ENGINEERING ETHICS

ETK101E 2011-2012 Fall Semester Associate Prof. Dr. Murat AKAN

1. INTRODUCTION
Background ideas Why study engineering ethics Personal vs. business ethics The origins of ethical thought Ethics and the law Ethics problems are like design problems Case studies Summary

After reading this chapter you will be able to: Know why it is important to study engineering ethics Understand the distinction between business and personal ethics See how ethical problem solving and engineering design are similar

Background Ideas
Many ethical problems are encountered by engineers in the course of their professional life. Ethical cases may involve Public safety: prevention of and protection from events that could jeopardize the safety of the general public from significant danger, injury, harm, or damage, such as crimes or disasters (natural or man-made). Bribery: Act of implying money or gift given that alters the behaviour of the recepient. Fraud: Intentional deception made for personal gain or to damage another person. Environmental protection: Practice of protecting the environment Fairness: Being free from bias or injustice Honesty in research and testing: Avoiding falsification of data, adoption and reproduction of another author without due acknowledgment, etc. Conflicts of interest: Occurs when an individual or an organization involves in multiple interests

During their undergraduate training engineering students learn basic and engineering sciences and problem solving methodologies. However they receive very little information on ethics and safety. ABET (Accreditation Board for Undergraduate Engineering Programs) has mandated that ethics topic be incorporated into undergraduate engineering curricula. A good place to start the topic of engineering ethics is with definitions of ethics and engineering ethics. Ethics is the study of the characteristics of morals. Ethics deals with the moral choices that are made by each person in his or her relationship with other persons. Since enginneering activities produce and propose goods that are used by other people, engineers are concerned with professional ethics. Engineering ethics is the rules and standards governing the conduct of engineers in their role as professionals. Engineering ethics is a body of philosophy indicating the ways that engineers should conduct themselves in their professional capacity.

WHY STUDY ENGINEERING ETHICS?

Several notorious cases that have received a great deal of media attention in the past few years have led engineers to gain an increased sense of their professional responsibilities. Engineers realize how their technical work has impacts on the society. Increase in awareness caused every major corporation to open an ethics office that has the responsibility to ensure that employees have the ability to express their concerns about safety and corporate business practices. These offices also try to foster an ethical culture within the corporate. Students should study ethics because they need to get sentisized to ethical issues before they are confronted with professional problems. Past experiences may help us to increase our sensitivity to ethical problems and show us ways to find sound solutions.

Moral autonomy is a term that is used to define an ability to think critically and independently about moral issues that are encountered in the course of professional engineering practice. The goal in learning engineering ethics is not getting trained to do the right thing when the ethical choice is obvious. The real goal is to get trained to analyze complex problems and to learn to resolve these problems in the most ethical manner.

PERSONAL VS. BUSINESS ETHICS

Personal ethics deals with how we treat others in our daily lives. However professional ethics involve choices on organizational level rather than personal level. In professional grounds relationships are in between corporations, between a corporation and the government or between corporations and individuals.

THE ORIGINS OF ETHICAL THOUGHT

The origins of ethical thought may be linked to Judeo-Christian tradition. On the other hand, non-western socities as well have developed their own ethical principals on a similar basis. For some people ethical principals are rooted in religious beliefs. But this is not true for others. A very ethical person may be nonreligious. Or vice-versa: a religious person may not always behave ethical.

ETHICS AND THE LAW

The practice of engineering and business is governed by many laws on the international, state and local level. There is also a distinction between what is ethical and what is legal. Many things that are legal may not be considered ethical. For many years many toxic gases were considered legal and were utilized without any regulation whatsoever. As an engineer you are minimally safe when you follow the rquirements of applicable laws. But in engineering ethics, we seek to go beyond the dictates of the law. Our interest is in areas where ethical principals conflict and there is no legal guidance for how to resolve the conflict.

ETHICS PROBLEMS ARE LIKE DESIGN PROBLEMS

Ethics problems may not look very concrete to engineering students. The ethics problems are more open ended and have rarely a correct answer that will bearrived by everyone in the classroom. However in terms of problem solving techniques, design problems are very similar to ethics problems. Both type of problems require a large body of knowledge and analytical skills.

CASE STUDIES
Before starting to learn the theoretical ideas regarding engineering ethics, we need to examplify ethics through real life ethics problems. A very good case is space shuttle Challenger accident.

