Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila(University of the City of Manila)

Intramuros, Manila

College of Engineering and TechnologyComputer Engineering Department

Professional Ethics and Values

Written Report

Ethics and Professionalism

Submitted by:

Aliño, Lailani S.Aloña, Al Jerico M.

Layug, Joseph Haydin M.Valenzuela, Jessica Rose P.

Verches, Juan Carlos G.

Submitted to:

Engr. Maria Rizette SayoFaculty

November 6, 2011

Chapter 1 ETHICS AND PROFESSIONALISM

Engineers create products and processes to improve food production, shelter, energy, communication, transportation, health and protection against natural calamities and to enhance the convenience and beauty of our everyday lives. Engineering had transformed our sense of connection with the cosmos and even fostered dreams of routine space travel for ordinary citizens. Sample of this is the first human, Neil Armstrong, steps on the moon on July 20, 1969.

Technology has double implications. As it creates benefits it also creates new moral challenges. Example is the explosion of space shuttles Challenger in 1986 and Columbia in 2003; this tragedy can be prevented if warnings of experience engineers were heeded. Technological risk should not overshadow technological benefits and ethics involves appreciating the many positive dimensions of engineering that so deeply enrich our lives.

Scope of Engineering Ethics

1. ENGINEERING AS SOCIAL EXPERIMENTATION.

Engineering projects are social experiments that generate both new possibilities and risks, and engineers share responsibility for creating benefits, preventing harm, and pointing out dangers.

Case: Columbia’s Explosion on February 1, 2003 killed the seven astronauts on board. It was feared the caused was a terrorist attack. The cause of the explosion was a piece of insulating foam from the external fuel tank that struck the left wing after launch. There is the same explosion of a space shuttle named Challenger in 1986, which engineers were not being heeded.

Technological Development is double edge. As engineering projects create new possibilities’, they also create dangers.

2. ETHICS AND EXCELLENCE: MORAL VALUES ARE EMBEDDED IN ENGINEERING.

Moral values permeate all aspects of technological development; hence ethics and excellence in engineering go together.

Case: There is an assignment in freshman course at Harvey Mudd College to design a chicken coop that would increase egg and chicken production, using materials that were readily available and maintainable by local workers. In making this assignment, the students identify the plausible building materials, decide between cages or open are,

and design structures for strength and endurance. They had to create safe access for the villages. They had to ensure humane condition for the chickens. They also had to improve the cleaning procedures to prevent damage to the environment. The primary goal is to double the current chicken and egg production, and achieving this goal includes having a good relationship to the local villagers.

Moral Values are embedded at several junctures in engineering projects including:

The basic standards of safety and efficiency The structure of technological corporations as communities of people

engaged in shared activities The character of engineers who spearhead technological progress The idea of engineering as profession that combines advance skill with

commitment to the public good

3. PERSONAL COMMITMENT AND MEANING.

Personal meaning commitments matter in engineering ethics, along with principles of responsibility that are stated in codes of ethics and are incumbent on all engineers.

Case: A team of engineers designed an artificial lung marketed by their company. The engineers don’t have contact with their costumers because of long working hours; they are focused on the problems on the lungs not on the people. When the engineers know their customers could breathe freely, relax and enjoy life because of their product, they were energized that their efforts really did improve people’s lives.

Personal commitment is having mind bot commitments to shared responsibilities and to these more individual commitments as they affect professional endeavors.

4. PROMOTING RESPONSIBLE CONDUCT AND PREVENTING WRONG DOING.

Promoting responsible conduct is even more important that punishing wrong doing.

Case: Beginning in 2001, scandals shook Americans’ corporations. Enron and WorldCom are bankrupted. Arthur Andersen, a large accounting firm charged with checking books of Enron and other corporations, was charged in complicity and was forced to dissolve.

5. MYRIAD MORAL REASONS GENERATE ETHICAL DILEMMAS

Ethical dilemmas or moral dilemmas are situations in which moral reasons come into conflict, or in which the applications of moral values are problematic, and it is not immediately obvious what should be done.

