Responsible Engineers

1
Responsible Engineers

• Framing the Problem

2
How do we address a problem?

• When addressing an ethical dilemma, we usually
  experience moral disagreement and controversy
  within a context of agreement
  
• Need a procedure to follow
• Tools to approach problem
• Line drawing
• Creative middle way

3
1st Phase of Moral Thinking
Ethical Sense
4
Common Morality

• Shared common beliefs
• Can still have disagreements
• Common features for moral beliefs
• Vulnerability
• Autonomy
• Interdependency
• Shared expectations and goals
• Common moral traits

5
Common Morality

• Common moral rules
• Dont harm others
• Make reparations for any harms done
• Dont lie or cheat
• Dont break promises
• Dont interfere with freedom of others
• Respect others decisions
• Treat others fairly
• Help those in need
• etc

6
Moral Justification

• Common morality is subject to criticism and
  change
  
• Want an ultimate foundation of morality
• Form consensus with moral values accepted by
  almost everyone
  
• Used to frame ethics codes

7
Analyzing a Case

• Primary task - Assemble information relevant to
  the resolution of the ethical dilemma(s)
  
• What are the relevant facts?
• What are the relevant kinds of ethical
  considerations?

8
Analyzing a Case - Sample

• Steve is under pressure to complete his graduate
  research and finish his degree
  
• He must write a research report
• Most of the data support his conclusion, but some
  are at variance
  
• Convinced he is right, Steve wants to drop the
  ambiguous data
  
• Is it unethical for Steve to do this?

9
Analyzing a Case - Sample

• Codes
• An engineer should be honest
• An engineer should report all findings
• An engineer should be objective
• Even though Steve is not trying to present a
  false conclusion, he is not being truthful. If
  he can rationalize this, what else might he
  rationalize?
• Steve should present all data, unless he can
  mathematically justify exclusion

10
Issues

• Many times moral disagreements turn out to be
  disagreements over the relevant facts
  
• Factual issues are sometimes very difficult to
  resolve
  
• Once the factual issues are clearly isolated,
  disagreement can reemerge on another and even
  more clearly defined level

11
Issues

• Discerning relevant facts
• Weighing the importance of facts

12
Issues

• Once the facts are available, other problems may
  arise
  
• Conceptual issues - disagreements in defining
  terms and concepts
  
• Application issues - disagreements on applying
  agreed-upon terms

13
Analysis Tools

• Line Drawing - Can help decide a course of
  action
  
• Negative Paradigm Positive Paradigm
• Negative feature 1 Positive feature 1
• Negative feature 2 Positive feature 2
• Negative feature 3 Positive feature 3
• Negative feature 4 Positive feature 4

14
Analysis Tools

• Line Drawing - points to remember
• The more ambiguous the case, the more we must
  know about it
  
• Imposing a line of demarcation involves an
  element of arbitrariness
  
• Concentrating on only one feature is usually
  insufficient to decide
  
• Resembles a kind of common-law ethics

15
Application

• Andrea, a chemical engineer, recognizes that some
  of the ideas she developed for her former
  employer provide the basis for a solution to a
  problem faced by her new employer. The two
  companies are not competitors, and the
  application of the ideas is so different that few
  people would even recognize them as having a
  common origin. She did sign an agreement with her
  former employer to not use her ideas to compete
  against them. Is it ethical for her to employ her
  old ideas in this new and creative way?

16
Application

• Negative Paradigm Positive Paradigm
• (Clearly wrong) (Clearly acceptable)
• Signed Agreement Permission granted
• A and B competitors A and B not
  competitors
  
• Application the same Application
  different
  
• As ideas Andreas ideas
• Proprietary information Freely available

It should be ok for Andrea to use the ideas for
this purpose.
17
Analysis Tools

• Creative middle way solutions - Conflicting
  values (when youre between a rock and a hard
  place!)
  
• Situations in which two or more moral rules
  apply, but appear to conflict
  
• Perhaps one value will clearly take priority
  (easy choice)
  
• Often, no easy choice is available (hard choice)
• Can we suggest one or more possible solutions
  (compromises?) to correct the situation (creative
  middle way)
  

18
Analysis Tools - Creative Middle Way
19
Addressing a Moral Problem

• When addressing an ethical dilemma, we usually
  experience moral disagreement and controversy
  within a context of agreement
  
• Need a procedure to follow
• Tools to approach problem
• Line drawing
• Creative middle way