1. The document discusses key concepts in engineering ethics including types of ethical inquiry, moral dilemmas, and moral autonomy. It outlines two approaches to engineering ethics: micro-ethics which focuses on everyday problems, and macro-ethics which addresses societal problems. 2. Moral issues in engineering are classified into three categories: resource crunch due to time/budget pressures, opportunities for double standards or prioritizing gains, and employee attitudes due to lack of recognition/promotion. 3. There are three types of ethical inquiry: normative inquiries which identify moral standards, conceptual inquiries which clarify ethical concepts, and factual inquiries which provide information relevant to ethical issues. Solving moral dilemmas involves identifying relevant

1. Senses of Engineering Ethics,
Variety of moral issues, Types of
Inquiry, Moral Dilemmas and
Moral Autonomy
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2. ENGINEERING ETHICS
• Engineering Ethics is the activity and discipline aimed at:
 understanding the moral values that should to guide
engineering profession or practice,
 resolving moral issues in engineering, and
 justifying the moral judgments in engineering.
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3. Approach:
There are two approaches in the study of ethics:
1.Micro-ethics: emphasizes typically everyday problems
that can take on significant proportions in an engineer’s
life or entire engineering office.
2.Macro-ethics:
 which deals with the societal problems on a
regional / national level.
 For example, global issues, collective
responsibilities of groups such as professional
societies and consumer groups.
ENGINEERING ETHICS – cntd.,
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4. First Sense:
“Ethics is an activity understanding moral values, resolving moral issues
and area of inquiry”
Second Sense:
“When we speak about ethical problems, issues and controversies, we mean
to distinguish them from non-moral problems”
Third Sense:
“Ethics is used to refer to the particular set of beliefs, attitudes and habits that
a person or group displays regarding morality”
Fourth Sense:
“Ethics and its meaning can be used as “morally correct”.
For ex:
 people actions and principles of conduct can be spoken as either ethical (right, good
or permissible) or unethical (immoral)
 individuals can be evaluated as ethical (decent, moral integrity) or unethical
(dishonest) .
SENSES OF ENGINEERING ETHICS
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5. • It would be relevant to know why and how do moral issues
(problems) arise in a profession? or why do people behave
unethically?
Two approaches related to engineering ethics:
1. emphasizes typical everyday problems, that can take on
significant proportions in an engineer’s life or an engineering
office (micro-ethics). These are generally faced by individuals.
2. addresses societal problems, that are often forced aside and are
not addressed until they unexpectedly resurface on a regional or
national scale (macro-ethics). These are tackled by teams.
VARIETY OF MORAL ISSUES
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6. Unethical or moral issues classified into three categories:
1. Resource crunch
2. Opportunities
3. Attitude
1. Resource crunch:
• Due to pressure, through time limits, availability of money or
budgetary constraints, and technology decay or obsolescence.
• . Example:
1. Pressure - government to complete the project before the
elections.
2. Reduction in the budget because of sudden natural calamity
(e.g., Tsunami).
3. Obsolescence due technology innovation by the competitor lead
to manipulation, unsafe and unethical execution of projects.
VARIETY OF MORAL ISSUES – cntd.,
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7. 2. Opportunities:
1. Double standards or behavior of the employers towards the
employees and the public.
2. Management projecting their own interests more than that
of their employees.
3. Emphasis on results and gains at the expense of the
employees.
4. Management by objectives, without focus on empowerment
and improvement of the infrastructure.
VARIETY OF MORAL ISSUES – cntd.,
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8. 3. Attitude:
Poor attitude of the employees set in due to:
 Low drive of the employees because of dissatisfaction and
downsizing.
 Absence of complaint redressal (rectification) mechanism.
 Lack of promotion or career development policies or
denied promotions.
 Lack of transparency.
 Absence of recognition and reward system.
 Poor working environments.
VARIETY OF MORAL ISSUES – cntd.,
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9. Types of Inquiry, Moral Dilemmas,
Moral Autonomy
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10. TYPES OF INQUIRY
Engineering ethics combines inquiries into values, meaning and
facts.
Three types of Inquiry:
1. Normative inquiries
2. Conceptual inquiries
3. Factual or Descriptive inquiries
1.Normative Inquiries:
• It aims at identifying and justifying the morally desirable
norms or standards that should to guide individuals or groups.
• Normative questions are about what ought to be and what is
good.
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11. Examples of Normative questions:
Practical Questions:
1. How far does the obligation of engineers to protect public
safety extend in any given situation?
2. When, if ever, should engineers be expected to blow whistle
on dangerous practices of their employers?
3. Whose values ought to be primary in making judgment
about acceptable risks in design for a public transport
system or a nuclear plant?
Is it of management, senior engineers, government, voters or
all of them?
TYPES OF INQUIRY – cntd.,
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12. Theoretical Questions:
1. What are the reasons on which the engineers show their
obligations to their employees or clients or the public?
2. How can professional ideals be justified in terms of more
fundamental moral ideals?
3. When and why is the government justified in interfering
with the organisations?