The moral reasons might be obligations, rights, goods, ideals, or other moral considerations.

Case: A chemical engineer working in the environmental division of a computer manufacturing firm learns that her company might be discharging unlawful amounts of lead and arsenic into the sewer. The city processes the sludge into a fertilizer used by local farmers. To ensure safety, it imposes restrictive laws on the discharge of lead and arsenic. Preliminary investigations convince the engineer that the company should implement stronger pollution controls, but her manager insists the cost of doing so is prohibitive and that technically the company is in compliance with the law.

6. MICRO AND MACRO ISSUES

Micro issues concern the decisions made by individuals and companies. Macro issues concern more global issues, such as the directions in technological development, the laws that should and should not be passed, and the collective responsibilities of groups such as engineering professional societies and consumer groups.

Case: A debate about sport utility vehicles (SUVs).The Ford Explorer and the Bridgestone/Firestone, providing tires to the former.

During late 1990s, reports began to multiply about the tread on Explorer tires separating from the rest of the tires, leading to blowouts and rollovers. By 2002, estimates were that 300 people had died and another thousand were injured and more recent estimates place the numbers much higher since then. Ford and Bridgestone/Firestone blamed each other for the problem, leading to breakup of a century-old business partnership. As it turned out, the hazard had multiple sources.

Micro issues: Bridgestone/Firestone used a flawed design tire design and poor quality control at a major manufacturing facility. Ford chose tires with a poor safety margin, relied on drivers to maintain proper inflation within a very narrow range, and then dragged its feet in admitting the problem and recalling dangerous tires.

Macro issues: It center on charges the SUVs are among the most harmful vehicles on the road, even the most harmful, given their numbers. The problems are instability because of their height that leads to rollovers, far greater “kill rate” of other drivers during accidents, reducing the vision of drivers in shorter cars behind them on freeways, blinding other drivers’ vision because of high-set lights, gas guzzling and excessive polluting.

7. CAUTIOUS OPTIMISM ABOUT TECHNOLOGY

Pessimists view advanced technology as ominous and often out of control. They point to pollution, depletion of natural resources, mass death on highways and in high-tech wars, fears of biological and chemical weapons, and the lingering threat of nuclear war. Optimists highlight how technology profoundly improves all our lives.

What is Engineering Ethics?

The word ethics has several meanings, it is synonymous with morality. It refers to moral values that are sound, actions that are morally required (right) or morally permissible (all right), policies and laws that are desirable. It studies which actions, goals, principles, policies and laws are morally justified. Engineering ethics is the study of the decisions, policies and values that are morally desirable in engineering practice and research.

In a descriptive sense, we speak of Henry Ford’s ethics or ethics of American Engineers, referring thereby to what specific individuals or groups believe and how they act, without implying that their beliefs and actions are justified. In a normative sense, “engineering ethics” refers to justified moral values in engineering. Morality concerns moral right and wrong, moral good and bad, moral values and what morally ought to be done.

Why Study Engineering Ethics?

Engineering ethics should be studied because it is important, both in contributing to safe and useful technological products and in giving meaning to engineers’ endeavors. It is also complex, in ways that call for serious reflection throughput a career, beginning with earning a degree.

The direct aim is to increase one’s ability to deal effectively with moral complexity in engineering. The unifying goal is to increase moral autonomy.

Autonomy means “self-determining” or “independent”. Moral autonomy can be viewed as the skill and habit of thinking rationally about ethical issues on basis of moral concern.

Skills related to engineering ethics:

1. Moral awareness2. Cogent moral reasoning3. Moral coherence4. Moral imagination5. Moral communication6. Moral reasonableness7. Respect for persons

Responsibility

Meaning of responsibility

1. Obligations, responsibilities are obligations – types of actions that are morally mandatory. Some obligations are incumbent on each of us, such as to be honest, fair and decent. Other obligations are role responsibility, acquired when we take on special roles such as parents, employees, or professionals.

