Engineering, Business & Professional Ethics

Simon Robinson, Ross Dixon, Christopher Preece, Kris Moodley, Krisen Moodley

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2007
• Print ISBN:
  9780750667418
• eBook ISBN:
  9781136405983
• Topic: Technology & Engineering
• Subtopic: Business Ethics
• Index: Technology & Engineering

Engineering, as a profession and business, is at the sharp end of the ethical practice. Far from being a bolt on extra to the 'real work' of the engineer it is at the heart of how he or she relates to the many different stakeholders in the engineering project. Engineering, Business and Professional Ethics highlights the ethical dimension of engineering and shows how values and responsibility relate to everyday practice. Looking at the underlying value systems that inform practical thinking the book offers a framework for ethical decision-making. Covering global corporate responsibility to the increasing concern for the environment within the engineering business, the book offers ways in which value conflict can be handled. Integrating practice, value and diversity the book helps to prepare the engineer for the ethical challenges of the 21st century. This book is essential reading for all students on courses accredited by the Engineering Council e.g. Civil, Chemical, Mechanical and Environmental Engineering who need to be aware of ethics. Also of interest to practicing engineers and professionals such as Sustainability Managers and Community Workers involved in engineering projects. The authors have worked together in the area of engineering, professional and business ethics for many years and are all members of the National Centre for Applied Ethics at the University of Leeds.

1 Why be ethical, or whose responsibility is it anyway?

Once the rockets go up, who cares where they come down?
That’s not my department says Werner von Braun

Tom Lehrer.

Introduction

At the outset we offer you working definitions of some key terms. These definitions will evolve throughout the book:

Ethics: The philosophical study of what is right or wrong in human conduct and what rules or principles should govern it. Hence the term is singular. This is often subdivided into meta-ethics, applied ethics and professional ethics.

Meta-ethics: The systematic study of the nature of ethics. This looks into issues such as how an ethical judgement can be justified and the possible theoretical underpinning of ethical reflection and practice.

Applied Ethics: The application of ethics in a particular area of practice, e.g. business or bio-ethics.

Professional Ethics: The ethical identity, codes and practices of particular professions, such as the professions followed by nurses, doctors, lawyers or engineers.

Morality: Morality often refers to standards of moral conduct – right behaviour. In the history of philosophy there have been many attempts to differentiate the concept from ethics. However, it is most often used interchangeably with the term ‘ethics’, which is how we will use it.

Engineering Ethics: Engineering ethics is defined in the two ways:

1. The study of moral issues and decisions confronting individuals and organizations involved in engineering.

2. The study of related questions about moral conduct, character and relationship involved in technical development (Martin and Schinzinger 1989).

Our study will focus on the professional and business ethics of the engineer, but will also make reference to other areas, not least through broader debates. As we explore ethics it will become apparent that whilst it is possible to see the study of ethics and its theories as a separate discipline, ethics is at the heart of any significant decision-making, and is therefore central to reflective professional practice. Often we make a statement without realizing that it involves particular values or principles. Often only in moments of challenge do we begin to state what those values are.

Perceptions about ethics can be affected by negative stereotypes. It is frequently seen as essentially about philosophical theory, and therefore seen by many as not relevant to practice. Hence, as Vardy (1989, 194) notes, practitioners are often suspicious of the philosopher, whom they see as living in ‘a secure and problem-free environment removed from business realities’. Ethics can also be seen as prescriptive and judgemental. Seemingly embodied in rules and codes, it is viewed by some as imposed from above and therefore against the idea of the freedom of the individual to make his or her own ethical decision, i.e. against ethical autonomy.

We will argue for ethics as essentially interdisciplinary. In this, philosophy and the social sciences have important parts to play in:

• locating and connecting underlying belief systems to individual and corporate ethical practice,

• developing shared discourse in value and belief systems,

• developing the tools of critical thinking, and

• enabling critical reflection on and dialogue about underlying ethical theory and meaning.

Importantly, no single discipline can ‘own’ ethics. It is focused in reflective practice, and as such, any discipline is there to inform and support that practice. We will also argue that ethics underpins many different concepts that are often seen as quite distinct, from sustainability, to corporate social responsibility (CSR), to corporate governance, to professional virtues and moral awareness.

