UNIT 2 ENGINEERING ETHICS

Senses of ‘Engineering Ethics’-Variety of Moral

Issues-Types Of Inquiry-Moral Dilemmas- Moral
Autonomy-Kohlberg’s Theory-Gilligan’s Theory-
Consensus And Controversy- Professions And
Professionalism-Professional Ideals And Virtues-
Theories About Right Action-Self-Interest-Customs
And Religion-Uses Of Ethical Theories.

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SENSES OF ETHICS
• Ethics is an activity of
– Understanding the moral values
– Resolve the moral issues
– Justify the moral judgment
• Ethics refers to a set of beliefs, attitudes, and
habits that a person or group displays
Concerning morality.
• Ethics is a purely factual matter about explaining
beliefs and actions related to morality.
• Ethics refers to being “morally correct”
– People’s action can be spoken as “ethical” or
“unethical”
– Individuals can be evaluated as “ethical” or
“unethical”

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WHAT IS ENGINEERING ETHICS
 Engineering Ethics is an activity
of
 Understanding the moral values
that ought to guide the engineering
profession
 Resolve the moral issues in the
profession
 Justify the moral judgment
concerning the profession.
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WHAT IS ENGINEERING ETHICS
 Engineering ethics is defined by the codes
and standards of conduct endorsed by
engineering (professional) societies with
respect to the particular set of beliefs,
attitudes and habits displayed by the
individual or group.
 Goal of engineering ethics is the discovery
of the set of justified moral principles of
obligation, rights and ideals that ought to
be endorsed by the engineers and apply
them to concrete situations.

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MORALITY
 Morality is concerned with
principles and practices of morals
such as:
 What ought or ought not to be done in
a given situation?
 What is right or wrong about the
handling of a situation?
 What is good or bad about the people,
policies, and ideals involved?

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MORALITY VS. ETHICS

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 SENSES OF ENGINEERING ETHICS
 Two different senses (meanings) of engineering ethics,
namely the Normative and the Descriptive senses. The
normative sense include:
 (a) Knowing moral values, finding accurate solutions to
moral problems and justifying moral judgments in
engineering practices,
 (b) Study of decisions, policies, and values that are
morally desirable in the engineering practice and
research, and
 (c) Using codes of ethics and standards and applying
them in their transactions by engineers.
 The descriptive sense refers to what specific individual or
group of engineers believe and act, without justifying their
beliefs or actions.
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 VARIETY OF MORAL ISSUES
 Two Approaches to engineering
ethics:
 Typical, everyday problems that
can take on significant
proportions in and engineer’s life
 Societal Problems that are often
shunted aside and are not
addressed until they
unexpectedly resurface
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 VARIETY OF MORAL ISSUES
 The reasons for people including the
employer and employees, behaving
unethically may be classified into three
categories:
 1. Resource Crunch
 2. Opportunity
 3. Attitude

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HOW DO MORAL PROBLEMS ARISE
IN ENGINEERING
• Examples
– Faulty construction equipment

– Applying for a permit to operate a nuclear

power plant
– Chemical plant dumping wastes in a landfill

– Advertisements from an electronic company

for a product which is not ready for sale
• Engineer might be faced with contrary opinions
– Within the firm

– From the client

– From other firms within the industry

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CHALLENGES ON HANDLING
MORAL ISSUES
 To what extent can a supervisor be an
authoritative guide to engineer’s conduct ?
 What does one do when there are differences
of judgement ?
 Should one always follow the law to the
letter?
 Is an engineer to do no more than what the
specifications say, even if there are problems
more serious than those initially anticipated?
 How far does an engineer’s responsibility
extend into the realm of influencing the
social impact of the projects he or she
participates in?

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TYPES OF INQUIRIES

 The three types of inquiries,

in solving ethical problems
are:
 Normative inquiry
 Conceptual inquiry
 Factual or descriptive inquiry

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NORMATIVE INQUIRY
 It seeks to identify and
justify the morally-desirable
norms or standards that
should guide individuals and
groups.
 It also has the theoretical
goal of justifying particular
moral judgments.

