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:

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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.