Engineering Ethics: What Why How and When

Engineering Ethics: What? Why? How? And When?

CHARLES EDWIN HARRIS, JR. that term, refers to those standards of conduct that apply to every- Department of Philosophy one rather than only to members of a special group. Ideally, these Texas A&M University standards are ones that every rational person wants every other to follow, even if everyone else’s following them would mean that he MICHAEL DAVIS or she had to do the same. We were all quite young when we Center for the Study of Ethics in the Professions learned such basic moral rules as: don’t lie; don’t kill; don’t cheat; Illinois Institute of Technology keep your promises; don’t steal; and so on. We were still quite young when we learned that these rules have exceptions (for exam- MICHAEL S. PRITCHARD ple, “except in self-defense” for “don’t kill”).1 Now and then, we may Department of Philosophy change our view on how to interpret a particular rule or exception— Western Michigan University for example, we may come to think that it is possible to lie without saying anything false (for example, by omitting some fact necessary MICHAEL J. RABINS for understanding what we do say). But, since we entered our teens, Department of Mechanical Engineering such changes have been few and relatively marginal. Our students Texas A & M University are much like us. They arrive in class more or less morally mature. We have little to teach them about ordinary morality. Not so with professional ethics. By “professional ethics” (hence- ABSTRACT forward in this paper, just “ethics”) we refer to those special morally permissible standards of conduct that, ideally, every member of a Engineering ethics is professional ethics, as opposed to personal profession wants every other member to follow, even if that would morality. It sets the standards for professional practice, and is only mean having to do the same. Ethics applies to members of a group learned in a professional school or in professional practice. It is an simply because they are members of that group. Medical ethics ap- essential part of professional education because it helps students plies to people in medicine (and no one else); business ethics applies deal with issues they will face in professional practice. The best way to people in business (and no one else); and engineering ethics ap- to teach engineering ethics is by using cases—not just the disaster plies to engineers (and no one else).1,2 cases that make the news, but the kinds of cases that an engineer is The special standards that constitute engineering ethics are what more likely to encounter. Many cases are available, and there are are to be taught. They have been formulated in different codes of methods for analyzing them. Engineering ethics can be taught in a ethics, in formal interpretations of those codes, and in the less formal free-standing course, but there are strong arguments for introduc- practices by which engineers pass on the special ways they do things ing ethics in technical courses as well. Engineering is something to each new generation of engineers. So, except for those students that engineers do, and what they do has profound effects on others. lucky enough to have a mother or father who is an engineer, no one If the subject of professional ethics is how members of a profession is likely to learn much about engineering ethics except at engineer- should, or should not, affect others in the course of practicing their ing school or while practicing engineering. Engineering ethics is as profession, then engineering ethics is an essential aspect of engi- much a part of what engineers in particular know as factors of safety, neering itself and education in professional responsibilities should testing procedures, or ways to design for reliability, durability, or be part of professional education in engineering, just as it is in law economy. Engineering ethics is part of thinking like an engineer. and medicine. Probably few engineering educators would disagree Teaching engineering ethics is part of teaching engineering. with these claims; their implementation in engineering education is another matter. We want to discuss the introduction of engineering ethics into engineering education in terms of four ques- II. WHY? tions: What is engineering ethics? Why should it be emphasized in engineering education? How should it be taught? and When Why teach engineering ethics? One possible answer is the long should it appear in the student’s education? and familiar list of tragedies, disasters, and scandals in which engineers have been major players. Something should be done about all these bad things. This answer, what we can call the big news/bad I. WHAT? news approach to ethics education, seems to miss the mark. Al- though these incidents should be a matter of concern to all of us, We begin with an obvious but important distinction, that be- and especially to engineering students, who can learn from past tween morality and professional ethics. Morality , as we shall use mistakes, they are exceptional rather than ordinary occurrences in

