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Engineering Ethics Fourth Edition CHARLES B. FLEDDERMANN University of New Mexico Prentice Hall Upper Saddle River • Boston • Columbus • San Francisco • New York • Indianapolis London • Toronto • Sydney • Singapore • Tokyo • Montreal • Dubai • Madrid Hong Kong • Mexico City • Munich • Paris • Amsterdam • Cape Town Vice President and Editorial Director, ECS: Marcia J. Horton Executive Editor: Holly Stark Editorial Assistant: William Opaluch Marketing Manager: Tim Galligan Production Manager: Pat Brown Art Director: Jayne Conte Cover Designer: Black Horse Designs and Bruce Kenselaar Full-Service Project Management/Composition: Vijayakumar Sekar, TexTech International Pvt Ltd Printer/Binder: Edwards Brothers Cover Printer: Lehigh-Phoenix Credits and acknowledgments borrowed from other sources and reproduced, with permission, in this textbook appear on appropriate page within text. Copyright © 2012, 2008 Pearson Education, Inc., publishing as Prentice Hall, 1 Lake Street, Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. This publication is protected by Copyright and permission should be obtained from the publisher prior to any prohibited reproduction, storage in a retrieval system, or transmission in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or likewise. To obtain permission(s) to use material from this work, please submit a written request to Pearson Education, Inc., Permissions Department, One Lake Street, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey 07458 or you may fax your request to 201-236-3290. Many of the designations by manufacturers and seller to distinguish their products are claimed as trademarks. Where those designations appear in this book, and the publisher was aware of a trademark claim, the designations have been printed in initial caps or all caps. The author and publisher of this book have used their best efforts in preparing this book. These efforts include the development, research, and testing of the theories and programs to determine their effectiveness. The author and publisher make no warranty of any kind, expressed or implied, with regard to these programs or the documentation contained in this book. The author and publisher shall not be liable in any event for incidental or consequential damages in connection with, or arising out of, the furnishing, performance, or use of these programs. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Fleddermann, Charles B. (Charles Byrns), 1956– Engineering ethics / Charles B. Fleddermann. — 4th ed. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978-0-13-214521-3 (alk. paper) ISBN-10: 0-13-214521-9 (alk. paper) 1. Engineering ethics. I. Title. TA157.F525 2012 174'.962—dc23 2011023371 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 ISBN 10: 0-13-214521-9 ISBN 13: 978-0-13-214521-3 Contents ABOUT THIS BOOK vii 1 Introduction 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 1 Background Ideas 2 Why Study Engineering Ethics? 2 Engineering Is Managing the Unknown 3 Personal vs. Professional Ethics 4 The Origins of Ethical Thought 4 Ethics and the Law 4 Ethics Problems Are Like Design Problems 5 Case Studies 6 Summary 15 References 15 Problems 16 2 Professionalism and Codes of Ethics 2.1 Introduction 19 2.2 Is Engineering a Profession? 2.3 Codes of Ethics 24 Key Terms 33 References 34 Problems 34 19 3 Understanding Ethical Problems 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 18 37 Introduction 38 A Brief History of Ethical Thought 38 Ethical Theories 39 Non-Western Ethical Thinking 46 Key Terms 53 References 53 Problems 53 iii iv Contents 4 Ethical Problem-Solving Techniques 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6 Introduction 57 Analysis of Issues in Ethical Problems 57 Line Drawing 59 Flow Charting 62 Conflict Problems 63 An Application of Problem-Solving Methods: Bribery/Acceptance of Gifts Key Terms 71 References 71 Problems 72 5 Risk, Safety, and Accidents 56 65 74 5.1 Introduction 75 5.2 Safety and Risk 75 5.3 Accidents 79 Key Terms 98 References 98 Problems 99 6 The Rights and Responsibilities of Engineers 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 Introduction 104 Professional Responsibilities Professional Rights 106 Whistle-Blowing 108 Key Terms 120 References 120 Problems 121 104 7 Ethical Issues in Engineering Practice 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 103 124 Introduction 125 Environmental Ethics 125 Computer Ethics 127 Ethics and Research 135 Key Terms 143 References 143 Problems 144 8 Doing the Right Thing References 155 Problems 155 150 Contents APPENDIX A Codes of Ethics of Professional Engineering Societies 157 The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE) National Society of Professional Engineers (NSPE) 158 American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) 163 American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) 164 American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AICHE) 168 Japan Society of Civil Engineers 169 APPENDIX B Bibliography General Books on Engineering Ethics 172 Journals with Articles on Engineering Ethics and Cases Websites 173 Index 157 172 173 174 v This page intentionally left blank About This Book Engineering Ethics is an introductory textbook that explores many of the ethical issues that a practicing engineer might encounter in the course of his or her professional engineering practice. The book contains a discussion of ethical theories, develops several ethical problem-solving methods, and contains case studies based on real events that illustrate the problems faced by engineers. The case studies also show the effects that engineering decisions have on society. WHAT’S NEW IN THIS EDITION • A new section showing how ethical issues are viewed in non-Western societies including China, India, and the Middle East. • Codes of Ethics from a professional engineering society outside the United States has been added. • The issues brought up by competitive bidding by engineers are discussed. • Case studies have been updated. • Several new case studies including ones on the I-35W bridge collapse in Minneapolis, issues related to the recall of Toyota passenger cars, and the earthquake damage in Haiti have been added. • Many new and updated problems have been added. vii This page intentionally left blank CHAPTER 1 Introduction Objectives After reading this chapter, you will be able to • Know why it is important to study engineering ethics • Understand the distinction between professional and personal ethics O • See how ethical problem solving and engineering design are similar. n August 10, 1978, a Ford Pinto was hit from behind on a highway in Indiana. The impact of the collision caused the Pinto’s fuel tank to rupture and burst into flames, leading to the deaths of three teenage girls riding in the car. This was not the first time that a Pinto had caught on fire as a result of a rear-end collision. In the seven years following the introduction of the Pinto, there had been some 50 lawsuits related to rear-end collisions. However, this time Ford was charged in a criminal court for the deaths of the passengers. This case was a significant departure from the norm and had important implications for the Ford engineers and managers. A civil lawsuit could only result in Ford being required to pay damages to the victim’s estates. A criminal proceeding, on the other hand, would indicate that Ford was grossly negligent in the deaths of the passengers and could result in jail terms for the Ford engineers or managers who worked on the Pinto. The case against Ford hinged on charges that it was known that the gas-tank design was flawed and was not in line with accepted engineering standards, even though it did meet applicable federal safety standards at the time. During the trial, it was determined that Ford engineers were aware of the dangers of this design, but management, concerned with getting the Pinto to market rapidly at a price competitive with subcompact cars already introduced or planned by other manufacturers, had constrained the engineers to use this design. 2 1.2 Why Study Engineering Ethics The dilemma faced by the design engineers who worked on the Pinto was to balance the safety of the people who would be riding in the car against the need to produce the Pinto at a price that would be competitive in the market. They had to attempt to balance their duty to the public against their duty to their employer. Ultimately, the attempt by Ford to save a few dollars in manufacturing costs led to the expenditure of millions of dollars in defending lawsuits and payments to victims. Of course, there were also uncountable costs in lost sales due to bad publicity and a public perception that Ford did not engineer its products to be safe. 1.1 BACKGROUND IDEAS The Pinto case is just one example of the ethical problems faced by engineers in the course of their professional practice. Ethical cases can go far beyond issues of public safety and may involve bribery, fraud, environmental protection, fairness, honesty in research and testing, and conflicts of interest. During their undergraduate education, engineers receive training in basic and engineering sciences, problemsolving methodology, and engineering design, but generally receive little training in business practices, safety, and ethics. This problem has been partially corrected, as many engineering education programs now have courses in what is called engineering ethics. Indeed, the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET), the body responsible for accrediting undergraduate engineering programs in the United States, has mandated that ethics topics be incorporated into undergraduate engineering curricula. The purpose of this book is to provide a text and a resource for the study of engineering ethics and to help future engineers be prepared for confronting and resolving ethical dilemmas, such as the design of an unsafe product like the Pinto, that they might encounter during their professional careers. A good place to start a discussion of ethics in engineering is with definitions of ethics and engineering ethics. Ethics is the study of the characteristics of morals. Ethics also deals with the moral choices that are made by each person in his or her relationship with other persons. As engineers, we are concerned with ethics because these definitions apply to all of the choices an individual makes in life, including those made while practicing engineering. For our purposes, the definition of ethics can be narrowed a little. Engineering ethics is the rules and standards governing the conduct of engineers in their role as professionals. Engineering ethics encompasses the more general definition of ethics, but applies it more specifically to situations involving engineers in their professional lives. Thus, engineering ethics is a body of philosophy indicating the ways that engineers should conduct themselves in their professional capacity. 