Introduction to Engineering Ethics

1. Introduction to Engineering Ethics

2. Why Learn Engineering Ethics?

3. Define Ethics, Engineering Ethics, & Morality • Morals: Right vs. Wrong / Good vs. Bad • Ethics: Activity of understanding moral values • Resolution of moral issues • Engineering Ethics: Incorporating moral values considering all issues involved • Frequently no easy answer

4. An Engineer’s Responsibilities Family, Upbringing, Personal Values & Ethics

5. Engineering: Managing the Unknown • Consistently lack knowledge about problems and designs • Engineering Design = creating NEW products and processes • Questions Questions Questions • How will it be used? • How well does it work? • How well does it need to work? • Will it affect people? In a beneficial way? • Can it be misused? What happens if it breaks? • Is it safe? Do we have to deal with all safety concerns? • You will never be absolutely certain as an engineer. Rather, you must be as prepared as possible when limited by time, resources, and funding. • You must see into the future and understand the consequences of your work

6. We Each Bring Something Different to the Table

7. Late 1940’s – Hanford Site Center of Plutonium Production Iodine 131 – Byproduct of Plutonium Production Air Force needed to test viability of new radiation monitoring system Dec 2nd & 3rd 1949 “The Green Run” Not disclosed until 1986 Consider One Example: The Hanford Green Run From a George Washington University Analysis (http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/radiation/dir/mstreet/commeet/meet8/brief8/tab_h/br8h7.txt) … In the Green Run, the value of national security seems to have trumped other ethical concerns. In addition, if today's environmental regulations were in place in 1949 they could have been circumvented by the executive branch. We can ask whether the Green Run should have happened, but perhaps more importantly, we should ask whether current regulations provide sufficient protection against analogous cases in the future

8. Professional Codes of Ethics

9. What Defines a Professional? • Advanced Expertise – skills and knowledge • Formal Education – not just practical training and/or apprenticeship • Self-Regulation – setting standards, drafting codes of ethics, enforcing these • Representing Profession before the public and government • Public Good – occupation serves some aspect of public good. Consider how this defines Mechanical Engineering

10. A fundamental requirement is for engineers to provide faithful, honest, professional service

11. Codes of Ethics • Guide conduct and decision making of engineers • Similar between societies • What’s a society? Check out the American Society of Mechanical Engineers Your Turn: Professional Codes PowerPoint

12. National Society of Professional Engineers Engineers' CreedAs a Professional Engineer, I dedicate my professional knowledge and skill to the advancement and betterment of human welfare. I pledge: • To give the utmost of performance; • To participate in none but honest enterprise; • To live and work according to the laws of man and the highest standards of professional conduct; • To place service before profit, the honor and standing of the profession before personal advantage, and the public welfare above all other considerations. In humility and with need for Divine Guidance, I make this pledge. Adopted by National Society of Professional Engineers, June 1954 Source: http://www.nspe.org/Ethics/CodeofEthics/Creed/creed.html

13. Risk & Liability in Engineering

14. Source: www.readin.com On September 11, 2001, terrorists attacked the Twin Towers by flying two hijacked 727’s into them. Each jet impacted approximately 2/3 of the way up. The resulting fire, fueled by high-octane aviation gas, isolated more than 2000 workers in the floors above the impact. Only 18 of these workers made it to safety, while in contrast almost all of the workers in the floors below escaped. In the hour following the crashes, the intense heat (above 1000F) caused the steel floor beams in each tower to sag. The floor structures broke away from the external vertical load-bearing beams. As the floors fell, they created loads the lower floors could not support. As a result, the towers collapsed.

15. What about acceptable risk and our approach to that risk as engineers?

16. The Engineer’s Approach to Risk

17. Consider Definitions • Risk = compound measure of the probability and magnitude of adverse affect • Product of the likelihood and the magnitude of harm • Harm = limitation or impairment of a person’s freedom or well-being • Public Perception • Public rarely has all the facts • Many priorities set by a public more concerned with perceived risks than actual risks due to lack of knowledge • Acceptable Risk: probability and magnitude of harm  probability and magnitude of benefit • This is where the engineer must apply capable judgment

18. Consider a Disaster

19. How Does the Engineer Approach Risk and Safe Design? • As a minimum, design MUST comply with applicable laws • Design must meet standards of current engineering practice • Must explore potentially safer designs • ALWAYS compare • ALWAYS seek alternatives • Engineer must attempt to foresee potential misuses of design • Design for these misuses • Realize the ramifications of misuses

20. Public Perception of Risk • Perception of real risk frequently varies between those that know facts (engineers) and those that do not know facts (public) • Public frequently drastically underestimates risk • Sometimes leads to misunderstanding of need for safe and secure engineering design • We must respect individuals right to choose and decide: Acceptable risk = Risk assumed by free and informed consent Risk is justly distributed or properly compensated

21. Communicating Risk – an Engineer’s Responsibility

22. Consider the Space Shuttle Challenger "The future is not free: the story of all human progress is one of a struggle against all odds. We learned again that this America, which Abraham Lincoln called the last, best hope of man on Earth, was built on heroism and noble sacrifice. It was built by men and women like our seven star voyagers, who answered a call beyond duty, who gave more than was expected or required and who gave it little thought of worldly reward." President Ronald Reagan January 31, 1986 CNN Video

23. How Do We Evaluate Risk? One Method – Fault Tree • Objective, systematic way to account for and evaluate types and probabilities of risk • Typically termed ‘Risk Assessment’ • Begin with the undesirable event (such as a car not starting) • Reason BACK to events that might have caused this undesirable occurrence • Anticipate hazards – especially those for which there is little or no direct experience • Systematically analyze failure modes

24. Source: sixsigma.knowledgehills.com