Engineering Ethics
Richard A. Burgess, M.A.
Texas Tech T-STEM Center
and
Deputy Director,
National Institute for Engineering Ethics
Summer 2012
STEM includes Engineering
• No single profession impacts
modern life as thoroughly as
engineering does. (examples:
cars, buildings, electronic devices,
water)
• Despite the ubiquity of
engineering, it is not uncommon
for people to know very little
about engineering.
Engineering: Design Under Constraint
• Engineering as “design under
constraint”
• Lessons Amid the Rubble: An
Introduction to Post-Disaster
Engineering and Ethics
by Sara Pfatteicher
Constraint
• In a perfect world, engineers would be able to
design and deploy products that are maximally
safe, efficient, and effective.
• This would be prohibitively expensive and time
intensive.
• Engineers must often balance quality
considerations with time and financial
constraints.
• This requires thoughtfulness and ethical
fortitude.
Tension
• Engineering is marked by a tension between
competing interests:
• Corporate/commercial
• Personal (e.g. salary, promotion, etc.)
• Public
• These interests do not always align.
• Tension between the costs and benefits of
technology. All technology, even the most
beneficial, has a cost.
Engineering Ethics
• Given the aforementioned characteristics, it is clear
that ethics is an important part of engineering.
• Engineering ethics can also be complex.
• “Engineers shall hold paramount the safety, health,
and welfare of the public.” (National Society of
Professional Engineers, Code of Ethics)
• Who is the “public”?
• How do we define “welfare”?
The Role of Ethics in Engineering
• Ethics is integral to the practice of
engineering.
• Engineers imprint their values on virtually
everything they do. Even something as
simple as specifying the height of a bridge can
have ethical ramifications (See Sara
Pfatteicher’s book)
Sources of Guidance
• Engineering is considered a profession and has a
code of ethics; several in fact. Examples:
• American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE)
• American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME)
• Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE)
• Obligations – the codes discuss the obligations
engineers have to the public, to their clients, and to
their fellow engineers.
• Aspirations – some codes also emphasize
opportunities for self and community development.
Foundational Principles
• Arguably, three general ideas underwrite the
codes of ethics.
• Principle of Utility: The right thing to do is to promote the
greatest good for the greatest number of people.
• Principle of Respect: People should be treated as ends-inthemselves and not as mere means to an end.
• Virtue Ethics: Right and wrong is not only about
performing a certain action, but about being the right kind
of person. We should cultivate virtues such as honesty,
compassion, courage, and temperance.
Incorporating Ethics into STEM
• It can be helpful to refer to these codes of
ethics and approaches when discussing ethics
in PBL contexts.
• In addition to providing guidance, the codes
and principles can help identify issues to begin
with.
• In other words, these codes/principles can
improve not only reasoning, but sensitivity as
well.