The space shuttle Challenger was launched in extremely cold weather. During the launch an o-ring became brittle under the effect of the cold weather and failed. This failure led to the explosion during the liftoff. Some engineers who took part in the design process of the shuttle objected to the launch in cold weather but the management did not agree with their concerns. In other words the engineers were overruled by the management. Few questions to ask: When there are safety concerns, what is the engineer s responsibility before the launch decision is made? After the launch decision is made but before the actual launch, what duty does the engineer have? If the decision does not go the engineer s way, should he or she complain to upper management? Or should he or she bring the matter to the attention of the press? After the accident has occured, what are the duties and responsibilities of the engineers? These will be the subject of this class. Throughout this class, ideas about the nature of engineering profession, ethical theories, and the application of these theories to situations that are likely to occur in engineering practice will be presented. Do not forget however that when studying a case after the fact (postmortem investigation*), and knowing the ultimate outcome, it is usually very easy to see what is the right choice. However when the real systems are built or when the real decisions are given we are in a different situation. We usually do not know what will be the consequences of our decisions. And we have hardly such clear predictive abilities for the future events.
* Postmortem investigation: a technical analysis of a finished project

SPACE SHUTTLE CHALLENGER ACCIDENT

Probably the most widely written about case in engineering ethics because of the extensive media coverage at the time of the accident. The case involves many ethical issues that engineers face: What is the proper role of the engineer when safety issues are a concern? Who should have the ultimate decision making authority to order a launch? Should the ordering of a launch be an engineering or a managerial decision?

BACKGROUND Space Shuttle was designed as a relauchable vehicle. The shuttle consists of an orbiter (looks like an airliner minus engines!), two solid propellant boosters, and a single liquid propellant booster. At takeoff all the boosters are ignited and lift the orbiter out of the earth s atmosphere. The solid boosters are only used early in the flight and jettisoned soon after the takeoff. They are repacked and reused after they are recupareted from the ocean. The liquid propellant booster is used to put the shuttle into orbit. It is also jettisoned afterwards but unlike solid propellants it burns up during reentry. After the completion of the mission the shuttle uses its limited power to reenter the atmosphere and and glides to a landing.

The accident happened on January 28, 1986. It was blamed on a failure of one of the solid propellant boosters. These boosters have the advantage of delivering far more thrust per pound of fuel than do their liquid filled counterparts. However once they are ignited they may not be turned off. On the other hand, liquid rocket boosters may be throttled when necessary. Solid rocket boosters were designed and manufactured by Morton Thiokol Co. The solid rocket consists of several cylindrical pieces that are stacked on top of each other. The cylinders are then shipped to Kennedy Space Center in Florida to be assembled to form a complete booster.

The cylindrical boosters are attachedto each other by tang and clevis joint fastened by 177 pins. The joints are sealed by two o-rings. The o-rings are designed to prevent hot gases from escaping . The o-rings are made from a type of synthetic rubber and so they are not particularly heat resistant. To prevent hot gases from damaging the o-rings a heat resistant putty is placed in the joint.

EARLY PROBLEMS WITH THE SOLID ROCKET BOOSTERS (SRB) Problems with the SRB were recognized before the launch of Challenger. Oring erosion was experienced many times in different missions previously. However, as long as o-rings erosion did not jeopardize the lift-off phase it was taken normally. The first joint failure was discovered during first flight preparations on January 24, 1985. Postflight examination of the boosters revealed the fact that there was sooth traces on one of the boosters which showed that hot gases escaped from the booster. Thiokol engineers redesigned the joint without o-rings. Instead they used steel billets which were expected to perform better but the new design was not ready in time for the scheduled flight date in early 1986.

POLITICAL CLIMATE *NASA was under pressure because of delays in shuttle program. There was continuous questioning of the budget by the Congress. *ESA was in the process of designing a cheaper alternative to NASA shuttle program. USA was fearing to leave the market to Europe unwantedly. *Challenger was going to carry a probe to monitor Halley s comet. Soviets were after the same target. USA did not want to lose the race and felt urgency in the program. *President Reagan was willing to mention at the upcoming State of the Union address the fact that among the shuttle crew there was a teacher: Mrs. Christa McAuliffe.

THE DAYS BEFORE THE LAUNCH *The initially programmed launch date was postponed due to a severe cold front. *Cold front stopped approaching but this time launch was once again stalled due to a defective microswitch *The microswitch defect was resolved. However cold front moved to the launch area with temperatures below zero degree Centigrade. *One day before the rescheduled launch, a teleconference was organized between NASA and Thiokol about the possible effects of cold weather on the performance of the solid boosters. *The lowest temperature encountered at preflight tests was 53 F where o-rings blow off the boosters. The expected temperature at the time of the launch was 29 F. Thiokol suggested that the flight was postponed once again until at least 53 F was reached. However there was no data available showing that the o-rings blow off at temperatures below 53 F! (Inconclusive data)

Last phrase, and a very controversial one, in the discussions between NASA and Thiokol: Take off your engineering hat and put on your management hat

THE LAUNCH *The overnight temperature was 8 F. There was a significant amount of ice accumulation on the launch pad. *After the launch, the gases escaped from the joint at the aft part of the right SRB and the flames attained the liquid solid booster (LRB) and the shuttle exploded.

