Question

In general, nobody will want to deny that engineers have an active responsibility for technologies they design and/or workwith. In practice, however, many engineers find it problematic to act on this responsibility. Describe three problems for the idea that engineers should take responsibility for technologies and give a concrete example of each problem from engineering practice.

Answer 1

First we are going to see , what is engineering ethics?
Ethics are principles followed depending upon the moral responsibility that a person feels. The study of related questions about moral ideals, character, policies and relationships of people and organizations involved in technological activity, can be termed as Engineering ethics.

An engineer whether he works individually or works for a company, has to go through some ethical issues, mostly under the conditions such as, conceptualization of a product, issues arising in design and testing departments, or may be on the issues involving the manufacturing, sales and services. Questions related to morality also arise during supervision and team works.

The ethical decisions and moral values of an engineer need to be considered because the decisions of an engineer have an impact the products and services - how safe they are to use, the company and its shareholders who believe in the goodwill of the company, the public and the society who trusts the company regarding the benefits of the people, the law which cares about how legislation affects the profession and industry, the job and his moral responsibilities and about how the environment gets affected, etc.

Steps to Deal with Issues

Whenever there occurs an issue, one should possess a few skills in order to sort out the problem. The issues that engineers face, have to be dealt with patience and few moral goals have to be kept in mind while dealing with such issues. They are as follows −

• Moral Awareness − One should be able to recognize the moral problems and issues that occur in Engineering. The analysis on the problem is necessary in order to differentiate and judge according to ethics or according to the rules to follow.

• Cogent Moral Reasoning − In order to come to a conclusion on an issue, the argument has to be assessed and comprehended. The argument on both sides has to be considered with all the probabilities and the nature of the argument should be logical and moral.

• Moral Coherence − After having gone through all the logical and moral facts, consistent and comprehensive view points are to be formed based upon a consideration of relevant facts.

• Moral Imagination − The moral issues and the practical issues have to be dealt separately. Alternative responses are to be found out for dealing with moral issues while creative solutions should be found out for practical difficulties.

• Moral Communication − The language to communicate about one’s moral views should be so precise and clear, that the expression or words should not alter the original meaning.