2. Accountable, being responsible means being accountable. This means having the general capacities for moral agency, including the capacity to understand and act on moral reasons.

a. Wrong doing takes two primary forms:i. Voluntary wrong doing, is reckless, that is fragrant disregard of

known risk and responsibilities. Other wrong doing is due to weakness of will, whereby we give in to temptation or fail to try hard enough.

ii. Negligence, occurs when we unintentionally fail to exercise due care in meeting responsibilities.

3. Conscientious. Morally admirable engineers like LeMessurier accept their obligations and are conscientious in meeting them. They diligently try to do the right thing, and they largely succeed in doing so, even under difficult circumstances.

4. Blameworthy/Praiseworthy. In context where it is clear that accountability for wrong doing is at issue. Responsible becomes a synonym for blameworthy and praiseworthy.

5. Moral responsibilitya. Causal responsibility consists simply in being a cause of some event. (a

young child playing with matches causes a house to burn down, but the adult who left the child with the matches is morally responsible.)

b. Job responsibility consists of one’s assigned tasks at the place of employment.

c. Legal responsibility is whatever the law requires.

Dimensions of Engineering

Ethical issues arise as a product develops from a mental concept to physical completion.Engineers encounter both moral and technical problems concerning variability in materials available to them, the quality of work by co-workers at all levels, pressure imposed by time and the whims of the marketplace, and relationships of authority within corporations.

Progression of Engineering Tasks

Terms Used

Products – the totality of goods or services that a company makes available, can be mass-produced household appliances, an entire communication system or an oil refinery complex.

Manufacturing – the making of goods or wares by manual labour or by machinery, especially on a large scale; can occur on a factory floor or at a construction site.

Engineers – a person trained and skilled in the design, construction, and use of engines or machines, or in any of various branches of engineering; might be employees of large or small corporations, entrepreneurs, or consultants.

Organizations – a group of persons organized for some end or work; might be for-profit organizations, consulting firms, or the public works department of a city.

Tasks – a definite piece of work assigned to, falling to, or expected of a person, duty; creating the concepts of a new product, improving an existing product, detailed design of part of an engine, or manufacture of a product according to complete drawings and specifications submitted by another party.

The progression of engineering tasks is often not carried out in a smooth continuous fashion. Intermediate results during or at the end of each stage often require backtracking to make modifications in the design developed. Errors need to be detected and corrected. Changes may be needed to improve the products performance and/or meet cost and time constraints.

The continuous interruption of changes and modifications results in an iterative process. The engineers are forced to stop during initial attempt at a solution when they think of a better approach. They will have to return to an earlier stage with the modifications they have.

The back-tracking and alterations does not start and end on the same stages of the process and in the same way. It all depends on the latest findings from current experiments, tempered by the outcome of earlier iterations and experience with similar product designs.

Dealing with this kind of process requires close cooperation among the engineers of different departments so that information can be exchanged more freely.

The design iterations can be compared to a feedback loop in control system, where in the outcome depends on the previous result.

Engineering generally does not consist of completing designs or processes one after another in a straightforward progression of isolated tasks, but it involves a trial-and-error process with backtracking based on decisions made after examining results obtained along the way.

According to Herbert Simon:

“Design is usually the kind of problem solving we call ill-structured... you don’t start off with a well-defined goal. Nor do you start off with a clear set of alternatives, or perhaps any alternatives at all. Goals and alternatives have to emerge through the design process itself: one of its first tasks is to clarify goals and to begin to generate alternatives.”

Engineering tasks and possible problems

Tasks A selection of possible problems

Conceptual design Blind to new concepts. Violation of patents or trade secrets. Product to be used illegally

Goals; performance specifications

Unrealistic assumptions. Design depends on unavailable or untested materials.

Preliminary analysis Uneven: Overly detailed in designer’s area or expertise, marginal elsewhere.

Detailed analysis Uncritical use of handbook data and computer programs based on unidentified methodologies.