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 NORMATIVE INQUIRY
Example:
How far does the obligation of engineers to protect
public safety extend in any given situation?
When, if ever, should engineers be expected to blow
whistle on dangerous practices of their employers?
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?
When and why is the government justified in interfering
with the organizations?
What are the reasons on which the engineers show their
obligations to their employees or clients or the public?
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CONCEPTUAL INQUIRY
• It is directed to clarify the meaning of
concepts or ideas or principles that
are expressed by words or by
questions and statements.
• Examples:
– What is meant by safety?
– How is it related to risk?
– What is a bribe?
– What is a profession?
• When moral concepts are discussed,
normative and conceptual issues are
closely interconnected.

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 FACTUAL OR DESCRIPTIVE INQUIRY
• It is aimed to obtain facts needed for
understanding and resolving value issues.
• Researchers conduct factual inquiries
using mathematical or statistical
techniques.
• The inquiry provide important information
on business realities, engineering
practice, and the effectiveness of
professional societies in fostering moral
conduct, the procedures used in risk
assessment, and psychological profiles of
engineers.

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 Factual or Descriptive Inquiry
• The facts provide not only the reasons for
moral problems but also enable us to
develop alterative ways of resolving moral
problems.
• Example
1.How were 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 on17
MORAL DILEMMA
• Dilemmas are situations in which
– Moral reasons come into conflict
– The application of moral values are
problems, and one is not clear of the
immediate choice or solution of the
problems.
– Moral reasons could be rights, duties,
goods or obligations.
– These situations do not mean that things
had gone wrong, but they only indicate
the presence of moral complexity. This
makes the decision making complex.

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SITUATIONS LEADING TO MORAL DILEMMA
The three complex situations
leading to moral dilemmas
are:
The problem of vagueness
• One is unable to distinguish between
good and bad (right or wrong)
principle. Good means an action that
is obligatory. For example, code of
ethic specifies that one should obey
the laws and follow standards.
Refuse bribe or accept the gift, and
maintain confidentiality

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 Situations leading to Moral Dilemma
The problem of conflicting reasons
• One is unable to choose between two good moral
solutions. One has to fix priority, through knowledge
or value system.

The problem of disagreement

• There may be two or more solutions and none of
them mandatory. These solutions may be better or
worse in some respects but not in all aspects. One
has to interpret, apply different morally reasons, and
analyze and rank the decisions. Select the best
suitable, under the existing and the most probable
conditions. 20
STEPS TO SOLVE DILEMMA
• Identification of the moral factors and
reasons.
• Collection of all information, data, and
facts
• Rank the moral options
• Generate alternate courses of action to
resolve the dilemma
• Discuss with colleagues and obtain their
perspectives, priorities, and suggestions
on various alternatives
• Decide upon a final course of action,
based on priority fixed or assumed

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MORAL AUTONOMY
• Moral autonomy is defined as, decisions and
actions exercised on the basis of moral
concern for other people and recognition of
good moral reasons.

• Alternatively, moral autonomy means ‘self

determinant or independent’.

• Moral autonomy may also be defined as a

skill and habit of thinking rationally about
the ethical issues, on the basis of moral
concern.

• The autonomous people hold moral beliefs

and attitudes based on their critical
reflection rather than on passive adoption of
the conventions of the society or profession.
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MORAL AUTONOMY

 If management views profitability

is more important than consistent
quality and retention of the
customers that discourage the
moral autonomy, engineers are
compelled to seek the support
from their professional societies
and outside organizations for
moral support.
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KOHLBERG THEORY
 Kohlberg suggested there are
three levels of moral development,
based on the type of reasoning
and motivation of the individuals
in response to moral questions
 Pre-conventional
 Conventional
 Post-conventional

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Pre-Conventional
– Right conduct for an individual is
regarded as whatever directly benefits
oneself.
– At this level, individuals are motivated
by obedience or the desire to avoid
punishment or to satisfy their own needs
– All young children exhibit this tendency.
Conventional
– People respect the law and authority
Post Conventional
– People begin to account for the differing
values, opinions and beliefs of other
people.
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 KOHLBERG THEORY
• The following is one example of the dilemmas Kohlberg
presented.
"Heinz Steals the Drug”
In Europe, a woman was near death from a special kind of
cancer.
There was one drug that the doctors thought might save her.
It was a form of radium that a druggist in the same town had
recently discovered.
The drug was expensive to make, but the druggist was
charging ten times what the drug cost him to make.
He paid $200 for the radium and charged $2,000 for a small
dose of the drug.