TYPES OF INQUIRY – cntd.,
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13. 2. Conceptual Inquiries:
• It seeks to clarify important concepts, principles and
issues in engineering ethics or ideas, whether the ideas are
expressed by single words or by statements and questions.
Examples of conceptual questions:
1. How is it related to risk?
2. What is a bribe?
3. What is meant by safety?
TYPES OF INQUIRY – cntd.,
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14. 3. Factual Inquiries:
• It seeks to provide facts needed for understanding and resolving
value issues.
• It is also called descriptive inquiries – ask for to uncover
information bearing upon value issues.
• They provide important information about:
• the business realities of modern engineering practice.
• the history of the engineering profession.
• the effectiveness of professional societies in moral conduct.
• the procedures used in making risk assessments.
• psychological profiles of engineers.
TYPES OF INQUIRY – cntd.,
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15. Examples of factual questions:
1. How are the benefits assessed?
2. What are procedures followed in risk assessment?
3. What are short-term and long-term effects of drinking
water being polluted?
4. Who conducted the tests on materials?
5. How effective are the codes of conduct for professional
misconduct?
TYPES OF INQUIRY – cntd.,
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16. Moral dilemma is a situation where a decision is very
difficult to take or a decision taken becomes
controversial. Some dilemmas are: Death penalty,
Cloning, Surrogacy and Genetic research
• Moral reasons could be rights, duties, goods or obligations.
• Conflict of moral principles, lack of clarity and difference of
opinion on the right course of action can lead to moral
dilemmas.
• For example, a person promised to meet a friend and eat
dinner, but he has to help his uncle who is involved in an
accident — one has to fix the priority.
MORAL DILEMMAS
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17. Three Situations:
1. The problem of Vagueness:
• One is unable to distinguish between good and bad
principle.
• It may be unclear to individuals which, if any, moral
considerations or principles apply to their situation.
• Good means an action that is mandatory. For
example, code of ethics specifies that one should obey
the laws and follow standards.
MORAL DILEMMAS – cntd.,
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18. 2. The problem of conflicting reasons:
• It may be perfectly clear which moral principles apply to
one’s situation.
• One is unable to choose between two first-class moral
solutions.
• One has to fix priority, through knowledge or value system.
MORAL DILEMMAS – cntd.,
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19. 3. The problem of disagreement:
• Reasonable and responsible individuals and groups may
disagree about how to interpret, apply, and balance
moral reasons in particular situations.
• There may be two or more solutions and none of them
mandatory.
• Select the best suitable, under the existing and the most
probable conditions.
MORAL DILEMMAS – cntd.,
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20. Steps to Solve Moral Dilemma:
1. Identification of the moral factors and reasons.
– The clarity to identify the relevant moral values from
among duties, rights, goods and obligations is obtained.
(Conceptual inquiry)
– The most useful resource in identifying dilemmas in
engineering is the professional codes of ethics, as
interpreted by the professional experience.
– Another resource is talking with colleagues who can
focus or narrow down the choice of values.
MORAL DILEMMAS – cntd.,
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21. 2. Collection of all information, data, and facts (factual
inquiry) relevant to the situation.
3. Rank the moral options
– Priority in application through value system, and also
as obligatory, all right, acceptable, not acceptable,
damaging and most damaging etc.
– For example, in fulfilling responsibility, the codes give
prime importance to public safety and protection of the
environment, as compared to the individuals or the
employers (conceptual inquiry).
MORAL DILEMMAS – cntd.,
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22. 4. Generate alternate courses of action to resolve the
dilemma.
– Write down the main options and sub-options as a matrix or
decision tree to ensure that all options are included.
5. Discuss with colleagues and obtain their perspectives,
priorities, and suggestions on various alternatives.
6. Decide upon a final course of action, based on priority
fixed or assumed. If there is no ideal solution, we arrive at
a partially satisfactory or ‘satisfying’ solution.
MORAL DILEMMAS – cntd.,
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23. • Moral autonomy means ‘self determinant or independent’
• Moral autonomy is defined as a skill and habit of thinking
rationally about the ethical issues, on the basis of moral
concern.
MORALAUTONOMY
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24. Engineering skills related to moral autonomy:
• Proficiency in recognizing moral problems and issues in
engineering and ability to distinguish as well as relate them
to problems in law, economics and religious principles.
• Skill in comprehending, clarifying, and critically-assessing
arguments on different aspects of moral issues.
• Ability to form consistent and comprehensive view points
based on relevant facts.
• Imaginative awareness of alternative responses to the
issues and creative solutions for practical difficulties.
MORALAUTONOMY – cntd.,
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25. • Sensitivity to genuine difficulties, including willingness to
undergo and tolerate some uncertainty while making
decisions.
• Increased precision in the use of a common ethical
language, which is necessary in order to be able to express
and protect one’s moral views adequately to others.
• Using rational dialogue in resolving moral conflicts and
developing tolerance of different perspectives among
morally reasonable people.
• Maintaining moral integrity or honesty.
MORALAUTONOMY – contd.,
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26. Thank You
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