6. Engineers –Shared Responsibility
• Engineers are not the sole experimenters
– Managers
– Marketing people
– Public
But, “with knowledge comes responsibility”
•Engineers are in a unique position to:
– Monitor projects
– Identify risks
– Develop facts for informed consent
• An engineering professional will take on the
responsibility!
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7. To fulfill their obligations as
responsible experimenters, engineers
must:
• A Primary Obligation to protect the safety of human subjects, providing a
safe exit whenever possible, and respect their right of informed consent
• use imaginative forecasting of possible side effects, and reasonable efforts
to monitor them
• have autonomous, personal involvement in all aspects of a project
• accept accountability for the results
• display technical competence and other attributes of responsible
professionals
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8. For Remembrance
• Informing for consent requires excellent
communications skills in order to provide
appropriate information in an understandable
way.
• Also, cooperation with other disciplines is often
essential to assess potential side effects and
monitor effects of "social experiments" through
engineering.. (Recall Alasdair MacIntyre's virtue
of professional responsibility which includes: i)
self direction, ii) public spirited, iii) team work
iv) proficiency. (Martin & Schinzinger, 42)
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9. • Engineers should also display technical
competence and other attributes of
professionalism .
• Definite “Style” of Engineering
• Contemporary Threats
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11. Responsible Experimentalists
1. Conscientiousness: Protect safety knowledge,
respect right of consent of public
2. Relevant Information / Comprehensive
perspective: Awareness of experimental nature of
projects, forecasting, monitoring
3. Moral autonomy: Personally engaged,
thoughtful, involvement in project
4. Accountability: Accept responsibility for results
of a project (avoid fragmentation, diffusion, time
pressures)
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12. 1.CONSCIENTIOUSNESS
• People act responsibly to the extent that they
conscientiously commit themselves to live
according to moral values .
• Self interest
• Moral Agents
Individuals who think solely of their own
good to the exclusion of the good of others are
not moral agents
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13. Conscientiousness moral commitment
• a sensitivity to the full range of moral values
and responsibilities that are relevant to a
given situation
• Willingness to develop the skill and expend
the effort needed to reach the best balance
possible among those considerations .
• Conscientiousness implies consciousness ( in
the sense of awareness), because intent is not
sufficient.
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14. Open eyes, Open ears and an Open mind are
required to recognize a given situation, its
implications and who is involved or affected.
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15. Working Conditions
• The contemporary (modern or present)
working conditions of engineers tend a
narrow moral vision solely to the obligations
that accompany employee status.
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16. Engineers work benefits
• 90% of engineers are salaried employees
work in large bureaucracies ( organizations or
administrations ) under great pressure to function
smoothly within the organization
• Benefits :Prudent self interest and concern for
one’s family make it easy to emphasize as
primary the obligations to one‘s employer
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17. Moral aspiration (goal)
• Minimal negative duties:
– Not falsifying data
– Not violating patent rights
– Not breaching confidentiality
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18. Engineering as Social Experimentation
• Restores vision of engineers as guardians of
the public interest professional duty it is to
guard the Welfare and safety of those affected
by engineering projects .
• Engineers should not impose their own views
of the social good upon society
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19. 2. RELEVANT INFORMATION
• Conscientiousness is blind without relevant
factual information.
• Shows moral concern that involves
commitment to obtain and properly assess all
available information pertinent to meeting
one’s moral obligations
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20. • Grasp the context of one’s work( which makes
it count as an activity having a moral import )
• Specialization
• Division of Labor
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21. Example
• A company may produce items with
obsolescence built into them , or the items
might promote unnecessary energy usage
• It is easy to place the burden on the sales
department : “Let them inform the
customers”
• It may be natural to thus rationalize one’s
neglect of safety or cost considerations , but it
shows no moral concern.
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22. • Consequences of what one does
• Regarding engineering as social
experimentation :
– Engineer should view his/her specialized activities
in a project as part of a larger whole having a
social impact.
– Goal is to practice “Defensive engineering “ or “
preventive technology “
– Moral Responsibility
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24. • People are morally autonomous when their
moral conduct and principles of action are
their own.
• Moral Beliefs and attitudes basis of Critical
reflection
-Moral beliefs and attitudes must be held on the basis
of critical reflection rather than merely through passive
adoption ie... Particular conventions of one’s society,
church or profession
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25. • Moral Beliefs and attitudes must integrate
into the core of an individual’s personality in a
manner that leads to committed action.
• Cannot be agreed abstractly and formally or
verbally .
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26. • Engineers working for an employer sells
one’s labor and skills may make it seem that
one has thereby disowned and forfeited
power over one’s actions
• Viewing engineering as social experimentation
can help one overcome the above tendency .
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27. ATTITUDE OF MANAGEMENT
• Plays a decisive (vital) role in how much moral
autonomy engineers feel they have.
• Long term interest
• Thoughtful &
• Involvement in project
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28. 4. ACCOUNTABILITY
• Responsible people accept moral responsibility
for their actions.
• Accept responsibility for results of a project
1. fragmentation
2. diffusion
3. time pressures
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