Responsibility, Accountability, and Liability:

1
Responsibility, Accountability, and
Liability Studies in the Theory of
Responsibility for Engineering Ethics and
Engineering Accountability
A mans ethical behavior should be based
effectively on sympathy, education and social
ties no religious basis is necessary. Man would
be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by
fear of punishment and hope of reward after
death -- Albert Einstein (1879-1955) We
live as if the world were as it should be, to
show what it can be
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The Importance of Understanding the Concept of
Responsibility

• My hypothesis is that technological risks,
  vulnerabilities and failures often occur because
  responsibilities are inappropriately assigned. If
  we can construct some model for the
  responsibility of actions taken or tasks
  performed, that, for example may have lead to a
  technological disaster, we are poised to make
  better decisions about the ascription of moral
  responsibility and accountability
• This will reduce vulnerabilities and subsequent
  failures and disasters
• To usefully reason about responsibilities in a
  complex socio-technical system, we must have some
  way of modeling the responsibility itself (in
  addition to, and distinct from, the important
  task of modeling the assignment of
  responsibilities)

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The Concept of Responsibility

• Four-Fold Definition of Responsibility
• Causal Responsibility
• Liability-Responsibility
• Role-Responsibility
• Moral-Responsibility

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Causal Responsibility

• A purely descriptive sense of responsibility
• The heavy rain is responsible for the flooding
• The operator was responsible for turning off the
  control switch
• The But-For conception of being causally
  responsible
• X was causally responsible for Y
• But for the occurrence of X, Y would not have
  happened
• For Example But for the operator turning the
  switch, the control would not have went off

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The Concept of Liability

• Liability for ones actions means that one can
  rightly be made to pay for the adverse effects of
  ones actions on others
• Automobile liability insurance is intended to
  cover the costs of damage to other persons or
  property
• We are usually liable for such payments as long
  as we are causally responsible, even if our
  actions were unintentional
• Liability, does not necessarily involve moral
  responsibility for the action

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Strict Liability

• It means that no excusing conditions are
  applicable or accepted
• Responsibility without fault
• Strict Products Liability
• Part of the debate about legal liability concerns
  where the line should be drawn when assigning
  strict liability

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Strict Products Liability

• Charges of strict liability in torts (harms) are
  generally assigned to manufacturers for products
  that are in a defective condition or
  unreasonably dangerous.
• That liability can be assigned regardless of
  whether the defendant has been negligent or has
  been careful (applying accepted standards of care
  for the product, its design, its manufacture, its
  assembly and associated warnings).
• In order to prove strict liability, the plaintiff
  need not prove that the defendant's action fell
  below society's expectation for reasonable
  behavior. Instead, the plaintiff must prove that
  the product per se was in a defective condition
  unreasonably dangerous. It is certainly true that
  negligent behavior can result in a product in a
  defective condition unreasonably dangerous. The
  plaintiff may, of course pursue both theories of
  liability at the same time

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Strict Products Liability

• In order to apply strict liability for products,
  courts have required the following
• The 'product' was in a 'defective condition
  resulting in a product that is unreasonably
  dangerous'. Defects can be created by
  manufacture, assembly, design, warning labels,
  marketing, etc.
• The defendant was in the 'stream of commerce'
  that produces the product and/or delivers the
  product to the customer (manufacturer,
  subcontractor, wholesaler, distributor, retailer,
  etc.).
• The product was defective when it left the
  defendant's hands.
• The product was intended to reach the plaintiff
  without substantial change.
• The defect caused in fact) physical harm to the
  plaintiff. (Strict liability in torts may relieve
  the plaintiff of responsibility for unforeseeable
  misuse, abuse, alterations and other defenses

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Strict Products Liability

• The rationale used by courts for imposing strict
  liability in tort includes three principles 1)
  deterrence, 2) loss spreading, and 3)
  responsibility
• Deterrence courts have stated that strict
  liability in torts encourage manufacturers (and
  others in the 'stream of commerce') to make
  products safer. This increased liability may make
  products more expensive, but courts argue that
  the increased price more accurately reflects the
  true social costs of the products.
• Loss spreading courts have stated that strict
  liability spreads losses that would be a hardship
  upon individuals, but the manufacturer (and
  others in the 'stream of commerce') can offset
  the increased risk by purchasing insurance. The
  ethical basis of this principle is utilitarianism
  
• In addition to deterrence and loss spreading,
  courts have also argued that applying strict
  liability places responsibility (liability) on
  the same entities and individuals that control
  the design, specifications, manufacturing
  tolerances, material specifications, and
  condition of the final product as it is delivered
  to the ultimate customer.

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Role Responsibility

• Role-Responsibility Whenever a person occupies
  a distinctive place or office in a Social
  organization, to which specific duties are
  attachedhe or she is properly said to be
  responsible for the performance of these duties,
  or for doing what is necessary to fulfill them.
• Such duties are a persons (role)
  responsibilities.

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The Concept of Role Responsibility

• Whenever a person occupies a distinctive place
  or office in a Social organization, to which
  specific duties are attachedhe or she is
  properly said to be responsible for the
  performance of these duties, or for doing what is
  necessary to fulfill them. Such duties are a
  persons (role) responsibilities.
• The term "role includes tasks assigned to people
  by agreement or otherwise.
• The term role-responsibility generally refers to
  a situation where a certain person occupies a
  distinct place or office in a social
  organization, and particular duties are attached
  to this role in order to provide for the welfare
  of others or to advance in some specific way the
  objectives or functions of the concerned
  organization.
• It is necessary to differentiate
• Internal role responsibility responsibility
  for the role one plays as a member of an
  organization or profession
• External role responsibility responsibility
  for the role one plays in the larger society and
  culture

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Role Responsibilities in Professional
Engineering

• Role responsibilities are often recognized as
  professional responsibilities, and one of the key
  issues of engineering ethics is to formulate the
  relevant sets of responsibilities that can be
  attached to the roles of the members of the
  engineering community
• What are the duties and obligations that are
  attached to an individual or group of engineers
  with respect to their role in a professional
  organization, corporation, or society?
• How best can engineers fulfill their role
  responsibilities, duties and obligations?

