The Ethical Issues Inherent in Any Engineering Design Abstract Technology is the basic contributor to the successful development

of mankind. Therefore, people involved into the technological development are responsible for people in some way. They make decisions regarding the products people are to use, the ships, the cars, the airplanes, trains, and many other things people use every day. More to say, engineers have to carry the major responsibility for people and their life, considering the above-said. The design practices are necessary to be discussed. The discussion of design practice should appropriately contribute to engineering ethics analysis. It should provide the detailed background, using which it is easy to understand why ethical issues is a serious part in engineering design and how engineers are able to manage these issues. The paper should add more information regarding the moral responsibility of engineers in design processes. The primary aim of the paper can be summarized as follows: To provide a contribution to evaluation on the moral responsibilities of engineers in engineering design processes. Keywords: technology, design practice, ethical issues, moral responsibilities, engineers. Introduction Technology has been affecting mankind during the entire history of its development. In some sense, human life depends on technology. Thus, the story of the roll-on/rolloff (ro/ro) passenger and freight ferry the Herald of Free Enterprise that happened on March the 6th, 1987 is the example of such tragic dependence (BBC, 2012). This ferry capsized outside the Zeebrugge harbor due to the human mistake that however, was provoked by technological issue. Water filled the ship very quickly and this lead to the death of 150 passengers and 38 crewmembers (BBC, 2012). The disaster happened because of the following reason: the inner and outer bow doors were not closed as they should have been when the ship left port. The man in charge of this issue (the assistant bosun) should have closed the doors (BBC, 2012). Unfortunately, he was sleeping. The technological problem was in the inability to see from the bridge the current state of the bow doors. There were no warning lights to signal about a problem (BBC, 2012). Such situation has occurred before at least two times with

the ships of the same company. There were no tragic consequences but the problem was before it had led to the death of innocent people. It is clear that it was human error provoked by the pressure to depart quickly. However, it is also obvious that the aspect of ship design was the root of the problem that led to disaster. The same story happened with another ro/ro ferry, the Estonia. The main point is that the design of the ship was the problem. It was engineering problem. Therefore, technology has a serious influence on people. The employment of new technologies and products leads to new possibilities and new risks. In other words, decisions engineers and designers make during design processes directly influence the possibilities and risks of products. Thus, these decisions are connected or ethically relevant. As it can be noticed from the story above, particular decisions can have rather serious influence on the peoples safety and even life. Some decisions, for example, can have a large influence on the safety of people using the product. This research focuses on ethical issues in engineering design. The story about the disaster of the ferry might seem irrelevant to the ethical issues in engineering design from the first look. However, engineers take responsibility and make such decisions as the one with not installing the appropriate warning system every day. The main focus of the paper is as follows: What kind of ethical issues are present during the design process and how engineers are able to manage these ethical issues? Discussion The meaning of ethical issues was widely discussed by Thomas Nigel. Thus, according to Nagel (1991), there are different sources of value, special allegiances, general rights, utility, and perfectionist ends of self-development and individual projects that cannot be reduced to each other or to more fundamental values. The rights of general nature are such that that everyone has as a human being. Such rights constrain action; the actions violating the rights are morally forbidden. There is no correlation between this conception of ethical issues and the engineers idea of ethical issues. This conception of ethical issues may or may not be shared by engineers (Baum, 1980; Bovens, 1998; Harris, Davis, Pritchard, & Rabins, 1996). Even when engineers do not think that an issue is ethical while at the same time according to the above mentioned conception the issue is

ethical, in this research the issue will be treated as such. Some issues that may be called ethical by engineers but not ethical according to the previously mentioned conception and thus this thesis will not consider them ethical issues (Baum, 1980; Bovens, 1998; Harris, Davis, Pritchard, & Rabins, 1996). Some industrial designers combine aesthetic and moral values and this may serve as an example to the issue. Safety issues, for instance are ethical issues being at the same time legal issues. Safety and design have a lot of legislation, codes and standards effects (Bucciarelli, 1994; Baum, 1980; Bovens, 1998). Thus the decisions about safety have the same ethical relevance and engineers are provided with rules to follow from a legal point of view during the decision making process. It is in cases like this that the way engineers deal with the issues from both ethical and legal points of view. It means that the decisions about the safety of a product might be right or wrong morally as well as legal or illegal. A question arises regarding the fact if a safe enough design from the legal point of view is ethically acceptable and vice versa (Baum, 1980; Bovens, 1998; Harris, Davis, Pritchard, & Rabins, 1996). It is possible to evaluate legislation, codes and standards of safety from the ethical point of view. There is no possibility to take into account absolutely all ethical issues connected to a design process. It is not much of a difficulty to point out the ethical relevance of a choice that seems to be very trivial, like which tea to choose for drinking during meetings of a design team. Tea can be produced with the use of herbicides or organically, under good or poor working conditions effects (Bucciarelli, 1994; Baum, 1980; Bovens, 1998). It means that the choice of tea will be related to utility and universal rights. In the context of design lots of ethical issues come into play, such as: some parts, for example, might be produced in countries where child labor is a usual thing leading to the assumption that children have made these parts. The main focus of this research is the ethical issues that directly influence the design of a product and the way of its use, particularly the ethical issues concerning safety and sustainability of a product. The focus on these aspects is made because they play a major and dominant role in many design processes. Basing on the conception of ethical issues it is obvious that safety and sustainability may bring up ethical issues (Baum, 1980; Bovens, 1998; Harris, Davis, Pritchard, & Rabins, 1996). There is a

