MEM 604: Social, Legal and Ethical
Considerations for Engineering
Engineers and the Environmental
Challenge
The Environmental Challenge
• One of the most exciting and controversial
developments in recent moral thinking is
environmental ethics.
• This is not just a topic of interest for philosophers.
Increasingly professionals and business people
have begun to seriously consider the implications
of environmental concerns for their practices.
Engineers and the Environment
• These considerations are especially acute for
engineers.
• Engineers are often pivotally involved in projects
and technologies with potentially profound
environmental impacts.
• Engineers are often in the best position to help
resolve the problems caused by such projects and
technologies.
Looking to the Codes
• As always, engineers who confront environmental
challenges with moral concerns would do well to
consider what the various engineering codes of
ethics have to say about the matter.
• Given the relative newness of environmental
ethics, it should not be surprising that not all
professional codes speak to the issues.
• Nor should we be surprised that the message is a
mixed bag.
Mixed Messages
• As the editors review in section 9.2, only 4 of the
codes commonly referred to speak to the issue at
all, and those that do speak with a variety of
concerns.
• Two elements are common: the idea that human
well being requires attention to environmental
quality and that the best way to assure this quality
is by adopting the principle of “sustainable
development.”
Sustainable Development
• The clearest expression of this principle is to be
found in the Code of the ASCE.
• See p. 193
• There are two relevant features of the ASCE’s use
of this principle.
• It reminds us that development is the overarching goal.
• Sustainability is a constraint functioning on that goal.
Conceptual Issues
• Before we can consider what the codes
obligate professional engineers to with
regards to the environment, some other
conceptual distinctions must be made.
• Source of the Obligation: flowing from
concerns for human health or from some nonhealth related concerns.
• Value of Nature: Intrinsic vs. Extrinsic
Obligations and the Environment
• Clearly, some of our concerns about the
environment stem from the implications of the
environment for human health.
• All codes would recognize this sort of obligation.
• In addition to these, there may be other reasons
why we should be concerned about the
environment.
• Non-human life; aesthetic concerns; property value; etc.
Intrinsic vs. Extrinsic Value
• Some environmentalists are committed to a
principle of intrinsic environmental value.
They argue that the value of the
environment not limited to human interests.
• Others would argue that the environment
has only extrinsic value, defined by
reference to human interest.
Applying the Codes
• For the most part, the force of the codes is limited
to those concerns in which human health and
welfare are directly affected.
• In this, they reflect both the primary, harm-related
concerns of engineers and prevailing thinking in
the business community.
• They also may reflect some conceptual
uncertainty. Many of the operative concepts in
environmental thinking are not susceptible to
necessary and sufficient definition (ex., “clean”).
Looking to the Law
• As we’ve seen before, laws and regulations
are another resource for engineers to
consider when trying to determine the force
and scope of their obligations to the
environment.
• Here, too, there has been a recent surge in
thinking and activity around the issue,
though the overall implications are far from
clear.
Federal Law
• Like the codes, federal regulation focuses
primarily on relationship between the
environment and human health.
• The past 30 years of regulation show a
general trend toward increasing levels of
concern and regulation, but with no clear
standard of application or evaluation.
• This is particularly evident in connection to
the use of cost-benefit analysis.
The Courts
• When laws and regulations are tested in the
courts, costs are generally given more
importance.
• Cost is still not the only operative
consideration.
• See for example on p. 196.
The Law and Costs
• Though the law does not do all of the work
necessary, its recognition of the challenge of
balancing health and costs is helpful.
• It allows engineers to mora accurately
specify the scope of difficult concepts like
“clean.”
• See the “Degree-of-Harm Criterion” on p.
198.
Problem of Anthropocentrism
• Many environmentalists are critical of the sort of
approach implicit in both the codes and the law.
• They argue that the limitation of obligation to the
realm of human interests is unjustifiably
anthropocentric.
• The question becomes, to what extent if any,
should engineers be concerned about nonanthropocentric environmental obligations?
Pro and Con
• In favor of an expanded concern is the recognition
that engineers often share blame-responsibility for
environmental degradation and that they are often
well-positioned to mitigate it.
• Against this expansion is the recognition that
many elements of this concern fall outside of the
realm of engineering expertise, the expansion
could prove challenging to professional societies,
and the expansion may pose problems of
conscience for some.
Two (very) Modest Proposals
• The editors close the chapter with two
proposals that attempt to advance the
discussion of environmental obligations of
professional engineers.
• See p. 207.
• From their perspective, the right to
organizational disobedience is the most
controversial of the two.