17/10/2019

Engineering Ethics @ NU Dr. Muhammad Maher Thursday, October 17, 2019 40

The Problem of Many Hands

 The social consequences of technology are, however, the
result of the interaction between the actions of many
different actors.
 Apart from engineers, this includes users, governments,
companies, managers, and the like.
 One might assume that if all of the actors would behave
individually responsibly, the overall result would be
beneficial for society.
 This assumption does not always hold water, as we have seen
in the Challenger case (Case 1).
 The fragmentation of decision-
decision-making led to different parts
of the organization focusing purely on their areas of responsibility,
and thus not feeling responsible for safety as a whole.
Engineering Ethics @ NU Dr. Muhammad Maher Thursday, October 17, 2019 41

1
 17/10/2019

The Problem of Many Hands - 2

 Problem of many hands is the occurrence of the situation
in which the collective can reasonably be held morally
responsible for an outcome, while none of the individuals
can be reasonably held responsible for that outcome.
 Collective responsibility is the responsibility of a collective of people.
 The problem of many hands typically describes the problem
where a lot of people are involved in an activity, like a
complex engineering project,
project therefore making it difficult to
identify where the responsibility for a particular outcome lies
(Thompson, 1980; Bovens
Bovens,, 1998).
 The problem of many hands is also a moral problem.
 This is so because it may turn out that nobody can reasonably be
held morally responsible for an engineering disaster.
Engineering Ethics @ NU Dr. Muhammad Maher Thursday, October 17, 2019 42

The Problem of Many Hands – 3

Causes
 In light of the Citicorp case (Case 2), the problem of
many hands is primarily due to the distribution of
information over the various actors.
 This is why we might sometimes judge that none of the
individuals could reasonably foresee a certain harm, while at
the collective level that same harm is foreseeable.
 The conflict between applying the responsibility conditions
to the individuals and to the collective can also occur for
other conditions, like the wrong
wrong--doing condition.
 The above suggests that the CitiCorp example is not an
exception but that the problem of many hands is likely to
occur regularly in engineering (and elsewhere).
Engineering Ethics @ NU Dr. Muhammad Maher Thursday, October 17, 2019 43

2
 17/10/2019

The Problem of Many Hands – 4

Responsibility distribution
 Distribution of responsibility is the ascription or
apportioning of (individual) responsibilities to various
actors.
 Moral fairness requirement is the requirement that a
distribution of responsibility should be fair (just).
 In case of passive responsibility, this can be interpreted as that a
person should only be held responsible if that person can be
reasonably held responsible according the following conditions:
wrong--doing; causal contribution; foreseeability; and freedom
wrong
of action.
action.
 In terms of active responsibility it can be interpreted as implying that
persons should only be allocated responsibilities that they can live by.
Engineering Ethics @ NU Dr. Muhammad Maher Thursday, October 17, 2019
44

Case 2
Essay (2)
 Write a neat no-more-than 1500 words paper on the case of
the “CitiCorp building in midtown New York (LeMessurier
(LeMessurier))
” addressing the following
 The problem of many hands in engineering.
 The blameworthiness of the contractor.
 By how far could the structural deficiency problem have
arisen from the flaw in the information distribution?
 How can virtues direct the responsible actions engineers
need to take in professional practice?
 Please use 12-
12-point Times New Roman font.
 Better submit in PDF format.

Engineering Ethics @ NU Dr. Muhammad Maher Thursday, October 17, 2019 45