ENGM 604: Social, Legal and Ethical
Considerations for Engineering
Organizational Rights and
Responsibilities
A Conflict of Values
• As we have noted before, the professional
responsibilities of engineers can conflict
with other role responsibilities they have.
• One important potential conflict arises in
the context of employment.
• As the Martin Marietta example (165-6)
demonstrates, your obligations as
employees are not always consistent with
your obligations as engineers.
Negotiating the Conflict: The Codes
• As always, the codes of ethics of the
engineering professional organizations are a
good place to start thinking about how to
address possible conflicts of this sort.
• Consider the “Fundamental Cannons” of the
NSPE code (292).
• Cannon 4 specifies the character of the
obligation engineers owe to their employers.
• Now consider possible conflicts between this
obligation and those specified by Cannons 1-3.
Negotiating the Conflict: The Codes
• Unfortunately, though the code reveals a
number of possible conflicts, it doesn’t do
much to help engineers negotiate these
conflicts.
• The discussion of “Rules of Practice” and
“Professional Obligations” helps, but a
number of important questions still remains.
Conceptual Issues
• For example, though the codes requires
engineers to “Hold paramount the
safety…of the public,” it leaves open the
question of who counts.
• Possible answers range from everybody, to
those impacted by the decision, to just the key
company stakeholders.
Application Issues
• Even if we could come to some agreement
about the meaning of an operative concept,
we still would be faced with the hard work
of determining the extension of the concept
in practice.
• If we define ‘public’ relative to being impacted,
we would still need to consider how to
practically distinguish impact in a way that
would guide our decision.
Negotiating the Conflict: The Law
• Another resource that can help us
understand our responsibilities is the law.
• As we’ve already noted, the law is an
imperfect guide to our moral obligations,
but the law does often reflect our considered
moral judgment and thus can be of some
use.
• An additional challenge is that the law in
this area is in a state of flux.
The Law of the Land: At-Will
Employment
• The vast majority of employees in the United
States are governed by the legal principle of
“Employment at Will.”
• This is not the case in most of Europe and parts of Asia
and Africa and Central and South America.
• One common exception to this here in the U.S. is
what has become known as the “Public-Policy
Exception.”
• This principle provides some protection for workers
who act in the public interest.
Limits of the Public-Policy Exception
• In general, courts have ruled very narrowly on the
exception, limiting it to only the most obvious or serious
cases.
• One reason for this is that it is hard to distinguish a
dismissal for private and public interests.
• If it comes down to a difference in judgment, the courts
typically rule in favor of the business.
• The courts have observed a difference between
government regulation and the constraints of professional
codes.
• The overall thrust seems towards a balance of private and
public interests.
Statutory Protection
• The other common legal principle which
governs employment are explicit statutes
which grant certain protections to workers.
• Laws protecting “Whistle Blowing” are a
common example of these, though there are
a number of states which protect a wider
range of employee rights.
Managers and Engineers
• When we turn from the legal context to the organizational
context, the difficulty that appears is the potentially
contentious relationship between managers and
professional employees.
• The ground of the potential conflict is obvious. Both
managers and professionals are used to and expect both
decision-making authority and deference.
• The ethical question that arises in this context is: when
should either party or interest prevail.
Additional Sources of Conflict
• In addition to their expectations, managers and engineers
have other challenges to negotiate in a shared workplace.
• Different Loyalties
• Difficult Communication
• Aspirations
• These challenges largely confirmed by empirical study. It
should be noted that these challenges need not be fatal.
Functions in Conflict
• One of the ways that the potential conflicts
between managers and engineering professionals
can be addressed is by attending to the proper
functioning of both.
• It is likely that a large class of potential conflicts
could be traced back to a failure to maintain
appropriate functional distinctions.
PED vs. PMD
• We can understand the functional differences by
recognizing that there are different standards and
objectives motivating managers and engineers.
• These differences prompt the editors of the book
to make a useful distinction (173) between Proper
Engineering Decisions (PEDs) and Proper
Management Decisions (PMDs).
Implications of Distinguishing PED and
PMD
• Principle of distinction is the operative
standards and practices.
• PMD acknowledges the significance and
force of professional standards and
practices.
• PED and PMD are mutually reinforcing.
The Value of Loyalty
• In the context of discussions of employee rights
and responsibilities, loyalty is a central concept.
• Without assuming completeness, any discussion of
loyalty should distinguish between Uncritical
Loyalty from Critical Loyalty.
