The complex challenges of ethical choices by engineers in public service

This paper proposes that engineers in public service are confronted with unavoidable complexity in their ethical considerations. The complexity begins with interactions among venues of ethical choices. Engineers must make ethical choices simultaneously at the individual, professional, organizational and societal levels. These ethical domains often conflict. The complexity also stems from situations in which physical properties may remain stable, but important social, economic, institutional and political conditions can change substantially. The paper proposes that the reflective learning approach of pragmatism can help with these challenging situations. This approach depends upon employing Dewey’s five stage process of inquiry to engage the ethical complexity inherent in the practice of engineering in the public service. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 2005 conference, Ethics and Social Responsibility in Engineering and Technology, Linking Workplace Ethics and Education, co-hosted by Gonzaga University and Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, CA, USA, 9–10 June 2005.     

“Mind the gaps”: An empirical approach to engineering ethics, 1997–2001

A survey on ethical issues in engineering was administered over a five-year period to Stanford engineering students and practicing engineers. Analysis of its results strongly suggests that important disconnects exist between the education of engineering students regarding ethical issues in engineering on the one hand, and the realities of contemporary engineering practice on the other. Two noteworthy consequences of these gaps are that the views of engineering students differ substantially over what makes an issue an ethical issue, while practicing engineers exhibit significant disagreement over what is the most important non-technical aspect of being a responsible engineering professional in contemporary society. These divergences impede the recognition of ethical issues and of specific moral responsibilities of engineers in concrete professional practice. It is argued that the use of suitably refined and probing surveys of engineering students and practicing engineers about ethical issues in engineering is an important although neglected empirical approach to the study of engineering ethics. Such an approach can enhance the prevailing case study method and combat over-tidy theoretical-analytical approaches to the subject. When a train arrives at a station in the London Underground, a public announcement cautions passengers to “mind the gap”, i.e. heed the space between the station platform and the carriage while entering or exiting. An early draft of this paper was presented at the International Conference on Ethics in Engineering and Computer Science, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio, March 21–23, 1999.     

Professional Ambivalence: Accounts of Ethical Practice in Childhood Genetic Testing

Childhood genetic testing raises complex ethical and moral dilemmas for both families and professionals. In the family sphere, the role of communication is a key aspect in the transmission of ‘genetic responsibility’ between adults and children. In the professional sphere, genetic responsibility is an interactional accomplishment emerging from the sometimes competing views over what constitutes the ‘best interests’ of the child in relation to parental preferences on the one hand, and professional judgements on the other. In the present paper we extend our previous research into parental accounts of childhood genetic testing and explore the ethical accounts of professionals in research interviews. Interviews (n = 20) were conducted with professional practitioners involved in the genetic diagnosis and management of children and their families. We first identify four inter-related themes—juxtaposition of parental rights vis-à-vis child’s autonomy, elicitation of the child’s autonomy, avoidance of parental responsibility and recognition of professional uncertainty. Then, using Rhetorical Discourse Analysis, we examine the range of discourse devices through which ethical accounts are situationally illustrated: contrast, reported speech, constructed dialogue, character and event work. An overarching device in these ethical accounts is the use of extreme case scenarios, which reconstruct dilemmas as justifications of professional conduct. While acknowledging ambivalence, our analysis suggests that professional judgement is not a simple matter of implementing ethical principles but rather of managing the practical conditions and consequences of interactions with parents and children. We conclude that more attention is needed to understand the way professional practitioners formulate judgements about ethical practice.     