THE AFTERMATH *Thiokol formed a safety investigation team right after the accident. President Reagan appointed a commission. *One of the commission members was R. Feynman; a nobel prize winner in physics. He ably demonstrated to the country that the resiliency of the o-rings reduced with temperature. The flexibility of the o-ring material was evident at room temperature. *The joints were redesigned by Thiokol and the shuttle has since flown numerous succcessful missions. However the ambitious program that was originally intended by NASA was never reached. R. Feynman s video!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qAi_9quzUY

SUMMARY

2. PROFESSIONALISM and CODES of ETHICS

Introduction Is engineering a profession? Codes of ethics Cases Summary

After reading this chapter you will be able to: Determine whether engineering is a profession. Understand what codes of ethics are. Examine some codes of ethics of professional engineering socities.

In late 1994 reports began to appear in the media that Pentium microprocessor manufactured by Intel was flawed. It was claimed that computers that use such microprocessors could not correctly compute some simple calculations such as multiplication and division. Intel rejected and denied such claims at first. Later however, Intel accepted that there might be minor problems with the processors only if the user does some very sophisticated calculations. It was also argued that Intel was aware of the problem and was working to fix it. Many people who had already bought the defected chip asked Intel to replace them with flawless chips. Intel refused to do so at first. The result was a public relations (PR) disaster for Intel.

Did Intel do anything unethical? To answer this question one must develop a framework for understanding ethical problems. Codes of ethics (COE) (developed by professional engineering organizations) COE guide engineers through their professional duties and give them an insight into ethical problems. False claim by Intel or PR problem? In this chapter we are going to look at the concept of profession and ask if engineering can be defined as a profession in the classical sense? Two representative engineering codes will be presented in detail.

INTRODUCTION
When confronted by an ethical problem what sources are available to an engineer? Modern professions use COE prepared by various professional societies. These codes help and guide practitioners in making sound decisions when they confront professional problems. 1) How can we define profession ? 2) Does engineering fit into this definition?

IS ENGINEERING A PROFESSION?
Profession (Meslek) Job ( ): Any work for hire regarless of the skill level involved. Occupation (Me guliyet): Employment through which someone makes a living Engineering is definitely a job and an occupation . However it is more than a job and also more than an occupation regarding the skills and responsibilities it inherits

WHAT IS A PROFESSION? Attributes of a profession include: 1) The work requires sophisticated skills, the use of judgment and the exercise of discretion. Also, the work is not routine and may not be mechanized. 2) Membership in the profession requires extensive formal education, not simply practical training and apprenticeship. 3) The public allowas special societes or organizations that are controlled by members of the profession to set standards for admission to the profession, to set standards of conduct for members, and to enforce these standards. 4) Significant public good results from the practice of the profession.

Judgment and discretion Judgment means making significant decisions that have serious impacton others lives, based on formal training. Discretion has two meanings: 1) Being confidentail about customers and clients lives, decisions, etc. 2) Ability to give autonomous decisions or choices. Use your discretion

Medicine  It requires sophisticated skill that cannot be mechanized. It also requires judgment (treatment plans for individual patients)  It requires discretion , the duty not to divulge information given in confidence by the patient to the physician.  Medicin has special societies, the American Medicin Association (AMA) or Trk Tabipleri Birli i (TMA) to which a large fraction of practising physicians belong. They set standards for practising the profession and enforces codes of ethical behaviour for its members.

 Healing the sick and helping to prevent diseases clearly involve the public good.

Law  Law involves sophisticated skills required through extensive formal training  It requires discretion.  It has special societies: ABA, TBB

 And it works for public good (!?)

ENGINEERING AS A PROFESSION

 Certainly requires extensive formal training and sophisticated skills. It requires judgment: how to use available materials, components, devices, etc. To reach a specified objective.  Discretion is required in engineering.Engineers are required to keep their employers and clients intellectual property and business confidential.  Also a primary concern of engineers is the safety of the public that will use the products he/she designs.  Engineering fields have special professional societies: IEEE, ASME, NSPE, etc However they are weak with respect to ABA or AMA

Mechanization: Once a design is made, it can easily be replicated without the intervention of an engineer. However each new situation that requires a new design or a modification of an existing design requires an engineer.