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Role Mapping

• Without a way to effectively connect the various
  responsibilities that people in organizations
  have with their roles in the organization,
  accountability may not be able to be established
  and this can allow people to avoid responsibility
  for their decisions and/or their actions
• Role Mapping techniques are essential in order
  to ensure appropriate matching of roles and
  responsibilities across the organization.
• Role Mapping-who does what in terms of roles
  what is each persons commitment/promise of
  performance and how does it contribute to overall
  organizational results.
• This includes
• Clarify organizational goals and objectives
• Identify every employees personal accountability
  for both results and values
• Measure performance of both the organization and
  every employee

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Role Mapping

• Clarifies unexpected complexity, problem areas,
  redundancy, unnecessary loops, and tasks where
  simplification and standardization may be
  possible
• Helps identifies roles and responsibilities, thus
  supporting more effective allocation of staff
  resources and more effective stakeholder
  partnerships

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Moral Responsibility

• To say a person is responsible in this sense is
  to say that the person is deserving of blame.
• This sense of "responsible" seems to imply fault.
  
• That is, when we say people are responsible in
  this sense we are evaluating their behavior
  relative to some principle or standard.
• Those responsible in this evaluative sense may
  also be responsible in one of the other senses of
  the term
• an assessment of responsibility in one of the
  first three senses is often the basis for
  attributing responsibility in this fourth sense
• Moral Responsibility Accountability for the
  actions one performs and the consequences they
  bring about, for which a moral agent could be
  justly punished or rewarded. It is commonly held
  to require the agent's freedom to have done
  otherwise (autonomy). 
• Moral responsibility is a normative notionit
  involves an evaluation
• Connected to other concepts such as duty,
  obligation, knowledge, freedom, choice,
  accountability, agency, praise, blame, intention,
  pride, guilt, shame, conscience, and character

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Two Types of Moral Responsibility

• The assignment of moral responsibility based on
  the attribution of accountability to a moral
  agent, where the moral agent acted freely and
  possessed the capacity for rational choice and
  the agent has acted voluntarily
• Moral Responsibility in the second sense reflects
  a positive judgment about the manner in which the
  moral agent has deliberated and the particular
  way they choose to act

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• Types of Moral Responsibility Attribution
• Depending on the kind of responsibility, there
  are different mechanisms for attributing
  responsibility
• Responsibility can be attributed
• Ex Ante (Before something happens) as in I take
  full responsibility that nothing will go wrong
• Ex Post (After something happens) as in I take
  full responsibility for everything that went
  wrong
• Assignment of responsibility is not an all or
  nothing affair individuals can be assigned
  various degrees of responsibility based on a
  variety of influencing factors

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Ascriptions of Individual Moral Responsibility

• To hold someone morally responsible for their
  actions or omissions,
• At least five conditions need to be met
• That the subject had some role to play in the
  particular chain of events
• That the person was competent to understand their
  role in the chain of events, and that their
  competency is relevant to the issue at hand
• That the person act voluntarily, and if not, what
  precluded or diminished their capacity to act
  voluntarily?
• That the person was able to influence the chain
  of events, and if not, what precluded or
  diminished their capacity to influence the chain
  of events?
• That the person was aware of the effects of their
  actions and knew about the results and their own
  power of influence or lack of power
• Related concepts Rationality, Freedom,
  Intentionality, Autonomy

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A Reasonable Care Model of Professional
Responsibility

• (1) As a member of a profession taking on a
  specific role in a large organization
  (corporation, government), E has a duty to
  conform to the standard operating procedures of
  his or her profession as well as fulfilling all
  of the responsibilities which are attached to
  that particular role within the organization.
• At time t, decision or action (X) conforms to
  the standard of reasonable care and of role
  responsibility as defined in (1)
• E omits to execute decision or action (X) at
  time t (culpable ignorance may be relevant here)
• Harm (H) is caused to some person or group of
  persons (P) as a result of Es failure (f) to
  decide or do X (HP EfX)

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Moral Responsibility and Role Responsibility

• Questions of accountability are often raised when
  an individual or group is thought to be
  responsible for a failed technology.
• For example, the breaking of a dam may be the
  result of such factors as honest mistakes in
  statics or dynamics analyses careless,
  negligent, or even criminal misconduct
  incompetence and the use of substandard
  materials

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Moral Responsibility and Free Will

• Instances of coercion and constraint may exempt
  agents from judgments of moral responsibility
• Coercion and constraint mean the imposition of
  some external force that compels or precludes a
  particular choice or a particular action itself
• Consideration of the form and degree of external
  force imposed can affect the extent to which one
  considers an action to have been less than
  voluntary or non-voluntary
• Principle the greater the threat imposed by some
  external source, the more it eliminates freedom
  of choice
• The more freedom of choice is eliminated, the
  less voluntary actions become
• Some threats reduce the voluntariness of an
  actions by making any other choice extremely
  difficulty for an individual to make in the face
  of the relevant threat
• The greater the coercion or constraint, the less
  likely we will consider the action voluntary and
  the less moral responsibility we will assign to
  the agent
• One often can be excused from being held
  responsible for an action if the moral agent was
  coerced or forced to perform the action contrary
  or against the agents free will

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Comparing Liability and Moral Responsibility
Liability Particular Derives from legislation
in force in a certain time and place Limited
Applies only to specific People at specific times
or places Divisible It can be delegated or
distributed It can be waived Sometimes not
applicable, implemented or enforced Punishable
Moral Responsibility Universal Ethical
principles aspire to universality in that they
are not limited to particular people or
particular groups or societies Unlimited It
applies to any person in the same
situation Indivisible It cannot be delegated
nor distributed It cannot be waived it always
applies Not based on punishment except social
shame or guilty conscience
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Legal Liability vs. Moral Responsibility