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 Kohlberg Theory
The sick woman's husband, Heinz, went to
everyone he knew to borrow the money, but he
could only get together about $ 1,000 which is
half of what it cost.
He told the druggist that his wife was dying and
asked him to sell it cheaper or let him pay later.
But the druggist said: "No, I discovered the drug
and I'm going to make money from it."
So Heinz got desperate and broke into the man's
store to steal the drug-for his wife. Should the
husband have done that?

• Kohlberg was not interested so much in the

answer to the question of whether Heinz was
wrong or right, but in the reasoning for each
participant's decision. The responses were then
classified into various stages of reasoning in his
 KOHLBERG THEORY
• Level 1. Preconventional Morality

Stage 1 - Obedience and Punishment

The earliest stage of moral development is
especially common in young children, but adults are
also capable of expressing this type of reasoning. At
this stage, children see rules as fixed and absolute.
Obeying the rules is important because it is a means
to avoid punishment.

Stage 2 - Individualism and Exchange

At this stage of moral development, children
account for individual points of view and judge
actions based on how they serve individual needs.
In the Heinz dilemma, children argued that the best
course of action was the choice that best-served
Heinz’s needs. Reciprocity is possible, but only if it
serves one's own interests.

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 Kohlberg Theory
• Level 2. Conventional Morality
Stage 3 - Interpersonal Relationships
often referred to as the "good boy-good girl"
orientation, this stage of moral development is focused
on living up to social expectations and roles. There is an
emphasis on conformity, being "nice," and
consideration of how choices influence relationships.

Stage 4 - Maintaining Social Order

At this stage of moral development, people begin to
consider society as a whole when making judgments.
The focus is on maintaining law and order by following
the rules, doing one’s duty and respecting authority.
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• Level 3. Post conventional Morality
Stage 5 - Social Contract and Individual Rights
At this stage, people begin to account for the
differing values, opinions and beliefs of other
people.
Rules of law are important for maintaining a
society, but members of the society should agree
upon these standards.

Stage 6 - Universal Principles

Kolhberg’s final level of moral reasoning is based
upon universal ethical principles and abstract
reasoning. At this stage, people follow these
internalized principles of justice, even if they
conflict with laws and rules.

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• Gilligan observes that Kohlberg's stages
were derived exclusively from interviews
with males, and she charges that the stages
reflect a decidedly male orientation.
• For males, advanced moral thought revolves
around rules, rights, and abstract principles.
The ideal is formal justice, in which all
parties evaluate one another's claims in an
impartial manner. This conception of
morality, Gilligan argues, fails to capture the
distinctly female voice on moral matters.

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 GILLIGAN’S THEORY
 Gilligan says
 morality centers not on rights and rules
but on interpersonal relationships and
the ethics of compassion and care.
 The ideal is not impersonal justice but
more affiliative ways of living.
 Women's morality, in addition, is more
contextualized; it is tied to real, ongoing
relationships rather than abstract
solutions to hypothetical dilemmas.

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GILLIGAN’S THEORY
 Understanding the needs, interests, and
welfare of another person, and
understanding the relationship between
oneself and that other requires a stance
toward that person informed by care, love,
empathy, compassion, and emotional
sensitivity.
 It involves, for example, the ability to see
the other as different in important ways
from oneself, as a being existing in her
own right, rather than viewing her through
a simple projection of what one would feel
if one were in her situation.
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KOHLBERG’S THEORY VS. GILLIGAN'S THEORY

• For Kohlberg the mode of reasoning

which generates principles governing
right action involves formal rationality
alone. Emotions play at most a remotely
secondary role in both the derivation and
motivation for moral action.
• For Gilligan, by contrast, morality
necessarily involves an intertwining of
emotion, cognition, and action, not
readily separable. Knowing what to do
involves knowing others and being
connected in ways involving both emotion
and cognition.

