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Do Engineers Have Social Responsibilities?

“People enjoy what technology can do for them while often ignoring what it can do to them”

--Edward Wenk

ENGINEERING

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Engineering is a great profession. There is a fascination of watching a figment of the imagination emerge, through the aid of science, to a plan on paper. Then it moves to realization in stone or metal or energy. Then it brings jobs home to men. Then it elevates the standards of living and adds to the comfort of life. That is the engineer's high privilege….To the engineer falls the job of clothing the bare bones of science with life, comfort, and hope…”

--Herbert Hoover(

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What does “having” social responsibilities mean?

• It means a commitment from the engineering profession, and, by proxy, the individual engineers who belong to the profession, to place the public safety and interest ahead of all other considerations and obligations.

• It means that engineers take into account and show due regard for the consequences of their conduct for the well-being of others as well as for the impact of their work on society and the citizenry.

• This requires the engineer to make determined efforts to discover all of the relevant facts concerning the design, development, and deployment and all of the possible outcomes of the choices available that may positively and negatively affect/impact society and the citizenry

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Social Responsibilities of Engineers (Some Examples)

• Ensure the safety and well-being of the public• Ensure that society’s funds and resources concerning

technology are well used• Refusing to work on a particular project or for a particular

company• Speaking out publicly against a proposed project• Blowing the whistle on illegality or wrong-doing• Professional Societies’ obligation to provide protection

for whistleblowers• Individual and organizational concern about the impact

of engineering projects on society • Contributing one’s services to worthy, non-profit groups

and projects• Engineering schools’ commitment to educating future

engineers about their social responsibilities

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Social Responsibilities of Engineers (Some Examples)

• Commitment of engineering professions and organizations to principles of social responsibility

• Commitment of risk assessment experts to ethical risk/safety assessments• Actively promote the ethical development and use of technology• Voluntarily assume the task of educating the public about important

consequences of various technological and scientific developments• Commitment of engineers to design and develop sustainable technologies• Provide expert advice to non-experts• Take part in democratic procedures for technology decision making and

policy management• Social activism of engineers in the public Interest • Explicit care and concern about technology’s impact on Nature and the

Environment• Abiding by the principles of sustainable development when thinking about

engineering designs• Abiding by the “precautionary principle” when thinking about engineering

designs• In engineering design, engineers have practiced social responsibility by

applying factors of safety to their designs

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Engineering Social Responsibility

• Why do engineers have the responsibility to think about the interaction of technology and society?

• Because engineers are the ones who create all of the technology

• Responsible are supposed to think about the effects of their own actions and creations especially if they impact others

• Possible response: “but engineers and scientists, like professionals in general, are supposed to implement the goals of their employers and clients, not decide what those goals should be”

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Arguments that Engineers Don’t (Shouldn’t/Couldn’t) Have Social Responsibilities

1. Engineering is not a true profession so society should not expect that engineers have social responsibilities like the other “true” professions

2. Engineering is a value-free enterprise that deals only in objective facts

3. Engineers are not qualified to make ethical judgments on behalf of society so it is unfair to think they should or could

4. The nature of engineer-manager relations in large organizations

– Engineers lack decision-making autonomy and power

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Arguments that Engineers Don’t (Shouldn’t/Couldn’t) Have Social Responsibilities (Argument One)

1. Engineering is not a true profession and so society shouldn’t hold the profession of engineering, or individual engineers, to higher ethical standards as it does other true professions such as medicine, law, and university professors1. Professions have social responsibilities but engineering is not a

profession like medicine and law and so it does not have the same, higher, social responsibilities

2. Engineering does not serve a crucial social need and high ends that is the basis of an implicit social contract

3. Engineering is not given the same privileges other professionals so there is not a social contract that promotes engineering social responsibility

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Engineers Don’t (Shouldn’t/Couldn’t) Have Social Responsibilities: Argument One

• Differences between engineers and other professionals such as medicine, law, university professors, etc.

• Such professions serve crucial social needs and high ends such as Health (Doctors), Truth and Knowledge (Professors), Social Justice (Lawyers) – Society grants special privileges to such

groups for socially recognized essential needs– Engineering lacks such ends, privileges, and

protections

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Engineers Don’t (Shouldn’t/Couldn’t) Have Social Responsibilities: Argument Two

• Engineers maintain a value-free objectivity following a scientific methodology absent of any subjectivity

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Engineers Don’t (Shouldn’t/Couldn’t) Have Social Responsibilities: Argument Three

• The individual engineer is not qualified to make judgments as to the ethical acceptability or unacceptability of technology

• The choices as to which technology should be designed or built can only be made on the basis of systems of human values incapable of validation by the scientific and/or the engineering method

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Engineer-Manager Relations in Large Corporations or Organizations: Argument Four

The “Received View”: • The corporate engineer lacks the sufficient autonomy

necessary to be responsible and ethical• The engineer is in constant conflict with management

who often ends up overriding engineering judgment concerning engineering designs.