Simulation, prototyping Testing of prototype done only under most favourable conditions or not completed

Design specifications Too tight for adjustments during manufacture and use. Design changes not carefully checked

Scheduling of tasks Promise of unrealistic completion date based on insufficient allowance for unexpected events

Purchasing Specifications written to favour one vendor. Bribes, kickbacks. Inadequate testing of purchased parts.

Fabrication of parts Variable quality of materials and workmanship. Bogus materials and components not detected.

Assembly/construction Workplace safety. Disregard or repetitive-motion stress on workers. Poor control of toxic wastes.

Quality control/testing Not independent, but controlled by production manager. Hence, tests rushed or results falsified.

Advertising and sales False advertising (availability, quality). Product oversold beyond client’s needs or means.

Shipping, installation, training

Product too large to ship by land. Installation and training subcontracted out, inadequate supervised.

Safety measures and devices Reliance on overly complex, failure-prone safety devices. Lack of a simple “safety exit”

Use Used inappropriately or for illegal applications. Overloaded. Operations manuals not ready.

Maintenance, parts, repairs Inadequate supply or spare parts. Hesitation to recall the product when found to be faulty.

Monitoring effects of product

No formal procedure for following life cycle of product,, its effects on society and environment

Recycling/disposal Lack of attention to ultimate dismantling, disposal of product, public notification of hazards

Some problems that might arisea. Lack of visionb. Incompetencec. Lack of time or lack of proper materialsd. Silo Mentality – An attitude found in some organizations that occurs when several

departments or groups do not want to share information or knowledge with other individuals in the same company.

e. The notion that there are safety engineers somewhere down the line to catch potential problems

f. Improper use or disposal of the product.g. Dishonestyh. Inattention

Responsible Professionals and Ethical Corporations

Due to the nature of engineering, both in its goal of producing economical and safe products for marketplace and in its usual complexity of large projects that require many individuals to work together, much of it has been embedded in corporations.

Two main stages in the development of engineering (19th century) according to Edwin T. Layton, Jr.

1. The growth of public resources made possible the extensive building of railroads, canals, and other large projects.

2. Demand for engineers exploded-along with these is the demand for science-and-mathematics-based training-the dominance of independent consulting engineers began to fade

“The engineer’s problem has centred on a conflict between professional independence and bureaucratic loyalty.”

“The role of the engineer represents a patchwork of compromises between professional ideals and business demands.”

Professions - are forms of work involving advanced expertise, self-regulation, and concerted service to the public good.

1. Advanced expertise - professions require sophisticated skills ("knowing-how") and theoretical knowledge ("knowing-that") in exercising judgment that is not entirely routine or susceptible to mechanization. Preparation to engage in the work typically requires extensive formal education, including technical studies in one or more areas of systematic knowledge as well as broader studies in the liberal arts (humanities, sciences, arts). Generally, continuing education and updating knowledge are also required.

2. Self-regulation - well-established societies of professionals are allowed by the public to play a major role in setting standards for admission to the profession, drafting codes of ethics, enforcing standards of conduct, and representing the profession before the public and the government. Often this is referred to as the “autonomy of the profession," which forms the basis for individual professionals to exercise autonomous professional judgment in their work.

3. Public good - the occupation serves some important public good, or aspect of the public good, and it does so by making a concerted effort to maintain high ethical standards throughout the profession. For example, medicine is directed toward promoting health, law toward protecting the public's legal rights, and engineering toward technological solutions to problems concerning the public's well-being, safety and health. The aims and guidelines in serving the public good are detailed in professional codes of ethics, which, in order to ensure the public good is served; need to be taken seriously throughout the profession.

Morally Committed CorporationsEnron

became the largest bankruptcy in U.S. History, erasing 60 billion dollars in shareholder value.

created in 1985. grew rapidly in selling natural gas and wholesale electricity in a new era of government

deregulation. in 1990, it began using fraudulent accounting practices, indulged by auditors from

Arthur Andersen, a major accounting firm that collapsed in the aftermath of the Enron scandal.

used unethical practices like "price manipulation" in sales of electricity to California resulting in massive financial losses to the state.

created a "special purpose entities" named "raptors*"- an off-balance sheet partnerships deigned to conceal the hundreds of millions of dollars in debt and to inflate reported profits.