• While UL is often advocated by managers, the
book demonstrates the weakness of the argument
in its favor, ultimately underling the moral
superiority of CL
Loyalty as Organizational
Disobedience
• The doctrine of CL sometimes requires
employees to act in a way contrary to the
expectations or stated objectives of their
employer.
• This can happen in at lest three different
ways:
• Disobedience by Contrary Action
• Disobedience by Nonparticipation
• Disobedience by Protest
Articulating Employee Rights
• Recognizing the legitimacy of these forms
of disobedience can lead us to articulate
specific rights that employees have.
• The book identifies a number of important
considerations in this regard.
 Focus on Issues, not personalities
 Paper Trail
 Confidentiality
 Dispute resolution mechanisms
 Protection from retaliation
 Speedy resolution
Whistleblowing: The Basics
• Whistleblowing is an attempt by a member
or former member of an organization to
disclose wrongdoing in or by the
organization. It takes both internal and
external forms.
• Whistle-blowing is morally problematic
because employees are seen to have a prima
facie duty of loyalty to their employers
• Prima facie – (first face) at first sight –
accepted as correct until proven otherwise
Who Blows the Whistle?
• The average whistleblower is a 47-year-old family man
with 7 years on the job and a strong belief in universal
moral principles.
• Most whistleblowers who work for private businesses are
fired by their employers, 20% remain unemployed after 6
months, 25% report a decrease in family income, 17% lose
homes, 54% report harassment by their peers at work, 80%
report physical deterioration, 10% attempt suicide.
• Despite these figures, most whistleblowers admit of few
regrets and assert that they would do it again.
DeGeorge and the Standard Theory of
Whistle-Blowing
• W-B is permissible when:
 (S1) The organization that the whistle-blower belongs to will,
through product or policy, do serious and considerable harm.
 (S2) The whistleblower has reported the threat of harm to her
superiors and it is obvious that her superiors will do nothing
effective.
 (S3) The whistle-blower has exhausted all additional internal
procedures.
• W-B is required when S1-S3 obtain and:
 (S4) The whistle-blower has evidence that would convince a
reasonable, impartial observer that she’s correct.
 (S5) The whistle-blower has good reason to believe that blowing
the whistle will prevent the harm at a reasonable cost.
Justifications of W-B
• W-B justified by application of a (fairly weak) version of
the harm principle (for W-B).
• “people have a moral obligation to prevent serious harm to others if
they can do so with little cost to themselves” (149).
• In this instance the harm principle is a form of “minimally
decent samaritanism.”
• Not a form of “good samaritanism” which requires going
beyond the moral minimum.
Three Paradoxes of Whistle-Blowing
• Paradox of Burden – whistle-blowers generally act
at considerable risk to themselves, thus the weak
justification offered by the specified harm
principle is inadequate.
• Paradox of Missing Harm – only a subset of harms
are “serious and considerable,” many significant
harms (deception, injustice) don’t rise to the
standard.
• Paradox of Failure – whistle-blowers are rarely
successful at preventing “serious and considerable
harm.”
An Example: The Challenger Disaster
• The Standard Theory fails to show why Roger
Boisjoly is a justified whistle-blower.
• Yet Boisjoly is widely considered a prime example
of a justified whistle-blower.
• Under the standard theory not only should he not be
praised but he should be condemned for betraying his
loyalty to Morton-Thiokol.
• We need a theory of whistle-blowing that can
explain why cases like that of Boisjoly are
justified.
Davis and the Complicity Theory of W-B
• W-B is morally required if:
• (C1) What you reveal derives from your work at the organization.
• (C2) You are a voluntary member of that organization.
• (C3) You believe that the organization is engaged in serious moral
wrongdoing.
• (C4) You believe that your work will contribute to the wrongdoing if
you do not reveal it publicly.
• (C5) You are justified in your beliefs regarding C3 and C4.
• (C6) Beliefs C3 and C4 are true.
What about Boisjoly?
• Though he has problems with the standard theory,
he does quite well with the complicity theory.
• (C1) Boisjoly’s testimony consisted of information regarding
his work for Thiokol.
• (C2) Boisjoly was voluntarily employed with Thiokol.
• (C3) Boisjoly was convinced that Thiokol was misleading the
commission.
• (C4) The information he passed on to his superiors was used in
the cover-up, thus he was complicit in the cover-up.
• (C5) Boisjoly was justified in his beliefs.
• (C6) Boisjoly’s beliefs were true.