Category: engineering Ethics

Engineering Ethics – Responsibility for Safety Till now, we have come across many reasons why an engineer needs to be responsible. The responsible engineers follow the codes of ethics to avoid unnecessary problems. The problems majorly occur in two different ways. One of them is when you can assess and the other is when you cannot. A mistake made by an engineer at work may result in huge losses. An engineer is supposed to assess the risks of his experiments. The disasters do occur at times, though enough care is taken, as stated in the examples given in previous chapters. But knowing all the possibilities, if an engineer neglects the precautions, the results can be really disastrous. So, let us try to analyze the importance of safety in engineering. Safety and Risk The terms of safety and risk are inter-related. It is amazing to know that what may be safe enough for one person may not be for someone else. It is because of either different perceptions about what is safe or different predispositions to harm. For better understanding, let us explore safety and risk further. Safety According to William W Lowrance, the famous consultant of those times, Safety was defined as “A thing is safe if its risks are judged to be acceptable.” To be more clear on this, let us consider three cases. Let the first case be where we seriously underestimate the risks of something. Buying a non-brand electric dryer from a local market without any guarantee, may eventually send us to a hospital with a severe electric shock or burn. While buying this dryer, according to Lowrance definition, this is quite safe, as the risks are judged to be acceptable. Let the second case be where we grossly overestimate the risks of something. If we suddenly know that the consumption of carbonated beverages like cola are the cause of cancer for 5% of the world’s cancer patients, then we start worrying considering Cola as a poisonous drink. So, in this case, according to Lowrance definition, the Cola becomes unsafe the moment we judged the risks of using it to be unacceptable for us. Let the third case be a situation wherein, a group makes no judgment at all about whether the risks of a thing are acceptable or not. As defined by Lowrance, this is the position where the thing is neither safe nor unsafe with respect to that group. Just like using the products of certain brands are considered safe, while others are not where nothing seems to differ. Safety is frequently expressed in terms of degree and comparisons. The words like fairly-safe and relatively-safe are used where an individual is judged on the basis of settled values and it is further decided that the risks of anything are more or less acceptable in comparison with the risks of the other thing. For example, the consideration that roadtravel is safer than air-travel. Risk Any work which might lead to harm us and is not considered safe, can be understood as a risk. According to a popular definition, “A risk is the potential that something unwanted and harmful may occur.” According to William D Rowe, potential for the realization of unwanted consequences from impending events. Risk is a broad concept covering many different types of unwanted occurrences. When it comes to technology, it can equally well include dangers of bodily harm, of economic loss or of environmental degradation. These in turn can be caused by delayed job completion, faulty products or systems or economically or environmentally injurious solutions to technological problems. With the advancement in technology, people are now aware of all that goes into a process. Further, risks are understood as those that can be identified. Overall, the public perception has also undergone a change. Acceptability of Risk Lowrance in his definition observed safety as acceptable risk. Let us relate to this and further see the definition by William D. Rowe, “a risk is acceptable when those affected are generally no longer apprehensive about it”. Influential factors that lead to such apprehension are − Whether the risk is accepted voluntarily. The effects of knowledge on how the probabilities of harm (or benefit) are known or perceived. If the risks are job-related or other pressures exist that cause people to be aware of or to overlook risks. Whether the effects of a risky activity or situation are immediately noticeable or are close at hand. Whether the potential victims are identifiable beforehand. The acceptability of risk depends upon the types of risks such as voluntary and involuntary risks, short term and long term consequences, expected probability, reversible effects, threshold levels for risk, delayed and immediate risk, etc. Let us have a better understanding on the acceptability of risks in our subsequent sections. Voluntarism and Control In our daily life, we come across many such things where the scopes of risk might or might not be low. The person who breaks a red signal, is prone to be a victim of an accident, but risks. A person who lives near a dumping yard is prone to ill-health, but neglects. A boy who rides a vehicle at a high speed cannot rely on the perfect functioning of the brakes. But these people take voluntary risks thinking they can control. In this manner, they may well display the characteristically unrealistic confidence of most people when they believe hazards to be under their control. Enthusiasts worry less about the risks they might face and hence neglect the dangers behind them. The chance of getting affected is unpredictable in such cases. Effective information on Risk assessment The acceptance of risks also depends on the manner in which information necessary for decision making is presented. A person can be motivated to violate the safety rules by explaining the higher probability of success, whereas the same person can be demotivated from such task, by explaining the probability of failure and the fatal effects of it. Hence, options perceived as yielding firm gains will