The use of moral dilemmas for teaching agricultural engineers

Agricultural engineers’ jobs are especially related to sustainability and earth life issues. They usually work with plants or animals, and the aim of their work is often linked to producing food to allow people to improve their quality of life. Taking into account this dual function, the moral requirements of their day-to-day professional practice are arguably greater than those of other professions. Agricultural engineers can develop their ability to live up to this professional responsibility by receiving ethical training during their university studies, not only by taking courses specifically devoted to ethics, but also by having to deal with moral questions that are integrated into their technical courses through a program of Ethics Across the Curriculum (EAC). The authors feel that a suitable pedagogical technique for achieving this goal is the use of moral dilemmas, following Kohlberg’s theory of levels of morality (1981), with the final objective of attaining a post-conventional level. This paper examines the possibilities and limitations of using moral dilemmas as a pedagogical technique for training agricultural engineers. The cases, discussions, and evaluation used in the Agricultural Engineering Department of the Technical University of Valencia (Spain) are also presented. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 2005 conference, Ethics and Social Responsibility in Engineering and Technology, Linking Workplace Ethics and Education, co-hosted by Gonzaga University and Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, CA, USA, 9–10 June 2005.     

Changing the Paradigm for Engineering Ethics

Modern philosophy recognizes two major ethical theories: deontology, which encourages adherence to rules and fulfillment of duties or obligations; and consequentialism, which evaluates morally significant actions strictly on the basis of their actual or anticipated outcomes. Both involve the systematic application of universal abstract principles, reflecting the culturally dominant paradigm of technical rationality. Professional societies promulgate codes of ethics with which engineers are expected to comply (deontology), while courts and the public generally assign liability to engineers primarily in accordance with the results of their work, whether intended or unintended (consequentialism). A third option, prominent in ancient philosophy, has reemerged recently: virtue ethics, which recognizes that sensitivity to context and practical judgment are indispensable in particular concrete situations, and therefore rightly focuses on the person who acts, rather than the action itself. Beneficial character traits—i.e., virtues—are identified within a specific social practice in light of the internal goods that are unique to it. This paper proposes a comprehensive framework for implementing virtue ethics within engineering.     

Ethics, Engineers and Drama

This paper describes four plays which illustrate ethical themes relevant to engineers and which could be used as a resource for engineers who wish to explore ethical topics and their relationship with professional practice. The plays themselves have been chosen because a character in the play is involved in engineering activities. Each play is analysed to highlight some of the ethical issues the play raises. Often ethical topics are presented in abstract terms but the plays relate ethical issues to individuals and individual actions in specific situations that connect either directly or figuratively to practical situations engineers find themselves in. The paper describes how the resources have or could be used in an educational programme.     

Senior capstone design and ethics: A bridge to the professional world

A senior level capstone design experience has been developed and offered with a particular emphasis on many of the professional issues raised in Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) Engineering Criterion IV. The course has sought to develop student awareness of the ethical foundation of the engineering profession, the global and societal framework within which engineers practice, and the environmental impact on engineering. The capstone design course also focused upon improving the technical communications skills of the graduating senior class with both extensive instruction in writing and multiple workshops dealing with the art of making an effective oral presentation. The effectiveness of the design course was assessed using Kirkpatrick’s model for evaluating training programs. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the “Ethics and Social Responsibility in Engineering and Technology” meeting, New Orleans, 2003.     

Teaching engineering ethics to first-year college students

One of the methods used at Penn State to teach engineering students about ethics is a one-credit First-Year Seminar entitled “How Good Engineers Solve Tough Problems.” Students meet in class once a week to understand ethical frameworks, develop ethical problem-solving skills, and to better understand the professional responsibilities of engineers. Emphasis is on the ubiquity of ethical problems in professional engineering. A learning objective is the development of moral imagination, similar to the development of technical imagination in engineering design courses. Making sound arguments is also addressed in the process of reasoning through cases, and critiquing other’s arguments. Over the course of the semester, students solve five engineering ethics cases. Each week, a student team of four people is responsible for reading the assigned section of the text, developing a summary, and leading the class discussion. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the “Ethics and Social Responsibility in Engineering and Technology” meeting, New Orleans, 2003.     

