Is Engineering Philosophically Weak? A Linguistic & Institutional Analysis

Is Engineering Philosophically Weak? A Linguistic & Institutional Analysis
David E. Goldberg
Illinois Foundry for Innovation in Engineering EducationUniversity of Illinois at Urbana-ChampaignUrbana, IL 61801 USAdeg@illinois.edu

Causing a Stir at WPE-2008
Carl Mitcham keynoted Workshop on Philosophy & Engineering at Royal Academy of Engineering in 2008.
Paper entitled “The Philosophical Weakness of Engineering as a Profession” caused stir.
Analyzed 5 “professions” & labeled some as “strong,” others as “weak.”
Take that analysis seriously and probe in following directions:
What is philosophical weakness (PW)?
Recover Mitcham’s key distinctions.
Consider in light of complexity of (1) ideals & (2) institutions.
Carl Mitcham (b. 1941)

Roadmap
Recap argument: Mitcham 5, a criterion, and a classification.
Some concerns.
What is philosophical weakness? An alternative formulation.
Reclassifying the 5. Engineering still weak but for different reasons.
Recapturing classification: End-in-themselves versus instrumental occupations.
Occupations and their institutional setting.
From is to ought & concerns regarding ideal complexity.
An ideals approach to the military: Lessons for engineering.
Institutional redesign: 2 bounding attempts.
neoProfessionalism: Déjà vu all over again.

Mitcham 5, a Criterion & a Classification
Use term “occupations” to avoid debates about whether they are “professions.”
The 5:
Medicine
Law
Business
Military
Engineering
Mitcham: Medicine and law are philosophically strong (PS) as they serve good-in-themselves ideals (health, justice).
Others philosophically weak (PW) as they do not.
Is to Ought: Engineering would be better off and serve larger good more directly.
Query: Is Philosophy PW?

Preliminary Concerns
Greek philosophy & virtues are the starting point.
Their methodology still relevant.
Are their values, values of idle elite of a slaveholding society 2.5kya?
Is anything good in itself (Pitt, 2000)? Pragmatic concern for community and usefulness.
Philosophically “strong” or “weak” as tied to ideals & ethical aspirations?
Difficulties in rooted normative in 20th & 21st century.
Ayers, Rorty, Foucault.
Weak stuff: Tied to tradition or community practice.
Set these larger concerns aside and accept terms of the debate:
Assume there are ideals that are good in themselves.
That original classification has meaning.

Philosophical Strength & Weakness
Mitcham’s notion turns on ethics, one of five elements of philosophy: metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, politics, and aesthetics.
Considers ideals or aspirational ethics as turning point.
Here analyze the five according to first 3 of the elements:
Metaphysically reflective if occupation considers its history.
Epistemologically reflective if conscious of storing its knowledge in forms appropriate to subject.
Ethically reflective if occupations have codes of ethics.
Philosophically strong (PS’/PW’) if strong on 2 of 3 dimensions.

Comparative Analysis of the Five

Different Categorization
3 PS’ occupations: Medicine, law & military
2 PW’ occupations: Business & engineering
Mitcham scheme downgrades military, business & engineering for being insufficiently aspirational.
But military and engineering are reflective about ethics in fairly strong way.
Ironic: Call engineering “philosophical weak” on only dimension of philosophy it considers.
PW vs. PW’ not just academic. Engineering pathologies mainly due to ontological & epistemological lacunae.
Aside: Philosophy is PS’, not as clear whether it is PS or PW.

Recovering Mitcham’s Division
Consider whether occupations are instrumental or end-in-themselves occupations.
Objection, tautology or prescriptive:
Captures grouping
Complex exchange  division of labor.
Some occupations expected to be instrumental
This gives us Mitcham’s grouping:
Doctors heal & lawyers seek justice for clients.
Businessmen, engineers & military are instrumental to accomplishing goals determined by others.
Only works at level of individual practitioner.
Adam Smith (1723-1790)

At Aggregate Occupational Level
Does health care system provide health?
Fixing disease versus wellness.
Doctors unconcerned with lifestyle, nutrition, exercise, social engagement: major keys to longevity.
Does legal system provide justice?
Getting known criminal off is not directly just.
Tort pursuit of the deepest pockets.
Law/Med are rough institutional approximations to health & justice, at best.

Institutional Settings: Clue to the Problem
Occupations work at level of individual practitioner and in institutional setting.
Not a bunch of free agents.
Institutions arise to shape & constrain work.
From economic perspective, institutions arise because using free market is not free.
Institutional frameworks different among the five.
Ronald H. Coase (b. 1910)

Institutional Comparison
Lawyers: Officer of court, monopoly on practice by state. Work in private firms and in government.
Doctors: Member of regulated profession, in regulated institutions, monopoly on practice of medicine by state. Work in private practice, HMO, or government.
Military: State has monopoly on force, military members are employees/conscripts of state, follow direct orders of civilian leaders through chain of command.
Businessperson: Free agent to contract with others, obeying laws of the state. Works in private enterprise.
Engineer: Free agent to contract with others, obeying laws of the state. Some licensed for some types of work. Work in free enterprise or public sector.
Philosopher: Free agent to contract with others obeying laws of the state. Academic practitioners require PhD for tenure-track position. Work in private or public sector.

Institutional Differences Significant
Institutional framework creates situation for Mitcham’sstrong occupations:
Practitioner advances the client’s interest.
Doing so assumed to promote societal interest (justice, health).
Call first condition local ethical alignment.
Call second presumption of global ethical alignment.
Philosophically strong merely ethically simple.
Institutional setting generally permits local action to lead to good global result.
Institutional framework of weak occupations does not ensure alignment:
Practitioner advances client’s interest.
No guarantee of good result.
2 ways:
Client may have malevolent intent.
Good intentions leading to unintended consequences.
Mitcham’s philosophically weak merely institutionally & ethically complex: local alignment does not yield global good.
Health & law less simple with increased i-complexity.