• The essential characteristics of liability
  responsibility demonstrate its limitations as a
  legitimate response in many areas of engineering,
  technology, and science
• Examples Nuclear Technology, Biotechnology,
  Nanotechnology, Artificial Intelligence

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Accountability

• Responsibility and blameworthiness are only a
  part of what is covered when we apply the robust
  and intuitive notion of accountability
• When we say someone is accountable for a harm, we
  may also mean that he or she is liable to
  punishment (e.g., must pay a fine, be censured by
  a professional organization, go to jail), or is
  liable to compensate a victim (usually by paying
  damages).
• In most actual cases these different strands of
  responsibility, censure, and compensation
  converge because those who are to blame for harms
  are usually those who must pay in some way or
  other for them.

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3 Motivations for Accountability

• Accountability as a virtue that is desirable in
  its own right
• Accountability as a guideline for answerability
  which motivates precautionary behavior that, in
  turn, caters to social welfare
• Accountability as a tracing too that allows us, a
  posteriori, to identify the people involved in
  accidents and damage-inducing errors, punish the
  responsible if necessary and compensate the
  victims if possible

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conceptual foundations of accountability
accountability
responsibility, fault, guilt
individuality, personhood
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A Typology of Moral Accountability
Malice
Recklessness
Blameworthy
Negligence
Incompetence
Human Actions/Behavior
Competence
Due Diligence
Praiseworthy
Dutiful
Supererogatory
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A Typology of Moral Accountability

• Malice to set out on a course of action with the
  deliberate aim of imposing harm or risks to
  people
• Recklessness to act knowing that it will cause
  harm or risk, but not taking this properly into
  account
• Negligence the failure to exercise in the given
  circumstances that degree of care for the safety
  of others which a reasonable person would
  exercise under the same or similar circumstances
• Incompetence  not qualified or suited for a
  purpose showing lack of skill or aptitude "a
  bungling workman" "did a clumsy job" "his
  fumbling attempt to put up a shelf"
• Competence qualified or suited for a purpose
  showing appropriate skill or aptitude
• Due Diligence the exercise in the given
  circumstances that degree of care for the safety
  of others which a reasonable person would
  exercise under the same or similar circumstances
• Dutiful to know what the right thing to do is
  and to do it regardless of how it effects you
• Supererogatory behavior going above and beyond
  the call of duty

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A Typology of Moral Accountability

• What is the difference between ignorance and
  incompetence?
• Ignorance is when you do something wrong because
  you do not know any better
• Incompetence is when you do something wrong even
  though you do or should know better

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Responsibility vs. Accountability

• Accountability
• Implies imminence of retribution for unfulfilled
  trust or violated obligations
• The focus is more upon what others expect from
  the person who is accountable
• Other-Centered
• Includes judgment and the extent of judgment for
  the success or failure to do, complete, or
  protect that for which a person is held
  accountable
• Accountability always assumes a prior
  responsibility for we always lay out what we
  expect before we can lay out what the
  consequences will be for failure to meet the
  expectations

• Responsibility
• Implies holding a specific office, duty, or trust
• The focus is on what can and should do an
  individuals personal integrity with respect to a
  specific task
• I-Centered
• One has a clear duty to perform an action and
  take care to carry it out or bring something to
  fruition
• While being responsible always has other persons
  in mind, the focus of meaning is upon the
  individuals effort, duty, and obligation

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Responsibility vs. Accountability

• Accountability
• Liable to be called to account answerable
• Refers to how the individual will be judged and
  thus either rewarded or punished
• A person is accountable only when we know they
  have to answer to being punished
• If someone is accountable, it is assumed a
  responsible party be able to meet the demands of
  the higher authority to whom they will give their
  accounting
• Accountability focuses for the most part upon all
  of the elements of duty after the decision is
  made
• When accountable one is duty bound externally or
  one imposes a much stronger duty upon themselves
  to answer to any actions which may cause harm or
  damage to those they are accountable for

• Responsibility
• We call someone responsible when we judge the
  persons motives, intentions, and carefulness
  with respect to the task
• We can be responsible without being held
  accountable to anyone in particular
• Responsibility focuses for the most part upon all
  the elements of duty up to the point of decision
• The major difference is the certainty or strength
  of implied/suggested duty
• When responsible one may be asked or take it upon
  themselves to be morally responsible for the
  actions they take, for themselves, or others

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Responsibility vs. Accountability

• Accountability
• Accountability "Ill pay a price if I dont do
  it right." 
• Required to explain or justify all of the
  reasons for ones actions
• Accepting personal liability for ones actions,
  accepting ones actions and the consequences
• When we know that we must answer with respect to
  how well we accomplished the task and what reward
  or punishment was meted out for failing at the
  task

• Responsibility
• Responsibility "Ill do it.
• A sense of obligation, commitment, etc.
• Includes exercising ones judgments with regard
  to the powers and authority of discretion one has

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The Social Nature of Responsibility

• Moral responsibility is assigned with the
  understanding that the moral agent who has
  voluntarily chosen and acted is the product of
  numerous social institutions (family, community,
  professional society, etc.) and all the
  subsequent societal influences that mold and
  individual into what they will become
• The assignment of moral responsibility can be
  understood as a social practice that serves the
  crucial function of calling the agents attention
  to her or his effects on the world as well as the
  individuals relationships and obligations to
  other persons in the world
• The assignment of responsibility is related to
  the development of an attitude of care and
  concern for ones effects, relationships and
  duties
• The assignment of responsibility and the
  processes of being held accountable for your
  (voluntary) actions is part of a ingenious
  practice of social control by which the community
  furthers its common ends and interests (Smiley,
  1992 238-254)
• Smiley, Marion (1992) Moral Responsibility and
  the Boundaries of Community Chicago University
  of Chicago Press