• Lack of professional autonomy leaves scant room for ethical decision making (but not ethical judgment)

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Engineer-Manager Relations in Large Corporations or Organizations: Argument Four (cont.)

• Engineers are a captive profession in a highly compartmentalized work environment.

• Managers choose what to do, divide work up into small groups, and assign each engineer to a particular one

• Communication between engineers and managers is kept to a minimum to assure management control

• Engineers identify options, test them, and report the work to managers

• Managers combine these reports with business information they alone have.

• Managers decide, engineers merely advise

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Engineer-Manager Relations in Large Corporations or Organizations : Argument Four (cont.)

• Corporate engineers are used as “hired hands” who develop technology with the sole purpose of advancing the economic demands of the corporation or client

• Engineers are not independent professionals—They are employees

• Emerging from the canal and railway building enterprises of the nineteenth century American engineering is a creature of large bureaucratic organizations—individual engineers were the original “organization man”

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The concept of “Organization Man”• This term was coined in the 1960s when sociological

analyses of bureaucracies were conducted• An “organization man” is someone who represses or

suppresses his or her individual desires and values and molds their personal behavior to conform to the demands of the organization he or she works for.

• Another definition is a employee of large corporations who has adapted so completely to what is expected in attitudes, ideas, and behaviors of the corporation so that they lose a sense of personal identity or independence

• Someone who so fully adapts that their personal identity and values are absorbed by organizational objectives and values

• Someone who sacrifices his or her own individuality for what is perceived as the good of the organization

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Engineer-Manager Relations in Large Corporations or Organizations: Counterargument

Recent research: The Received View is False

• Instead of rigid hierarchical and compartmentalized decision making process of the received view

• There exists a highly fluid process depending heavily on meetings and less formal exchange of information across departmental boundaries

• Managers seemed to have little control over what information would reach the engineers

• Managers are anxious to get engineers to hook up with one another for collaboration

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Arguments/rationales for the Social Responsibility of Engineers

1. Codes of Ethics2. Professionalism3. Social Contract Model4. Engineering Societies5. Principle of Proportionate Care6. Engineering as Social Experimentation7. The Impacts of Technology on Society

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Rationales for Social Responsibility of Engineers

• Fundamental Canons 1. Hold paramount the safety, health, and

welfare of the public2. Perform services only in areas of their

competence3. Issue public statements only in an objective

and truthful manner4. Act for each employer or client as faithful

agents or trustees

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Professionalism

WHAT IS A PROFESSIONAL?

Today, it is one who is “duly qualified” in a specific field* special theoretical knowledge or education* appropriate experience* knowledge and skills vital to the well-being of a large portion of the society* Professional organization and a code of ethic* special social sanction

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Models of Professionalism

Business Model

* professional status provides economic gain

* monopoly provides for high pay

* self-regulation avoids government regulation

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MODELS OF PROFESSIONALISMSocial Contract Model

• Professionals are guardians of the public trust

• Professions are social institutions—they are organized by some act of society and are granted special powers in return for socially beneficial goods and services (Licensure)

• An implicit, unstated agreement exists between professional and society

• Society may subsidize training of professionals

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The Implicit Contract Between Society and the Engineering Profession

Professionals agree to:* provide a service

- for the public well-being- promote public welfare, even at

own expense* self-regulation

- enforce competence- enforce ethical standards

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The Implicit Contract Between Society and the Engineering Profession

• Clients place their trust not only in individual professionals but also in the professional organization and they trust professionals because the exercise of professional discretion at the individual level is governed by rules which are prescribed and enforced by the group

• The professions for self-regulation : This means that the profession of engineering has a strong responsibility to make sure that technology is produced that is good and beneficial to society, and technological goods should be distributed fairly and justly among all members of our society

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The Implicit Contract Between Society and the Engineering Profession

• Self regulation places the burden of proof collectively on the organization to ensure that individual members are technically competent to perform their duties according to high ethical standards and that engineers have genuine concern for how technology impacts society, both negatively as well as positively

• To voluntarily claim the benefits of a profession a member of that profession is obligated to follow the rules and norms of that profession—If not, they would be taking unfair advantage of a voluntary cooperative practice

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Principle of Proportionate Care

• To the extent that the engineers, due to their special knowledge of technology, and the fact that technology could be risky and dangerous, could harm society, they must exercise due care in the practice of their profession.

