Is Ethics an Alien Word to the Engineering Profession

Is Ethics an Alien word to the engineering profession? “The decisions and actions of engineers have a profound impact on the world we live in, and society at large” [The Royal Academy of Engineering] and are generally responsible for the way life is on earth due to their key part in discovering innovative technologies throughout the past. However in recent years the engineering profession has come under scrutiny with regards to its ethical stance. Ethics is certainly not an alien word in the United States of America, with engineers being offered plenty of support and guidance to contend with the ethological issues that can occur. However the “ethical dimension of engineering has been prominent in the mainstream media for many years, with engineering triumphs as well as disasters being greeted by considerable public attention to the impact of modern engineering on wider society” (Leeds University 2009). This attention is set to increase even further as engineers around the world attempt to tackle global challenges such as climate change and the depletion of traditional energy sources. Therefore with engineers playing a “pivotal role in many of the most emotive and contentious issues in contemporary society” (Leeds University 2009), including ……………………………………………………………………………………………….. there is call for a definite understanding of ethics within the engineering profession, so it will not remain an “alien word”.
But what is mean by ethics in the engineering world?
A statement from the NSPE [WHO?] states:
“Engineering is an important and learned profession. As members of the profession, engineers are expected to exhibit the highest standards of honesty and integrity. Engineering has a direct and vital impact on the quality of life for all people. Accordingly, the services provided by engineers, require honesty, impartiality, fairness and equity, and must be dedicated to the protection of the public health, safety and welfare. Engineers must perform under a standard of professional behaviour that requires adherence to the highest principles of ethical conduct”.
The statement is based on the impact that engineering has on our quality of life and talks about how engineers should behave to adhere to the high principles of ethical conduct. It agrees with Martin and Schinizinger’ definition of engineering ethics: “the study of moral issues and decisions confronting individuals and organizations involved in engineering and the study of related questions about moral conduct, character, ideals and relationships of peoples and organizations involved in technological development”. It brings in the factor that there are ethics on different levels. Wulf (2004) writes that there are micro ethical issues associated with the behaviour of the individual engineers but also macro ethical issues which must be addressed by the engineering profession as a whole.
William F. May talks about the seriousness of responsibility that comes with professional expertise. He notices that the engineering profession is made up of thousands of individual engineers, all with different knowledgeable backgrounds, resulting in a wide range of different decisions. He states “The professional had better be virtuous. Few may be in a position to discredit him. The knowledge explosion is also an ignorance explosion; if knowledge is power, then ignorance is powerless”. He warns that very often the engineer is considered to be the “brains behind the projects”, with very few on the same level of understanding to see whether he is working in the correct manor. This links us to how an engineer should behave; as many theorists, including Charles E Harris, call it “the good engineer”.
With engineers having little direction for conduct, they are often allowed a considerable amount of freedom in how he or she promotes public welfare. Mike Martin (2002) notes that there is nowhere to say whether an engineer should devote their time to a non-innovative project; or to some special project on which they are willing to work overtime; or to simply design a product that is more energy efficient. He states that these issues should be left to the individual engineer, given their interest, abilities and what is possible in their own situation.” He states that the question that should be asked is “what type of person, professionally speaking will be most likely to promote the welfare of the public through his or engineering work”, again linking to the theory of a “good engineer”.
So what is a good engineer?
The ICE’s “Code of Professional Conduct” states how they believe engineers should behave:
"Members of the ICE should always be aware of their overriding responsibility to the public good. A member’s obligations to the client can never override this, and members of the ICE should not enter undertakings which compromise this responsibility. The ‘public good’ encompasses care and respect for the environment, and for humanity’s cultural, historical and archaeological heritage, as well as the primary responsibility members have to protect the health and wellbeing of present and future generations."
This statement incorporates that the public welfare is the key to an ethical sound project and the engineer should work in a way that cares for and respects the surroundings so not to harm the present and future generations.