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The Social Nature of Responsibility

• Moral responsibility is the basis for praise or
  blame, reward or punishment, fame or infamy
• These mechanisms are essential ways in which
  communities may effect personal change in their
  members toward behavior that is more in line with
  collective (social, cultural) ends and values
• Example Judgments of praise and blame, when
  internalized, create social emotions such as
  guilt, shame, regret, remorse, pride, etcin our
  response to how we interacted with and treated
  othersthat contribute to the development of
  conscience (Gaylin and Jennings, 1996 137-49)
• Praise and Blame form part of the organization of
  social adaptation which operates through the
  assignment of responsibility and of holding
  people accountable for their actions and
  attitudes
• Moral Responsibility becomes an aspect of our
  social practice of blaming (Smiley 252)

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The Social Nature of Responsibility

• This works in the pluralistic liberal democracy
  of the USA by a tacit agreement between members
  of this large community (country)
• It is agreed that individuals are free to
  choose a way of life free of coercion or
  constraints provided that individuals realize
  that these free choices are subject to judgment
  and criticism by others in the community if an
  individual is judged to have crossed the line
• Principle of Liberalism I am free to do
  whatever I please as long as in pursuing my ends
  I do not inhibit another persons right to do
  whatever they please
• Moral Responsibility in this first sense is
  mainly an assignment of accountability by the
  communal will (an external judgment) which, in
  turn, reserves the right to constrain anothers
  actions so that they are in accord with the
  values of the community

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Moral Responsibility as a Virtue

• Moral responsibility in the second sense it is
  a virtue
• Moral responsibility as a virtue requires
• the acceptance and internalization of moral
  accountability (responsibility in the first
  sense)
• with the addition of care and concern for oneself
  and for other people
• The disposition to deliberate, decide, and then
  take action in ways that ones respected
  community can judge to be morally worthy of
  rightness and praise Acting in this way one
  really embodies the virtue of moral
  responsibility
• The Virtue of Moral Responsibility
• A cognitive element the process of rational
  deliberation about what to do in connection with
  all the relationships and obligations which arise
  is a social network
• An affective (emotional) element expressed in
  the genuine care and concern for how an
  individual responds to their world, in their
  thoughts and actions and their effects on others,
  as well as towards the community as a whole

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Moral Responsibility as a Virtue

• The Virtue of Moral Responsibility
• Starts to develop once a person has internalized
  the acceptance to be held accountable for his or
  her own free and autonomous choices and actions
• One then develops a genuine concern about the
  consequences of ones actions and how ones
  actions will or will not measure up to the
  societal norms tacitly agreed upon by the
  individual when they entered the community they
  belong to
• A person could, for instance, take complete
  responsibility for their actions but yet not care
  in what manner their actions impacted other
  people nor the social relationships and bonds
  they form with them
• Moral Responsibility as a Virtue includes the
  element of altruism or the genuine care and
  concern for the well-being of others and a strong
  commitment to deliberate and make moral choices
  consistent with the social ethic, acting only on
  the internalized norms of the moral community
  in which one lives and partakes (Nussbaum, 19XX
  Card, 1996). Claudia Card
• Social Responsibility is also considered a Virtue
  by some researchers (Etzioni, 1993 11 May 1992)

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CULPABLE IGNORANCE

• Culpable ignorance when one fails to know
  something that they should have known
• Culpable ignorance an individual rejects or
  avoids knowledge they should be aware of. This
  can result from laziness, incompetence, or
  intention
• Culpable Ignorance can be either direct or
  indirect
• Direct voluntary ignorance is when one decides to
  not know it is done deliberately
• Indirect voluntary ignorance is when one
  could/should have known but remained in ignorance
  it was done without due diligence
• Due diligence taking care to make sure you
  learn something that you should know

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CULPABLE IGNORANCE

• Culpable ignorance is a case where ignorance of
  the facts surrounding a situation does not
  diminish the responsibility of the moral agent
  for unwanted or immoral outcomes of an action.
• This is usually because some degree of due
  diligence or reasonable care has not been taken
  by the agent in question.
• Due diligence means that the agent in question
  failed to do know something that they could be
  reasonably expected to know and this led to the
  performance of the immoral act.
• For example, a doctor kills a patient by
  administering penicillin to a patient that is
  allergic. The doctor was unaware of the allergy
  because they had failed to investigate the
  patients history.
• Epistemic responsibility
• Epistemic conditions on moral responsibility

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CULPABLE IGNORANCE

• Culpable ignorance is a case where ignorance of
  the facts surrounding a situation does not
  diminish the responsibility of the moral agent
  for unwanted or immoral outcomes of an action.
• Even though the agent acted in good faith at the
  time, we say that they should have known better
  or they should have realised what they were
  doing and so they are still blameworthy for the
  immoral outcomes of their action, even though
  these outcomes were not intended.
• It is culpable ignorance because it could be
  cleared up if the person used sufficient
  diligence.
• You were capable of knowing something, and you
  should have taken pains to come to know it.
• One is said to be culpably ignorant if one fails
  to make enough effort to learn what should be
  known guilt then depends on one's lack of effort
  to clear up the ignorance

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Culpable Ignorance

• What is the difference between culpable and
  non-culpable ignorance?
• The criterion for determining culpable ignorance,
  is if harm is likely to result and the agent
  could have found out about the likely
  circumstances of the action
• We should be expected to know in general what
  kinds of effects will result from familiar types
  of actions, even if we cant predict the exact
  details
• For example, there is an historical record of
  human-made disasters, and the causes of them can
  be determined and understood by identifying
  general categories of belief and action, as well
  as design and technical breakdown of engineered
  systems
• The SHOT model is an example of this