April 1996 Journal of Engineering Education 93 engineering. Most engineers will never be involved in such news- We believe the goals elaborated by the Hastings Center provide worthy circumstances. good reasons for teaching engineering ethics, but there are addi- Big news for the media is usually bad news. This is why, when tional goals as well. Teaching ethics can increase student sensitivity audiences are asked to think of media coverage of ethical issues in to ethical issues simply by making students aware that they, as engi- engineering, they come up with a familiar list of disasters: the col- neers, will have to resolve certain ethical problems. Just being ex- lapse of the Hyatt-Regency walkway in Kansas City, the Challenger posed to a few examples of a particular problem, having them iden- disaster, the Bhopal disaster, DC-10 crashes, and so on-and on. But tified and explained, will make it more likely than otherwise that an exclusive focus on big news/bad news events may encourage engi- the students will see a problem of that sort when it arises on the job. neering students to think of ethics as primarily about others—those Why teaching ethics might have that effect is not hard to under- relatively few engineers who have the misfortune of being involved stand. The mechanism is precisely the same as for learning to see in something newsworthy. And they may take comfort in the technical problems. Practice sharpens perception. knowledge that, despite some bad press for a few engineers, national Teaching engineering ethics can increase student knowledge of surveys usually place engineers near the top of the list in regard to the relevant standards. A student who reads a code of engineering public’s confidence in the ethics of the professions.3 ethics is more likely to know what is in it than a student who does However, rather than relying on media coverage of disasters or not read it . A student who has to answer questions about the code public surveys for an answer to the question, “Why teach engineer- is more likely to recall the relevant provisions than one who has not. ing ethics?,” we suggest looking elsewhere. Some years ago the And so on. Knowledge of standards includes more than just know- Hastings Center, an ethics think tank in New York, brought to- ing what is written in codes or handbooks. Part of knowing stan- gether educators from a broad range of disciplines to talk about dards is understanding the rationale for them (especially the conse- what should be the common goals of ethics education in colleges quences of departing from them). For example, part of teaching and universities.4 One goal they identified was to stimulate the ethi- students to take operating costs into account when designing some- cal imagination of students. Too often, the educators agreed, young thing is pointing out how uneconomical the design is if they don’t. professionals get caught by surprise when faced with an ethical Teaching engineering ethics can improve ethical judgement. problem in their professional practice. Never having seriously Ethical judgement, like technical judgement, tends to improve with thought about such a problem, they may not handle it well. use. If a professor of engineering gives students a chance to make Another, related Hastings Center goal is to help students recog- ethical judgements, explain them, and compare them with those nize ethical issues. Although a conflict of interest may be lurking other students make, the student is more likely to judge well than if around the corner, it may not announce itself to the involved parties she gets no such experience. The classroom and laboratory provide until matters have gone too far. For example, what counts as a con- a safe place to make mistakes and learn from them—ethical mis- flict of interest in engineering practice—as well as precisely why it is takes as well as purely technical ones. an ethical problem—may not be obvious to the uninitiated. So, a Finally, teaching engineering ethics can increase a student’s eth- third Hastings Center goal comes into play: to help students analyze ical will-power. One might say, “Surely the classroom and laborato- key ethical concepts and principles that are relevant to the particular ry are not the place for that.” Think again. Isn’t an engineer who profession or practice. Other concepts come to mind—public health knows that he shares a particular standard of conduct with other and safety, quality, usefulness, efficiency, cost/risk/benefit analysis, engineers more likely to follow it than one who believes himself environmental harm, truthfulness, trustworthiness, loyalty. alone? One benefit of discussing ethics in the classroom is that it Many of these concepts are “messy.” They resist the sort of pre- shows students how much consensus there is (among engineers) on cise definition engineering students might want. Even if there are most standards of engineering ethics. There is power in numbers. paradigms for, say, “safe” or “unsafe,” there are areas of vagueness That is one source of will-power. and uncertainly. Algorithms that do justice to the ethical issues are hard to come by. So, yet another Hastings Center goal applies: to help students deal with ethical disagreement, ambiguity, and III. HOW? vagueness. The trick is to acknowledge that some disagreement and uncertainty can be expected and should be tolerated, but to refuse to There is widespread agreement that the best way to teach pro- accept the view, “Everyone’s opinion is as good as anyone else’s fessional ethics is by using cases. There are several modes of ethical when it comes to ethics.” analysis that can be useful in treating cases. We shall discuss two of There is one more Hastings Center goal that merits attention: them.(For fuller accounts, see reference 5) Both methods are based to encourage students to take ethical responsibility seriously. In one on concepts and even expressions that we use in everyday experi- sense, this should not be difficult for engineering students, once ence when we talk about moral problems. they reflect on the obvious fact that engineering is not just a techni- One of these expressions is “drawing the line.” We often ask cal or theoretical enterprise. Inherent in the exercise of engineering where we should draw the line between acceptable and unaccept- expertise is the provision of useful, if not essential, services to able actions. Let us consider a case that illustrates this first mode of clients, employers, customers, and the public. Usefulness, quality, ethical analysis, which we shall refer to as resolving a line-drawing safety, efficiency, and cost effectiveness are not secondary features problem. of this activity. They are its heart. So are reliable judgement and Engineers often face the problem of accepting gifts from ven- trustworthiness. So, if we examine what engineers do, and not sim- dors. On the one hand, most engineers probably believe that ac- ply the technical content of engineering textbooks, it is easy to see cepting a cheap plastic pen from a vendor is permissible. On the that ethical responsibility should be a central concern of the engi- other hand, all engineers believe it is not permissible to accept a neering profession and practice. $10,000 check from a vendor to specify a product that is both infe-