CODES OF ETHICS
Professional societies have their own codes of ethics Ethical codes may also be created by non-professional organizations such as universities. These codes express the rights, duties and obligations of its members. A code of ethics provides a framework for ethical judgment for a professional. It does not cover all possible ethical situations that can be encountered. It only serves as a starting point.

On the other hand an ethicak code is not a recipe for ethical behaviour. Moreover it is not a legal code. It only deals with choices. One may not be arrested if he/she disobeys codes of ethics. Expulsion from the society may be the case bot even so the engineer (in this case) does not lose his/her ability to practise the profession. The code provides a little space for an employee where he/she could fight against the employer s request to behave unethically. Codes of Ethics for mechanical enginners in Turkey: TMMOB (Trk Mimar ve Mhendis Odalar Birli i) Mesleki Davran lkeleri:
http://www.maden.org.tr/resimler/ekler/3a7769efbcc8310_ek.pdf

AMERICAN SOCIETY OF MECHANICAL ENGINEERS (ASME)

CASE STUDIES-I
The Intel Pentium Chip
In the late 1994, media began to report that there was a flaw in the new Pentium microprocessor produced by Intel. A significant flaw; because 80% of the PC used then Pentium microprocessors It was the first flaw detected by the user! It occured when double precision arithmetic was performed (FPE: floating point error) 4.195.835 x 3.145.727  3.145.727 = 4.195.579 !! Intel denied the reports. Then accepted that there was a bug; however claimed that it would not create problems for many of the users(2.000.000 PC weres sold)

 Intel proposed to change the chip only if the user would asked Intel to do the replacement. This offer was not found acceptable by the users. IBM, a major Pentium micropocessor user, canceled the sale of its products if they contained the flawed chips. Finally Intel agreed to change the entire PC stock. In fact Intel knew the problem much before the media made an issue about the defective chips. Moreover it continued to sell the microprocessors. The problems need to be fixed immediately. What is now important is not the opinion of Intel on the flawed product but the opinion of the customers who are using the product.

DO THEY RESEMBLE?

3. UNDERSTANDING ETHICAL PROBLEMS

Introduction A Brief History of Ethical Thought Ethical Theories Cases Summary

After reading this chapter you will be able to: Discuss several ethical theories. See how these theories can be applied to engineering situations.

In 1984 a pressure relief valve on a tank used to store methyl isocyanate (MIC) at Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, India accidentally opened. MIC is a poisonous compound which is used in pesticides. When the tank s valve was opened a toxic gas cloud covered a portion of a densely populated area surrounding the plant. Around 2.000 people were killed and thousands got injured. Many of the injured remained permanently disabled. Possible causes of the accident: Pipelines in the plant were misconnected. Essential safety systems were either broken or at maintenance. Risk to the community vs. Economic benefits to the state or nation We need to have a framework for analyzing ethical problems.

INTRODUCTION
In this chapter we will see some moral theories that can be applied to ethical problems. Fundamentals of ethical theories framework Ethical problems

A BRIEF HISTORY of ETHICAL THOUGHT

The origins of western moral thought are based on ancient Greek philosophers as well as on ancient religious thinking and writing. The written sources of Judaistic moral tradition are based on Torah and Old Testament. Greek ethical thought originated with the famous philosophers; Socrates and Aristotle (Nichomachean Ethics).

Aristotelian Ethics consists of ten books (scrolls) which were taught by him at the Lykeion and were dedicated to his son Nichomacus. The Nicomachean Ethics is widely considered one of the most important historical philosophical works, and had an important impact upon the European Middle Ages, becoming one of the core works of medieval philosophy. It therefore indirectly became critical in the development of all modern philosophy as well as European law and theology. Socratic question: How men should best live? Pre-socratic philosophy was purely theoretical! Socrates (through Platon) and later on Aristotle turned philosophy into a tool in the quest for good-man.

Many philosophers (Locke, Kant, Mill) have turned their attention to ethics and morals and have tried to provide insight into these concepts. These philosophers acknowledged that moral principals are universal and claimed that they could be applicable to secular settings (French Revolution).

ETHICAL THEORIES
Ethical problem solving is not as cut and dried as problem solving in most engineering classes. In engineering classes usually there are only one theory that can bu utilized in the process of problem solving. On the other hand ethical problem solving is based upon several theories. This fact does not reflect the fuzziness of the situation but rather the complexity and diversity of ethics. Having multiple theories does enrich the process allowing problems to be looked at from different angles. Basic ethical problem solving technique utilizes different theories and approaches to analyze the problem and then try to determine the best solution.