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Culpable Ignorance

• Some things are unpredictable in detail, but are
  familiar enough that one would be culpable not to
  expect them if they fit into our categorical
  scheme SHOT
• Those who perform actions that have potentially
  disastrous consequences can be morally culpable
  even if they cannot foresee the specific
  consequences
• They are culpable because experience has shown
  that one should expect certain kinds of events
• In general, we have an ethical duty to find out
  what the likely effects of our actions are

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Culpable Ignorance

• In considering culpable ignorance, typically one
  is concerned with ignorance of fact.
• But there is also another type of culpable
  ignorance called ignorance of moral principle.
  One can fail to know what one ought to do in a
  particular case.
• One can fail to know some general moral rule.
• One can fail to know that people have certain
  rights or that one has certain responsibilities
• An omission may be culpable on account of some
  special position of role or other responsibility
  held by the agent

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Moral Accountability and Excusing Conditions

• When someone is the cause of some wrongdoing,
  they are not automatically considered responsible
  and hence accountable. The law and ethics
  recognizes certain, valid excusing conditions
• Ignorance Excuse 
• Is it possible to know?
• Could we, or should we have known?
• Would a reasonable person considered the
  possibility?
• If not excusable ignorance
• If impossible for us to know invincible
  ignorance
• Lack of Freedom Excuse 
• Four conditions
• No alternatives not even lack of action
• Lack of control
• External coercion force
• Internal coercion Illness, passion,
  uncontrollable psychological compulsion, etc.

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Theory of Negligence

• Negligence has come to define the expected
  standard of conduct replacing, for some people,
  ideas of honor, propriety, and simple right and
  wrong
• No case of actionable negligence will arise
  unless the duty to be careful exists
• A person is considered negligent or careless if
  they do not exercise the kind of due care that is
  appropriate to the particular situation in
  question
• Negligent omission failing to act when the
  person has a duty to act

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Negligence

• The law of negligence imposes a duty to think
  before you act.
• The ordinary care standard imposes a social
  standard which is judged by members of the
  community who may or may not agree with your
  evaluation of your own conduct.
• Therefore, it is important to look at your acts
  and omissions from the stand point of others in
  the community who will be judging your conduct.
• If you have negligence concerns, ask
• 1. What would members of the community require me
  to do under these circumstances
• 2. What would members of the community forbid me
  to do under these circumstances
• 3. What would members of my profession/vocation/ca
  lling require of me under these circumstances
• 4. What would members of my profession/vocation/ca
  lling counsel me to avoid under these
  circumstances
• 5. What are the risks of my conduct, considering
  the probability of harm and the degree of injury
  or damage that would result if an accident
  occurred and
• 6. Would ordinary people in the community believe
  that I am taking reasonable risks?

47
Proving Negligence

• Negligence is 'conduct which falls below the
  standard established by law for the protection of
  others against unreasonable risk of harm' 4.
• In order to establish liability for damage, the
  courts analyze the following four elements
• duty
• breach
• proximate cause
• damages.

48
Proving Negligence

• Negligence the injured party (plaintiff) must
  prove
• a) that the party alleged to be negligent had a
  duty to the injured party-specifically to the one
  injured or to the general public,
• b) that the defendant's action (or failure to
  act) was negligent-not what a reasonably prudent
  person would have done because it did not fulfill
  the standard of care typical of how any similar
  engineer would judge and act in similar
  situations
• c) that the damages were caused ("proximately
  caused") by the negligence.
• d) That the damages were "reasonably foreseeable"
  at the time of the alleged negligence.

49
Standard of Care

• In legal cases, a judge or jury, has to determine
  what the standard of care is and whether an
  engineer has failed to achieve that level of
  performance.
• They do so by hearing expert testimony.
• People who are qualified as experts express
  opinions as to the standard of care and as to the
  defendant engineer's performance relative to that
  standard.
• The testimony from all sides is weighted and then
  a decision is made what the standard of care was
  and whether the defendant met it

50
Standard of Care

• Jury instructions have been standardized. A Bench
  Approved Jury Instruction (BAJI, 1986) reads
• "In performing professional services for a
  client, a (structural engineer) has the duty to
  have that degree of learning and skill ordinarily
  possessed by reputable (structural engineers),
  practicing in the same or similar locality and
  under similar circumstances.
• It is (the structural engineer's) further duty to
  use the care and skill ordinarily used in like
  cases by reputable members of the (structural
  engineering) profession practicing in the same or
  similar locality under similar circumstances, and
  to use reasonable diligence and (the structural
  engineer's) best judgment in the exercise of
  professional skill and in the application of
  learning, in an effort to accomplish the purpose
  for which (the structural engineer) was employed.
  
• A failure to fulfill any such duty is negligence"

51
Standard of Care

• Three key items in this instruction bear
  repeating
• ...have learning and skill ordinarily possessed
  by reputable engineers practicing in the same or
  similar locality and under similar circumstances.
  
• ...use care and skill ordinarily possessed by
  reputable engineers practicing in the same or
  similar locality and under similar circumstances.
  
• ...use reasonable diligence and best judgment to
  accomplish the purpose for which the engineer was
  employed.
• If any one of these conditions is not met, the
  engineer has failed to meet the standard of care,
  and is professionally negligent.

52
Comparative Negligence

• Negligence involving joint tortfeasorsJoint
  Tortfeasors (wrongdoers) two or more persons
  whose negligence in a single accident or event
  causes damages to another person.
• In many cases the joint tortfeasors are jointly
  and severally liable for the damages, meaning
  that any of them can be responsible to pay the
  entire amount, no matter how unequal the
  negligence of each party was.
• Example Harry Hotrod is doing 90 miles an hour
  along a two-lane road in the early evening,
• Adele Aimster has stopped her car to study a map
  with her car sticking out into the lane by six
  inches.
• Hotrod swings out a couple of feet to miss
  Aimster's vehicle, never touches the brake, and
  hits Victor Victim, driving from the other
  direction, killing him.
• While Hotrod is grossly negligent for the high
  speed and failure to slow down, Aimster is also
  negligent for her car's slight intrusion into the
  lane. As a joint tortfeasor she may have to pay
  all the damages, particularly if Hotrod has no
  money or insurance.
• However, comparative negligence rules by statute
  or case law in most jurisdictions will apportion
  the liability by percentages of negligence among
  the tortfeasors and the injured parties.