94 Journal of Engineering Education April 1996 rior and more expensive. But where do we draw the line between cases. One, at Western Michigan University, developed a set of 33 these two extremes? Suppose a vendor offers to take us to the local cases, each focused on a single issue. The cases came from the expe- country club for golf, or to sponsor us for membership in the coun- riences of practicing and retired engineering managers and focus on try club. Suppose he invites us to a seminar in Hawaii, where his the kinds of situations a practicing engineer is likely to encounter. company and ours split the expenses. Suppose he invites us to a Each case is followed by discussion by a board of commentators.7 seminar in Hawaii, all expenses paid. Where do we draw the line? Another project, at Texas A&M University, developed a set of 11 In the line-drawing method, we compare the controversial case cases taken mostly from real-world situations.8 The cases are pre- to noncontroversial cases, i.e. to the cases where there would be lit- sented with student handouts, instructor’s guides and recommend- tle doubt that the action is right (accepting the plastic pen) or ed transparencies for classroom use. Each case is specifically aimed wrong (accepting the $10,000 bribe). By isolating the similarities at a particular required course (or courses) in the engineering un- and differences between the controversial case and the noncontro- dergraduate curriculum. versial cases, we are usually able to decide whether a controversial The National Society of Professional Engineers has case materi- action is morally acceptable. al available under the title, “Professional Engineers in Education Now let us turn to the second mode of ethical analysis. Another (NSPE-PEE).”6 An electronic disc containing eight cases with term that we often use in referring to moral problems is “conflict.” guidelines is available from the Murdough Center for Engineering We say that we are in a conflict over an issue, meaning that we feel Professionalism and Ethics at Texas Tech University, directed by pulled in two different directions by competing considerations. Dr. Jimmie Smith.9 Dr. Pennington Vann, also at the Murdough Here we must engage in resolving a conflict problem. Center, has developed a bibliography on engineering ethics, includ- The popular videotape “Gilbane Gold,” produced by the Na- ing a listing of video tapes, such as “The Truesteel Affair”10 and “To tional Society of Professional Engineers, presents a classic conflict Engineer Is Human.”11 Dr. Michael S. Pritchard and others at problem.6 In the story, a young engineer, David Jackson, the envi- Western Michigan University are developing cases that deal with ronmental engineer at ZCORP, faces a problem. His job requires the avoidance and prevention of wrongdoing in engineering.12 him to sign documents certifying that the plant discharge into the local sewer meets city regulations, when he suspects that it does not. To make matters worse, the contaminants in the plant’s discharge IV. WHEN? are arsenic and lead, and the sludge from the water treatment plant is made into a fertilizer (Gilbane Gold) which is used by local farm- We believe students should be introduced to ethics in as many ers. Plant management does not want to spend any more money to times and places inside and outside the curriculum as possible. treat the discharge, and David believes that he could lose his job if Guest lectures, presentations to student chapters of professional so- he presses the issue too far. cieties and many other possibilities present themselves. David’s situation can best be described as a conflict problem. His Another possibility is to have a single, free-standing, non- tech- major conflict is between his obligation to be a loyal employee and nical elective course. At some schools, engineering departments his obligation to protect the health of the public. Both obligations offer seminar courses on engineering ethics. Elsewhere, such free- are legitimate. What should he do? standing, non-technical electives are offered by philosophy depart- David needs to do some brainstorming. In fact, the importance ments. At Texas A&M, the course is taught by both an engineer of imagination in resolving ethical problems cannot be overempha- and a philosopher. The course consists of one-hour lectures on sized, whether they are line-drawing or conflict problems. David Monday and Wednesday and a two-hour recitation section on Fri- should first think of what we call creative middle ways, i.e. actions day, which is devoted to case analysis. The usual format for the Fri- that will enable him to meet all of his apparently conflicting obliga- day session is to have a student act as a scribe to summarize the re- tions. For example, David might try to find a technical solution to sults of the class discussion on the blackboard. The instructor is the problem. This would enable him both to protect the citizens’ then free to move around the room and encourage student discus- health and to protect ZCORP. Failing this, he might suggest to his sion, in accordance with the line-drawing, conflict-resolution and manager, Diane, that she, along with other managers of high-tech other methods of case analysis. plants in the area, approach the city with the problem in a non-con- Another approach is to introduce engineering ethics into required frontational way. He might encourage her to argue that the plants engineering courses. This approach has the advantage of teaching en- and the city have a mutually beneficial relationship that should be gineering ethics in a way that brings home how integral engineering preserved and that the problem can be solved if they work together. ethics is to engineering practice. One way is to use videotapes or Unfortunately, creative-middle-way solutions are not always cases, such as the ones mentioned in the previous section. possible. Then more difficult choices must be made, in which some Still another way is simply to enhance student awareness of ethi- obligations must be given priority over others. David might have to cal issues. (See reference 13.) For example, in a course on electrical tell his superiors that he will not conceal anything from city author- circuits, an instructor might take a moment now and then to point ities. He might even have to refuse to sign any more documents out the practical effect of getting a problem wrong: “These circuits that certify that ZCORP’S discharges are within city regulations. are typically used in aircraft navigation systems; a small error here, As a last resort, he might have to resign and go public, if he believes combined with two common errors of pilots, could cause a crash. In the situation is serious enough. practice, your calculations will be checked many times, but some er- There is now a considerable body of cases in engineering ethics rors slip through. The easiest way to prevent disaster is to get the for case analysis. The Ethics and Values in Society (EVS) Program problem right the first time. Next problem.” Even a few such com- at the National Science Foundation, under the direction of Dr. ments in the course of a semester can help engineering students see Rachelle Hollander, has funded several projects designed to create the practical context of highly abstract calculations: both the rela-

