Engineering Ethics Final Exam

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Professions

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Those forms of work involving advanced expertise, independent judgement, self-regulation, and concerted service to the public good as usually formulated in a code of ethics.

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Stakeholder Theory

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Corporations have responsibilities to all groups that have a vital stake in the corporation, including employees, customers, dealers, suppliers, local communities, and the general public.

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Ethical (or moral) dilemmas

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Are situations in which moral reasons come into conflict, or in which the applications of moral values are problematic, and it is not immediately obvious what should be done.

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Right-wrong, better-worse

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Some ethical dilemmas have solutions that are either right (obligatory) or wrong (morally forbidden); other dilemmas have more than one permissible solution, some of which are better or worse than others either in some respects or overall.

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Importance of codes of ethics

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Serving and protecting the public, providing guidance, offering inspiration, establishing shared standards, contributing education, deterring wrongdoing, and strengthening a profession’s image.

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Abuse of codes

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Window-dressing, stifling dissent.

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Limitation of codes

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Codes contain areas of vagueness, possible internal conflict among entries, possible conflicts among different codes in engineering.

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Ethical relativism, or ethical conventionalism

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The view that actions are morally right within a particular society when, and only because, they are approved by law, custom, or other conventions of that society.

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Utilitarianism

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Right action consists in producing the most good for the most people, given equal consideration to everyone affected. Act-utilitarianism says maximize the overall good of each action, in each situation. Rule-utilitarianism says live by a set of rules that maximize the overall good.

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Theories of good

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Specify intrinsic goods, that is, things inherently worth seeking, perhaps such things as pleasure, happiness, a list of desirables activities and relationships, satisfaction of preferences, or satisfaction of rational desires.

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Rights ethics

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Right action consists in respecting human rights. Most rights ethicists Believe there are both liberty rights (right not to be interfered with) and welfare rights (right to benefits needed for a decent human life when one cannot earn those benefits on one’s own and when the community has them available). In contrast, libertarians believe there are only liberty rights. In addition to human rights, which we have because we are human beings, there are special moral rights that arise because of contracts and other special relationships.

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Duty ethics

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Right actions are those required by principles of duty to respect the autonomy (self-determination) of individuals.

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Prima facie duties

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Are duties that have some permissible exceptions when they conflict with more pressing duties, as distinct from absolute duties that never have justified exceptions. (In similar senses, “prima facie” is sometimes applied to rights, rules, principles, etc.)

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Virtue ethics

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We should develop and manifest good character As defined by the virtues— desirable habits or tendencies in action, commitment, motives, attitude, emotion, ways of reasoning, and ways of relating to others.

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Self-realization ethics

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Right action consists in seeking self-fulfillment. In one version, the self to be realized is defined by caring relationships with other individuals and communities. In another version, called ethical egoism, right action consists in always promoting what is good for oneself, with no presumption that the self is defined in terms of caring and community relationships.

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Safe exits

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Design and procedures ensuring that if a product fails it will fail safely and the user can safely avoid harm from the failed product.

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Balance outlook on law

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Reasonable laws and sanctions are appropriate components of engineer, but laws set the rules for minimal compliance rather than providing the full substance of engineering ethics.

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Engineering as social experimentation

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Engineering projects can be viewed as social experiments in that (1) they are carried out in partial ignorance, (2) have uncertain outcomes, (3) require monitoring feedback, and (4) mandate obtaining informed consent from those affected.

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Informed consent to the use or effects of products

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Consent that (1) is giving voluntarily— without coercion, manipulation, or deception, (2) is based on having information that a rational person would want and other information requested, or is Widely disseminated in an understandable form, (3) is given by a competent person or by a proxy group that represents the person’s interests, concerns, and exposure to risk.

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Engineers as responsible experimentation

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(1) conscientiously accept a primary obligation to protect The safety of human subjects and respect their right of consent; (2) maintain awareness of the experimental nature of any project, imaginatively foresee its possible side effects, and make a reasonable effort to monitor them; (3) have autonomous, personal involvement in engineering projects; (4) accept accountability for the results of projects.

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Safety (as acceptable risk)

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The risks about the technology, were they fully known, would be judge acceptable by a reasonable person in light of their settled value principles.

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Risk

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The potential that something unwanted and harmful may occur.

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Risk perception factors

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Whether the risk is assumed voluntary, how the probabilities of harm or benefit are presented, job-related or other pressures, magnitude, and proximity.

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Risk-benefit analysis

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Studies determining the risks, the benefits, and whether the project or product is worth the risks connected with its use.

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Cost-effectiveness analysis

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Studies of which design has the greatest merit.

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Ethical corporate climate

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(1) ethical values in their full complexity of widely acknowledged and appreciated by managers and employees alike; (2) ethical language is honestly applied and recognized as a legitimate part of corporate dialogue; (3) top management sets a moral tone; (4) there are procedures for conflict resolution.

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Loyalty to a corporation

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Can mean either (1) agency-loyalty— acting to fulfill one’s contractual duties, or (2) attitude-loyalty— agency-loyalty that is motivated by identification with the corporation.

