LECTURE SET 5

FRAMING THE PROBLEM

 Main Ideas or Concepts:

 To a large extent, moral disagreement occurs against the background of widespread

moral agreements.

 Disagreement about moral matters is often more a matter of disagreement about facts
than moral values.

 Disagreement is also sometimes about conceptual matters—what concepts mean and

whether they apply in particular circumstances.

 Much of the content of engineering codes of ethics is based on the application of ideas
of our common morality to the context of engineering practice.

 Two general moral perspectives that can be helpful in framing moral problems in
engineering are:

1. the utilitarian ideal of promoting the greatest good and;

2. that of respect for persons.

 DETERMINING THE FACTS

 To understand the importance of facts in a moral controversy, the following three

theses about factual issues are presented:

1. Often, moral disagreements turn out to be disagreements over the relevant

facts.

2. Factual issues are sometimes very difficult to resolve.

3. Once the factual issues are clearly isolated, disagreement can reemerge on
another and often more clearly defined level.

 Known and Unknown Facts:

1. Frequently, important facts are not known, thereby making it difficult to resolve
disagreements.

2. Some of the facts we may want to have at our disposal relate to something that
has already happened (e.g. what caused the accident). But we also want to
know what consequences are likely to result from the various options before us,
and there can be much uncertainty about this.
  It is important to distinguish not only between relevant and irrelevant facts but
also between known facts and unknown facts.

 The number of unknown facts is less important than the degree of their
relevance or importance.

 Weighing the Importance of Facts:

 Even if two or more people agree on which facts are relevant, they might
nevertheless disagree about their relative importance.

 For example, in the automotive industry, two engineers might agree that the
evidence indicates that introducing another safety feature in the new model
would most likely result in saving a few lives during the next 5 years.

 One engineer might oppose the feature because of the additional cost, whereas
the other thinks the additional cost is well worth the added safety.

 This raises questions about acceptable risk in relation to cost. One engineer
might oppose the feature because he thinks that the burden of responsibility
should be shifted to the consumer, whereas the other thinks that it is
appropriate to protect consumers from their own negligence.

 It is important to weighing out the facts to ensure that we don’t go out of line!

 CLARIFYING CONCEPTS

 Good moral thinking not only attending carefully to facts but also having a good grasp of
the key concepts we need to use.

 That is, we need to get as clear as we can about the meanings of key terms such as
“public health, safety, and welfare”, “conflict of interest”, “bribery”, extortion”,
confidentiality”, “trade secret”, and “loyalty” are key terms for ethics in engineering.

 It would be nice to have precise definitions of all these terms; but like most terms in
ethics, their meanings are somewhat open-ended.

 In many cases, it is sufficient to clarify our meaning by thinking of paradigms, or clear-

cut examples, of what we have in mind.

 In less straightforward cases, it is often useful to compare and contrast the case in
question with paradigms. Example, if a product was made in US but has a small
component made in China. What would you say about the product? Is it made in China
or US?

 UTILITARIAN THINKING

 Taking utilitarian approach in addressing moral problems requires us to focus on the

idea of bringing about “the greatest good for the greatest number”. The three
prominent ways approaches to attempt this are:
  The Cost-Benefit Approach:

 This is an engineering approach that determines what counts as the greater good. The
course of action that produces the greatest benefit relative to cost is the one that
should be chosen. The three prominent ways to attempt this are:

 We must know which course of action will produce the most good in both the
short term and the long term.

 The utilitarian aim is to make choices that promise to bring about the greatest
amount of good. The problem is determining the scope of this audience. Ideally,
it might be thought, the audience should include all human beings, or at least all
human beings who might be affected by the action to be evaluated.

 It seems sometimes to favor the greater aggregate good at the expense of a

vulnerable minority. Example, a plant discharges a pollutant into the local river,
where it is ingested by fish.

If humans eat the fish, they experience significant health problems. Eliminating the pollutant will be so
expensive that the plant will become, at best, only marginally profitable. Allowing the discharge to
continue will save jobs and enhance overall economic viability.

 Cost-benefit analysis is often used in engineering to apply the utilitarian standard in as

quantifiable manner as possible. An effort is made to translate negative and positive
utilities into monetary terms.

 Cost-benefit analysis is sometimes referred to as risk-benefit analysis because much of

the analysis requires estimating the probability of certain benefits and harms.

 It is possible to determine the actual cost of installing equipment to reduce the

likelihood of certain health problems arising in the workplace.

 Cost-benefit analysis involves three steps:

i. Assess the available options

ii. Assess the costs and the benefits of each option. The costs and
benefits must be assessed for the entire audience of the action,
or all those affected by the decision.

iii. Make the decision that is likely to result in the greater benefit relative to
cost; that is, the course of action chosen must not be one for which the
cost of implementing the option could produce greater benefit if spent
on another option.
  Problems with using cost-benefit analysis as a sole guide for protecting the public
from pollution that endangers health:

 Cost-benefit analysis assumes that economic measures of cost and benefit

override all other considerations. Cost—benefit analysis encourages the
elimination of a pollutant only when it can be done in an economically efficient
manner.

 Another problem is that it is often difficult to ascertain the costs and

benefits of the many factors that should enter into a cost—benefit
analysis. The most controversial issue is how to assess in cost—benefit
terms the loss of human life or even serious injury. If the threat to
human health posed by a substance is not known, then it is impossible
to execute a definitive cost-benefit analysis.

