Creative middle way solutions

THIS IS MY WEEKLY AND LECTURE READINGS:

Review and reflect on what you have learnt in the past 8 weeks. What is the most practical and easily applied lesson you learned? What was the hardest to grasp and why?

Please incorporate this reading and lecture material in the context of this paper

Citation: Charles Harris, Jr., Michael Pritchard, Michael J. Rabins, Ray James, Elaine Englehardt (2013). Engineering Ethics: Concepts and Cases, 5th Edition. Cengage Learning.

ISBN-13: 978-1-337-05592-5

ISBN-10: 1-337-05592-1

Read: Engineering in a Global context (Chapter 9)

Supplemental Reading: Website: http://www.foundationcoalition.org/home/keycomponents/assessment_eval/2005-Jun-20_Paper_Global_Societal_Impact_v2.pdf

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Week 8 Lecture 1 - Engineering in a Global Context

Content

Engineering and Ethics

Engineering in a Global Context

Introduction

This module focuses on the ethical and professional issues raised by the globalization of the engineering profession. It begins with the consideration of the attempt to standardize technical qualifications for engineering education and licensure and then turn to the question whether there can be an international concept of professionalism. Then it discusses some of the ethical and professional issues engineers face in the international arena.

Engineering is becoming a globalized profession. Engineers from the United States and other countries now have employment in various parts of the world. Engineers have also established several regional and even worldwide engineering organizations and agreements. Most of these organizations are devoted to the standardization of criteria for engineering education and licensure, but some organizations have also suggested ethical and professional standards for their members. Establishing global professional standards is an important aspect of the internationalization of engineering.

The Emergence of International Engineering Standards

Established in 1989, the accord is an agreement among bodies that have the authority to accredit engineering programs in their respective countries or jurisdictions. The Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET), which has the responsibility for accrediting engineering programs in the United States, signed the accord for the United States. The accord recognizes “substantial agreement” among the signatories in the requirements for engineering education, so that signatory countries or jurisdictions should recognize the qualifications of engineers graduating from accredited institutions in other signatory countries or jurisdictions. The engineers in the accredited jurisdictions are expected not only to meet minimal technical standards in their education but also to maintain their competency and abide by a code of conduct, although little is said about what these codes of conduct should contain. The Federation of Engineering Institutions of Asia and the Pacific (FEIAP) has as its goal “to encourage the application of technical progress to economic and social advancement throughout the world; to advance engineering as a profession in the interest of all people; and to foster peace throughout the world.” These standards provide protection against professional incompetence, a key aspect of preventive ethics. The recognition of the importance of engineering in economic development and quality of life reflects the orientation of aspirational ethics.

An International concept of Engineering Professionalism

In the light of these and other problems, can an international concept of professionalism be developed? One possible way to answer this question is to appeal to the notion of a profession as a particular instance of a social role. What is a social role? Let us say that a social role is a relationship among humans defined by a set of duties, prerogatives, and virtues that are determined by the relationship itself. Fortunately, people in virtually every culture have some understanding of social roles, with their attendant duties, prerogatives, and virtues.

Social roles have the following characteristics, among others: (1) A social role supports a social good that is generally approved in a society. Most people in a society approve of the relationship of parents and children as promoting the proper raising of children, for example. (2) A social role is usually connected with formal or informal social institutions. The home might be considered a more informal institution, but government ministers are connected with more formal institutions. (3) A social role is usually connected with a “role morality” that consists of duties, prerogatives, and virtues that are connected to the function of the role in society. The example of parenthood has already been mentioned. (4) Social roles can conflict with each other. Most people occupy several social roles, and these roles may be associated with different obligations. In some cases, simple time requirements for performing various roles may produce conflict problems. A person’s role as parent can conflict with his or her role as an employee due to conflicting time demands and perhaps for other reasons. (5) A person’s social role can conflict with other aspects of his or her life. A child’s desires to pursue his or her career in a distant city may conflict with his or her obligations to care for aging parents.

1. The professions, including engineering, perform functions that are perceived as a social good in most cultures. In engineering, this function is the development, operation, and distribution of technology.

2. Like other social roles, the professions, including engineering, are connected with social institutions. These include government institutions, businesses of various sorts, and professional societies.

3. The professions, including engineering, have role moralities in the form of codes of ethics and other standards of conduct that govern their behavior and are closely connected with their functions.

4. The role of professional, including the role of an engineer, can conflict with other social roles an individual may occupy. For example, one’s role as an engineer may conflict with his or her role as an employee. If the employer asks the engineer to do something incompatible with his or her professional status, such as make misrepresentations in public statements about technical issues, the engineer can face a conflict between his or her role as an engineer and his or her role as an employee.

5. The role obligations of professionals, including engineers, can on occasion conflict with personal beliefs. For example, an engineer’s beliefs about the environment may conflict with professional requirements. The engineer may not be sympathetic with environmental protection, even though the engineering codes require it. These standards would include standards of conduct, such as those in the standard engineering codes of ethics. Once engineering is established as a highly regarded social role, motivation to comply with the standards associated with that role might be expected to follow.

Global Standards of Conduct for Engineers

In the realm of professionalism and conduct, some believe that the ultimate goal of the engineering profession should be to achieve a similar “substantial agreement” on global ethical standards for engineers. Differing cultural and ethical traditions, however, make this goal difficult to achieve. Encountering different ethical traditions often produces dilemmas that are difficult to resolve, especially when these dilemmas are compounded by problems caused by economic underdevelopment.

Economic, cultural, and social differences between countries sometimes produce “boundary-crossing problems” for engineers. Solutions to these problems must avoid absolutism and relativism and should find a way between moral rigorism and moral laxism.

Let us call the problems such engineers face boundary crossing problems. We can refer to the country in which they originally lived—in this case, the United States—as the home country and the country that they enter as the host country. Simple solutions to boundary crossing problems are attractive but often unacceptable. One simple solution is to hold to home country values and ways of doing things, no matter how different from host country values. Call this the absolutist solution or the imperialist solution, because it requires importing values from the home country into a different society. For example, customs regarding such practices as grease payments may be so pervasive and deeply entrenched in a host country that it may not be possible to do business in these countries without following the customs. Also, host country values and standards might be just as defensible as home country values and standards, just different. Another problem is that certain practices in the host country might be so repugnant that a home country engineer would have trouble following them. For example, the health and safety standards might be so low that they are clearly endangering the health and safety of workers and perhaps the engineers themselves.