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Collegiality

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A virtue of teamwork that includes respect for colleagues, commitment to the moral ideas inherent in one’s profession, and connectedness in the sense of awareness of participating and cooperative projects based on shared commitments and mutual support.

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Executive authority

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The corporate or institutional right given to a person to exercise power based on the resources of an organization. It is distinct from mere power and from expert authority (knowledge or skill).

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Managing conflict

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Dealing with conflicts, including value disagreements, in order to maintain teamwork.

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Confidentiality

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Keeping secret the information specified by an employer or client in order to compete effectively against business rivals, especially proprietary information and trade secrets (owned by a company) but also privileged information concerning a project.

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Conflicts of interest

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Situations were professionals or other employees have an interest that if pursued, might keep them from meeting their obligations to their employers or clients. Examples include accepting gifts, bribes, kickbacks, having the large interest in competing companies, and using insider information.

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Professionals’ rights

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The rights of professionals needed to meet their responsibilities. They include the right a professional conscience (to exercise professional judgment in pursuing responsibilities), The right of conscientious refusal(to refuse directives to engage in unethical behavior), and the right of recognition( to be fairly recognize for one’s accomplishments).

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Employee rights

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Rights as an employee, including rights to privacy, nondiscrimination, equal opportunity.

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Sexual discrimination

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Unwanted imposition sexual requirements, both quid pro quo( where sexual favors are made in exchange for a benefits) and hostile work environment( in which a sexually oriented aspect of the workplace threatens equal opportunity).

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Affirmative action(as preferential treatment)

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Giving preferences, especially in hiring or promoted, on the basis of race or gender. The weak form occurs when a woman or minority is equally qualified with a white male, and the strong form occurs when the preference is over a more qualified white male.

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Whistleblowing

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When an employee or former employee conveys information about a significant moral problem to someone in a position to take action on the problem, and does so outside approved organization channels (or against strong pressure). with external whistleblowing the information is past outside the organization, and with Internal whistleblowing it is conveyed within the organization. With open whistleblowing individuals reveal their identities, and with anonymous whistleblowing they withhold their identities.

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Principle of veracity (for everyday life)

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There should be a strong presumption against lying and deception, although the presumption can occasionally be overridden by other pressing moral reasons in particular contexts.

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Truthfulness responsibility (for engineers)

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Engineers must be objective and truthful, and they must not engage in deception.

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Academic integrity

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Maintaining standards of honesty (truthfulness and trustworthiness) and avoiding cheating, fabrication, plagiarism (intentionally or negligently submitting others‘ work as one’s own), facilitating dishonesty in others, misrepresentation, not doing one’s fair share on collaborative projects, sabotage, and theft.

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Research misconduct

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Violation of the basic standards for sound research, for example, by intentional fabrication, falsification, plagiarism, or (in wider definitions) by gross negligence.

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Self-deception

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Fooling oneself, either (a) motivated irrationality and which one allows biases to distort judgment, or (b) purposeful ( though not fully conscious) evasion of unpleasant realities such as data that goes against what one wants to believe.

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Informed consent (in experimentation)

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(a) The requirement of researchers to give to experimental subjects (or their surrogate decision makers) all information about the risks, possible benefits, alternatives, exact procedures involved, and all other information a reasonable person would want to know about the experiment, (b) the absence of coercion, threats, or undue pressure, and (c) the capacity of the experimental subject (or their surrogate) to make a reasonable decision.

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Giving credit in research

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Being truthful in reporting research, especially by avoiding plagiarism, misrepresentation of credentials, and improper listing of authors.

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Biocentric ethics

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The view that all living organisms have inherent worth.

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Ecocentric ethics

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The view that ecosystems have inherent worth.

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Honesty in consulting engineering

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Requires maintaining truthfulness in such areas as advertising, competitive bidding, fee arrangements, and reporting safety infractions, in addition to expected truthfulness for technical opinion.

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Honesty as expert witnesses and advisors

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Requires maintaining objectivity while working in adversary contexts; avoiding distortions in judgment from financial arrangements, ego, sympathy, and political interests.

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Environmental ethics

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(1) The study of moral issues concerning the environment, and (2) A moral perspective, belief, and attitude concerning those issues.

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Invisible hand

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The ways in which pursuing self-interest in the competitive marketplace promotes the public good, for example, by providing quality products at lower cost, jobs, and wealth and philanthropy.

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Tragedy of the commons

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The ways in which the marketplace harms public goods (such as clean air and water) by creating unintended “externalities,” that is, harmful effects such as pollution that are not factored into the cost of products.

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Internalizing costs

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The cost of products and services is made to include indirect costs such as the effects of pollution.

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Sustainable development

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Economic and technological patterns that are compatible with preserving environmental capacities to sustain future generations.

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Human-centered ethics

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The view that only humans have inherent worth and that other creatures and ecosystems have at most “instrumental value” as means to promoting human interests.

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Sentient-centered ethics

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The view that all conscious animals have inherent worth.