1.2 WHY STUDY ENGINEERING ETHICS? Why is it important for engineering students to 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. These cases have led to an awareness of the importance of ethics within the engineering profession as engineers realize how their technical work has far-reaching impacts on society. The work of engineers can affect public health and safety and can influence business practices and even politics. One result of this increase in awareness is that nearly every major corporation now has an ethics office that has the responsibility to ensure that employees have Chapter 1 Introduction 3 the ability to express their concerns about issues such as safety and corporate business practices in a way that will yield results and won’t result in retaliation against the employees. Ethics offices also try to foster an ethical culture that will help to head off ethical problems in a corporation before they start. The goal of this book and courses in engineering ethics is to sensitize you to important ethical issues before you have to confront them. You will study important cases from the past so that you will know what situations other engineers have faced and will know what to do when similar situations arise in your professional career. Finally, you will learn techniques for analyzing and resolving ethical problems when they arise. Our goal is frequently summed up using the term “moral autonomy.” Moral autonomy is the ability to think critically and independently about moral issues and to apply this moral thinking to situations that arise in the course of professional engineering practice. The goal of this book, then, is to foster the moral autonomy of future engineers. The question asked at the beginning of this section can also be asked in a slightly different way. Why should a future engineer bother studying ethics at all? After all, at this point in your life, you’re already either a good person or a bad person. Good people already know the right thing to do, and bad people aren’t going to do the right thing no matter how much ethical training they receive. The answer to this question lies in the nature of the ethical problems that are often encountered by an engineer. In most situations, the correct response to an ethical problem is very obvious. For example, it is clear that to knowingly equip the Pinto with wheel lugs made from substandard, weak steel that is susceptible to breaking is unethical and wrong. This action could lead to the loss of a wheel while driving and could cause numerous accidents and put many lives at risk. Of course, such a design decision would also be a commercial disaster for Ford. However, many times, the ethical problems encountered in engineering practice are very complex and involve conflicting ethical principles. For example, the engineers working on the Pinto were presented with a very clear dilemma. Tradeoffs were made so that the Pinto could be successfully marketed at a reasonable price. One of these trade-offs involved the placement of the gas tank, which led to the accident in Indiana. So, for the Ford engineers and managers, the question became the following: Where does an engineering team strike the balance between safety and affordability and, simultaneously, between the ability of the company to sell the car and make a profit? These are the types of situations that we will discuss in this book. The goal, then, is not to train you to do the right thing when the ethical choice is obvious and you already know the right thing to do. Rather, the goal is to train you to analyze complex problems and learn to resolve these problems in the most ethical manner. 1.3 ENGINEERING IS MANAGING THE UNKNOWN One source of the ethical issues encountered in the course of engineering practice is a lack of knowledge. This is by no means an unusual situation in engineering. Engineers often encounter situations in which they don’t have all of the information that is needed. By its nature, engineering design is about creating new devices and products. When something is new, many questions need to be answered. How well does it work? How will it affect people? What changes will this lead to in society? How well will this work under all of the conditions that it will be exposed to? Is it 4 1.6 Ethics and the Law safe? If there are some safety concerns, how bad are they? What are the effects of doing nothing? The answers to these questions are often only partly known. So, to a large extent, an engineer’s job is to manage the unknown. How does an engineer accomplish this? Really, as an engineer you can never be absolutely certain that your design will never harm anyone or cause detrimental changes to society. But you must test your design as thoroughly as time and resources permit to ensure that it operates safely and as planned. Also, you must use your creativity to attempt to foresee the possible consequences of your work. 1.4 PERSONAL VS. PROFESSIONAL ETHICS In discussing engineering ethics, it is important to make a distinction between personal ethics and professional, or business, ethics, although there isn’t always a clear boundary between the two. Personal ethics deals with how we treat others in our day-to-day lives. Many of these principles are applicable to ethical situations that occur in business and engineering. However, professional ethics often involves choices on an organizational level rather than a personal level. Many of the problems will seem different because they involve relationships between two corporations, between a corporation and the government, or between corporations and groups of individuals. Frequently, these types of relationships pose problems that are not encountered in personal ethics. 1.5 THE ORIGINS OF ETHICAL THOUGHT Before proceeding, it is important to acknowledge in a general way the origins of the ethical philosophies that we will be discussing in this book. The Western ethical thought that is discussed here originated in the philosophy of the ancient Greeks and their predecessors. It has been developed through subsequent centuries by many thinkers in the Judeo–Christian tradition. Interestingly, non-Western cultures have independently developed similar ethical principles. Although for many individuals, personal ethics are rooted in religious beliefs, this is not true for everyone. Certainly, there are many ethical people who are not religious, and there are numerous examples of people who appear to be religious but who are not ethical. So while the ethical principles that we will discuss come to us filtered through a religious tradition, these principles are now cultural norms in the West, and as such, they are widely accepted regardless of their origin. We won’t need to refer explicitly to religion in order to discuss ethics in the engineering profession. 1.6 ETHICS AND THE LAW We should also mention the role of law in engineering ethics. The practice of engineering is governed by many laws on the international, federal, state, and local levels. Many of these laws are based on ethical principles, although many are purely of a practical, rather than a philosophical, nature. There is also a distinction between what is legal and what is ethical. Many things that are legal could be considered unethical. For example, designing a process that releases a known toxic, but unregulated, substance into the environment is probably unethical, although it is legal. Chapter 1 Introduction 5 Conversely, just because something is illegal doesn’t mean that it is unethical. For example, there might be substances that were once thought to be harmful, but have now been shown to be safe, that you wish to incorporate into a product. If the law has not caught up with the latest scientific findings, it might be illegal to release these substances into the environment, even though there is no ethical problem in doing so. As an engineer, you are always minimally safe if you follow the requirements of the applicable laws. But in engineering ethics, we seek to go beyond the dictates of the law. Our interest is in areas where ethical principles conflict and there is no legal guidance for how to resolve the conflict. 1.7 ETHICS PROBLEMS ARE LIKE DESIGN PROBLEMS At first, many engineering students find the types of problems and discussions that take place in an engineering ethics class a little alien. The problems are more open ended and are not as susceptible to formulaic answers as are problems typically assigned in other engineering classes. Ethics problems rarely have a correct answer that will be arrived at by everyone in the class. Surprisingly, however, the types of problem-solving techniques that we will use in this book and the nature of the answers that result bear a striking resemblance to the most fundamental engineering activity: engineering design. The essence of engineering practice is the design of products, structures, and processes. The design problem is stated in terms of specifications: A device must be designed that meets criteria for performance, aesthetics, and price. Within the limits of these specifications, there are many correct solutions. There will, of course, be some solutions that are better than others in terms of higher performance or lower cost. Frequently, there will be two (or more) designs that are very different, yet perform identically. For example, competing automobile manufacturers may design a car to meet the same market niche, yet each manufacturer’s solution to the problem will be somewhat different. In fact, we will see later that although the Pinto was susceptible to explosion after rear-end impact, other similar subcompact automobiles were not. In engineering design, there is no unique correct answer! Ethical problem solving shares these attributes with engineering design. Although there will be no unique correct solution to most of the problems we will examine, there will be a range of solutions that are clearly right, some of which are better than others. There will also be a range of solutions that are clearly wrong. There are other similarities between engineering ethics and engineering design. Both apply a large body of knowledge to the solution of a problem, and both involve the use of analytical skills. So, although the nature of the solutions to the problems in ethics will be different from those in most engineering classes, approaches to the problems and the ultimate solution will be very similar to those in engineering practice. 1.8 CASE STUDIES Before starting to learn the theoretical ideas regarding engineering ethics and before looking at some interesting real-life cases that will illustrate these ideas, let’s begin by looking at a very well-known engineering ethics case: the space 6 1.8 Case Studies shuttle Challenger accident. This case is presented in depth at the end of this chapter, but at this point we will look at a brief synopsis of the case to further illustrate the types of ethical issues and questions that arise in the course of engineering practice. Many readers are already familiar with some aspects of this case. The space shuttle Challenger was launched in extremely cold weather. During the launch, an O-ring on one of the solid-propellant boosters, made more brittle by the cold, failed. This failure led to an explosion soon after liftoff. Engineers who had designed this booster had concerns about launching under these cold conditions and recommended that the launch be delayed, but they were overruled by their management (some of whom were trained as engineers), who didn’t feel that there were enough data to support a delay in the launch. The shuttle was launched, resulting in the well-documented accident. On the surface, there appear to be no engineering ethical issues here to discuss. Rather, it seems to simply be an accident. The engineers properly recommended that there be no launch, but they were overruled by management. In the strictest sense, this can be considered an accident—no one wanted the Challenger to explode—but there are still many interesting questions that should be asked. 