A ‘good engineer’ is thought to have three main characteristics. The first is down to the engineer’s professional pride, particularly pride in technical experience. To demonstrate this, Charles E. Harris states that “if an engineer wants their work as a professional to contribute to public welfare, the first thing she must do is be sure that her professional expertise is at the highest possible level”. This level includes the studying of maths, physics and engineering science but also those capacities and sensitivities that only come with a certain level of experience within the industry. The second relates to the engineers social awareness – “awareness of the way in which technology both affects and is affected by the larger social environment”. This calls for engineers to be aware of the “social embeddedness” of technology and not to be tempted to view technology as a separate issue from the larger social contest. Jonathan Weber notes that “technology itself to be value-neutral, i.e. neither good nor evil, though how it's used might be a different matter”. He agrees that it is hard to debate the basic logic, however the position western scientists and engineers have always taken is “A hammer is just a hammer; it's a person who uses it to hammer nails and build a house, or hammer somebody else down”. This relates to the idea that it is down to the engineer and how they conduct their work that will raise question on whether ethics is an alien word or not. A simple example is that the engineer has the knowledge and the ability to design and construct a new development; however it is down to the engineer whether the development is built on the “green belt” with inevitable harm to the environment or whether they chose to regenerate an abandoned brown field site using low carbon development technologies. On the other hand he argues that some technologies including nuclear fusion and genetic engineering are so powerful “that their very existence raises profound ethical and moral issues”. Charles E Harris also talks about how technology can be used as an instrument of the power elite and can be used for such things as the deskilling of labour or can be used by ‘grass root’ movements, as protestors did in China and ‘bloggers’ do in the USA.
William A, Wulf (2004) still thinks that this is not a common characteristic that many engineers hold, when he states “the complexity of newly engineered systems coupled with their potential impact on lives, the environment, etc., raise a set of ethical issues that engineers had not been thinking about”. It is all very well for the engineer to be ‘socially aware’, however all too often engineers are called on to make design decisions that are not socially neutral which require sensitivities and commitments that cannot be incorporated into rules, adding extra stress and risk for the engineer in charge. Additionally, as Charles E Harris states, engineers should accept that it is an “important aspect of a professional character that will take seriously the obligation to promote public welfare through professional work”, which relates back to the ICE’s “code of professional conduct” mentioned previously; both providing evidence that there is a definite push to include ethical issues within a project. However, “engineers often rely on heuristic to resolve their practical problems”. All engineers are faced with deciding how to balance the risk and benefits of a project amid the uncertainties. It is important to note that a down side to the aspirational side of the “good engineer”, can be the absence of the motivational dimension; William a Wulf (2004) mentions how engineers don’t chose engineering as a career to prevent disasters and avoid professional misconduct - the majority desire financial rewards, social position and engineering career promises. However, aspirational ethics can encourage engineers with the attraction of the prospects of making a difference in the world in a positive way; “They are excited by projects that alleviate human drudgery throughout labour-saving processes, eliminate disease by providing clean water and sanitation, develop new medical devices that save lives, create automobiles that run on less fuel and are less polluting, and preserve the environment with recyclable products”, basically aiming to improve the quality of human life.
It is to my understanding that ethics on this level is definitely not an alien word; however, there is still a long way to go before a clear definition and solution could be evaluated. All too often I was reading phases like: “the engineer should”…or “the engineer needs to”; followed by “however” or “but”. This doesn’t encourage a clear picture of how a “good engineer” should behave or act, giving very little guidelines for them to follow. The rules and codes that an engineer can follow have said to encourage “preventative ethics” with “80% of the code of National Society of professional engineers consisting of provisions that are explicitly negative” (Rosa Lynn) encouraging engineers to always look at the negative side which would hinder any further development and the creation of innovative ideas. In addition there have been many cases including the ‘Bay Area Rapid Transit Case’ where……….. and the ‘DC-10 case’ where………….., that have shown engineers trying to prevent disasters and being thwarted by managers in their attempt, engineers finding they have to go public to enlist the support of others, and disasters occurring when engineers do not continue to protest. If an engineer is told to work honourably in order to be a ‘good engineer’ and consequently not believed if there is potential for a time delay or raise in expenses then maybe ethics is an alien word with the engineering profession.
With Micro-ethical issues still showing clear gaps of misunderstanding and confusion, I am going to analyse the macro ethical side of engineering and see if there is a better understanding within the engineering world.