In this chapter we aim to do two things:

1. To explore the reasons for being ethical.

2. To examine the nature and purpose of the engineer, and how a concern for ethics emerges from these.

Case 1.1

A memo from engineer Willy Just: A shorter, fully loaded truck can operate much more quickly. A shortening of the rear compartment will not disadvantageously affect the weight balance, by overloading the front axle, because a correction in the weight distribution takes place automatically through the fact that the cargo in the struggle towards the back door during the operation is preponderantly located there. Because the connecting pipe is quickly rusted through the fluids, the gas should be introduced from above, not below. To facilitate cleaning, an eight- to twelve-inch hole should be made in the floor and provided with a cover that can be opened from the outside. The floor should be slightly inclined, and the cover equipped with a small sieve. Thus all fluids will flow to the middle, the thin fluids will exit during the operation, and the thicker fluids can be hosed out afterwards. (Bauman 1989, 197)

Just had been commissioned to improve the efficiency of the trucks developed by the Nazi regime in the early 1940s to transport and gas Jews and others. It may seem an extreme example of engineering, and yet there were many professionals in Germany at the time faced with the dilemma of having to respond to such commissions. On the face of it Just had very good reasons for not being ‘ethical’. If he had opposed his clients then his and his family’s lives would have been in danger.

Another school of thought, though, might suggest that ‘being ethical’ did not come into it. Just was an engineer and the task of engineers is to do what the client or manager wants. The issue of ethics, of how any commission is put to use, of where the new project is built, who it may affect and so on can seem like concerns solely for the client, the local planners or the government to consider. These are the parties who commission the project and who take responsibility for the ethical issues. It is their duty to be aware of potential problems, value conflicts and so on.

This view could be further reinforced with an argument that the professional engineer should be entirely impartial about ‘values’. His or her task is simply to complete the job to the highest technical standards and not be interested in, or influenced by, the values of the client or any others who have a stake in the problem – many of whom are probably not equipped to understand the ‘engineering’ in any case! But of course this does not happen. Something stops the engineer from ‘building anything for anybody’ without considering consequences. The client is similarly constrained. Both fall back on the ‘ethics of the situation’ – often without being able to explain what this means, but either or both could perhaps, in a given situation, justify making small but significant changes to their ‘ethical’ position.

So we cannot get far in these considerations without asking what it means to be ‘ethical’ as a professional engineer or manager. It could be argued that Just actually was ‘ethical’. Whilst intuitively this seems wrong, there is no doubt that the Nazi regime was built on a self-generated value system, underpinned by a complex belief system. Burleigh (2000) argues that Hitler aimed to provide a replacement religion to inspire his followers. We may not like the Third Reich ethical system; indeed, we may argue that it was profoundly evil, but it had a contemporary view of what was right and wrong in that country. Just may have accepted it or believed in it in the same way that many SS guards interviewed several decades after the war still did (Rees 2005, 132 ff.). This argument can be refined to suggest that there is no one view of ethics and that all ethics are relative to their social and cultural context.

From another perspective, we do not even have to accept relativity to argue that Just was in fact behaving ethically. He was in an impossible situation, unable to refuse the commission. In that light the most ethical thing to do was perhaps to ensure that his family and his workforce were not harmed. It was the best of several bad options.

A nagging doubt, however, persists. Didn’t Just, as an engineer, collude with countless others who chose to turn away when Jews were killed in the streets, not to ‘see’ the crematoria close to their villages, or not to challenge the bullying ‘brown shirts’ who whipped up hatred? Whatever the stance taken, however, the memo makes chilling reading, not least through the way in which technical language is used such that it denies the humanity, and with that the suffering, of those at its centre.

The argument can ask a further uncomfortable question. How did the personal ethics of Just relate to his professional ethics? Shouldn’t there be some consideration about a view of what is ‘right’ that transcends any limited view of the situation, or of the profession, or any contract, consideration of obligations to humanity as a whole?

A way of looking at this argument is to suggest that such a view is actually part of what it means to be a professional. Engineers and managers operate in society and beyond, and cannot distance themselves from that broader relationship, or from the issues that surround them. ‘Knowledge is obligation’ and the knowledge and power of the professional engineer and manager must be matched by their sense of responsibility.

None of this is to condemn Willy Just. The reflection on his memo is simply to tease out an answer to the question, ‘why be ethical?’

Exercise

1. Put yourself in the position of Willy Just. How would you have responded to the commission? How would you have justified your response?

2. Work with two other colleagues and imagine that you are the board of Just’s firm. How would you respond together? What would you do as a group in that situation?

On thing is for sure. In a very short time, our reflection on ‘why be ethical?’ has moved to the question ‘what is ethics?’, and our next step is the question ‘is ethics about right and wrong in a relatively narrow context or does it reach out to involve the professional relationship with wider society?’

