engm 604: social, legal and ethical considerations for engineering ethics and professionals
TRANSCRIPT
ENGM 604: Social, Legal and Ethical Considerations for Engineering
ENGM 604: Social, Legal and Ethical Considerations for Engineering
Ethics and Professionals
The Challenger DisasterThe Challenger Disaster
• A Crucial Decision• The Challenge: “Take
off your engineering hat and put on your management hat.”
• A Conflict of Roles• Consequences
The ‘Red Adair of disaster relief’The ‘Red Adair of disaster relief’
• Frederick Cuny and Intertect Relief and Reconstruction Corp.
• Model or Anomaly?
• Implications for engineering managers?
Image source:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/cuny/art/side2c.gif&imgrefurl=http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/cuny/bio/cunyinbosnia.html&h=110&w=150&sz=9&tbnid=JTOmjT36qlgJ:&tbnh=66&tbnw=90&hl=en&start=2&prev=/images%3Fq%3D%2522Frederick%2BCuny%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26safe%3Doff%26client%3Dsafari%26rls%3Den%26sa%3DG
The Pull of MoralityThe Pull of Morality
• How should we understand the claims that morality has on us?• Force?• Scope?
• What is it about us that makes us susceptible to these claims?
Engineers and MoralityEngineers and Morality
• A more specific answer to the question of susceptibility is available for engineers: engineers are Professionals.
• Why would the professional status of engineers make them subject to moral concerns?
• Answer might be found in the definition of profession (EE, p. 9).
The Professions: A TaxonomyThe Professions: A Taxonomy
• The definition of profession gets us started, but it obscures as much as it helps.
• A more detailed account of the characteristics which distinguish the professions from other sorts of occupations is needed.• Training with a significant intellectual component.
• Professional activities are centrally concerned with the well-being of society.
• Monopoly over the professional activities.
• High degree of work-place autonomy.
Grounds for Obligation?Grounds for Obligation?
• What does this list add up to?
• Taken individually and as a whole, the characteristics of a profession provide a basis for arguing that professionals have significant moral responsibilities.
• Historically, professions have recognized this and formulated these responsibilities in Codes of Ethics.
What’s Different?What’s Different?
• Are professionals really that different from other people?
• While they certainly have obligations specific to their professional activities, this specificity is in principle no different than the many specific obligations that we all have.• Parents, Managers, Classmates
A Taxonomy of MoralityA Taxonomy of Morality
• Understanding the specificity of obligation requires us to make some distinctions in the field of morality.
• A common schema divides the field into regions of increasing generality.• Personal Morality: the set of moral commitments
specific to each individual.• Role Morality: the set of moral commitments specific
to socially defined roles individuals inhabit.• Common Morality: the set of moral commitments
exhibited by a culture or society.
Professional Obligations and Role Morality
Professional Obligations and Role Morality
• According to this schema, professional obligations would belong to the region of role morality.
• They would thus be no different in kind from the variety of responsibilities we all have as role players.
• They would be different, however, due to the specialized nature of the role.
Special Obligations of ProfessionalsSpecial Obligations of Professionals
• Most of our work in this module will focus on the obligations specific to your roles as engineers and business people.
• Before looking at these specifics, however, we can point to a feature common to the majority of professions.
• Generally, professional obligations are articulated in codes.• The text collects some samples starting on p. 365.
Codes of Ethics: FunctionsCodes of Ethics: Functions
• Professional Codes have a number of functions.• They make explicit the shared standards of the
practitioners of the profession.• This is a benefit to the practitioners in that it
clarifies what is expected of them and what they can expect of each other.
• It also benefits the public, providing the basis for reasonable expectations of professional behavior and competence.
Codes of Ethics: FunctionsCodes of Ethics: Functions
• Professional Codes have a number of functions.• They serve as a touchstone for the evolving
discussion of the content of professional responsibility
• They perform an important protective function by giving professionals cover under which they can make unpopular or potentially insubordinate decisions.
Types of CodesTypes of Codes
• Professional codes of ethics come in all shapes and sizes.• Sometimes they are unwritten, part of the “common
understanding” of the profession; sometimes they are vaguely or imprecisely written; sometimes they are written in very specific detail.
• Sometimes they enunciate purely moral principles; frequently they are a mixture of principles, rules of etiquette, and economic considerations (rules against competition, etc.).
• Sometimes they make explicit reference to broader ethical perspectives and practices (usually for purposes of justification); sometimes they don’t.
Limitations of CodesLimitations of Codes
• Despite their undeniable benefits, codes have significant limitations.• Codes have force only for the membership of
the establishing association.• Codes are insufficiently action guiding.
• Not an algorithm.
• Require significant casuistry.
• Coverage is incomplete.
An Ounce of PreventionAn Ounce of Prevention
• The limitations of codes of ethics as action guiding principles emphasizes the importance of considering broader moral contexts and personal judgment.
• In ethics, as in engineering, anticipation, in the form of sustained reflection on the nature and substance of our professional responsibilities, is much more effective than reaction at forestalling problems.