relation between these issues and utility and general rights. Almost every design process involves making decisions regarding safety and sustainability but the importance of them may be different. In some cases, engineers will not discuss and take into consideration safety or sustainability yet it does not mean that no choices are made regarding safety or sustainability. Here are two examples that will show the lasting impact of the decisions made during design process regarding safety and sustainability (Bucciarelli, 1994; Baum, 1980; Bovens, 1998). Choices about safety and sustainability regarding the use of technological devices are often made in everyday life and when an individual user makes a choice about safety and sustainability these consequences have less significance than those of the decisions that are made during a design process. In the process of designing a printer/copier it is necessary to make a choice whether the printer/copier should be able to print two sided pages or not. Having made the choice regarding two sided printing and copying the additional choice about default properties will arise (Baum, 1980; Bovens, 1998; Harris, Davis, Pritchard, & Rabins, 1996). In case the two sided printing is made a default option the users will have to make a choice to print one sided. In general when the machine prints and makes copies it will be a two sided print and copy. The switching off of two sided printing and copying option by the user will allow to print one sided effects (Bucciarelli, 1994; Baum, 1980; Bovens, 1998). The default option of printing and copying two sided will save a lot of paper in comparison with a printer/copier that prints only one side. One printer/copier will not produce a great environmental effect of saving paper but when the total number of these printers in use is considered it is not that hard to see how much paper is saved when two sided printing and copying is used (Baum, 1980; Bovens, 1998; Harris, Davis, Pritchard, & Rabins, 1996). The reduction of paper use will lead to the reduction of the amount of wood used as paper is produced from wood. Energy is required for transportation of wood and paper, production of paper. The reduction of use of paper will lead to the fact that lesser resources will be used for production and on the global scale it will be significant. This example demonstrates how seemingly trivial decisions made during the design stage of a product have huge environmental effects (Bucciarelli, 1994; Baum, 1980; Bovens, 1998).

There is another example of the ethical impact of decisions made during the design making process. As it is not safe and not environmentally friendly to drive too fast an individual might come to a decision to drive slower. The government of a country might decide regulate the speed of cars by the implementation of speed limits. With the speed limits the drivers can drive as fast as they want to and as their cars allow but they will risk getting fined in case of exceeding the speed limits. A decision to design a car that will make it impossible to exceed speed limits might be made by car engineers. For instance, trucks in the Netherlands have speed regulating equipment installed that makes it impossible to drive faster than 90 km/h. This shows what influence the engineers may have they can promote speeding or prevent it. It does not matter what regulations are or what speed limits are imposed, engineers can design cars with lower top speeds (Bucciarelli, 1994; Baum, 1980; Bovens, 1998). Designing cars with lower top speeds will allow saving a lot of fuel due to the fact that at higher speeds car consume more fuel. Lower consumption of fuel will lead to the decrease of CO2 emission. If trucks and cars have smaller speed differences between them it is possible to decrease the number of accidents that happen on roads and this will lead to less lives lost and people injured in such accidents. It means that having decided to design a car with lower top speeds or limiting the top speed of the car with some device, or designing an engine with less horse power the engineers will make it possible to reduce the consumption of fuel, CO2 emission and the number and severity of car accidents on the roads. If a design has problems the solution to which is only determined by the requirements then it is possible for the engineers to say that they do not bear responsibility for ethical issues that arise as everything is determined by requirements and these requirements are defined by the customers. Some authors state that design requirements, goal or criteria are not and should not be formulated by engineers. There is ethical relevance to the formulation of goals and requirements, but it is not engineers who should be doing that. It is the job of managers, politicians, customers etc. If we think about this further, the engineers task is to find the solution which technologically works in the best possible way under certain requirements. Ethically this task is neutral. The appearance of ethical questions is