Some Ethical Urgings
Move from “is” to “ought.”
Engineering ought be more like law/med.
Adopt ideals corresponding to health and justice.
Ostensibly to fix ill effects of technology.
2 questions:
Is simple engineering ideal feasible?
What institutional modifications necessary for presumption of global ethical alignment?

Simple Ideals Hard for Biz/Engineering
Technological artifacts can satisfy many positive values: From human survival to εὐδαιμονία.
Hard to constrain generally.
Different individuals value different things differently.
Simple formulations seem problematic (biz/engin).
Consider military instead:
Aspirational ideal for military like law/meds?
Survival doesn’t seem good enough.
What about peace?
Kenneth J. Arrow (b. 1921)

Peace, the Military & Engineering
Soldier seeking peace puts engineering problem in perspective, 4 problems:
Does military action  peace? Predictability problem
Deterrent effect as actions prevented: effectiveness detection.
Can individual soldiers directly aspire to peace? Ideal complexity problem.
Should individual soldiers directly aspire to peace? Social effectiveness problem.
Predictability problem: When does a little war here and now promote peace later? Does technology promote intended ideal?
Effectiveness detection: Can we actually detect good when it occurs.
Ideal complexity: Individual judgment of soldiers may be insufficient to directly promote the ideal. Engineers have similar limitations.
Social effectiveness: Individual soldiers pursuing peace individually would not be an army. Engineers work in complex social settings. Need cohesive corps to solve problem.
Can you modify institutions  individual action moves toward larger ideal.

Return to Engineering
Assume simple, practical aspirational ideal exists or that engineers have sufficient judgment to practically pursue an ideal complex.
Marketplace insufficient institutionally to ensure local ethical alignment  global ethical alignment.
Design new institution for engineers that ensures local alignment  global alignment.
Bounding models of institutional restructuring:
Absolute control model
Absolute fail-safe model

Absolute Control Model
Assume engineers aspire to some ideal.
Construct institutional framework to help good occurs.
Engineering is iterative process: Orders obeyed in space and time to ensure good outcome eventually.
Authoritarian control over private firms, decision-making, individuals, and property.
Limits on choice by others to ensure good outcomes deemed proper by engineers in name of the state.
Name for this technocracy. Approximated in regimes.
Be careful what you wish for!

Philosophers, PW & the Republic
Institutional framework of philosopher similar to that of the engineer.
Philosophy has ideal of “loving wisdom” and seeking knowledge for its own sake.
But ideas and knowledge are often instrumental.
If philosopher has idea, how does he/she know that it will be used for greater good?
Plato’s solution in The Republic is close to the absolute control model.
Plato (428-328 BC)

Fail-Safe Action Model
OK, don’t put engineers in charge.
Keep marketplace, insist engineers invent, make, sustain things that cause no harm, Ever!
Precautionary principle on steroids.
Regulatory regime: Strictly liability for all outcomes of things they make.
Minimax strategy: Minimize harm subject to adversary who will maximize misuse & mischief.
Ensures almost no innovation. Penalties for bad outcomes too severe.
Not really engineering. Mistake making as necessary for engineering progress (Petroski, 1992).
What about philosophers and their ideas?

Engineer in Regulated Market Intermediate
Presently:
Engineers not in charge of a command economy.
Do not require them to never make mistakes.
Allow freedom to act in marketplace with regulatory regime to constrain worst outcomes.
Is Institutionally intermediate solution.
Analogous to majority rule as intermediate between veto & authoritarian rule (Buchanan & Tullock, 1962).

History: Engineers Professional Strivings
Strivings reflect institutional & ethical variation.
Civil Engineers more autonomous. Closer to ideal of med/law practice.
Mining engineers employees from the get go.
Electrical engineers start as rock stars and end up as employees.
Variations in professional practice dictated by institutional variations.
Historical record of ideal & institutional complexity.

NeoProfessionalism: Déjà Vu All Over Again
New report calls for professionalism at the center of educational reform.
NAE story.
Problematic for many of reasons here.
Institutional settings for different engineers different.
Simple aspirational ideals not practical.
Institutional arrangements to make them similar to law/med undesirable.
Reflect on complexity, history, and why things are.
Complex adaptive systems: No silver bullets.

Summing Up
Examined “philosophically weak” based on ideals.
Defined PS’/PW’ differently. Engineering philosophically weak, but in sense closely aligned with pathologies of practice/education.
Recaptured distinction (good/instrumental occupation) & considered institutional setting.
Med/Law in institutional setting where local ethical practical assumed to global ethical alignment.
Comparative analysis yields significant differences and strong institutional support for law/med.
Difficult to envision simple ideals (social choice) for engineering/business.
Switch to military isolates difficulty in predicting outcomes, problems with institutional redesign & risk of making military ineffective.
Institutional reframing: absolute control & fail-safe action.
Regulated market regime as intermediate.
Engineering ethically/institutionally complex.
Past calls to ideals or professionalism haven’t worked.
neoProfessionalism likely to face similar difficulties in practice.

More Information
Slides: www.slideshare.net/deg511
iFoundry: http://ifoundry.illinois.edu
iFoundryYouTube: http://www.youtube.com/illinoisfoundry
iFoundrySlideShare: http://www.slideshare.net/ifoundry
TEE, the book. http://eu.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0470007230.html
Engineering and Technology Studies at Illinois (ETSI) http://www-illigal.ge.uiuc.edu/ETSI
Workshop on Philosophy & Engineering (WPE)http://www-illigal.ge.uiuc.edu/wpe
© David E. Goldberg 2009