53
Res Ipsa Loquitur (The Thing Speaks for Itself)

• (rayz ip-sah loh-quit-her) n. Latin for "the
  thing speaks for itself,"
• A doctrine of law that one is presumed to be
  negligent if he/she had exclusive control of
  whatever caused the injury even though there is
  no specific evidence of an act of negligence, and
  without negligence the accident would not have
  happened.
• Examples a) a load of bricks on the roof of a
  building being constructed by High-rise
  Construction Co. falls and injures Paul
  Pedestrian below
• High-rise is liable for Pedestrian's injury even
  though no one saw the load fall.
• b) While under anesthetic, Isabel Patient's nerve
  in her arm is damaged although it was not part of
  the surgical procedure, and she is unaware of
  which of a dozen medical people in the room
  caused the damage.
• Under res ipsa loquitur all those connected with
  the operation are liable for negligence.
• Lawyers often shorten the doctrine to "res ips,"
  and find it a handy shorthand for a complex
  doctrine.

54
Negligence Per Se

• Negligence due to the violation of a public duty,
  such as high speed driving.
• In Blacks Law Dictionary negligence per se is
  defined as Conduct, whether of action or
  omission, which may be declared and treated as
  negligence without any argument or proof as to
  the particular surrounding circumstances, either
  because it is in violation of a statute or valid
  municipal ordinance, or because it is so palpably
  opposed to the dictates of common prudence that
  it can be said without hesitation or doubt that
  no careful person would have been guilty of it.
• As a general rule, the violation of a public
  duty, enjoined by law for the protection of
  person or property, so constitutes."

55
Recklessness

• Recklessness An injury caused by conduct that is
  more than mere carelessness but less than actual
  intent to cause harm
• Recklessness Carelessness in reckless disregard
  for the safety of the lives of others. It is more
  than simple inadvertence but it is less than
  being consciously intent on causing harm
• Gross negligence is another way of saying
  recklessness
• Culpable negligence a degree of carelessness
  greater than simple negligence. It is a negligent
  act or omission accompanied by a culpable
  disregard for the foreseeable consequences of
  that act or omission

56
Intention

• Intend To fix the mind upon (something to be
  accomplished) to be intent upon to mean to
  design to plan to purpose
• Intend have in mind as a purpose to design for
  a specific purpose.
• Intend to act with purpose mean design plan
  conceive contemplate.
• Intentionality expressive of intentions

57
Barriers to Responsibility and Accountability

• The Social Psychology of Identification of Ones
  Role in Social Interaction (The Zimbardo
  Experiment)
• Obedience to Authority in Social Contexts (The
  Milgram Experiment)
• The Problem of Many Hands
• Diffusion of Responsibility
• Risky Shift Phenomena

58
Introduction Zimbardo Experiment

• Why do human beings, even seemingly normal
  people, sometimes commit despicable acts?
• One answer points to individual dispositions
  another answer emphasizes situational pressures.
• For example, In 2005, Secretary of State
  Condoleezza Rice stressed the importance of
  individual dispositions in describing terrorists
  as "simply evil people who want to kill."
• The Theory of Situational Context (TSC) rejects
  this view.
• It hypothesizes that horrible acts can be
  committed by perfectly normal people.
• The TSC view has received strong support from
  some of the most famous experiments in social
  science, conducted by the psychologist Stanley
  Milgram in the early 1960s. (See below The
  Milgram Experiment slides)
• The TSC view has also received strong support
  from another famous experiment in social
  psychology The Zimbardo Experiment

59
Role Responsibility and The Zimbardo Experiment

• To study the roles people play in prison
  situations, Zimbardo converted a basement of the
  Stanford University psychology building into a
  mock prison.
• They advertised for students to play the roles of
  prisoners and guards for a two-week period.
• Zimbardo selected the 21 applicants who seemed
  the healthiest, maturest and most 'normal'. At
  random 11 were assigned the role of 'guards', 10
  the role of 'prisoners'.
• The guards were given an official-looking
  uniform the prisoners something like a prison
  uniform and toothbrush, towels and bed linen. No
  personal belongings were allowed in the cells.
• Zimbardo and the guards worked out a set of rules
  which prisoners were expected to memorize and
  follow.
• Prisoners were required to work to earn their 15
  per day and were allowed prisoners twice per week
• Guards were allowed to give certain rewards for
  good behavior.

60
Role Responsibility and The Zimbardo Experiment

• On the first day, the 'count' of the prisoners
  (carried out three times per day) took ten
  minutes.
• By the second day, the 'count' time had increased
  as the guards started to use it to harass the
  prisoners and by the fifth day the 'count'
  occupied several hours as the guards berated the
  prisoners for minor infractions of the rules.
• The prisoners carried out a real insurrection,
  which was put down quickly by the guards.
• The guards then proceeded to punish the prisoners
  for their disobedience and protest
• Instead of protesting, some of the prisoners
  began to act in depressed, dependent ways, just
  like many real prisoners and inmates of
  institutions.
• They deteriorated into learned helplessness,
  becoming ever more subdued and depressed, and
  acting zombie-like
• The more they acted in that way, the more they
  were mistreated.
• The behavior of the guards was one of growing
  cruelty, aggression and dehumanization
• They stripped the prisoners hooded them,
  chained them, denied them food or bedding
  privileges, put them into solitary confinement,
  and made them clean toilet bowels with their bare
  hands

61
Zimbardo Experiment

• By the end of the sixth day, the situation had
  deteriorated to such an extent, with guards
  inventing new rules to make the prison regime
  more punitive, that Zimbardo called a halt to the
  experiment.
• Zimbardo said in his book that the mock prison
  had to be shut down because "the ugliest, most
  base, pathological side of human nature
  surfaced.
• The important question for ethics becomes What
  caused it to surface?
• Was it simply deep down inside of each
  individual?
• Or, did the particular situation that they were
  put into cause them to act like they did?
• The analysis of the results showed that the
  subjects simply 'became' the roles they played.
  More than a third of the guards behaved in such a
  hostile manner consistently, that Zimbardo
  described their behavior as sadistic.
• This was despite the fact that the roles were
  assigned at random and there was absolutely no
  prior evidence that any of the subjects was
  inclined to behave as they did.