April 1996 Journal of Engineering Education 95 tion of those calculations to such ethical concerns as safety and the relation of their education to what they want to do after graduation. Another easy way to provide information about ethics is to pass out a code of ethics at the beginning of the term and refer to it often enough during the term so that students get the idea it would be good to read it. An instructor can mention that such-and-such a provision makes engineers responsible for the safety of what they help to make. It is surprising how many engineering faculty have not read a code of engineering ethics. Needless to say, their students are even less likely to have read a code. Just exposing students to a code is therefore a significant contribution to their ethics education.

V. CONCLUSION

Engineering ethics appears to be emerging as a distinct disci- pline, taking its place with medical, legal and business ethics. We believe the time is approaching when most if not all engineering schools will have some program for introducing students to engineering professionalism and ethics. The time for thinking about implementing such programs has arrived.

REFERENCES

1. Michael Davis, “The Moral Authority of a Professional Code,” NOMOS 29 (1987), pp. 302-337 2. Michael Davis, “Thinking Like an Engineer: the Place of a Code of Ethics in the Practice of a Professional,” Philosophy and Public Affairs 20, Spring 1991, pp. 150-167. 3. The Gallup Poll Monthly, July, 1992, p. 3. 4. Daniel Calhoun, “Goals in the Teaching of Ethics,” in Ethics Teach- ing in Higher Education. ed. by Daniel Callahan and Sissela Bok (New York: Plenum 1980). 5. C.E. Harris, M.S. Pritchard, and M.R. Rabins, Ethics in Engineer- ing: Concepts and Cases, Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1955, pp. 127-143. 6. National Society of Professional Engineers, 1420 King Street, Alexandria, VA 22314. Tel: 703-684-2882. 7. Michael S. Pritchard, ed., “Teaching Engineering Ethics: A Case Study Approach,” NSF Grant No. DIR - 8820837. Available through the Center for the Study of Ethics in Society, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI 49008-5022. Tel: 616-387-4380. 8. R.W. Flumerfelt, C.E. Harris, Jr., M.J. Rabins, and Charles H. Samson, Jr., “Introducing Ethics Case Studies Into Required Undergradu- ate Engineering Courses,” NSF Grant No. DIR 9012252. Available from M.J. Rabins, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Texas A&M Uni- versity, College Station, TX 77843. Tel: 409-845-2615. 9. The Murdough Center for Engineering Professionalism, College of Engineering, Texas Tech University, Box 41023, Lubbock, TX 79409- 1023. Tel: 806-742-3525. 10. Fonlight Productions, 47 Halifax Street, Boston, MA 02130. 11. Films Inc. Video, Education Department, 5547 N. Ravenwood Ave., Chicago, IL 60640. Tel: 800-323-4222, ext. 323 12. M.S. Pritchard, “Ethics in Engineering: Good Works.” NSF Grant No. SBR-9320257. 13. Michael Davis, “Ethics Across the Curriculum: Teaching Profes- sional Responsibility in Technical Courses,” Teaching Philosophy 16, Sep- tember 1993, pp.205-235.

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