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 doesn’t go the engineer’s way, should she complain to upper management? Or should she bring the problem to the attention of the press? After the accident has occurred, what are the duties and responsibilities of the engineers? If the launch were successful, but the postmortem showed that the O-ring had failed and an accident had very nearly occurred, what would be the engineer’s responsibility? Even if an engineer moves into management, should he separate engineering from management decisions? These types of questions will be the subject of this book. As an engineer, you will need to be familiar with ideas about the nature of the engineering profession, ethical theories, and the application of these theories to situations that are likely to occur in professional practice. Looking at other real-life cases taken from newspaper accounts and books will help you examine what engineers should do when confronted with ethically troubling situations. Many cases will be postmortem examinations of disasters, while others may involve an analysis of situations in which disaster was averted when many of the individuals involved made ethically sound choices and cooperated to solve a problem. A word of warning is necessary: The cliché “Hind-sight is 20/20” will seem very true in engineering ethics case studies. When studying a case several years after the fact and knowing the ultimate outcome, it is easy to see what the right decision should have been. Obviously, had the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) owned a crystal ball and been able to predict the future, the Challenger would never have been launched. Had Ford known the number of people who would be killed as a result of gas-tank failures in the Pinto and the subsequent financial losses in lawsuits and criminal cases, it would have found a better solution to the problem of gas-tank placement. However, we rarely have such clear predictive abilities and must base decisions on our best guess of what the outcome will be. It will be important in studying the cases presented here to try to look at them from the point of view of the individuals who were involved at the time, using their best judgment about how to proceed, and not to judge the cases solely based on the outcome. Chapter 1 Introduction 7 APPLICATION THE SPACE SHUTTLE CHALLENGER AND COLUMBIA ACCIDENTS The NASA Space Shuttle Disasters The space shuttle is one of the most complex engineered systems ever built. The challenge of lifting a space vehicle from earth into orbit and have it safely return to earth presents many engineering problems. Not surprisingly, there have been several accidents in the U.S. space program since its inception, including two failures of the space shuttle. The disasters involving the space shuttles Challenger and Columbia illustrate many of the issues related to engineering ethics as shown in the following discussion. The space shuttle originally went into service in the early 1980s and is set to be retired sometime in 2011 or 2012. The Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster The explosion of the space shuttle Challenger is perhaps the most widely written about case in engineering ethics because of the extensive media coverage at the time of the accident and also because of the many available government reports and transcripts of congressional hearings regarding the explosion. The case illustrates many important ethical issues that engineers face: What is the proper role of the engineer when safety issues are a concern? Who should have the ultimate decisionmaking authority to order a launch? Should the ordering of a launch be an engineering or a managerial decision? This case has already been presented briefly, and we will now take a more in-depth look. Background The space shuttle was designed to be a reusable launch vehicle. The vehicle consists of an orbiter, which looks much like a medium-sized airliner (minus the engines!), two solid-propellant boosters, and a single liquid-propellant booster. At takeoff, all of the boosters are ignited and lift the orbiter out of the earth’s atmosphere. The solid rocket boosters are only used early in the flight and are jettisoned soon after takeoff, parachute back to earth, and are recovered from the ocean. They are subsequently repacked with fuel and are reused. The liquid-propellant booster is used to finish lifting the shuttle into orbit, at which point the booster is jettisoned and burns up during reentry. The liquid booster is the only part of the shuttle vehicle that is not reusable. After completion of the mission, the orbiter uses its limited thrust capabilities to reenter the atmosphere and glides to a landing. The accident on January 28, 1986, was blamed on a failure of one of the solid rocket boosters. Solid rocket boosters have the advantage that they deliver far more thrust per pound of fuel than do their liquid-fueled counterparts, but have the disadvantage that once the fuel is lit, there is no way to turn the booster off or even to control the amount of thrust produced. In contrast, a liquid-fuel rocket can be controlled by throttling the supply of fuel to the combustion chamber or can be shut off by stopping the flow of fuel entirely. In 1974, NASA awarded the contract to design and build the solid rocket boosters for the shuttle to Morton Thiokol. The design that was submitted by Thiokol was a scaled-up version of the Titan missile, which had been used successfully for many years to launch satellites. This design was accepted by NASA in 1976. The solid rocket consists of several cylindrical pieces that are filled with solid propellant and stacked one on top of the other to form the completed booster. The assembly of the propellant-filled cylinders was performed at Thiokol’s plant in Utah. The 8 1.8 Case Studies cylinders were then shipped to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida for assembly into a completed booster. A key aspect of the booster design are the joints where the individual cylinders come together, known as the field joints, illustrated schematically in Figure 1.1a. These are tang and clevis joints, fastened with 177 clevis pins. The joints are sealed by two O-rings, a primary and a secondary. The O-rings are designed to prevent hot gases from the combustion of the solid propellant from escaping. The O-rings are made from a type of synthetic rubber and so are not particularly heat resistant. To prevent the hot gases from damaging the O-rings, a heat-resistant putty is placed in the joint. The Titan booster had only one O-ring in the field joint. The second O-ring was added to the booster for the shuttle to provide an extra margin of safety since, unlike the Titan, this booster would be used for a manned space craft. Early Problems with the Solid Rocket Boosters Problems with the field-joint design had been recognized long before the launch of the Challenger. When the rocket is ignited, the internal pressure causes the booster wall to expand outward, putting pressure on the field joint. This pressure causes the joint to open slightly, a process called “joint rotation,” illustrated in Figure 1.1b. The joint was designed so that the internal pressure pushes on the putty, displacing the primary O-ring into this gap, helping to seal it. During testing of the boosters in 1977, Thiokol became aware that this joint-rotation problem was more severe than on the Titan and discussed it with NASA. Design changes were made, including an increase in the thickness of the O-ring, to try to control this problem. Further testing revealed problems with the secondary seal, and more changes were initiated to correct that problem. In November of 1981, after the second shuttle flight, a postlaunch examination of the booster field joints indicated that the Putty O-rings Clevis Pin Putty Tang O-rings Clevis Inside of booster Pin Figure 1.1 (a) A schematic drawing of a tang and clevis joint like the one on the Challenger solid rocket boosters. (b) The same joint as in Figure 1.1a, but with the effects of joint rotation exaggerated. Note that the O-rings no longer seal the joint. Chapter 1 Introduction 9 O-rings were being eroded by hot gases during the launch. Although there was no failure of the joint, there was some concern about this situation, and Thiokol looked into the use of different types of putty and alternative methods for applying it to solve the problem. Despite these efforts, approximately half of the shuttle flights before the Challenger accident had experienced some degree of O-ring erosion. Of course, this type of testing and redesign is not unusual in engineering. Seldom do things work correctly the first time, and modifications to the original design are often required. It should be pointed out that erosion of the O-rings is not necessarily a bad thing. Since the solid rocket boosters are only used for the first few minutes of the flight, it might be perfectly acceptable to design a joint in which O-rings erode in a controlled manner. As long as the O-rings don’t completely burn through before the solid boosters run out of fuel and are jettisoned, this design should be fine. However, this was not the way the space shuttle was designed, and O-ring erosion was one of the problems that the Thiokol engineers were addressing. The first documented joint failure came after the launch on January 24, 1985, which occurred during very cold weather. The postflight examination of the boosters revealed black soot and grease on the outside of the booster, which indicated that hot gases from the booster had blown by the O-ring seals. This observation gave rise to concern about the resiliency of the O-ring materials at reduced temperatures. Thiokol performed tests of the ability of the O-rings to compress to fill the joints and found that they were inadequate. In July of 1985, Thiokol engineers redesigned the field joints without O-rings. Instead, they used steel billets, which should have been better able to withstand the hot gases. Unfortunately, the new design was not ready in time for the Challenger flight in early 1986 [Elliot et al., 1990]. The Political Climate To fully understand and analyze the decision making that took place leading to the fatal launch, it is important also to discuss the political environment under which NASA was operating at that time. NASA’s budget was determined by Congress, which was becoming increasingly unhappy with delays in the shuttle project and shuttle performance. NASA had billed the shuttle as a reliable, inexpensive launch vehicle for a variety of scientific and commercial purposes, including the launching of commercial and military satellites. It had been promised that the shuttle would be capable of frequent flights (several per year) and quick turnarounds and would be competitively priced with more traditional nonreusable launch vehicles. NASA was feeling some urgency in the program because the European Space Agency was developing what seemed to be a cheaper alternative to the shuttle, which could potentially put the shuttle out of business. These pressures led NASA to schedule a record number of missions for 1986 to prove to Congress that the program was on track. Launching a mission was especially important in January 1986, since the previous mission had been delayed numerous times by both weather and mechanical failures. NASA also felt pressure to get the Challenger launched on time so that the next shuttle launch, which was to carry a probe to examine Halley’s comet, would be launched before a Russian probe designed to do the same thing. There was additional political pressure to launch the Challenger before the upcoming state-of-the-union address, in which President Reagan hoped to mention the shuttle and a special astronaut—the first teacher in space, Christa McAuliffe—in the context of his comments on education. 10 1.8 Case Studies The Days Before the Launch Even before the accident, the Challenger launch didn’t go off without a hitch, as NASA had hoped. The first launch date had to be abandoned due to a cold front expected to move through the area. The front stalled, and the launch could have taken place on schedule. But the launch had already been postponed in deference to Vice President George Bush, who was to attend. NASA didn’t want to antagonize Bush, a strong NASA supporter, by postponing the launch due to inclement weather after he had arrived. The launch of the shuttle was further delayed by a defective microswitch in the hatch-locking mechanism. When this problem was resolved, the front had changed course and was now moving through the area. The front was expected to bring extremely cold weather to the launch site, with temperatures predicted to be in the low 20’s (°F) by the new launch time. Given the expected cold temperatures, NASA checked with all of the shuttle contractors to determine if they foresaw any problems with launching the shuttle in cold temperatures. Alan McDonald, the director of Thiokol’s Solid Rocket Motor Project, was concerned about the cold weather problems that had been experienced with the solid rocket boosters. The evening before the rescheduled launch, a teleconference was arranged between engineers and management from the Kennedy Space Center, NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, and Thiokol in Utah to discuss the possible effects of cold temperatures on the performance of the solid rocket boosters. During this teleconference, Roger Boisjoly and Arnie Thompson, two Thiokol engineers who had worked on the solidpropellant booster design, gave an hour-long presentation on how the cold weather would increase the problems of joint rotation and sealing of the joint by the O-rings. The engineers’ point was that the lowest temperature at which the shuttle had previously been launched was 53°F, on January 24, 1985, when there was blow-by of the O-rings. The O-ring temperature at Challenger’s expected launch time the following morning was predicted to be 29°F, far below the temperature at which NASA had previous experience. After the engineers’ presentation, Bob Lund, the vice president for engineering at Morton Thiokol, presented his recommendations. He reasoned that since there had previously