62
Zimbardo Experiment

• In his book The Lucifer Effect Understanding How
  Good People Turn Evil, Zimbardo explains the full
  meaning of Stanford Prison Experiment.
• Generalizing from original results of the
  experiment, he suggests that dispositionism
  (i.e., that the propensity to do good or evil
  resides in our personal dispositions or
  characters or temperament) is a serious error,
  that good and evil are largely a function of our
  contexts and our roles, and that almost all of us
  are capable of real evil, given the proper
  situation. The theory is called situationism.
• Zimbardo uses his experiment to cast light on
  diverse problems, including
• the conduct of American soldiers at Abu Ghraib,
• airplane accidents,
• human inaction in the face of evident cruelty,
• the mistreatment of patients in hospitals, and
• the behavior of suicide bombers and terrorists in
  general
• Watch a documentary of the experiment, explained
  by Dr. ZImbardo at www.prisonexp.org

63
Obedience to Authority A Barrier to Responsibility
Milgram experiment (late 1960s Yale University)

• In the experiment ordinary men and women were
  brought in to participate in what they were told
  was a study of memory.
• When they arrived at the laboratory they were
  told that they were to play the role of teacher.
• They had to read a series of word pairs to
  another person on the other side of a partition.
• In the experiment, so-called "teachers" (who were
  actually the
• unknowing subjects of the experiment) were
  recruited by Milgram.
• They were asked administer an electric shock of
  increasing intensity to a
• "learner" for each mistake he made during the
  experiment.
• The fictitious story given to these "teachers"
  was that the experiment was exploring effects of
  punishment (for incorrect responses) on learning
  behavior.
• The "teacher" was not aware that the "learner" in
  the study was actually a compatriot of Milgrams
  - - merely feigning discomfort as the "teacher"
  increased the electric shocks.

64
Milgram experiment

• When the "teacher" asked whether increased shocks
  should be given he/she was verbally encouraged to
  continue.
• Sixty percent of the "teachers" obeyed orders to
  punish the learner to the very end of the
  450-volt scale!
• No subject stopped before reaching 300 volts!
• At times, the worried "teachers" questioned the
  experimenter, asking
• who was responsible for any harmful effects
  resulting from shocking the earner at such a high
  level.
• Upon receiving the answer that the experimenter
  assumed full responsibility, teachers seemed to
  accept the response and continue shocking, even
  though some were obviously extremely
  uncomfortable in doing so.
• The study raised many questions about how the
  subjects could bring themselves to administer
  such heavy shocks.

65
Milgram experiment

• The apparent shocks were delivered by a simulated
  shock generator, offering thirty clearly
  delineated voltage levels, ranging from 15 to 450
  volts, accompanied by verbal descriptions ranging
  from "Slight Shock" to "XXX."
• As the experiment unfolded, the subject was asked
  to administer increasingly severe shocks for
  incorrect answers, well past the "Danger, Severe
  Shock" level, which began at 375 volts.
• The mechanism for administering the shocks had 30
  levels or settings raging from 15 to 450 volts,
  so that the maximum number of shocks that could
  be given was 30. Milgram devised a set of four
  prods that the experimenter gave to subjects
  who asked whether they should continue to
  administer shocks (Milgram, 197421)
• please continue,
• the experiment requires you to continue,
• it is absolutely essential that you continue,
  and
• you have no other choice, you must go on.
• These prods were made in sequence and if the
  subject refused to obey after prod 4, the
  experiment was terminated.

66
(No Transcript)
67
Milgram experiment

• The expected break-off point is the "Very Strong
  Shock" of 195 volts. In Milgram's experiment,
  however, every one of the forty subjects went
  beyond 300 volts.
• A large majority--twenty-six of the forty
  subjects, or 65 percent--went to the full
  450-volt shock, five steps beyond "Danger, Severe
  Shock."
• Replications of Milgram's experiments, with
  thousands of diverse people in numerous
  countries, show essentially the same behavior.
• And women do not behave differently from men.
• Milgram concluded that ordinary people will
  follow orders even if the result is to produce
  great suffering in innocent others.

68
Obedience to Authority Studies
Milgram experiment

• The Surveillance Effect
• There is clear evidence from Milgram's study that
  the presence of the experimenter helped to
  increase obedience. When he left the room,
  obedience dropped from 65 to 21. The same thing
  happens in classrooms, offices and factory floors
  as well.
• The Buffer Effect
• The buffer in the Milgram experiment was the wall
  between teacher and learner. Milgram showed that
  if the teacher was personally required to hold
  the learners hand on the shock plate, then
  obedience dropped from 65 to 40.
• It seemed that the more direct the interaction
  between the teacher and the learner, the lower
  the obedience would be.
• Milgram tested this theory in reverse by
  conducting an experiment where the teacher was
  required to pull a lever which would cause
  another person to administer the shocks.
• In this case the obedience level went up from 65
  to 93.