As previously mentioned, macro ethical issues involves the engineering profession as a whole. It is now common knowledge that the declining state of our climate is due to the high energy lifestyle the world had become accustomed to. With Europeans using resources three times faster than the world can sustain and America five times faster, it can be argued that engineering has had a huge part in developing this unethical lifestyle. This argument is based on the huge part engineering has taken in the development of new technologies. This in turn has allowed easier access to the natural supply of resources and causes a faster depletion rate. Now due to the increase in global warming, sea-levels are rising putting humans and animals and risk. However, I don’t believe it is completely the engineering professions fault for this serious issue. I agree there was a lack of knowledge in the early years of the profession, where ethics was most definitely an alien word, but I would strongly disagree if it was ever suggested that the engineer profession didn’t care. It is due to hindsight that people can look back and realise the implications of their past; however as previously mentioned engineers are now excited about creating innovative ideas that aid public welfare and prevent further damage to the environment. Engineers are now encouraging Low Carbon developments and the use of renewable energies all round the world, developing a competitive state between countries and, more locally, between engineering companies, to aim for the most sustainable way of surviving. If you look at Abu Dhabi and the construction of the zero carbon city, “MAZDAR”, it becomes clear the extent the engineering profession will go towards saving the planet and ways which they can sustain the high energy lifestyle without an adverse effect on the environment. In this case ethics is definitely not alien to the engineering profession. However, before congratulating the engineering profession it is vital to note that change costs money. As Fewings (2009) states “change is necessary and change costs money. Hence a sustainable solution may have a serious impact on the short term profits of an organisation”. So will organisations be willing to risk their profits for ethical reasons even if it is in the company’s long-term financial interest to develop sustainable and environmentally ethical design practice (Howden 2007).
It was mentioned beforehand that in many cases an engineer’s professional opinion has been ignored due to the possibility of increase time delay and consequently a rise in costs. It is evident that money poses a colossal obstacle on the road to an ethical profession; in particular the company’s profit seems to be the professions primary goal with public welfare and ethics taking a back seat. It seems to be a current occurrence for engineers to be torn between the interest of ethics or the financial benefits. If an engineer was to come under budget, he would be praised and respected, however in the cases mentioned previously the engineer is ignored and punished if he was to use his knowledge to prevent a future disaster. This is definitely not an ethical way of working, and is where I feel ethics remains and alien word to the engineering profession. Florman (2009) agrees that new fields of engineering ethics currently ignore the economy. He states that “economy must be recognised as being practically and morally desirable”. He understands that the economy issue within ethics is much more complex than ethicists admit and he feels that many ethicists have a tendency to simplify the engineers moral obligation by stressing safety and public welfare above all else.
It is clear that the engineering profession is actively pushing to enhance the ethical stance of the engineering profession, thus meaning that it understands the need for a strong sense of ethics in engineering and seeks continued improvement. This increase in interest in engineering ethics is leading to a demand for ethical aspects of engineering to be included within all undergraduate engineering programmes, and it is therefore likely that there will be a mandatory element of engineering ethics at all levels. “By sensitizing future engineers to the ongoing construction of risk during mundane engineering practice, we can better prepare them to address issues of public health, safety, and welfare before they require heroic intervention - Understanding the importance of precedents, incremental change, and fallible engineering judgment in engineering design may help them anticipate potential threats to public safety arising from routine aspects of workplace culture - Investigating the sociotechnical aspects of engineering practice can improve the initial recognition of ethical problems in real-world settings and provide an understanding of the role of workplace organization and culture in facilitating or impeding remedial action” (Engineering School). By teaching all these aspects perhaps the engineering profession can move forward instead of constantly looking back in hindsight. It is understood that the profession will never be ethically neutral, as due to the speed of development, by the time they are at the level of ethical practice they are aiming for, there will be different issues to contend with. However if they continue to learn from the past and continue moving forward instead of blaming it on hindsight, ethics will definitely not remain an alien word in all areas of the profession, consequently agreeing to the Statement of Ethical Principles by the Royal Academy of Engineering “The decisions and actions of engineers have a profound impact on the world we live in, and society at large. Making a clear and public commitment to operating with integrity and honesty is essential to create a greater level of trust and confidence, and a positive perception of the engineering profession.”
Reference:
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