The Good Engineer: Giving Virtue its Due in Engineering Ethics

During the past few decades, engineering ethics has been oriented towards protecting the public from professional misconduct by engineers and from the harmful effects of technology. This "preventive ethics" project has been accomplished primarily by means of the promulgation of negative rules. However, some aspects of engineering professionalism, such as (1) sensitivity to risk (2) awareness of the social context of technology, (3) respect for nature, and (4) commitment to the public good, cannot be adequately accounted for in terms of rules, certainly not negative rules. Virtue ethics is a more appropriate vehicle for expressing these aspects of engineering professionalism. Some of the unique features of virtue ethics are the greater place it gives for discretion and judgment and also for inner motivation and commitment. Four of the many professional virtues that are important for engineers correspond to the four aspects of engineering professionalism listed above. Finally, the importance of the humanities and social sciences in promoting these virtues suggests that these disciplines are crucial in the professional education of engineers.     

Teaching business ethics to professional engineers

Without question “business ethics” is one of the hot topics of the day. Over the past months we have seen business after business charged with improper practices that violate commonly-accepted ethical norms. This has led to a loss of confidence in corporate management, and has had severe economic consequences. From many quarters business educators have heard the call to put more emphasis on ethical practices in their business courses and curricula. Engineering educators are also heeding this call, since the practice of engineering usually involves working for (or leading) a business and/or engaging in business transactions. In the summer of 2002, Auburn University’s Engineering Professional Development program made the decision to produce—based on the author’s Executive MBA course in Business Ethics—a distance-delivered continuing education program for professional engineers and surveyors. Participants across the USA now may use the course to satisfy continuing education requirements with respect to professional licensing and certification. This paper outlines the purpose and content of the course and describes its production, distribution, application, and evaluation. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the “Ethics and Social Responsibility in Engineering and Technology” meeting, New Orleans, 2003.     

Teaching ethics in engineering education through historical analysis

The goal of this paper is to stress the significance of ethics for engineering education and to illustrate how it can be brought into the mainstream of higher education in a natural way that is integrated with the teaching objectives of enriching the core meaning of engineering. Everyone will agree that the practicing engineer should be virtuous, should be a good colleague, and should use professional understanding for the common good. But these injunctions to virtue do not reach closely enough the ethic of the engineer as engineer, as someone acting in a uniquely engineering situation, and it is to such conditions that I wish to speak through a set of specific examples from recent history. I shall briefly refer to four controversies between engineers. Then, in some detail I shall narrate three historical cases that directly involve the actions of one engineer, and finally I would like to address some common contemporary issues. The first section, “Engineering Ethics and the History of Innovation” includes four cases involving professional controversy. Each controversy sets two people against each other in disputes over who invented the telegraph, the radio, the automobile, and the airplane. In each dispute, it is possible to identify ethical and unethical behavior or ambiguous ethical behavior that serves as a basis for educational discussion. The first two historical cases described in “Crises and the Engineer” involve the primary closure dam systems in the Netherlands, each one the result of the actions of one engineer. The third tells of an American engineer who took his political boss, a big city mayor, to court over the illegal use of a watershed. The challenges these engineers faced required, in the deepest sense, a commitment to ethical behavior that is unique to engineering and instructive to our students. Finally, the cases in “Professors and Comparative Critical Analysis” illuminate the behavior of engineers in the design of structures and also how professors can make public criticisms of designs that seem wasteful. This paper was the keynote address at the 2005 conference, Ethics and Social Responsibility in Engineering and Technology, Linking Workplace Ethics and Education, co-hosted by Gonzaga University and Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, California, USA, 9–10 June 2005.     