been severe O-ring erosion at 53°F and the launch would take place at significantly below this temperature where no data and no experience were available, NASA should delay the launch until the O-ring temperature could be at least 53°F. Interestingly, in the original design, it was specified that the booster should operate properly down to an outside temperature of 31°F. Larry Mulloy, the Solid Rocket Booster Project manager at Marshall and a NASA employee, correctly pointed out that the data were inconclusive and disagreed with the Thiokol engineers. After some discussion, Mulloy asked Joe Kilminster, an engineering manager working on the project, for his opinion. Kilminster backed up the recommendation of his fellow engineers. Others from Marshall expressed their disagreement with the Thiokol engineers’ recommendation, which prompted Kilminster to ask to take the discussion off line for a few minutes. Boisjoly and other engineers reiterated to their management that the original decision not to launch was the correct one. A key fact that ultimately swayed the decision was that in the available data, there seemed to be no correlation between temperature and the degree to which blow-by gasses had eroded the O-rings in previous launches. Thus, it could be concluded that there was really no trend in the data indicating that a launch at the expected temperature would necessarily be unsafe. After much discussion, Jerald Mason, a senior manager with Thiokol, turned to Lund and said, “Take off your engineering hat and put on your management hat,” a phrase that has become Chapter 1 Introduction 11 Table 1.1 Space Shuttle Challenger Accident: Who’s Who Organizations NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration, responsible for space exploration. The space shuttle is one of NASA’s programs Marshall Space Flight Center A NASA facility that was in charge of the solid rocket booster development for the shuttle Morton Thiokol A private company that won the contract from NASA for building the solid rocket boosters for the shuttle People NASA Larry Mulloy Solid Rocket Booster Project manager at Marshall Morton Thiokol Roger Boisjoly Arnie Johnson Engineers who worked on the Solid Rocket Booster Development Program Joe Kilminster Engineering manager on the Solid Rocket Booster Development Program Alan McDonald Director of the Solid Rocket Booster Project Bob Lund Vice president for engineering Jerald Mason General manager famous in engineering ethics discussions. Lund reversed his previous decision and recommended that the launch proceed. The new recommendation included an indication that there was a safety concern due to the cold weather, but that the data were inconclusive and the launch was recommended. McDonald, who was in Florida, was surprised by this recommendation and attempted to convince NASA to delay the launch, but to no avail. The Launch Contrary to the weather predictions, the overnight temperature was 8°F, colder than the shuttle had ever experienced before. In fact, there was a significant accumulation of ice on the launchpad from safety showers and fire hoses that had been left on to prevent the pipes from freezing. It has been estimated that the aft field joint of the right-hand booster was at 28°F. NASA routinely documents as many aspects of launches as possible. One part of this monitoring is the extensive use of cameras focused on critical areas of the launch vehicle. One of these cameras, looking at the right booster, recorded puffs of smoke coming from the aft field joint immediately after the boosters were ignited. This smoke is thought to have been caused by the steel cylinder of this segment of the booster expanding outward and causing the field joint to rotate. But, due to the extremely cold temperature, the O-ring didn’t seat properly. The heat-resistant putty was also so cold that it didn’t protect the O-rings, and hot gases burned past both O-rings. It was later determined that this blow-by occurred over 70º of arc around the O-rings. Very quickly, the field joint was sealed again by byproducts of the solid rocketpropellant combustion, which formed a glassy oxide on the joint. This oxide 12 1.8 Case Studies formation might have averted the disaster had it not been for a very strong wind shear that the shuttle encountered almost one minute into the flight. The oxides that were temporarily sealing the field joint were shattered by the stresses caused by the wind shear. The joint was now opened again, and hot gases escaped from the solid booster. Since the booster was attached to the large liquid-fuel booster, the flames from the solid-fuel booster blow-by quickly burned through the external tank. The liquid propellant was ignited and the shuttle exploded. The Aftermath As a result of the explosion, the shuttle program was grounded as a thorough review of shuttle safety was conducted. Thiokol formed a failure-investigation team on January 31, 1986, which included Roger Boisjoly. There were also many investigations into the cause of the accident, both by the contractors involved (including Thiokol) and by various government bodies. As part of the governmental investigation, President Reagan appointed a blue-ribbon commission, known as the Rogers Commission, after its chair. The commission consisted of distinguished scientists and engineers who were asked to look into the cause of the accident and to recommend changes in the shuttle program. One of the commission members was Richard Feynman, a Nobel Prize winner in physics, who ably demonstrated to the country what had gone wrong. In a demonstration that was repeatedly shown on national news programs, he demonstrated the problem with the O-rings by taking a sample of the O-ring material and bending it. The flexibility of the material at room temperature was evident. He then immersed it in ice water. When Feynman again bent the O-ring, it was obvious that the resiliency of the material was severely reduced, a very clear demonstration of what happened to the O-rings on the cold launch date in Florida. As part of the commission hearings, Boisjoly and other Thiokol engineers were asked to testify. Boisjoly handed over to the commission copies of internal Thiokol memos and reports detailing the design process and the problems that had already been encountered. Naturally, Thiokol was trying to put the best possible spin on the situation, and Boisjoly’s actions hurt this effort. According to Boisjoly, after this action he was isolated within the company, his responsibilities for the redesign of the joint were taken away, and he was subtly harassed by Thiokol management [Boisjoly, 1991, and Boisjoly, Curtis, and Mellicam, 1989]. Eventually, the atmosphere became intolerable for Boisjoly, and he took extended sick leave from his position at Thiokol. The joint was redesigned, and the shuttle has since flown numerous successful missions. However, the ambitious launch schedule originally intended by NASA was never met. It was reported in 2001 that NASA has spent $5 million to study the possibility of installing some type of escape system to protect the shuttle crew in the event of an accident. Possibilities include ejection seats or an escape capsule that would work during the first three minutes of flight. These features were incorporated into earlier manned space vehicles and in fact were in place on the shuttle until 1982. Whether such a system would have saved the astronauts aboard the Challenger is unknown, and ultimately an escape system was never incorporated into the space shuttle. The Space Shuttle Columbia Failure During the early morning hours of February 1, 2003, many people across the Southwestern United States awoke to a loud noise, sounding like the boom associated with supersonic aircraft. This was the space shuttle Columbia breaking up during Chapter 1 Introduction 13 Explosion of the space shuttle Challenger soon after liftoff in January 1986. NASA/ Johnson Space Center reentry to the earth’s atmosphere. This accident was the second loss of a space shuttle in 113 flights—all seven astronauts aboard the Columbia were killed—and pieces of the shuttle were scattered over a wide area of eastern Texas and western Louisiana. Over 84,000 individual pieces were eventually recovered, comprising only about 38% of the shuttle. This was the 28th mission flown by the Columbia, a 16-day mission involving many tasks. The first indication of trouble during reentry came when temperature sensors near the left wheel well indicated a rise in temperature. Soon, hydraulic lines on the left side of the craft began to fail, making it difficult to keep control of the vehicle. Finally, it was impossible for the pilots to maintain the proper positioning of the shuttle during reentry—the Columbia went out of control and broke up. The bottom of the space shuttle is covered with ceramic tiles designed to dissipate the intense heat generated during reentry from space. The destruction of the Columbia was attributed to damage to tiles on the leading edge of the left wing. During liftoff, a piece of insulating foam on the external fuel tank dislodged and 14 1.8 Case Studies struck the shuttle. It was estimated that this foam struck the shuttle wing at over 500 miles per hour, causing significant damage to the tiles on the wing over an area of approximately 650 cm2. With the integrity of these tiles compromised, the wing structure was susceptible to extreme heating during reentry and ultimately failed. Shuttle launches are closely observed by numerous video cameras. During this launch, the foam separation and strike had been observed. Much thought was given during Columbia’s mission to attempting to determine whether significant damage had occurred. For example, there was some discussion of trying to use groundbased telescopes to look at the bottom of the shuttle while in orbit. Unfortunately, even if it had been possible to observe the damage, there would have been no way to repair the damage in space. The only alternatives would have been to attempt to launch another shuttle on a dangerous rescue mission, or attempt to get the astronauts to the space station in the hopes of launching a later rescue mission to bring them back to earth. In the end, NASA decided that the damage from the foam strike had probably not been significant and decided to continue with the mission and reentry as planned. This was not the first time that foam had detached from the fuel tank during launch, and it was not the first time that foam had struck the shuttle. Apparently numerous small pieces of foam hit the shuttle during every launch, and on at least seven occasions previous to the Columbia launch, large pieces of foam had detached and hit the shuttle. Solutions to the problem had been proposed over the years, but none had been implemented. Although NASA engineers initially identified foam strikes as a major safety concern for the shuttle, after many launches with no safety problems due to the foam, NASA management became complacent and overlooked the potential for foam to cause major problems. In essence, the prevailing attitude suggested that if there had been numerous launches with foam strikes before, with none leading to major accidents, then it must be safe to continue launches without fixing the problem. In the aftermath of this mishap, an investigative panel was formed to determine the cause of the accident and to make recommendations for the future of the shuttle program. The report of this panel contained information on their findings regarding the physical causes of the accident: the detachment of the foam, the damage to the tiles, and the subsequent failure of critical components of the shuttle. More significantly, the report also went into great depth on the cultural issues within NASA that led to the accident. The report cited a “broken safety culture” within NASA. Perhaps most damning was the assessment that many of the problems that existed within NASA that led to the Challenger accident sixteen years earlier had not been fixed. Especially worrisome was the finding that schedule pressures had been allowed to supercede good engineering judgment. An accident such as the Challenger explosion should have led to a major change in the safety and ethics culture within NASA. But sadly for the crew of the Columbia, it had not. After the Columbia accident, the space shuttle was once again grounded until safety concerns related to foam strikes