possible in the phase when users use technologies for certain purposes producing some social effects. Usually design problems do not get completely solved when there is a clear set of requirements on hand. It is possible to say that design problems possess more or less badly structured problems. For some design methods it is required that engineers formulate solutions and requirements separately, but if design problems are badly structured such independent formulation becomes impossible. If an existing design is being redesigned most of the requirements can be formulated from at the start of the design process but we cannot say that requirements are independent of the solution. In cases of redesign there are limits to the solution space as certain features of the product will not be changed. When a completely new product is designed the design problems are very badly structured and the start of the design process will make it possible only for some vague requirements to be made. Here is an example of a badly structured problem. The substitutes for CFCs as refrigerator coolants were sought in the mid 1990s as CFCs damage the ozone layer. Two alternatives, both having advantages and disadvantages, were proposed: HFC 134a and hydrocarbons. For instance, hydrocarbons are flammable and choosing them as the coolant would cause the change in the design of the existing refrigerators. HFC 134a though being less damaging than CFCs would still damage the environment if released in the atmosphere. Various practical applications were available for safety, environmental and health criteria. Both offered options fared differently under different applications of the criteria. There was no solution that would work best under all applications. It was not possible to determine the better solution. Using this example we can see that even the seemingly simple case of trying to find a substitute for coolant in the refrigerators of the existing design the problem still remains badly structured. In cases of badly structured design problem there may be multiple solutions and each of them may be valid. In this case engineers will have to make a choice; the requirements will not lead to just one solution. During the start of the design process there may not be clearly defined requirements at all. It might happen that engineering ethics and design processes will demand for some requirements to be dropped or adjusted when no solution that meets all the requirements can be found making the design problem

under, or over, determined by the requirements. Regardless of this, a choice will have to be made during the design process regarding which requirements can be removed or which of the solutions for the design problem is the best. In most cases designs are made by a team of engineers so this is a social process as well. Groups of people make choices and during the design process the design itself is influenced by communications, negotiations, arguments, power differences between engineers and trust or mistrust among them. All of this has its consequences for the design research as the design process is a social process. Different engineers having different experiences and educational background will see the design task differently. For instance, in case of the cage construction and bodywork of a car a mechanical engineer will look at stresses and strains. The engineer will attempt to design them in a way that will allow stresses and strains to remain low in the normal use of a car and absorb energy in a crash. In the eyes of an aerodynamics engineer the same bodywork will look like a body that should have a low frontal area and low drag coefficient. Both engineers look at the same parts but they see different things and look for different requirements that these parts should meet. These different views have to be brought together like all parts have to fit each other and function together. It is achieved through communications and negotiations. The social processes during the design process are important and the importance of communication should not be forgotten. Most design processes are marked by the division of labor. For instance, let us take the design of a car. It can be divided into the design of the engine, the seats, the drive shaft, the electronic systems etc. The division of the design team into smaller design groups each of which is responsible for their part of design, from the ethical point of view, may lead to the problem of many hands. The problem manifests itself with regard to active and passive responsibility. The latter means responsibility after something has happened while the former means responsibility for something that is being done. If speaking about passive responsibility there is the problem of many hands. While it could seem quite clear who is officially responsible for what as it is stated in the formal job description, but in practice it may become quite difficult to find people that are responsible for acts of organizations that have caused damage.

Quite often people outside the organization do not see who is responsible for what in an organization and who can influence a certain decision. Moreover in case of hierarchical organization of people whose who are lower in the hierarchy can say that those who are higher in the hierarchy bear the responsibility while at the same time those who are higher in the hierarchy claim that they know nothing about the situation.

References Baum, R.J. (1980): Ethics and Engineering Curricula. Hastings-on-Hudson: The Hastings Center. BBC: 1987: Hundreds trapped as car ferry capsizes. http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/march/ 6/newsid_2515000/2515923.stm. Accessed 29 Aug 2012. Bovens, M.A.P. (1998): The quest for responsibility: accountability and citizenship in complex organizations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bucciarelli, L.L. (1994): Designing Engineers, Cambridge: MIT Press. Harris, E. C. Jr., Davis, M., Pritchard, M. S., & Rabins, M. S. (1996): Engineering Ethics: What? Why? How? And When? Journal of Engineering Education, 93-96. Nagel, T. (1991): Mortal Questions. Cambridge University Press