The Responsibilities of Engineers

Knowledge of the responsibilities of engineers is the foundation for answering ethical questions about the work of engineers. This paper defines the responsibilities of engineers by considering what constitutes the nature of engineering as a particular form of activity. Specifically, this paper focuses on the ethical responsibilities of engineers qua engineers. Such responsibilities refer to the duties acquired in virtue of being a member of a group. We examine the practice of engineering, drawing on the idea of practices developed by philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre, and show how the idea of a practice is important for identifying and justifying the responsibilities of engineers. To demonstrate the contribution that knowledge of the responsibilities of engineers makes to engineering ethics, a case study from structural engineering is discussed. The discussion of the failure of the Sleipner A Platform off the coast of Norway in 1991 demonstrates how the responsibilities of engineers can be derived from knowledge of the nature of engineering and its context.     

Law and eschatology in Wittgenstein's early thought

The paper investigates the role played by ethical deliberation and ethical judgment in Wittgenstein's early thought in the light of twentieth‐century German legal philosophy. In particular the theories of the phenomenologists Adolf Reinach, Wilhelm Schapp, and Gerhart Husserl are singled out, as resting on ontologies which are structurally similar to that of the Tractatus: in each case it is actual and possible Sachverhalte which constitute the prime ontological category. The study of the relationship between the states of affairs depicted, e.g., in the sentences of a legal trial and prior fact‐complexes to which these may correspond suggests one possible connecting link between the logical and ontological sections of the Tractatus and the ethical reflections appearing at the end. It is argued that the latter can best be understood in terms of the idea of a ‘last judgment’ (with its associated ethical rewards and punishments) which would relate to the world as a whole as a penal trial relates to individual complexes of facts.     

A team-taught interdisciplinary approach to engineering ethics

This paper outlines the development and implementation of a new course in Engineering Ethics at the University of Tennessee. This is a three-semester-hour course and is jointly taught by an engineering professor and a philosophy professor. While traditional pedagogical techniques such as case studies, position papers, and classroom discussions are used, additional activities such as developing a code of ethics and student-developed scenarios are employed to encourage critical thinking. Among the topics addressed in the course are engineering as a profession and its role in society; ethical successes and failures; risk, safety, and the environment; professional responsibilities; credit and intellectual property; and international concerns. The most significant aspect of the course is that it brings both engineering and non-engineering points of view to the topics at hand. This is accomplished in two ways. First, as mentioned previously, it is team-taught by engineering faculty with an interest in ethical and societal issues, and by philosophy faculty with expertise in the field of professional ethics and an interest in science and technology. Second, the course is offered to both engineers and non-engineers. This mix of students requires that all students must be able to explain their technical and ethical decisions in a non-technical manner. Work teams are structured to maximize interdisciplinary interaction and to foster insights by each student into the professional commitments and attitudes of others. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 2005 conference, Ethics and Social Responsibility in Engineering and Technology, Linking Workplace Ethics and Education, co-hosted by Gonzaga University and Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, CA, USA, 9–10 June 2005.     

Professional Ethics of Software Engineers: An Ethical Framework

The purpose of this article is to propose an ethical framework for software engineers that connects software developers’ ethical responsibilities directly to their professional standards. The implementation of such an ethical framework can overcome the traditional dichotomy between professional skills and ethical skills, which plagues the engineering professions, by proposing an approach to the fundamental tasks of the practitioner, i.e., software development, in which the professional standards are intrinsically connected to the ethical responsibilities. In so doing, the ethical framework improves the practitioner’s professionalism and ethics. We call this approach Ethical-Driven Software Development (EDSD), as an approach to software development. EDSD manifests the advantages of an ethical framework as an alternative to the all too familiar approach in professional ethics that advocates “stand-alone codes of ethics”. We believe that one outcome of this synergy between professional and ethical skills is simply better engineers. Moreover, since there are often different software solutions, which the engineer can provide to an issue at stake, the ethical framework provides a guiding principle, within the process of software development, that helps the engineer evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of different software solutions. It does not and cannot affect the end-product in and of-itself. However, it can and should, make the software engineer more conscious and aware of the ethical ramifications of certain engineering decisions within the process.     

What place does religion have in the ethical thinking of scientists and engineers?