• The more engineers are in a position to harm society, the more they should be held to a higher ethical standard

• Society requires this in order to ensure the safe and reliable design, development, and deployment of technological systems.

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Principle of Proportionate Care

• There is a direct relationship between their ability to cause harm and the need to hold engineers to the highest of ethical standards

Potential to cause harm Level of Ethical Standard

High Level of Harm High Level of Ethics

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Defining Engineering• “Engineering is that profession in which knowledge of the mathematical and natural

sciences gained by study, experience, and practice is applied with judgment to develop ways to utilize, economically, the materials and forces of nature for the benefit of mankind.” (The Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology – ABET, 1992)

• “Engineering is the application of scientific and mathematical principles to practical ends such as the design, manufacture, and operation of efficient and economical structures, machines, processes, and systems.”

• “Engineering is the art of directing the great sources of power in nature for the use and the convenience of people. In its modern form engineering involves people, money, materials, machines, and energy. It is differentiated from science because it is primarily concerned with how to direct to useful and economical ends the natural phenomena which scientists discover and formulate into acceptable theories. Engineering therefore requires above all the creative imagination to innovate useful applications of natural phenomena. It seeks newer, cheaper, better means of using natural sources of energy and materials.” (Science and Technology Encyclopedia, McGraw Hill)

• Engineering is the professional art of applying science to the optimum conversion of the resources of nature to the uses of humankind. (Encyclopedia Britannica)

• Engineering is the application of science and mathematics by which the properties of matter and the sources of energy in nature are made useful to people (Merriam-Webster Dictionary)

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Engineering and Ethics• If we accept these definitions of engineering, it is

crucial to realize the centrality of ethical concerns at the core of the engineering enterprise

• Concern for social well being and humanity are part of the very definition of engineering

• Assuming the intellectual rigor of these definitions, the need of ethics in engineering is nothing superfluous or added, but it is the essence of the engineering profession

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Engineering and Social Values• Today the consequences of human creativity in the areas of

engineering, technology, and science have reached measures that only a few decades ago were unimaginable (e.g., genetic engineering, biotechnology, nanotechnology, information technologies, artificial intelligence)

• This capacity and development mean an enormous amount of Power

• “Knowledge is Power” • With Power comes Responsibility• Knowledge implies responsibility – the obligations of the engineer

must be commensurate with the level of his or her knowledge and power

• With Responsibility comes Obligation and Accountability• The fact of living in a complex, global, and intercultural world

coupled with the unquestionable technological power wielded by governments and societies

• Makes it necessary that engineers amplify the horizon of their technical knowledge with humanistic values and harmonize their specialized formation and development with knowledge of the norms, principles, and ideals of ethics

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Engineering and Social Values• In view of the enormous power of technology

and science and the enormous potential risks they pose, it is indispensable to stimulate and develop the norms of the moral responsibility of engineers

• There exists an urgent need to complement technical knowledge with the development of values, attitudes, and knowledge that facilitate professional and ethical excellence

• It is necessary to develop social skills and team work based in the respect for the proper values of civic and social ethics

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Engineering Ethics

• The institutionalization of engineering ethics is a social necessity due to the fact that the actions of engineers can have such enormous impact on the lives of individuals, states, cultures, the environment, and the entire planet

• An engineer is a professional who uses technologies—and the knowledge that he possesses of diverse technical systems: objects of all kinds, and in particular, machines, tools and systems—to create other technical systems that satisfy human needs and well-being

• It is necessary to develop with rigor and depth a concept of ethics and responsibility commensurate with our immense technological powers in order to advance to a safer and more just world

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Engineering as a Humanity

• Is Engineering more like Natural Science or more like a field of studies in the Humanities?

• If you look at the very definition of engineering, you will see that engineering is intimately connected to the humanities because it is the application of scientific theory to solve certain problems of humanity—namely it’s need for technology

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The Ultimate Purpose of Engineering

• Does the profession of engineering serve a higher purpose, like the professions of medicine (health), law (justice), professors (education)?

• Serving a higher purpose means that it serves a crucial social value

• This value is crucial to society because it is deemed necessary for social existence and social flourishment