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CONSENSUS AND CONTROVERSY

 Consensus means agreement.

 Controversy means
Disagreement.
 The ethics make the engineers
realize the importance of
tolerance among them in case
of disagreement while applying
moral autonomy.
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OCCUPATION VS. PROFESSION
Profession can only be applied to certain occupations
which meet the following criteria -

• Advanced Expertise (Skills and Knowledge): The work

involves exercising sophisticated skills , theoretical
knowledge and judgment and discretion that is not
entirely routine or subject to mechanization.

• Self Regulation (Organization): Special societies and

organizations controlled by members of the
profession are allowed by the public to play a major
role in setting standards for admission to the
profession.

• Public Good: The occupation serves some important

aspects of public good as indicated in the codes of
ethics.

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MEMBERSHIP CRITERIA
 Earning bachelor’s degree in
engineering at a school approved
by the ABET.
 Acting in morally responsible ways
while practicing engineering.
 Being officially registered and
licenses as a Professional
Engineer(PE).
 Performing commonly recognized as
what engineers do.
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MODELS OF PROFESSIONAL ROLES
• Savior: The representative engineer
is a savior who will redeem society
from poverty, inefficiency, waste and
drudgery of manual labor.
• Guardian: The representative
engineer knows the directions in
which and pace at which, technology
should develop. Accordingly they
should be given positions of high
authority based on their expertise in
determining what is in the best
interest of the society.

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 Models of Professional Roles
• Bureaucratic servant: The role of engineer is to be a
servant who receives and translates the directives of
the management into concrete achievements.
• Social servant: The role of engineers’ lies in obedient
service to others but their true master is society.
• Social enabler or catalyst: Ultimate power lies with the
management. Nevertheless, the engineer plays a vital
role beyond mere compliance with orders.
• Game Player: Engineers are neither servants nor
masters. They play by the economic game rules that
happen to be in effect at a given time.
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 PROFESSIONAL RESPONSIBILITY
 is being morally responsible as a
professional.
 is an umbrella virtue that encompasses a
wide variety of more specific virtues that
acquire importance in particular situations
 Many of the virtues can be grouped into
four categories
 Self-direction virtues
 Public-spirited virtues
 Team-work virtues
 Proficiency virtues

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INTEGRITY
 is the unity of character on the
basis of moral concern, and
especially on the basis of honesty.
 The unity is consistency among our
attitudes, emotions and conduct in
relation to justified moral values.
 Integrity makes possible the
virtues of self-respect and pride in
one’s work.
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HONESTY
 Honesty has two aspects:
 Truthfulness
 Meeting responsibilities concerning truth-telling
 Trustworthiness
 Meeting responsibilities concerning trust.
 List of specific virtues that truthfulness
and trustworthiness imply:
 Honesty in acts
 Honesty in speech
 Honesty in beliefs
 discretion

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SELF RESPECT
 is valuing oneself in morally
appropriate ways.
 takes two forms:
 Recognition self-respect
 Appraisal self-respect
 Specific virtues for self respect
 A sense of honor
 Self-control
 Courage
 Good judgment

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SENSES OF RESPONSIBILITY
 Obligations
 General moral capacity
 Characteristic quality
 Liability and accountability

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TYPES OF RESPONSIBILITY
 Moral responsibility
 Obligations
 Accountability
 Praiseworthy/Blameworthy
 Casual responsibility
 consists simply in being a cause of some event. (A young
child playing with matches causes a house to burn down, but
the adult who left the child with the matches is morally
responsible.)

 Legal responsibility
 whatever the law requires—including legal obligations and
accountability for meeting them

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THEORIES ABOUT RIGHT ACTION
(ETHICAL THEORIES)
 Utilitarianism
 Duty Ethics
 Rights Ethics
 Virtue Ethics
 Self-realization Ethics

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UTILITARIANISM JOHN STUART MILL (1806-1873)

 Considers a balance of good & bad

consequences for everyone
affected (society)
 Actions are good that serve to
promote human well-being
 Cost-Benefit analysis is an
application
 Consideration of most benefit to
the most people outweighs needs
of a few individuals

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DUTY ETHICS IMMANUEL KANT (1724-1804)

 There are duties that should be

performed (e.g.. Duty to treat
others fairly or not to injure
others) regardless of whether
these acts do the most good or
not.