Religion, defined as ‘the idea of a state that transcends ourselves and our world and the working out of the consequences of that idea’, may influence the ethical thinking of scientists and engineers in two ways. The first is at the level of the individual and how personal beliefs affect the choice of research, design or development projects, relationships with other researchers and the understandings of the consequences of research on other aspects of life. The second level is that of the social and cultural setting in which scientists and engineers work; how society decides which research to sponsor, how to apply the results of scientific discovery and which technology it chooses to develop and for what purposes. In neither of these areas is religious belief a necessary condition for scientists and engineers to pursue one course of action rather than another. The existence of religious belief within the individual and society is, though, part of the ethical framework in which scientist and engineers work and therefore something to which attention should be paid. Religion provides a particular perspective on what should be. Conversely science and technology provide information on the nature of the person and the universe in which we live, which must be taken into account when theologians and religious moralists apply their ethical norms and principles.     

The role of professional societies: Codes of conduct and their enforcement

In discussions of professional standards and ethical values it is reasonable to consider who will develop the codes of conduct and guidelines for behavior that will reflect the standards and values of the community. Also worthy of consideration is whether the standards or guidelines are enforceable, and how and to what extent they will be enforced. The development of guidelines or professional codes of conduct is a responsibility that has been adopted by many professional societies. Useful to this discussion is an examination of the rationale behind the development of ethical codes by professional societies. The Ethics in Science Committee of the Council of Scientific Society Presidents (CSSP) has examined the codes of some of its member societies and some observations regarding them are pertinent. The nature and uses of ethical statements, codes and guidelines developed by professional societies are multiple and diverse. Their enforcement raises both practical and ethical concerns. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Engineering Foundation Conference on “Ethics for Science and Engineering Based International Industries”, Durham, NC, USA, 14–17 September 1997.     

The Nazi Engineers: Reflections on Technological Ethics in Hell

Engineers, architects, and other technological professionals designed the genocidal death machines of the Third Reich. The death camp operations were highly efficient, so these technological professionals knew what they were doing: they were, so to speak, good engineers. As an educator at a technological university, I need to explain to my students—future engineers and architects—the motivations and ethical reasoning of the technological professionals of the Third Reich. I need to educate my students in the ethical practices of this hellish regime so that they can avoid the kind of ethical justifications used by the Nazi engineers. In their own professional lives, my former students should not only be good engineers in a technical sense, but good engineers in a moral sense. In this essay, I examine several arguments about the ethical judgments of professionals in Nazi Germany, and attempt a synthesis that can provide a lesson for contemporary engineers and other technological professionals. How does an engineer avoid the error of the Nazi engineers in their embrace of an evil ideology underlying their technological creations? How does an engineer know that the values he embodies through his technological products are good values that will lead to a better world? This last question, I believe, is the fundamental issue for the understanding of engineering ethics.     

Science, Ethics and War: A Pacifist’s Perspective

This article considers the ethical aspects of the question: should a scientist engage in war-related research, particularly use-inspired or applied research directed at the development of the means for the better waging of war? Because scientists are simultaneously professionals, citizens of a particular country, and human beings, they are subject to conflicting moral and practical demands. There are three major philosophical views concerning the morality of war that are relevant to this discussion: realism, just war theory and pacifism. In addition, the requirements of professional codes of ethics and common morality contribute to an ethical analysis of the involvement of scientists and engineers in war-related research and technology. Because modern total warfare, which is facilitated by the work of scientists and engineers, results in the inevitable killing of innocents, it follows that most, if not all, war-related research should be considered at least as morally suspect and probably as morally prohibited.     

Taking an ethical position on standards

A number of ethical principles and values that underpin occupational and professional standards are identified, alongside particular ethical positions that may be useful for clarifying ethical decisions. The paper is divided into three sections: firstly, identifying occupational and professional standards and values; secondly, an exposition of popular ethical theories and principles; and thirdly, applying an ethical system.