*it was used to keep Enron's credit rating bouyant so that it could continue borrowing and investing heavily in ever-expanding markets, often where it lacked expertise.

for five consecutive years, between 1996 and 2000, voted in a FORTUNE magazine poll to be the most innovative corporation in the United States.

Quickie Designs manufactures wheelchairs. founded in 1980 by Marilyn hamilton, a school teacher and an athlete who two years

was paralyzed in a hang-gliding accident. because of the unwieldiness of the heavy wheelchairs, she requested two of her friends

to design a highly mobile, lightweight and versatile wheelchair made from aluminum tubing.

the company rapidly expanded that make a variety of innovatively engineered products for people with disabilities.

supports Winners on Wheels, a not-for-profit organization that sponsors sports events for young people in wheelchairs.

small and exceptionally committed to what has been called "caring capitalism."

Social Responsibility Movement

Since the 1960's, a "social responsibility movement" has raised attention to product quality, the well-being of workers, the wider community and the environment. the movement is reflected in what is called "stakeholders theory": corporations have responsibilities to all groups that have a vital stake in the corporation, including employees, customers, dealers, suppliers, local communities and the general public.

Thus, beyond being concerned with the employee relations and other internal organizational matters, responsible corporations also strive to be good neighbors by supporting local schools, cultural activities, civic groups, and charities. But often the wider question of how a corporation's product is ultimately used, and by whom, is conveniently put aside because the effects often do not appear nearby or early on and important questions are therefore not raised. For instance, what happens to used dry-cell batteries? In the United States nearly three billion of them, along with noxious ingredients, end up in the municipal waste stream annually. Worldwide, 15 billion are produced in a year.

While many corporations are genuinely concerned about what happens to a product once it leaves the factory, others have ready excuses that contain at most partial truths: "We cannot control who buys the products, how it is used, how it is discarded!" Obviously the task is not easy and usually requires industry-wide and government efforts, but socially responsible corporations participate in finding solutions, a task that satisfies even shareholders when common action throughout a particular industry is in offing, or when the corporation can shine as an industry pioneer. A good example of a corporation's efforts to be in touch with its customers is Cardiac Pacemakers inc. of St. Paul, Minnesota. Heart patients are invited to plant so they may share perhaps alleviate their concerns while employees working on the pacemakers develop a heightened awareness of their responsibilities to turn out high-quality product.

Senses of Corporate Responsibilities

1. Just as individuals have responsibilities, so do corporations. To be sure, corporations are communities of individuals, structured within legal frameworks. Yet corporations have internal structures consisting of policy manuals and flowcharts assigning responsibilities to individuals. When those individuals act in accordance with their assigned responsibilities, the corporation as a unity can be said to act. Thus, when we say that Intel created a new subsidiary, we understand that individuals with the authority took certain steps.

2. Just as individuals are accountable for meeting their obligations, so corporations are accountable to the general public, to their employees and customers, and to their stockholders. Corporations, too, have the capacity for morally responsible agency because it is intelligible to speak of the corporation as acting. The actions of the corporation are performed by individuals and subgroups within the corporation, according to how the flowchart and policy manual specifies areas of authority.

3. Just as individuals manifest the virtue of responsibility when they regularly meet their obligations, so too corporations manifest the virtue of responsibility when they routinely meet their obligations. in general, it makes sense to ascribe virtues such as honesty, fairness and public spiritedness to certain corporations and not to others.

4. In contexts where it is clear that accountability for wrongdoing is at issue "responsible" becomes a synonym for blameworthy and in contexts where it is clearly that right conduct is at issue, "responsible" is a synonym for praiseworthy. This is as true for corporation as it is for individuals.