ENGG434 ENGINEERING ETHICS

ENGINEERS AND TECHNOLOGICAL PROGRESS

CASE STUDIES
ENGINEERS AND TECHNOLOGICAL PROGRESS

• Ethical responsibility now involves more than leading a decent, honest, truthful
life, as important as such lives certainly remain...Our moral obligations must
now include a willingness to engage others in the difficult work of defining the
crucial choices that confort technological society and how to confort them
intelligently-Landon Winner
ENGINEERS AND TECHNOLOGICAL PROGRESS

• President of the National Academy of Engineering, calls for greater attention

to broader social issues in the study of engineering ethics. In addition to
studying the micro issues concerning decisions made by individuals and
corporations, we must also consider macro issues about technology, society,
and groups within society, including engineering professional societies and the
engineering profession in its entirely.
ENGINEERS AND TECHNOLOGICAL PROGRESS

• Technology, in short, has come of age, not merely as technical capability, but
as a social phenomenon. We have the power to create new possibilities, and
the will to do so. By creating new possibilities, we give ourselves more choices.
• Traditional approaches to social problems centered on «social engineering»
that is, including change in the motivation and habits of individuals, as well as
the use of powerful social institutions with the authority to control humanity.
ENGINEERS AND TECHNOLOGICAL PROGRESS

• Technological determinism: technology is largely autonomous and causes and

dictates all other aspects of society, such that we are victims of technology
rather than in control of it.
• We are victims of technology rather than in control of it.
MORAL LEADERSHIP

• As managers, business entrepreneurs, corporate consultants, academics, and

governmenr officials, engineers provide many forms of leadership in
developing and implementing technology.
• Because it takes so many forms, leadership is difficult to define. Leadership is
an achievement word: it indicates success in moving a group toward goals.
MORAL LEADERSHIP

• Moral leaders, then, are individuals who direct, motivate, organize, creatively
manage, or in other ways move groups toward morally valuable goals.
Leaders might be in positions of authority within a corporation, or they might
not be. Leadership can be shown by individuals participating at all levels of
organizations.
PARTICIPATION IN PROFESSIONAL SOCIETIES

• Not surprisingly, moral leadership within engineering is often manifested in

leadership within professional societies. Professional societies do more than
promote continuing education for their members. They also serve to unify a
profession, and to speak and act on behalf of it.
PARTICIPATION IN PROFESSIONAL SOCIETIES

• Professional societies provide a forum for communicating, organizing and

mobilizing change within and by large groups. That change has a moral
dimension.
• The collective exercise of the profession of engineering and of engineering
professional societies is reasonably limited to the widely shared values of
professionalism developed within a framework of the core values of
democracy, human safety, and health and sustainable development.
CASE STUDIES

• Engineer A pays a fee to be included in a Web site listing of engineers who

offer services in an area of expertise in a specific geographic location. The
service essentially works as a "matchmaking" process. Potential clients initiate
contact by visiting the Web site and by voluntarily providing the requested
information about their project requirements. The Web site does not contain
language endorsing any engineer but instead includes disclaimers to the
contrary.
CASE STUDIES

• Question:
• Was it ethical for Engineer A to participate in the Internet–based service
under these circumstances?
CASE STUDIES

• With the growth of electronic communications and the internet, there has been
a proliferation of the types and methods employed by engineers and
engineering companies in selling and marketing their services. Many of these
methods mirror traditional sales and marketing techniques used in the past
while other methods are new and different and require careful review and
consideration.
CASE STUDIES

• Engineer A is a software systems engineer hired by NewSoft, a start-up

company, to help in the development of a new software product. Engineer A
soon learns that the plans for the proposed new product will be based upon
proprietary software for which NewSoft does not have a license.
CASE STUDIES