What is a moral theory? Moral theory defines terms in uniform ways and links ideas and problems in consistent ways. There four moral theories that will be considered here: 1) Utilitarianism 2) Duty ethics 3) Rights ethics 4) Virtue ethics

Utilitarianism (Faydac l k): It seeks to produce the most utility, defined as a balance between good and bad consequences of an action. , taking into account the consequences for everyone affected. Duty Ethics ( ..): Duty ethics contends that there are duties that should be performed (ex: the duty of treating others fairly or the duty of not to injure others) regardless of whether these acts lead to the most good.

Rights Ethics ( ..): Rights etics emphasizes that we all have moral rights, and any action that violates these rights is ethically unacceptable. Virtue Ethics ( ..): This ethical theory focuses on the person that we should strive to be. For this ethics theory the only actions that manifest good character traits (virtues) are the right actions.

Utilitarianism (Faydac l k):

Actions are good only if they maximize human well-being. The emphasis in utilitarianism is not to maximize the well-being of the individual but the well-being of the society as a whole. In this respect it is a collectivist approach. Example: Hydroelectric dams often lead to great benefit to society by providing stable supplies of drinking water, flood control and recreational oppurtunities. However this is done at the expense of people leaving their homeland. Utilitarianism tries to balance the needs of society with the needs of the individual, with an emphasis on what will provide the most benefit to the most people.

Utilitarianism is analogue to many engineering analysis methods; including risk-benefit analysis or cost-benefit analysis. However as good as the utilitarianism sounds, there are some inherent problems with it. Sometimes what is good for the society may be bad for a particular individual or a group of individuals. Example: WIPP (Waste Isolation Pilot Plant) near Carlsbad, New Mexico. WIPP was designed to be a repository for nuclear waste generated in the USA.It consisted of a system of tunnels bored into underground salt formations which are considered to be extremely stable against water incursion and eventual leakage of nuclear waste into underground water sources. But then what about the risks of transportation of nuclear waste products to the site at New Mexico?

Utilitarian approach: Solution of this waste disposal problem will benefit society by providing improved health care and plentiful electricity. The slight potential ofor adverse health effects for individuals living near the transportation routes is far outweighed by the overall benefits to society. So WIPP should be allowed to open. As this example demonstrates, the utilitarian approach seem to ignore the needs of individuals, especially if these needs seem relatively insignificant. Another objection to utilitarianism is that its implementation depends greatly on knowing what will lead to the most good. Frequently, it is impossible to know a priori exactly what the consequences of an action are. So maximizing the benefit to society involves guesswork.

Act utilitarianism / John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) Rule utilitarianism Act utilitarianism focuses on individual actions rather than on rules. Mill felt that individual actions must be judged based on whether the most good was produced in a given situation, and rules should be broken if doing so will lead to the most good. Rule utilitarianism pays great attention to moral rules (do not harm others, do not steal). Rule utilitarians hold that although adhering to these rules might not always maximize good in a particular situation, overall, adhering to moral rules will ultimately lead to the most good.

Cost- Benefit Analysis:

One tool used in engineering analysis, especially when trying to determine whether a project is worthwhile doing is cost-benefit analysis. In cost-benefit analysis, the costs of project are assessed, as are the benefits. Only those projects with the highest ratio of benefits to costs are implemented. This principle is similar to the utilitarian goal of maximizing the overall good.

Pitfalls of Cost-Benefit Analysis:

Although it is usually easy to predict the cost for most projects, the benefits are often harder to predict and assign dollar values to. Once dollar values are attached to costs and benefits, the mathematical ratio between them may seem very objective. However, this ratio cannot take into account many subjective aspects of a decision. For example, from a pure cost-benefit analysis point of view building a dam may seem to be an excellent idea. However, the analysis does not take into account the loss of a scenic wilderness or the loss of an endangered species. Finally, it is also important who are reaping the benefit and who are paying the cost? It is unfair to place all of the costs on one group while another reaps the benefits.

Duty and Rights Ethics:

These theories hold that those actions that respect the rights of indiividuals are good. Here, good consequences for society as a whole are not the only moral consideration. The major proponent of duty ethics is Immanual Kant (1724-1804). He held that moral duties are fundamental. Duties like: be honest, do not cause suffering to people, be fair to others, etc. When one s duties are recognized, the ethically correct moral actions are obvious.