could be addressed. By 2005, NASA was confident that steps had been taken to make the launch of the shuttle safe and once again restarted the launch program. In July of 2005, Discovery was launched. During this launch, another foam strike occurred. This time, NASA was prepared and had planned for means to photographically assess the potential damage to the heat shield, and also planned to allow astronauts to make a space walk to assess the damage to the tiles and to make repairs as necessary. The damage from this strike was Chapter 1 Introduction 15 repaired in space and the shuttle returned to earth safely. Despite the success of the in-orbit repairs, NASA again grounded the shuttle fleet until a redesign of the foam could be implemented. The redesign called for removal of foam from areas where foam detachment could have the greatest impact on tiles. The shuttle resumed flight with a successful launch in September of 2006 and no further major accidents through early 2011. SUMMARY Engineering ethics is the study of moral decisions that must be made by engineers in the course of engineering practice. It is important for engineering students to study ethics so that they will be prepared to respond appropriately to ethical challenges during their careers. Often, the correct answer to an ethical problem will not be obvious and will require some analysis using ethical theories. The types of problems that we will encounter in studying engineering ethics are very similar to the design problems that engineers work on every day. As in design, there will not be a single correct answer. Rather, engineering ethics problems will have multiple correct solutions, with some solutions being better than others. REFERENCES Roger Boisjoly, “The Challenger Disaster: Moral Responsibility and the Working Engineer,” in Deborah G. Johnson, Ethical Issues in Engineering, Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ, 1991, pp. 6–14. Norbert Elliot, Eric Katz, and Robert Lynch, “The Challenger Tragedy: A Case Study in Organizational Communication and Professional Ethics,” Business and Professional Ethics Journal, vol. 12, 1990, pp. 91–108. Joseph R. Herkert, “Management’s Hat Trick: Misuse of ‘Engineering Judgment’ in the Challenger Incident,” Journal of Business Ethics, vol. 10, 1991, pp. 617–620. Patricia H. Werhane, “Engineers and Management: The Challenge of the Challenger Incident,” Journal of Business Ethics, vol. 10, 1991, pp. 605–616. Russell Boisjoly, Ellen Foster Curtis, and Eugene Mellican, “Roger Boisjoly and the Challenger Disaster: The Ethical Dimensions,” Journal of Business Ethics, vol. 8, 1989, pp. 217–230. David E. Sanger, “Loss of the Shuttle: The Overview; Shuttle Breaks Up, Seven Dead,” February 2, 2003, Section 1, p. 1. Numerous other articles can be found in The New York Times on February 2, 2003 and subsequent days or in any local U.S. newspaper. Columbia Accident Investigation Board, Information on the investigation including links to the final report can be found at the board’s website, caib. nasa.gov, or on the NASA website, www.nasa.gov. 16 Problems PROBLEMS 1.1 How different are personal ethics and professional ethics? Have you found this difference to be significant in your experience? 1.2 What are the roots of your personal ethics? Discuss this question with a friend and compare your answers. 1.3 Engineering design generally involves five steps: developing a statement of the problem and/or a set of specifications, gathering information pertinent to the problem, designing several alternatives that meet the specifications, analyzing the alternatives and selecting the best one, and testing and implementing the best design. How is ethical problem solving like this? SPACE SHUTTLE CHALLENGER 1.4 The astronauts on the Challenger mission were aware of the dangerous nature of riding a complex machine such as the space shuttle into space, so they can be thought of as having given informed consent to participating in a dangerous enterprise. What role did informed consent play in this case? Do you think that the astronauts had enough information to give informed consent to launch the shuttle that day? 1.5 Can an engineer who has become a manager truly ever take off her engineer’s hat? Should she? 1.6 Some say that the shuttle was really designed by Congress rather than NASA. What does this statement mean? What are the ramifications for engineers if this is true? 1.7 Aboard the shuttle for this flight was the first teacher in space. Should civilians be allowed on what is basically an experimental launch vehicle? At the time, many felt that the placement of a teacher on the shuttle was for purely political purposes. President Reagan was thought by many to be doing nothing while the American educational system decayed. Cynics felt that the teacher-in-space idea was cooked up as a method of diverting attention from this problem and was to be seen as Reagan doing something for education while he really wasn’t doing anything. What are the ethical implications if this scenario is true? 1.8 Should a launch have been allowed when there were no test data for the expected conditions? Keep in mind that it is probably impossible to test for all possible operating conditions. More generally, should a product be released for use even when it hasn’t been tested over all expected operational conditions? When the data are inconclusive, which way should the decision go? 1.9 During the aftermath of the accident, Thiokol and NASA investigated possible causes of the explosion. Boisjoly accused Thiokol and NASA of intentionally downplaying the problems with the O-rings while looking for other causes of the accident. If true, what are the ethical implications of this type of investigation? 1.10 It might be assumed that the management decision to launch was prompted in part by concerns for the health of the company and the space program as a whole. Given the political climate at the time of the launch, if problems and delays continued, ultimately Thiokol might have lost NASA contracts, or NASA budgets might have been severely reduced. Clearly, this scenario could have led to the loss of many jobs at Thiokol and NASA. How might these considerations ethically be factored into the decision? Chapter 1 Introduction 17 1.11 Engineering codes of ethics require engineers to protect the safety and health of the public in the course of their duties. Do the astronauts count as “the public” in this context? How about test pilots of new airplane designs? 1.12 What should NASA management have done differently? What should Thiokol management have done differently? 1.13 What else could Boisjoly and the other engineers at Thiokol have done to prevent the launch from occurring? SPACE SHUTTLE COLUMBIA 1.14 The Columbia tragedy was attributed to a foam strike on the shuttle wing. This sort of strike had occurred often in previous flights. What role do you think complacency of NASA engineers and managers played in this story? 1.15 Some people believe that the shuttle should have been better engineered for crew safety, including provisions for repair of the shuttle during the mission, escape of the crew when problems occur during launch, or having a backup shuttle ready to launch for rescue missions. What are some reasons why NASA would not have planned this when the shuttle was designed? 1.16 The space shuttle is an extremely complex engineered system. The more complex a system, the harder it is to make safe especially in a harsh environment such as outer space. Do you think that two accidents in 113 flights is an acceptable level of risk for an experimental system such as the shuttle? CHAPTER 2 Professionalism and Codes of Ethics Objectives After reading this chapter, you will be able to • Determine whether engineering is a profession L • Understand what codes of ethics are, and • Examine some codes of ethics of professional engineering societies. ate in 1994, reports began to appear in the news media that the latest generation of Pentium® microprocessors, the heart and soul of personal computers, was flawed. These reports appeared not only in trade journals and magazines aimed at computer specialists, but also in The New York Times and other daily newspapers. The stories reported that computers equipped with these chips were unable to correctly perform some relatively simple multiplication and division operations. At first, Intel, the manufacturer of the Pentium microprocessor, denied that there was a problem. Later, it argued that although there was a problem, the error would be significant only in sophisticated applications, and most people wouldn’t even notice that an error had occurred. It was also reported that Intel had been aware of the problem and already was working to fix it. As a result of this publicity, many people who had purchased Pentium-based computers asked to have the defective chip replaced. Until the public outcry had reached huge proportions, Intel refused to replace the chips. Finally, when it was clear that this situation was a publicrelations disaster for them, Intel agreed to replace the defective chips when customers requested it. Did Intel do anything unethical? To answer this question, we will need to develop a framework for understanding ethical problems. One part of this framework will be the codes of ethics that have been established by professional engineering organizations. These codes help guide engineers in the course of their Chapter 2 Professionalism and Codes of Ethics 19 professional duties and give them insight into ethical problems such as the one just described. The engineering codes of ethics hold that engineers should not make false claims or represent a product to be something that it is not. In some ways, the Pentium case might seem to simply be a public-relations problem. But, looking at the problem with a code of ethics will indicate that there is more to this situation than simple PR, especially since the chip did not operate in the way that Intel claimed it did. In this chapter, the nature of professions will be examined with the goal of determining whether engineering is a profession. Two representative engineering codes of ethics will be looked at in detail. At the end of this chapter, the Pentium case is presented in more detail along with two other cases, and codes of ethics are applied to analyze what the engineers in these cases should have done. 2.1 INTRODUCTION When confronted by an ethical problem, what resources are available to an engineer to help find a solution? One of the hallmarks of modern professions are codes of ethics promulgated by various professional societies. These codes serve to guide practitioners of the profession in making decisions about how to conduct themselves and how to resolve ethical issues that might confront them. Are codes of ethics applicable to engineering? To answer this question, we must first consider what professions are and how they function, and decide if this definition applies to engineering. Then we will examine codes of ethics in general and look specifically at some of the codes of engineering professional societies. 2.2 IS ENGINEERING A PROFESSION? In order to determine whether engineering is a profession, the nature of professions must first be examined. As a starting point, it will be valuable to distinguish the word “profession” from other words that are sometimes used synonymously with “profession”: “job” and “occupation.” Any work for hire can be considered a job, regardless of the skill level involved and the responsibility granted. Engineering is certainly a job—engineers are paid for their services—but the skills and responsibilities involved in engineering make it more than just a job. Similarly, the word “occupation” implies employment through which someone makes a living. Engineering, then, is also an occupation. How do the words “job” and “occupation” differ from “profession?” The words “profession” and “professional” have many uses in modern society that go beyond the definition of a job or occupation. One often hears about “professional athletes” or someone referring to himself as a “professional carpenter,” for example. In the first case, the word “professional” is being used to distinguish the practitioner from an unpaid amateur. In the second case, it is used to indicate some degree of skill acquired through many years of experience, with an implication that this practitioner will provide quality services. Neither of these senses of the word “professional” is applicable to engineers. There are no amateur engineers who perform engineering work without being paid while they train to become professional, paid engineers. Likewise, the length of time one works at an engineering-related job, such as an engineering aide or engineering technician, does not confer professional status no matter how skilled a technician one might become. To see what is meant by the term “professional engineer,” we will first examine the nature of professions. 