Engineering Ethics Tutorial Job Search Engineering Ethics is the study of decisions, policies and values that are morally desirable in engineering practice and research. This tutorial covers all the major topics of professional and engineering ethics. It covers the ethics and morals an engineer should follow in his profession. Audience We have designed this brief tutorial for students of Engineering to help them understand the ethics they will need to follow in the profession that they might venture into. Prerequisites The tutorial will be helpful for students from all the branches of engineering, hence we assume no prior knowledge of any technical topic. Learning working make money

Engineering Ethics – Introduction Engineering is the process of developing an efficient mechanism which quickens and eases the work using limited resources, with the help of technology. Ethics are the principles accepted by the society, which also equate to the moral standards of human beings. An engineer with ethics, can help the society in a better way. Hence the study of Engineering ethics, where such ethics are implemented in engineering by the engineers, is necessary for the good of the society. Engineering Ethics is the study of decisions, policies and values that are morally desirable in engineering practice and research. Morals The word “Morality” originates from the Latin word “mos” meaning “custom”. Morals are the principles or habits with respect to right or wrong of one’s own conduct. They are not imposed by anyone. Morals are what you think is good and bad personally. Though morals are not imposed, they can be understood as the preaching of our inner self. Depending on a few factors, our mind filters things as good or bad. These are the ideas that help frame our personality so that we can distinguish between what is right and what is wrong. A moral is the code of conduct that you develop over time and set for yourself to follow, just like Being good to everyone Speaking only the truth Going against what you know is wrong Having chastity Avoid cheating Being a nice human being etc. Morals are always defined by one’s own personality. Morals can be changed according to one’s beliefs as they are completely dependent on one’s perception towards the ethical values. Ethics The word “Ethics” originates from the Greek word “ethos” meaning “character”. Ethics are a set of rules or principles that are generally considered as standards or good and bad or right and wrong, which are usually imposed by an external group or a society or a profession or so. Ethics can be understood as the rules of conduct proposed by a society or recognized with respect to a particular class of human actions or a particular group or culture. Ethics are dependent on others definition. They may or may not vary from context to context. A person who strictly follows a set of ethical principles, may not have any moral at all while a person who violates ethical principles at times, may maintain a high moral integrity. The ethical theories include duty ethics, right ethics, virtue ethics and so on. A best example that can explain ethics is utilitarianism. Utilitarianism is the philosophy which explains that the happiness or pleasure of a greatest number of people in the society is considered as the greatest good. According to this philosophy, an action is morally right if its consequences leads to happiness of the people and wrong if the action leads to their unhappiness. This theory moves beyond the scope of one’s own interests and takes into account the interests of others. Ethics in Engineering Ethics are principles followed depending upon the moral responsibility that a person feels. The study of related questions about moral ideals, character, policies and relationships of people and organizations involved in technological activity, can be termed as Engineering ethics. An engineer whether he works individually or works for a company, has to go through some ethical issues, mostly under the conditions such as, conceptualization of a product, issues arising in design and testing departments, or may be on the issues involving the manufacturing, sales and services. Questions related to morality also arise during supervision and team works. The ethical decisions and moral values of an engineer need to be considered because the decisions of an engineer have an impact the products and services – how safe they are to use, the company and its shareholders who believe in the goodwill of the company, the public and the society who trusts the company regarding the benefits of the people, the law which cares about how legislation affects the profession and industry, the job and his moral responsibilities and about how the environment gets affected, etc. Not only an engineer, but everyone has to follow a set of morals in order to keep away from getting morally degraded. Our behavior should include the following − Respecting others and ourselves. Respecting the rights of others. Keeping promises. Avoiding unnecessary problems to others. Avoiding cheating and dishonesty. Showing gratitude towards others and encourage them to work. Morality commands respect for persons, both others and ourselves. It involves being fair and just, meeting obligations and respecting rights and not causing unnecessary harm by dishonesty and cruelty or by hubris. Steps to Deal with Issues Whenever there occurs an issue, one should possess a few skills in order to sort out the problem. The issues that engineers face, have to be dealt with patience and few moral goals have to be kept in mind while dealing with such issues. They are as follows − Moral Awareness − One should be able to recognize the moral problems and issues that occur in Engineering. The analysis on the problem is necessary in order to differentiate and judge according to ethics or according to the rules to follow. Cogent Moral Reasoning − In order to come to a conclusion on an issue, the argument has to be assessed and comprehended. The argument on both sides has to be considered with all the probabilities and the nature of the argument should be logical and moral. Moral Coherence − After having gone through all the logical and moral facts, consistent and comprehensive view points are to be formed based upon a consideration of relevant facts. Moral Imagination − The moral issues and the practical issues have to be dealt separately. Alternative responses are to be found out for dealing with moral issues while creative solutions should be found out for practical difficulties. Moral Communication − The language to communicate about one’s moral views should be so precise and clear, that the expression or words should not alter the