Engineering Ethic Education Should Consider The Changing Professional Responsibilities

By Author: Jacob Gan
Total Articles: 5
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Engineering is a profession

A profession is a learned practice demanding systematized understanding and preparatory study on top of a resolution to a common good. Engineering is the imaginative practice of applying science for the gain of all mankind and therefore is a profession.

The application of science includes the sense of duty to provide value products and services. This responsibility also includes creating a reasonable impact on society and the quality of life. Because engineering is a profession, engineers must have thoughts about the impact of their activities.

Ethics and standards

Ethic is usually considered as "referring to virtue" and ethical as "in accordance with the system or standards for uncorrupted conduct or practice, especially the standards of a profession." As moral values are often changed by the values of the society, each profession therefore has to work out its own set of standard rules so that there is a good agreement of what practices are all right and what are not. In this way, not only the members of the profession know which actions are useful, others ...
... outside the profession will be able to know what to expect from the profession as well.

Limitations of ethical standards

However, it is not reasonable to provide directives to cater to all conditions. Therefore, there are circumstances when they are shades of gray with no singular perfect answer. In such quandary, engineers must derive their best personal solutions. Many preferences will have similarly vital results. Diversed interest groups are influenced differently and to different levels.

Solutions to ethical situations are seldom clear-cut issues. In making decisions when ethical dilemmas arise, engineers need to be sensitive to how their decisions will involve certain groups. What may make the pick making extra complex is that the choices that are more ethical may put the engineers themselves, or their employer, at a position that is very disadvantageous to themselves.

An ethical dilemama

We shall illustrate the quandary often encountered by engineers by refering to the important Challenger space craft accident case.

In order for the space shuttle to have adequate speed to escape from the gravity to reach the orbit, the shuttle's own rockets are enhanced by two booster rockets that use solid fuel. These booster rockets were made by Morton Thiokol. As a result of the cold temperature expected at the launch of the space shuttle, a teleconference was held the night before the launch between NASA managers and Thiokol representatives and engineers. We can take for granted that all the officials were either engineers or familiar with rocket engineering.

The early recommendation by Thiokol was not to launch the space shuttle until the temperature had risen to a sufficient high level so that the O-rings would be able to perform the sealing effect. However, due to the displeasure by NASA representatives over the recommendation, it was amended to launch recommendation. Unfortunately, the shuttle exploded soon after take-off.

Let us envisage the predicaments faced by each of these three groups in this case:

Group 1 - NASA Officials
Group 2 - Thiokol Officials
Group 3 - Thiokol Engineers

Dilemma of NASA managers

The NASA managers were under the high pressure to launch the space craft because of a few reasons. Further delay in the launch would affect the launches of future missions. Delay in the launch would bring upon more cost and made the shuttle project less economically worth having. The lauch date was critical as President Reagan would be making the State of the Union speech as the shuttle was in orbit. Besides, he would be talking about education, and what better time for the president to talk about education than when a teacher was in orbit?

Nevertheless, NASA officials were not provided with solid evidence to conclude that the launch would be perilous as a result of cold condition. Furthermore, they did specify the perfromance of the booster rockets that run on solid fuel even at a low temperature, although not as low as what was expected during the launch.

Dilemma of Thiokol representatives

Insisting on the no-launch recommendation would antangonize the company's rapport with NASA top brass and affects their prospect for further business deals. Besides, their engineers could only provide circumstantial evidence of the danger of cold environment on the perfromance of the O-rings but it was not very unambiguous.

Dilemma facing thiokol engineers

While they were aware of the unsatisfactory operation of the O-rings at cold temperature, they did not have sufficient time to prepare a very convincing case. Although they expressed strong reaction to the change in the recommendation from no-launch to launch, they were over-ruled.

Important observation

The points of view of a situation depend substantially on the position a professional is in. In particular, a young professional is very concerned with the techical problems although as he moves up the organizational ladder, he becomes more and more disturbed with the business problems of the organization. When we teach engineering ethics, we have to analyze the misgivings faced by engineers at different levels of their professions.