20 2.2 Is Engineering a Profession? 2.2.1 What Is a Profession? What are the attributes of a profession? There have been many studies of this question, and some consensus as to the nature of professions has been achieved. Attributes of a profession include: 1. Work that requires sophisticated skills, the use of judgment, and the exercise of discretion. Also, the work is not routine and is not capable of being mechanized. 2. Membership in the profession requires extensive formal education, not simply practical training or apprenticeship. 3. The public allows special societies 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 [Schinzinger and Martin, 2000]. The terms “judgment” and “discretion” used in the first part of this definition require a little amplification. Many occupations require judgment every day. A secretary must decide what work to tackle first. An auto mechanic must decide if a part is sufficiently worn to require complete replacement, or if rebuilding will do. This is not the type of judgment implied in this definition. In a profession, “judgment” refers to making significant decisions based on formal training and experience. In general, the decisions will have serious impacts on people’s lives and will often have important implications regarding the spending of large amounts of money. “Discretion” can have two different meanings. The first definition involves being discrete in the performance of one’s duties by keeping information about customers, clients, and patients confidential. This confidentiality is essential for engendering a trusting relationship and is a hallmark of professions. While many jobs might involve some discretion, this definition implies a high level of significance to the information that must be kept private by a professional. The other definition of discretion involves the ability to make decisions autonomously. When making a decision, one is often told, “Use your discretion.” This definition is similar in many ways to that of the term “judgment” described previously. Many people are allowed to use their discretion in making choices while performing their jobs. However, the significance and potential impact of the decision marks the difference between a job and a profession. One thing not mentioned in the definition of a profession is the compensation received by a professional for his services. Although most professionals tend to be relatively well compensated, high pay is not a sufficient condition for professional status. Entertainers and athletes are among the most highly paid members of our society, and yet few would describe them as professionals in the sense described previously. Although professional status often helps one to get better pay and better working conditions, these are more often determined by economic forces. Earlier, reference was made to “professional” athletes and carpenters. Let’s examine these occupations in light of the foregoing definition of professions and see if athletics and carpentry qualify as professions. An athlete who is paid for her appearances is referred to as a professional athlete. Clearly, being a paid athlete does involve sophisticated skills that most people do not possess, and these skills are Chapter 2 Professionalism and Codes of Ethics 21 not capable of mechanization. However, substantial judgment and discretion are not called for on the part of athletes in their “professional” lives, so athletics fails the first part of the definition of “professional.” Interestingly, though, professional athletes are frequently viewed as role models and are often disciplined for a lack of discretion in their personal lives. Athletics requires extensive training, not of a formal nature, but more of a practical nature acquired through practice and coaching. No special societies (as opposed to unions, which will be discussed in more detail later) are required by athletes, and athletics does not meet an important public need; although entertainment is a public need, it certainly doesn’t rank high compared to the needs met by professions such as medicine. So, although they are highly trained and very well compensated, athletes are not professionals. Similarly, carpenters require special skills to perform their jobs, but many aspects of their work can be mechanized, and little judgment or discretion is required. Training in carpentry is not formal, but rather is practical by way of apprenticeships. No organizations or societies are required. However, carpentry certainly does meet an aspect of the public good—providing shelter is fundamental to society—although perhaps not to the same extent as do professions such as medicine. So, carpentry also doesn’t meet the basic requirements to be a profession. We can see, then, that many jobs or occupations whose practitioners might be referred to as professionals don’t really meet the basic definition of a profession. Although they may be highly paid or important jobs, they are not professions. Before continuing with an examination of whether engineering is a profession, let’s look at two occupations that are definitely regarded by society as professions: medicine and law. Medicine certainly fits the definition of a profession given previously. It requires very sophisticated skills that can’t be mechanized, it requires judgment as to appropriate treatment plans for individual patients, and it requires discretion. (Physicians have even been granted physician–patient privilege, the duty not to divulge information given in confidence by the patient to the physician.) Although medicine requires extensive practical training learned through an apprenticeship called a residency, it also requires much formal training (four years of undergraduate school, three to four years of medical school, and extensive handson practice in patient care). Medicine has a special society, the American Medical Association (AMA), to which a large fraction of practicing physicians belong and that participates in the regulation of medical schools, sets standards for practice of the profession, and promulgates a code of ethical behavior for its members. Finally, healing the sick and helping to prevent disease clearly involve the public good. By the definition presented previously, medicine clearly qualifies as a profession. Similarly, law is a profession. It involves sophisticated skills acquired through extensive formal training; has a professional society, the American Bar Association (ABA); and serves an important aspect of the public good. (Although this last point is increasingly becoming a point of debate within American society!) The difference between athletics and carpentry on one hand and law and medicine on the other is clear. The first two really cannot be considered professions, and the latter two most certainly are. 2.2.2 Engineering as a Profession Using medicine and law as our examples of professions, it is now time to consider whether engineering is a profession. Certainly, engineering requires extensive and sophisticated skills. Otherwise, why spend four years in college just to get a 22 2.2 Is Engineering a Profession? start in engineering? The essence of engineering design is judgment: how to use the available materials, components, and devices to reach a specified objective. Discretion is required in engineering: Engineers are required to keep their employers’ or clients’ intellectual property and business information confidential. Also, a primary concern of any engineer is the safety of the public that will use the products and devices he designs. There is always a trade-off between safety and other engineering issues in a design, requiring discretion on the part of the engineer to ensure that the design serves its purpose and fills its market niche safely. The point about mechanization needs to be addressed a little more carefully with respect to engineering. Certainly, once a design has been performed, 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. Industry commonly uses many computer-based tools for generating designs, such as computer-aided design (CAD) software. This shouldn’t be mistaken for mechanization of engineering. CAD is simply a tool used by engineers, not a replacement for the skills of an actual engineer. A wrench can’t fix an automobile without a mechanic. Likewise, a computer with CAD software can’t design an antilock braking system for an automobile without an engineer. Engineering requires extensive formal training. Four years of undergraduate training leading to a bachelor’s degree in an engineering program is essential, followed by work under the supervision of an experienced engineer. Many engineering jobs even require advanced degrees beyond the bachelor’s degree. The work of engineers serves the public good by providing communication systems, transportation, energy resources, and medical diagnostic and treatment equipment, to name only a few. Before passing final judgment on the professional status of engineering, the nature of engineering societies requires a little consideration. Each discipline within engineering has a professional society, such as the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) for electrical engineers and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) for mechanical engineers. These societies serve to set professional standards and frequently work with schools of engineering to set standards for admission, curricula, and accreditation. However, these societies differ significantly from the AMA and the ABA. Unlike law and medicine, each specialty of engineering has its own society. There is no overall engineering society that most engineers identify with, although the National Society of Professional Engineers (NSPE) tries to function in this way. In addition, relatively few practicing engineers belong to their professional societies. Thus, the engineering societies are weak compared to the AMA and the ABA. It is clear that engineering meets all of the definitions of a profession. In addition, it is clear that engineering practice has much in common with medicine and law. Interestingly, although they are professionals, engineers do not yet hold the same status within society that physicians and lawyers do. 2.2.3 Differences between Engineering and Other Professions Although we have determined that engineering is a profession, it should be noted that there are significant differences between how engineering is practiced and how law and medicine are practiced. Lawyers are typically self-employed in private practice, essentially an independent business, or in larger group practices with Chapter 2 Professionalism and Codes of Ethics 23 other lawyers. Relatively few are employed by large organizations such as corporations. Until recently, this was also the case for most physicians, although with the accelerating trend toward managed care and HMOs in the past decade, many more physicians work for large corporations rather than in private practice. However, even physicians who are employed by large HMOs are members of organizations in which they retain much of the decision-making power—often, the head of an HMO is a physician—and make up a substantial fraction of the total number of employees. In contrast, engineers generally practice their profession very differently from physicians and lawyers. Most engineers are not self-employed, but more often are a small part of larger companies involving many different occupations, including accountants, marketing specialists, and extensive numbers of less skilled manufacturing employees. The exception to this rule is civil engineers, who generally practice as independent consultants either on their own or in engineering firms similar in many ways to law firms. When employed by large corporations, engineers are rarely in significant managerial positions, except with regard to managing other engineers. Although engineers are paid well compared to the rest of society, they are generally less well compensated than physicians and lawyers. Training for engineers is different than for physicians and lawyers. One can be employed as an engineer after four years of undergraduate education, unlike law and medicine, for which training in the profession doesn’t begin until after the undergraduate program has been completed. As mentioned previously, the engineering societies are not as powerful as the AMA and the ABA, perhaps because of the number of different professional engineering societies. Also, both law and medicine require licenses granted by the state in order to practice. Many engineers, especially those employed by large industrial companies, do not have engineering licenses. It can be debated whether someone who is unlicensed is truly an engineer or whether he is practicing engineering illegally, but the reality is that many of those who are trained as engineers and are employed as engineers are not licensed. Finally, engineering doesn’t have the social stature that law and medicine have (a fact that is partly reflected in the lower pay that engineers receive as compared to that of lawyers and doctors). Despite these differences, on balance, engineering is still clearly a profession, albeit one that is not as mature as medicine and law. However, the engineering profession should be striving to emulate some of the aspects of these other professions. 