 Despite these problems, cost—benefit analysis can make an important

contribution to moral problem solving. Although cost—benefit analysis may not
always succeed in quantifying values in ways that do justice to them, it can play
an important role in utilitarian analysis. Its ability to evaluate many conflicting
considerations in terms of a singly measure, monetary value, makes it invaluable
in certain circumstances.

i. The Act Utilitarian Approach:

The act utilitarian approach focuses our attention on the consequences of particular
actions and asks, “Will this course of action result in more good than any alternative course
of action that is available?” The following procedure is useful in answering this question:

a) Identify the available options in this situation.

b) Determine the appropriate audience for the options, keeping in mind the
problems in determining the audience.

c) Bear in mind that whatever option is selected, it sets an example for others, and
anyone else in relevantly similar circumstances would be justified in making a
similar selection.

d) Decide which available option is likely to bring about the greater good for the
appropriate audience, taking into account harms as well as benefits.

This act utilitarian approach is often helpful in analyzing options in situations that call for making moral
decisions. The utilitarian determinations seem to carry considerable moral weight even if, in some
particular cases, they turn out not to be decisive.

One of the difficulties facing this approach is that often there are serious problems in trying to
determine all of the consequences of our actions.
iii. The Rule Utilitarian Approach

 The rule utilitarian approach is to propose rules that are justified by their utility
(e.g. road traffic rules; traffic lights, stop signs etc.)

 When such rules are reasonably well understood and generally accepted, there
are advantages for individuals using rules as a guide to action rather than
attempting directly to calculate the likely consequences of the various
alternative courses of actions in each situations.

 If there are widespread departures from rules or practices, then it is less clear
whether overall utility is still promoted by continuing to conform to rules or
practices.

 The rule utilitarian approach judges the moral acceptability of particular actions
by whether they conform to rules: those whose general observance promotes
utilitarian ends.

 The rule utilitarian approach is often appealed to in responding to critics who

say that utilitarian thinking fails to accord appropriate respect for individuals.

 The rule utilitarian approach to problems brings to our attention an important

distinction in moral thinking. Sometimes we are concerned with making
decisions in particular situations: Should I accept this gift from a vendor?

 RESPECT FOR PERSONS

The moral standard of the ethics of respect for persons is those actions or rules are right that regard
each person as worthy of respect as a moral agent. This equal regard for moral agents can be
understood as a basic requirement of justice. Consider the three approaches to respect for persons
thinking are:

i. The Golden Rule Approach:

 Respect for persons approaches employ the idea of universalizability.

Universalizability is grounded in an idea that is familiar to all of us. Most of us
would acknowledge that if we think we are acting in a morally acceptable
fashion, then we should find it morally acceptable for others to do similar kinds
of things in similar circumstances.

 The idea of universalization implies that my judgment should not change simply
because the roles are reversed. When we broaden our focus to consider what
kind of act is involved, the question of whether it is all right to falsify data is
bound to appear quite different that when thinking only about the immediate
situation.

 Reversibility is a special application of the idea of universalizability: In thinking

about treating others as I would have them treat me, I need to ask what I would
think if the roles were reversed.
  Universalizing our thinking by applying the idea of reversibility can help us
realize that we may be endorsing treating others in ways we would object to if
done to us. This is the basic idea behind the Golden Rule, variations of which
appear in the religious and ethical writings of most cultures.

i. Example: Suppose that I am a manager who orders a young engineer to

remain silent about the discovery of an emission from the plant that
might cause minor health problems for people who live near the plant.
For this order to satisfy the Golden Rule, I must be willing to have my
supervisor give a similar order to me if I were the young engineer. I
must also be willing to place myself in the position of the people who
live near the plant and would experience the health problems if the
emission were not eliminated.

ii. The Self-Defeating Approach

 This is another way of applying the fundamental idea of the universalizability

principle is to ask whether I would be able to perform the action in question if
everyone else performed the same action in the same or similar circumstances:

 If everyone else did what I am doing, would this undermine my own

ability to do the same thing? If I must say “yes” to this question, then I
cannot approve others doing the same kind of thing I have done, and
thus universalizing one’s action would be SELF-DEFEATING. Thus, it fails
to treat them with appropriate respect!

iii. The Rights Approach

 A right may be understood as an entitlement to act or to have another

individual act in a certain way.

 Minimally, rights serve as a protective barrier, shielding individuals from

unjustified infringements of their moral agency by others. Beyond this, rights
are sometimes asserted more positively as requiring the provision of food,
clothing, and education.

 When we think of rights as forming a protective barrier, they can be regarded as

prohibiting certain infringements of our moral agency by others.

 Thinking of rights in this way implies that for every right we have, others have
corresponding duties of noninterference.

 Note that the general underlying principle is that an individual should not be
deprived of certain things if this deprivation interferes seriously with one’s
moral agency.

 The problem of conflicting rights requires that we prioritize rights, giving greater
importance to some than to others.
  A useful way of doing this is by using a three-tiered hierarchy of rights,
ranging from more basic to less basic.

 The hierarchy of rights provides a framework for addressing the conflicting

rights with the following suggested steps:

 Identify the basic obligations, values, and interest at stake, noting any
conflicts.

 Analyze the action or rule determine what options are available and
what rights are at stake.

 Determine the audience of the action or rule (those whose rights would
be affected).

Evaluate the seriousness of the rights infringements that would occur with each option, taking
into account both the tier level of rights and the number of violations or infringements involved.

1) Make a choice that seems likely to produce the least serious rights
infringements.

 SUMMARY:

1) Good moral thinking requires applying relevant facts (including laws and
regulations), concepts, and criteria of common morality to the case in
question.

2) Carefully organizing one’s thinking around these requirements often

yields straight forward moral conclusions.

3) However, sometimes it causes us to rethink matters, especially when

we discover that there are unknown facts that might affect our
conclusions.