Samuel Doll

Dr. Geoff Knowles

Reflection 7

Mar 7th, 2023

The Other Job of an Engineer

In the third chapter of Harris, Pritchard, James, Englehardt, and Rabins’ Engineering

Ethics, they discuss the concept of responsibility in engineering. They cover this topic from

many different angles, such as responsibility for incidents as a corporation, the concept of

responsibility in a group, and the concept of authority versus autonomy, among others. The

entire chapter covers very interestingly the different ways that crisis can be resolved, and how

the blame can be dealt out. They close by reaffirming the duty of engineers to uphold a standard

of integrity and honor.

As an example, the authors use the tragedy of the space shuttle Columbia to illustrate the

potential fallacies of resolving an incident. After the Columbia’s disintegration upon reentry, a

subsequent investigation was launched to determine the cause. The physical cause was a simple

chunk of foam detaching from another part of the ship, and then tearing a ten-inch hole in the

front facing side of one of the wings. This hole allowed hot air to enter the wing and destroy it

from the inside, resulting in the ship’s obliteration. However, this isn’t the end of the story.

Further along in the investigation, it was found that NASA had rejected the requests from

their engineers involved with the project to more certainly determine what, if any, damage had

been inflicted upon the craft. In NASA’s mind, detached foam was simply a not uncommon
occurrence, and could cause no permanent damage. This, according to the authors, is the junction

of two causes of incidents such as this, “Physical Causes”, and “Organizational Causes”. When

looking at an incident, it can be easy to simply look at what happened, and stop there, then try to

figure out how to prevent the same thing happening again. And while this isn’t wholly incorrect,

it is more correct to instead determine why it happened at all. In other words, the organizational

cause that resulted in sufficient negligence to allow the event to occur.

Further in the chapter, the authors also address organizational causation, in terms of fault

as a group or corporation. Here, they define the problem as “The Problem of Many Hands”. In

other words, when so many people are involved in a project. The unfortunate event where

something goes wrong can lead to a fork in the road, where the fault cannot be easily placed or

determined. In a situation such as this, it can be difficult to even determine where the problem

began, as so many factors went into its conception.

But the authors conclude with a fairly simplistic point: As stated in the code of the

National Society of Professional Engineers, Engineers are to “Conduct themselves honorably,

responsibly, ethically, and lawfully…”. Even though we may be shut down, and even though we

may not be heeded, it is our job to perform our job to the upmost standard of integrity, and to

maintain our morals. In essence preserving the integrity of the engineering profession, and to

speak up and work honestly in the hope of avoiding and tragic occurrences and keeping intact the

reputation of engineering.