2.2.4 Other Aspects of Professional Societies We should briefly note that professional societies also serve other, perhaps less noble, purposes than those mentioned previously. Sociologists who study the nature of professional societies describe two different models of professions, sometimes referred to as the social-contract and the business models. The social-contract model views professional societies as being set up primarily to further the public good, as described in the definition of a profession given previously. There is an implicit social contract involved with professions, according to this model. Society grants to the professions perks such as high pay, a high status in society, and the ability to self-regulate. In return for these perks, society gets the services provided by the profession. A perhaps more cynical view of professions is provided by the business model. According to this model, professions function as a means for furthering the economic advantage of the members. Put another way, professional organizations 24 2.3 Codes of Ethics are labor unions for the elite, strictly limiting the number of practitioners of the profession, controlling the working conditions for professionals, and artificially inflating the salaries of its members. An analysis of both models in terms of law and medicine would show that there are ways in which these professions exhibit aspects of both of these models. Where does engineering fit into this picture? Engineering is certainly a serviceoriented profession and thus fits into the social-contract model quite nicely. Although some engineers might wish to see engineering professional societies function more according to the business model, they currently don’t function that way. The engineering societies have virtually no clout with major engineering employers to set wages and working conditions or to help engineers resolve ethical disputes with their employers. Moreover, there is very little prospect that the engineering societies will function this way in the near future. 2.2.5 If Engineering Were Practiced More Like Medicine It is perhaps instructive to speculate a little on how engineering might change in the future if our model of the engineering profession were closer to that of law or medicine. One major change would be in the way engineers are educated. Rather than the current system, in which students study engineering as undergraduates and then pursue advanced degrees as appropriate, prospective engineers would probably get a four-year “preengineering” degree in mathematics, physics, chemistry, computer science, or some combination of these fields. After the four-year undergraduate program, students would enter a three- or four-year engineering professional program culminating in a “doctor of engineering” degree (or other appropriately named degree). This program would include extensive study of engineering fundamentals, specialization in a field of study, and perhaps “clinical” training under a practicing engineer. How would such engineers be employed? The pattern of employment would certainly be different for engineers trained this way. Engineers in all fields might work for engineering firms similar to the way in which civil engineers work now, consulting on projects for government agencies or large corporations. The corporate employers who now have numerous engineers on their staff would probably have far fewer engineers on the payroll, opting instead for a few professional engineers who would supervise the work of several less highly trained “engineering technicians.” Adoption of this model would probably reduce the number of engineers in the work force, leading to higher earnings for those who remain. Those relegated to the ranks of engineering technicians would probably earn less than those currently employed as engineers. 2.3 CODES OF ETHICS An aspect of professional societies that has not been mentioned yet is the codes of ethics that engineering societies have adopted. These codes express the rights, duties, and obligations of the members of the profession. In this section, we will examine the codes of ethics of professional engineering societies. It should be noted that although most of the discussion thus far has focused on professionalism and professional societies, codes of ethics are not limited to professional organizations. They can also be found, for example, in corporations and universities as well. We start with some general ideas about what codes of ethics are and what purpose they serve and then examine two professional engineering codes in more detail. Chapter 2 Professionalism and Codes of Ethics 25 2.3.1 What Is a Code of Ethics? Primarily, a code of ethics provides a framework for ethical judgment for a professional. The key word here is “framework.” No code can be totally comprehensive and cover all possible ethical situations that a professional engineer is likely to encounter. Rather, codes serve as a starting point for ethical decision making. A code can also express the commitment to ethical conduct shared by members of a profession. It is important to note that ethical codes do not establish new ethical principles. They simply reiterate principles and standards that are already accepted as responsible engineering practice. A code expresses these principles in a coherent, comprehensive, and accessible manner. Finally, a code defines the roles and responsibilities of professionals [Harris, Pritchard, and Rabins, 2000]. It is important also to look at what a code of ethics is not. It is not a recipe for ethical behavior; as previously stated, it is only a framework for arriving at good ethical choices. A code of ethics is never a substitute for sound judgment. A code of ethics is not a legal document. One can’t be arrested for violating its provisions, although expulsion from the professional society might result from code violations. As mentioned in the previous section, with the current state of engineering societies, expulsion from an engineering society generally will not result in an inability to practice engineering, so there are not necessarily any direct consequences of violating engineering ethical codes. Finally, a code of ethics doesn’t create new moral or ethical principles. As described in the previous chapter, these principles are well established in society, and foundations of our ethical and moral principles go back many centuries. Rather, a code of ethics spells out the ways in which moral and ethical principles apply to professional practice. Put another way, a code helps the engineer to apply moral principles to the unique situations encountered in professional practice. How does a code of ethics achieve these goals? First, a code of ethics helps create an environment within a profession where ethical behavior is the norm. It also serves as a guide or reminder of how to act in specific situations. A code of ethics can also be used to bolster an individual’s position with regard to a certain activity: The code provides a little backup for an individual who is being pressured by a superior to behave unethically. A code of ethics can also bolster the individual’s position by indicating that there is a collective sense of correct behavior; there is strength in numbers. Finally, a code of ethics can indicate to others that the profession is seriously concerned about responsible, professional conduct [Harris, Pritchard, and Rabins, 2000]. A code of ethics, however, should not be used as “window dressing,” an attempt by an organization to appear to be committed to ethical behavior when it really is not. 2.3.2 Objections to Codes Although codes of ethics are widely used by many organizations, including engineering societies, there are many objections to codes of ethics, specifically as they apply to engineering practice. First, as mentioned previously, relatively few practicing engineers are members of professional societies and so don’t necessarily feel compelled to abide by their codes. Many engineers who are members of professional societies are not aware of the existence of the society’s code, or if they are aware of it, they have never read it. Even among engineers who know about their society’s code, consultation of the code is rare. There are also objections that the engineering codes often have internal conflicts, but don’t give a method for resolving the conflict. Finally, codes can be coercive: They foster ethical behavior with a 26 2.3 Codes of Ethics stick rather than with a carrot [Harris, Pritchard, and Rabins, 2000]. Despite these objections, codes are in widespread use today and are generally thought to serve a useful function. 2.3.3 Codes of the Engineering Societies Before examining professional codes in more detail, it might be instructive to look briefly at the history of the engineering codes of ethics. Professional engineering societies in the United States began to be organized in the late 19th century. As these societies matured, many of them created codes of ethics to guide practicing engineers. Early in the 20th century, these codes were mostly concerned with issues of how to conduct business. For example, many early codes had clauses forbidding advertising of services or prohibiting competitive bidding by engineers for design projects. Codes also spelled out the duties that engineers had toward their employers. Relatively less emphasis than today was given to issues of service to the public and safety. This imbalance has changed greatly in recent decades as public perceptions and concerns about the safety of engineered products and devices have changed. Now, most codes emphasize commitments to safety, public health, and even environmental protection as the most important duties of the engineer. 2.3.4 A Closer Look at Two Codes of Ethics Having looked at some ideas about what codes of ethics are and how they function, let’s look more closely at two codes of ethics: the codes of the IEEE and the NSPE. Although these codes have some common content, the structures of the codes are very different. The IEEE code is short and deals in generalities, whereas the NSPE code is much longer and more detailed. An explanation of these differences is rooted in the philosophy of the authors of these codes. A short code that is lacking in detail is more likely to be read by members of the society than is a longer code. A short code is also more understandable. It articulates general principles and truly functions as a framework for ethical decision making, as described previously. A longer code, such as the NSPE code, has the advantage of being more explicit and is thus able to cover more ground. It leaves less to the imagination of the individual and therefore is more useful for application to specific cases. The length of the code, however, makes it less likely to be read and thoroughly understood by most engineers. There are some specifics of these two codes that are worth noting here. The IEEE code doesn’t mention a duty to one’s employer. However, the IEEE code does explicitly mention a duty to protect the environment. The NSPE code has a preamble that succinctly presents the duties of the engineer before going on to the more explicit discussions of the rest of the code. Like most codes of ethics, the NSPE code does mention the engineer’s duty to his or her employer in Section I.4, where it states that engineers shall “[a]ct . . . for each employer . . . as faithful agents or trustees.” 