69
Milgram and Zimbardo Experiments and Ethics

• Both the Zimbardo and Milgram experiments shed
  light on the situational affects on a human
  psyche
• It sheds light on the philosophical debate over
  the nature of responsibility and accountability
• Are only individuals totally responsible for
  their actions or could their environment or
  situation be implicated in causing their
  behavior?
• "How do average even admirable people become
  dehumanized by the critical circumstances
  pressing in on them?" asked the famous
  philosopher Hannah Arendt in her book about the
  Nuremburg Trials, The Banality of Evil. This is
  what she called the phenomena because the German
  officers who committed atrocious acts were no
  more evil than any other person in their inner
  character
• What, is blind obedience?

70
Milgram and Zimbardo Experiments and Ethics

• . In his book, Obedience to Authority, Milgram
  concludes that "A substantial proportion of
  people do what they are told to do, irrespective
  of the content of the act and without limitations
  of conscience, so long as they perceive that the
  command comes from a legitimate authority."
• But, what constitutes legitimate authority is
  the crucial question.
• "What encourages obedience?
• Is it fear of punishment or negative
  repercussions?
• A desire to please?
• A need to go along with the group?
• A blind faith in authority?"

71
Situationism and Professional Contexts

• In a typical workplace, employers are the
  authority figures and employees are subordinates
  to them
• This relationship of superior to subordinate can
  lead to abuses.
• For one thing the employer holds your job, your
  paycheck, and your livelihood over your head,
  so to speak
• If they threaten to deprive you of any or all of
  these if you fail to do as you are told, what
  should you do?
• Can you be excused from being responsible or
  accountable for your actions because your boss
  coerced you to do things you thought were wrong?

72
The Problem of Many HandsA Barrier to
Accountability

• Because so many people contribute in so many
  different ways, it is very difficult to determine
  who is accountable for organizational behavior.
• It can often be extremely difficult to determine
  an individual's contribution to failures in large
  organizations or large engineering projects where
  many people participate and add their particular
  skills or expertise (in fact, the same goes for
  successes).
• The case studies you will analyze in this course
  begin to suggest some of the ethical implications
  that ensue from the diffusion of responsibility
  in engineering ethics contexts, particularly in
  the design and operation of complex technological
  artifacts and systems.

73
The Problem of Many HandsA Barrier to
Accountability

• One philosopher notes that "With respect to
  complex organizations, the problem of many hands
  often turns the quest for responsibility into a
  quest for the Holy Grail
• Bovins, B. (1998). The quest for Responsibility
  Accountability and Citizenship in Complex
  Organizations. Cambridge Cambridge University
  Press.
• In many cases we simply cannot isolate individual
  contributions to organizational action. This
  suggests not only that we lack some of the basic
  incentives that could be used to increase
  individual effort in pursuit of quality, but that
  the ability to achieve justice in organizations
  is compromised.
• Research on decision making shows that some
  layers of the organizational hierarchy are
  responsible for decisions that are more visible,
  concrete, limited in time, and identifiable with
  specific individuals than are others

74
The Problem of Many Hands

• It is quite natural to assume that when mistakes
  are committed, we can associate it with the
  particular decision behind it
• If this decision leads to adverse consequences,
  it is assumed that the decision maker is at fault
• This is an unwarranted assumption, as legal
  scholars well know.
• People at the top and bottom of organizations
  tend not to be blamed when accidents happen
• Braithewaite, J. (1998) The allocation of
  responsibility for corporate crime
  Individualism, collectivism, and accountability,
  Sidney Law Review 12 468-513.
• The focus is usually on the managers in the
  middle because, although they exhibit enough
  seniority to make important and visible
  decisions, they are not senior enough to be able
  to hide behind the diffusion of responsibility
  that provides top management cover
• Empirical research confirms this Decision making
  at the operational level tends to be highly
  visible and are marked by clearly defined
  beginning, middle, and end states
• Top management decisions are more fluid,
  evolutionary, consensual, and temporal, where
  negations are carried on with numerous
  individuals and groups over a period of time

75
The Doctrine of Many Eyes

• Many eyes as a solution to the problem of many
  hands
• Given enough morally responsible individuals
  (many eyes) the network of accountability can
  be managed
• In a responsible organization, the many eyes that
  watch the many hands are a watchdog that could
  prevent risk and harm
• A culture of responsibility can develop if only
  because one can fix the errors of another
• Engineers have a responsibility to address the
  errors of their co-worker engineers working on
  the same project
• The motivation and ability to prevent risk and
  harm is increased, not by the fear of punishment
  but rather by the desire to maintain a respectful
  standing within the profession or social group
• By ensuring that engineering projects be free of
  risk by guaranteeing that enough eyes watch the
  many hands that work or operate technologies, and
  by accommodating new modes of collaborative moral
  accountability through socialnot legal
  mechanisms, one can hope that the barriers to
  accountability will diminish
• A framework for moral and ethical debates needs
  to be developed that can accommodate meaningful
  discussions about exercising due care in
  engineering design and practice when working on
  large projects and/or in large organizations
• Related to the concept of social responsibility

76
The Diffusion of Responsibility Phenomenon

• The Genovese Effect
• Kitty Genovese Murder NY, NY 1964
• Fought off murderer he returned again and again
• Rape and murder took full half hour
• No one came to her assistance
• Police determined that at least 38 neighbors were
  
• aware of the attack
• Unresponsive Bystander Effect

77
Diffusion of Responsibility

• The tendency for persons in a group situation to
  fail to take action because others are present,
  thus diffusing the responsibility for acting. A
  major factor in inhibiting bystanders from
  intervening in emergencies
• People are much more likely to intervene if they
  are alone rather than in the presence of others,
  especially if the other is a stranger
• Experiment Reasoned that the presence of a
  stranger weakened individual responses by
  diffusing their sense of responsibility
• Finding If individuals have their efforts
  identified when they are part of a cohesive
  highly moral group, they will exert even more
  effort than they would if they were only working
  for their own personal benefit
• Finding If the roles and responsibilities of