• Engineer A assumes that this is some sort of mistake and speaks to the
company president about the matter. Engineer A is assured by the company
president that the situation will be rectified. But several months pass, and no
licenses have been secured for the proprietary software. Repeated efforts by
Engineer A to get the NewSoft leadership to address this issue have failed.
Engineer A is uncertain as to what steps she should take next.
CASE STUDIES

Question:
• What are Engineer A’s ethical obligations under the circumstances?
CASE STUDIES

• The use and protection of intellectual property is an area of growing

importance within the practice of engineering. Patent, trade secret, copyright,
and other legal protections are a fundamental part of a reasonable
approach in addressing intellectual property issues within the field of
engineering and business. Often intellectual property issues raise difficult and
complicated ethical considerations.
CASE STUDIES

• Engineer A is an electrical engineer working in quality control at a computer

chip plant. Engineer A’s staff generally identifies defects in manufactured
chips at a rate of 1 in 150. The general industry practice is for defective chips
to be repaired or destroyed. Engineer B, Engineer A’s supervisor, recently
announced that defective chips are to be destroyed, because it is more
expensive to repair a defective chip than it is to make a new chip.
CASE STUDIES

• Engineer A proceeds on the basis of Engineer B’s instructions. A few months

later, Engineer B informs Engineer A that Engineer A’s quality control staff is
rejecting too many chips, which is having an effect on overall plant output
and, ultimately, company profitability. Engineer B advises Engineer A’s staff to
allow a higher percentage of chips to pass through quality control.
CASE STUDIES

• Engineer B notes that in the end, these issues can be best handled under the
company’s warranty policy under which the company agrees to replace
defective chips based upon customer complaints. Engineer A has concerns as
to whether this approach is in the best interest of the company or its clients.
CASE STUDIES

Question:
• What are Engineer A’s ethical obligations under the circumstances?
CASE STUDIES

• Engineers play a critical role in connection with the quality of products and
materials within their responsibility and control. Engineers employed in
industry often are required to balance a variety of considerations in order to
accomplish their goals and objectives. Among these considerations are time
schedules, quality control/quality assurance procedures, workforce issues,
budgets, and other factors.
CASE STUDIES

• Engineer A, a licensed professional engineer with expertise in computer

programming and computer coding, is employed by Company X, which
manufactures air pollution monitoring equipment for power generation
companies. Engineer A is asked to design, program, and develop code for a
new type of equipment the company is planning to develop.
CASE STUDIES

• The computer code Engineer A develops performs well during testing but
causes the company’s equipment to reduce its pollution monitoring capacity
during peak periods of energy consumption, which decreases the amount of
actual pollution reported to the power generating companies—data that is
then routinely reported to state and federal officials. Company X officials
advise Engineer A that this reduced capacity feature will extend the life of
the equipment and provide better value to power generation companies who
will purchase it.
CASE STUDIES

• Question: Would it be ethical for Engineer A to design, program, and develop

code for a new type of equipment the company is planning to develop for
power generation companies with a feature that reduces the amount of actual
pollution reported to the power generation companies—data that is routinely
reported to state and federal officials?
CASE STUDIES

• Engineer A works for ES Consulting, a consulting engineering firm. In

performing engineering services for ES Consulting, Engineer A performs
construction observation services on a project for Client X. During the
performance of the construction observation services for Client X, Engineer A
observes potential safety issues relating to the performance of work by a
subcontractor on a project being constructed on an adjacent piece of
property for Owner Y, a party with whom neither Engineer A, ES Consulting,
or Client X has any direct relationship.
CASE STUDIES

• Question: What are Engineer A’s ethical obligations under the circumstances?
• An engineer’s role in protecting the public health and safety is fundamental
and basic to the overall ethical responsibilities of all engineers. The NSPE
CASE STUDIES

• Code of Ethics places the obligation to hold paramount the safety, health, and
welfare of the public as the engineer’s first and primary obligation. Because
of their education, experience, and training, engineers possess unique
qualifications which often permit them to identify situations and circumstances
that may raise serious risks.