2.3.5 Resolving Internal Conflicts in Codes One objection to codes of ethics is the internal conflicts that can exist within them, with no instructions on how to resolve these conflicts. An example of this problem would be a situation in which an employer asks or even orders an engineer to Chapter 2 Professionalism and Codes of Ethics 27 implement a design that the engineer feels will be unsafe. It is made clear that the engineer’s job is at stake if he doesn’t do as instructed. What does the NSPE code tell us about this situation? In clause I.4, the NSPE code indicates that engineers have a duty to their employers, which implies that the engineer should go ahead with the unsafe design favored by his employer. However, clause I.1 and the preamble make it clear that the safety of the public is also an important concern of an engineer. In fact, it says that the safety of the public is paramount. How can this conflict be resolved? There is no implication in this or any other code that all clauses are equally important. Rather, there is a hierarchy within the code. Some clauses take precedence over others, although there is generally no explicit indication in the code of what the hierarchy is. The preceding dilemma is easily resolved within the context of this hierarchy. The duty to protect the safety of the public is paramount and takes precedence over the duty to the employer. In this case, the code provides very clear support to the engineer, who must convince his supervisor that the product can’t be designed as requested. Unfortunately, not all internal conflicts in codes of ethics are so easily resolved. 2.3.6 Can Codes and Professional Societies Protect Employees? One important area where professional societies can and should function is as protectors of the rights of employees who are being pressured by their employer to do something unethical or who are accusing their employers or the government of unethical conduct. The codes of the professional societies are of some use in this since they can be used by employees as ammunition against an employer who is sanctioning them for pointing out unethical behavior or who are being asked to engage in unethical acts. An example of this situation is the action of the IEEE on behalf of three electrical engineers who were fired from their jobs at the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) organization when they pointed out deficiencies in the way the control systems for the BART trains were being designed and tested. After being fired, the engineers sued BART, citing the IEEE code of ethics which impelled them to hold as their primary concern the safety of the public who would be using the BART system. The IEEE intervened on their behalf in court, although ultimately the engineers lost the case. If the codes of ethics of professional societies are to have any meaning, this type of intervention is essential when ethical violations are pointed out. However, since not all engineers are members of professional societies and the engineering societies are relatively weak, the pressure that can be exerted by these organizations is limited. 2.3.7 Other Types of Codes of Ethics Professional societies aren’t the only organizations that have codified their ethical standards. Many other organizations have also developed codes of ethics for various purposes similar to those of the professional engineering organizations. For example, codes for the ethical use of computers have been developed, and student organizations in universities have framed student codes of ethics. In this section, we will examine how codes of ethics function in corporations. Many of the important ethical questions faced by engineers come up in the context of their work for corporations. Since most practicing engineers are not members of professional organizations, it seems that for many engineers, there is 2.3 Codes of Ethics little ethical guidance in the course of their daily work. This problem has led to the adoption of codes of ethics by many corporations. Even if the professional codes were widely adopted and recognized by practicing engineers, there would still be some value to the corporate codes, since a corporation can tailor its code to the individual circumstances and unique mission of the company. As such, these codes tend to be relatively long and very detailed, incorporating many rules specific to the practices of the company. For example, corporate codes frequently spell out in detail the company policies on business practices, relationships with suppliers, relationships with government agencies, compliance with government regulations, health and safety issues, issues related to environmental protection, equal employment opportunity and affirmative action, sexual harassment, and diversity and racial/ethnic tolerance. Since corporate codes are coercive in nature—your continued employment by the company depends on your compliance with the company code—these codes tend to be longer and more detailed in order to provide very clear and specific guidelines to the employees. Codes of professional societies, by their nature, can’t be this explicit, since there is no means for a professional society to reasonably enforce its code. Due to the typically long lengths of these codes, no example of a corporate code of ethics can be included here. However, codes for companies can sometimes be found via the Internet at corporate websites. Some of the heightened awareness of ethics in corporations stems from the increasing public scrutiny that has accompanied well-publicized disasters, such as the cases presented in this book, as well as from cases of fraud and cost overruns, particularly in the defense industry, that have been exposed in the media. Many large corporations have developed corporate codes of ethics in response to these problems to help heighten employee’s awareness of ethical issues and to help establish a strong corporate ethics culture. These codes give employees ready access to guidelines and policies of the corporations. But, as with professional codes, it is important to remember that these codes cannot cover all possible situations that an employee might encounter; there is no substitute for good judgment. A code also doesn’t substitute for good lines of communications between employees and upper management and for workable methods for fixing ethical problems when they occur. CASES APPLICATION 28 Codes of ethics can be used as a tool for analyzing cases and for gaining some insight into the proper course of action. Before reading these cases, it would be helpful to read a couple of the codes in Appendix A, especially the code most closely related to your field of study, to become familiar with the types of issues that codes deal with. Then, put yourself in the position of an engineer working for these companies—Intel, Paradyne Computers, and 3Bs Construction—to see what you would have done in each case. The Intel Pentium® Chip In late 1994, the media began to report that there was a flaw in the new Pentium microprocessor produced by Intel. The microprocessor is the heart of a personal computer and controls all of the operations and calculations that take place. A flaw in the Pentium was especially significant, since it was the microprocessor used in 80% of the personal computers produced in the world at that time. Chapter 2 Professionalism and Codes of Ethics 29 Apparently, flaws in a complicated integrated circuit such as the Pentium, which at the time contained over one million transistors, are common. However, most of the flaws are undetectable by the user and don’t affect the operation of the computer. Many of these flaws are easily compensated for through software. The flaw that came to light in 1994 was different: It was detectable by the user. This particular flaw was in the floating-point unit (FPU) and caused a wrong answer when double-precision arithmetic, a very common operation, was performed. A standard test was widely published to determine whether a user’s microprocessor was flawed. Using spreadsheet software, the user was to take the number 4,195,835, multiply it by 3,145,727, and then divide that result by 3,145,727. As we all know from elementary math, when a number is multiplied and then divided by the same number, the result should be the original number. In this example, the result should be 4,195,835. However, with the flawed FPU, the result of this calculation was 4,195,579 [Infoworld, 1994]. Depending on the application, this sixthousandths-of-a-percent error might be very significant. At first, Intel’s response to these reports was to deny that there was any problem with the chip. When it became clear that this assertion was not accurate, Intel switched its policy and stated that although there was indeed a defect in the chip, it was insignificant and the vast majority of users would never even notice it. The chip would be replaced for free only for users who could demonstrate that they needed an unflawed version of the chip [Infoworld, 1994]. There is some logic to this policy from Intel’s point of view, since over two million computers had already been sold with the defective chip. Of course, this approach didn’t satisfy most Pentium owners. After all, how can you predict whether you will have a future application where this flaw might be significant? IBM, a major Pentium user, canceled the sales of all IBM computers containing the flawed chip. Finally, after much negative publicity in the popular personal computer literature and an outcry from Pentium users, Intel agreed to replace the flawed chip with an unflawed version for any customer who asked to have it replaced. It should be noted that long before news of the flaw surfaced in the popular press, Intel was aware of the problem and had already corrected it on subsequent versions. It did, however, continue to sell the flawed version and, based on its early insistence that the flaw did not present a significant problem to users, seemingly planned to do so until the new version was available and the stocks of the flawed one were exhausted. Eventually, the damage caused by this case was fixed as the media reports of the problem died down and as customers were able to get unflawed chips into their computers. Ultimately, Intel had a write-off of 475 million dollars to solve this problem. What did Intel learn from this experience? The early designs for new chips continue to have flaws, and sometimes these flaws are not detected until the product is already in use by consumers. However, Intel’s approach to these problems has changed. It now seems to feel that problems need to be fixed immediately. In addition, the decision is now based on the consumer’s perception of the significance of the flaw, rather than on Intel’s opinion of its significance. Indeed, similar flaws were...
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Engineers have a responsibility to ensure the safety of the people who will be affected by
his/her designs. Nothing can be 100% safe but engineers are required to make their products as
safe as possible. Risk is the possibility of suffering harm or loss as opposed to safety which is
freedom from damage, injury, or risk.
Risks come in many forms and have varying consequences, effects, and probabilities that effect
designs. Voluntary risks appear smaller than risks that are not voluntarily assumed or unknown
and a risk that has an immediate effect is more risky than harm which takes many years to
occur. A short term risk such as a short lived illness seems safer than something that will result
in a permanent disability and something that has a reversible effect is less risky than one that is
not, as well things that are risky only at higher exposures will seem safer than something that
always has an risk or something with an immediate effect is more risky than harm which takes
many years to occur.
Four criteria - Firstly, to ensure safe design, it must comply with the app...


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