war
or natural calamity (e.g., Tsunami) and
obsolescence due technology innovation by the
competitor lead to manipulation and unsafe and
unethical execution of projects.
• Involving individuals in the development of goals
and values and developing policies that allow for
individual diversity, dissent, and input to
decision-making will prevent unethical results.
 VARIETY OF MORAL ISSUES
• 2. Opportunity:
• (a) Double standards or behavior of the
employers towards the employees and the public.
The unethical behaviors of World Com (in USA),
Enron (in USA as well as India) executives in 2002
resulted in bankruptcy for those companies
• (b) Management projecting their own interests
more than that of their employees. Some
organizations over-emphasize short-term gains
and results at the expense of themselves and
others,
 VARIETY OF MORAL ISSUES
• (c) Emphasis on results and gains at the
expense of the employees, and
• (d) Management by objectives, without focus
on empowerment and improvement of the
infrastructure
• This is best encountered by developing
policies that allow ‘conscience keepers’ and
whistle blowers and appointing ombudsman,
who can work confidentially with people to
solve the unethical problems internally
 VARIETY OF MORAL ISSUES
• 3. Attitude:
• Poor attitude of the employees set in due to
• (a) Low morale of the employees because of
dissatisfaction and downsizing,
• (b) Absence of grievance redressal mechanism,
• (c) Lack of promotion or career development
policies or denied promotions,
• (d) Lack of transparency,
• (e) Absence of recognition and reward system, and
• (f) Poor working environments
 VARIETY OF MORAL ISSUES
• Giving ethics training for all, recognizing
ethical conduct in work place, including ethics
in performance appraisal, and encouraging
open discussion on ethical issues, are some of
the directions to promote positive attitudes
among the employees
• To get firm and positive effect, ethical
standards must be set and adopted by the
senior management, with input from all
personnel
 TYPES OF INQUIRIES
• The three types of inquiries, in solving ethical
problems are: normative inquiry, conceptual
inquiry, and factual or descriptive inquiry
• The three types of inquiries are discussed
below to illustrate the differences and
preference
• 1. Normative Inquiry:
• It seeks to identify and justify the morally-
desirable norms or standards that should guide
individuals and groups
 NORMATIVE INQUIRY
• It also has the theoretical goal of justifying
particular moral judgments
• Normative questions are about what ought to
be and what is good, based on moral values.
For example,
• 1. How far does the obligation of engineers to
protect public safety extend in any given
situation?
• 2. When, if ever, should engineers be expected
to blow whistle on dangerous practices of
their employers?
 NORMATIVE INQUIRY
• 3. Whose values ought to be primary in making
judgment about acceptable risks in design for a
public transport system or a nuclear plant? Is it
of management, senior engineers, government,
voters or all of them?
• 4. When and why is the government justified in
interfering with the organizations?
• 5. What are the reasons on which the engineers
show their obligations to their employees or
clients or the public?
 2. Conceptual Inquiry
• It is directed to clarify the meaning of concepts or
ideas or principles that are expressed by words or
by questions and statements. For example
• (a) What is meant by safety?
• (b) How is it related to risk?
• (c) What is a bribe?
• (d) What is a profession?
• When moral concepts are discussed, normative
and conceptual issues are closely interconnected
 3. Factual or Descriptive Inquiry
• It is aimed to obtain facts needed for
understanding and resolving value issues
• Researchers conduct factual inquiries using
mathematical or statistical techniques
• The inquiry provide important information on
business realities, engineering practice, and the
effectiveness of professional societies in
fostering moral conduct, the procedures used in
risk assessment, and psychological profiles of
engineers
 3. Factual or Descriptive Inquiry
• The facts provide not only the reasons for moral
problems but also enable us to develop
alterative ways of resolving moral problems. For
example,
• 1. How were the benefits assessed?
• 2. What are procedures followed in risk
assessment?
• 3. What are short-term and long-term effects of
drinking water being polluted? and
• 4. Who conducted the tests on materials?
 MORAL DILEMMA
• Definition:
• Dilemmas are situations in which moral reasons
come into conflict, or in which the application of
moral values are problems, and one is not clear
of the immediate choice or solution of the
problems
• Moral reasons could be rights, duties, goods or
obligations. These situations do not mean that
things had gone wrong, but they only indicate
the presence of moral complexity
 MORAL DILEMMA
• This makes the decision making complex. For
example, a person promised to meet a friend
and dine, but he has to help his uncle who is
involved in an accident — one has to fix the
priority.
• There are some difficulties in arriving at the
solution to the problems, in dilemma. The
three complex situations leading to moral
dilemmas are:
 MORAL DILEMMA
• 1. The problem of vagueness: One is unable to
distinguish between good and bad (right or
wrong) principle Good means an action that is
obligatory. For example, code of ethics
specifies that one should obey the laws and
follow standards. Refuse bribe or accept the
gift, and maintain confidentiality
• 2. The problem of conflicting reasons: One is
unable to choose between two good moral
solutions. One has to fix priority, through
knowledge or value system
 MORAL DILEMMA
• 3. The problem of disagreement: There may
be two or more solutions and none of them
mandatory.
• These solutions may be better or worse in
some respects but not in all aspects. One has
to interpret, apply different morally reasons,
and analyze and rank the decisions. Select the
best suitable, under the existing and the most
probable conditions.
 Steps to Solve Dilemma
• The logical steps in confronting moral dilemma
are
• 1. Identification of the moral factors and
reasons
• The clarity to identify the relevant moral values
from among duties, rights, goods and
obligations is obtained (conceptual inquiry).
• The most useful resource in identifying
dilemmas in engineering is the professional
codes of ethics, as interpreted by the
professional experience.
 Steps to Solve Dilemma
• Another resource is talking with colleagues who
can focus or narrow down the choice of values.
• 2. Collection of all information, data, and facts
(factual inquiry) relevant to the situation
• 3. Rank the moral options i.e., priority in
application through value system, and also as
obligatory, all right, acceptable, not acceptable,
damaging, and most damaging etc.
 Steps to Solve Dilemma
• For example, in fulfilling responsibility, the
codes give prime importance to public safety
and protection of the environment, as
compared to the individuals or the employers
(conceptual inquiry).
• 4. Generate alternate courses of action to
resolve the dilemma. Write down the main
options and sub-options as a matrix or decision
tree to ensure that all options are included
 Steps to Solve Dilemma
• 5. Discuss with colleagues and obtain their
perspectives, priorities, and suggestions on
various alternatives
• 6. Decide upon a final course of action, based
on priority fixed or assumed. If there is no
ideal solution, we arrive at a partially
satisfactory or ‘satisfying’ solution.