Engineering Ethics
photos
Example: Hyatt Regency Walkway Collapse,
Kansas
City, 1981 ( more
details )
- A 3rd floor walkway across a hotel atrium
collapsed during
a party, killing 114 people
- the builders made a change in the design of
the
walkway
support, which was already marginal
- a structural engineer named Jack Gillum put
his
seal on
the plans--he had 100 engineers working for him on many different
projects.
The project engineer was a man named Daniel Duncan.
- Gillum and Duncan were charged with gross
negligence by
the licensing board and their licences were revoked even though
criminal
charges had not been filed against them. Gillum's defense was
that
he signed off on the plans without looking at them and that this was
common
practice.
- they lost their licenses--the first
engineers to
loose
their licenses for negligence in the 20th century (source
of
this material is a lecture by Sarah Pfatteicher, who wrote a
dissertation
on the history of engineering ethics)
Professional
ethics is different from personal
morality.
- Why not take a bribe? three reasons--
- breaks the law
- violates professional ethics
- violates moral norms about cheating
- professional ethics are a kind of contract
- you get certain privileges as a member of
a
particular
profession and in return you are required to follow the rules of that
profession
- because you agree to follow the rules in
return for privileges
you don't have the right to ignore those rules that you don't agree
with
(besides which, people who think they are above the rules usually end
up
deceiving themselves into serious trouble)
- professional ethics may expect you to do
something contrary to your personal moral views, for example
a lawyer who takes on defending a murderer is expected by professional
ethics to do a good job even if s/he thinks the murderer deserved to be
convicted. (Lawyers don't have to take a case, but somebody has
to take the job of defending the murderer.)
Tacoma
Narrows Bridge story
movie
Florman (ch. 7) claims that engineers don't need
codes of ethics
any more.
- laws have replaced ethics
- it is more important to do
a good job (sloppy work is a more common cause of harm than ethical
violations)
- everyone has their own
different ethics and we put more emphasis on individual views and less
on common values
- where questions of
individual concern are involved (eg. ban nuclear weapons?) engineers
should act through the political process
- to improve the decisions
made by the political process maybe engineers can help educate the
public
Specific issues:
- professional ethics used to include a lot of
what Florman
calls guild
rules
- do not advertise
- do not engage in competitive bidding
- but that isn't really to the point (and has
been ruled
in violation of antitrust laws)
Florman asks: what are the responsibilities of the
professional engineer? Serve the public interest--means what?
Go here for
another analysis of Florman's views or here for an
explicitly Christian analysis of engineering ethics.
- not breaking the law?
- engineers have been found guilty of
everything
from bribery
to negligence
- But this isn't a special dilemma for
engineers.
- things that used to be a matter of ethics,
like product
safety, have increasingly been regulated
- Use technology for good rather than for evil?
- But Florman says "Engineers do not have
the
responsibility,
much less the right, to establish goals for society."
- You may decide on the basis of personal
ethics that you
don't want to design a gambling casino, but that isn't a matter of
professional
ethics.
- If we think cigarettes should be banned
we
should work
for that as a government decision, not call on individuals to not
design
cigarette manufacturing machines or sell cigarettes.
- it is not part of the engineer's job to
second-guess government
regulations and prevailing standards or to challenge public
policy.
Such action is appropriate as a citizen.
- So what is left for ethics in Florman's view?
- Engineers should do their work
conscientiously.
- Diligence is more important than moral
intentions; sloppiness
does much more harm than greed or intent to deceive.
- Engineers should work to inform the public
so
that better
democratic decisions can be made.
story
and photo source
Other people who have
studied
engineering ethics often make stronger claims--situations that feel
like
moral issues do arise fairly frequently. You
can find a detailed code for dealing with such subjects at National
Society of Professional Engineers (NSPE) Code of Ethics for Engineers.(large
type )
- Do engineers have a responsibility to
protect
society
simply on the basis of general morality, or do they have some special
obligation
as engineers (professionals with expert knowledge)?
- how often do people find themselves caught
between professional
obligations and their role as employees? Texas
Instruments Advice on Ethics
- whistle-blowing:
- obligation?
- legal protection (for federal
employees in 1979)
- Between 1977 and 1992 (when protection for
whistleblowers
working for DOE contractors went into effect) the Dept. of Energy had
about
100 cases of whistleblowing at the five sites like the Savannah River
Plant,
almost all of them involving health and safety issues.
- more
discussion of whistleblowing
Finally, we should think about our personal
morality.
- Personal morality does not carry over
automatically into
your career--we don't necessarily recognize the ethical dilemmas we
meet
because we are too busy doing our jobs. You need to think about
the situations you meet in order to live by your own morality
- Different people think of morality in
different
ways:
- utilitarianism--an action is right or
wrong
depending
on its consequences, such as its effects on society. More
specifically--everyone
should behave in such a way so as to bring about the greatest happiness
for the greatest number of people
- idealism--there is some fundamental
standard
of right
and wrong by which we can judge our actions. Copying software is
always wrong, even if it does no harm or has a beneficial effect on
society
as a whole. It is relatively easy to say killing is always wrong,
harder to
say that lying is always wrong.
this page written and copyright by Pamela
E. Mack
last updated 9/12/2005