A second case involving software engineers might help us to dig a little deeper.

Case 1.2

Following the success of a computer game based upon a horror scenario set in the frozen north the computer software development company was asked by the client to develop a second game. This time the client wanted increased shock value, and the inclusion of the explicit death of young children. An added incentive would be that agreement to the commission would lead to the rapid release of monies still owed to software firm for the first game.

The manager of the software firm and his engineering staff were uneasy about this request – though initially a little unsure why they felt this unease. As a result of discussions with his staff the manager decided that it was important to clarify the situation. He wrote to his client’s legal department and asked if they would confirm in writing that the company wished him to develop a second game and that it was their intention that this should involve increased horror and the death of children. No such confirmation was received and the money owed to the software development company was rapidly released.

This case is interesting at several levels, not least because effective resolution seems to have been made by the client without anybody reflecting on and articulating any ethical meaning about what was being proposed. The computer engineers shared a strong feeling of unease, but at no point was the meaning behind the unease spelled out. The response of the legal department could be surmised as self-interest, but was not spelled out.

This case has been used at different times with students and professionals as a method of exploring ethical standpoints. Without the participants having the benefit of knowing how the software manager had replied, there were a wide variety of responses to the situation, including the following:

• One group suggested the most important thing was to give the client what they wanted. To this end they determined to make the children Eskimos, i.e. natives of the land in which the game was set. No one in the West, they argued, would identify with Eskimos, and so there would be no offence caused.

• A second group suggested that games have their own context, and this is not real. Nothing of what happens in a game can affect reality.

• A third group argued squarely that having a game involving the death of children was not ethically wrong, provided there was an ethical frame to the game, such as the killer being brought to book.

• A fourth group suggested that the issue of what was happening should not be the responsibility of the software engineer. The company had commissioned the game and it followed that it was their responsibility to deal with any ethical issues that it generated, not least the issue of how computer games affect the character of the players (Reber 2001).

• A fifth group suggested that to go with the commission was too risky. It only needed one press release that inferred that the client company was trading in on the death of children, and whatever the ethical rights and wrongs of this, it could adversely affect the company’s reputation and thus sales. This could in turn affect the reputation of the software engineer.

Exercise

1. How do you see Case 1.2?

2. How would you work through the feelings of unease felt by the software company?

3. How would you respond to the client, as an individual or as the manager?

4. Imagine that you are the manager of a small family-owned, medium-sized company. The family board members have called you in. They are relieved that you have dealt successfully with an issue similar to that described above. They are keen to ensure that the firm learns from the experience. They want you and the other senior software engineers to identify the key issues and to develop a policy for how future similar problems might be approached.

5. Working with two colleagues or students, write a response to the board.

6. Show this to two others, aiming to justify your background thinking and approach to them.

Case 1.2 and the various responses seem to indicate two answers to the question, ‘why be ethical?’ First, it is in the engineer’s interest to be ethical. Second, it is a conditional answer. The engineer should be ethical if he or she has a clear responsibility.

The ethics of self-interest

Ethics can involve self-interest:

• A sense of ethical awareness gives an engineering organization an image that encourages the public and clients to trust them, reinforcing the importance of an ethical reputation. Though no reason was given by the client in Case 1.2 for not pressing the original brief it is safe to assume that a company that had a strong interest in the family market would not want such a brief to be in writing. One of the most interesting examples of self-interested ethics in business in general is the case of Nestlé and the sale of a baby milk substitute (Robinson 2002). This case has raged for over thirty years. In its earliest stages the whistle was blown by The New Internationalist on the alleged practice of providing free baby milk substitute to poor third world mothers in hospitals, leading to dependency upon the substitute and eventually to the deaths of millions of babies due to poor mothers mixing the powdered milk in infected water. Whatever the rights or wrongs of this complex case, there is little doubt that Nestlé’s initial handling of it was ill judged. Rather than taking these claims seriously, and trying to address the issues and the underlying value conflicts, Nestlé tried to paint them as anti-capitalist propaganda, taking on the role of champions of the free market. First, this led to a polari...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Introduction
• Authors
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Why be ethical, or whose responsibility is it anyway?
• 2 The foundations of ethics
• 3 The practice of ethics
• 4 Ethical codes
• 5 Ethics and business I
• 6 Ethics and business II
• 7 Environmental ethics and sustainability
• 8 Global ethics
• 9 Call yourself an engineer?
• Index