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RIGHTS ETHICS JOHN LOCKE (1632-1704)

 People have fundamental

rights (like life, liberty, &
property) that others
have a duty to respect.

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VIRTUE ETHICS

 Actions are considered right

if they support good
character traits (virtues)
and wrong if they support
bad character traits (vices)
 Closely tied to personal
honor
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 THEORIES ABOUT VIRTUES
 Aristotle: Virtue and the Golden Mean
 Aristotle, the most influential of all virtue ethicist,
defined the virtues as acquired habits that enable
us to engage effectively in rational activities.
 Moral virtues are tendencies, acquired thro’ habit
formation, to reach a proper balance between
extremes in conduct, emotion, desire and attitude.
 Virtues are tendencies to find “The Golden Mean”
between the extremes of too much and too little.
 E.g. Truthfulness is the mean between revealing

all information in violation of tact and

confidentiality and being secretive.

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 THEORIES ABOUT VIRTUES
 Macintyre: Virtues and Practices
 Macintyre is a contemporary ethicist who has

stimulated a renewed interest in virtue ethics and

applied it to thinking about professional ethics.
 Macintyre begins with the idea of social practices.

 Cooperative activities aimed toward achieving

public goods that could not otherwise be achieved,
at least not to the same degree.
 These goods are internal to the practices in that

they define what the practices are all about.

 They differ from external goods.
 E.g. The primary internal good of medicine is the
promotion of health.

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TESTING ETHICAL THEORIES
 Five widely used tests for evaluating
ethical theories:
 The theory must be clear
 It must be consistent
 Neither the theory nor its defense can rely
upon false information
 It must be sufficiently comprehensive to
provide guidance in specific situations of
interest to us.
 It must be compatible with our most
carefully considered moral convictions
about concrete situations.
situations
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SELF-INTEREST AND ETHICAL EGOISM
 is being good and acceptable to
oneself.
 It is pursuing what is good for oneself.
 It is very ethical to possess self-interest.
 A view that tries to reduce morality to
the pursuit of self-interest is called
ethical egoism.
 “Ethical “ because it is a theory about
morality and “egoism” because it says
that the sole duty of each of us is to
maximize his or her own good.
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 CUSTOMS AND ETHICAL RELATIVISM
 Various culture in our pluralistic society lead to
tolerance for various customs, beliefs and
outlooks.
 Ethical pluralism is the view that there may be
alternative perspectives that are reasonable, but
no one of which must be accepted completely by all
rational and morally concerned persons.
 Ethical relativism says that actions are morally
right when they are approved by law or custom;
they are wrong when they violate laws or customs.
 Moral rationalism is the view that moral judgments
should be made in relation to factors that may vary
from case to case.

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 RELIGION
 Religions have played major roles in shaping
moral views and moral values.
 Each religion lays stress on certain high moral
standards.
 Hinduism holds polytheistic view and virtues of
devotion and surrender to high order.
 Christianity believes in one deity and emphasizes
on virtues of love, faith and hope.
 Islam on one deity and adherence to ishan and
prayer.
 But many religious sects have adopted poor
moral standards.
 People are killed in the name of religion.

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DIVINE COMMAND ETHICS
 As per this principle, the right
action is defined by the
commands by God.
 It implies that to be moral, a
person should believe in god
and an action is right only if it
is commanded by God.

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USES OF ETHICAL THEORIES

 Ethical theories are useful :

 for justifying moral
obligations.
 for resolving moral dilemmas.
 in relating professional and
ordinary morality.

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 REVIEW QUESTIONS
 What is engineering ethics?
 What are the situations when moral
dilemmas arise?
 What are the steps needed to
confront moral dilemmas?
 What are the types of inquiry?
 What are the two aspects of
honesty?
 List the criteria to achieve
professionalism.
 List the models of professional roles.
 What are the virtues fulfilled under
professional responsibility?

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