Engineer: Ethics Decision Framework
National Society of Professional Engineers (NSPE) Code of Ethics for Engineers delivered in our Engineering Professionalism (EG2401) class serves as an ethical guideline for engineers through the course of their professional career.
“No duty of the engineer is more important than his duty to protect the safety and well-being of the public” – Fleddermann.
In the engineering professionalism (EG2401) class, I am currently taking, I was exposed to the above phrase in our course text. Essentially, the phrase encapsulates one of the core ethos of the engineering profession, that is, to uphold public safety. These values are also enshrined within the National Society of Professional Engineers (NSPE) Code of Ethics, where the code serves as a compass that guides the professional engineering obligations of the engineers. One of the fundamental canons of the ethics code clearly stated, “Engineers shall hold paramount the safety, health, and welfare of the public.” As we deliver the best solution to the companies or our client, these solutions, no matter how good or how much cost-saving they generate, must never, in normal circumstance, or against the ethical considerations, go against the interests of the welfare of the public.
By accepting the axioms of ethical theory, the module also built a structured methodology that we can follow in a structured manner to evaluate and help guides decision making:
Presentation assignment for the Engineering Professionalism module, where I had to evaluate the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster by evaluating the actions of one of the stakeholder involved, Morton Thiokol, contractor of the solid rocket booster, on an ethics line diagram. The actual actions undertaken and hypothetical situations are placed and evaluated against the negative paradigm—unambiguously morally unacceptable— and the positive paradigm—unambiguously morally acceptable.
Ethics decision flowchart to analyse cases where there is a sequence of events to be considered and a corresponding consequence that arises from each decision.
One thing I gleaned from the module, as reiterated by the module lecturer as well, is that the framework is only effective if we, as engineers, choose to remember and to practice it.
Clearly, if we were to follow the guidelines set forth by the National Society of Professional Engineers (NSPE), we come to recognise how in the HVAC optimisation project, code II.1 is clearly violated when the interests of the company take precedence over that of the welfare of the workers in the enclosed working environment. By enacting the framework shown above, we can also clearly come to an understanding of the best course of action to undertake is to strike a nice balance between maximising cost-saving for the company while ensuring indoor air quality guidelines adhere to regulations. Through this examine, I came to realise that sometimes, a cost-benefit analysis might be a little unpalatable when the benefits and risks are borne by different parties.
Drawing a relevance on to my previous experience in USP, I took a module entitled virtue and leadership (UHB2204) under professor Loy, where we discussed the topic of moral virtue and human leadership. One of the course text I read was the book the Analects of Confucius, where I wrote a short blog post as part of my weekly assignment:
Blogpost assignment for the module Virtue and Leadership (UHB2204), where I touched Confucius’ ethics that focuses on the ideal character traits fundamental for effective leadership.
Looking back on this assignment, Confucius’ ethics focus on a practical approach to ethics (similar to EG2401), focusing on the ideal character traits that are required of a virtuous gentleman (君子). How, then, does Confucius ethics guide our decision making as engineers? Firstly, by upholding the code of ethics required of the profession, engineers create a culture that shape other individuals to act in accordance to the rules, which in turn, preserves the ethos of the profession.
Secondly, putting the phrase “devoting his mind to attaining the Way and not to securing food” into the contexts of engineering, it implies how engineers should uphold the moral standards of having integrity, honesty, and professionalism in accordance with the rules of the profession (Way). In other words, engineers need to weigh their benefits against the well-being of society, and try to prioritise the latter.
This leads me to the final point, that the fundamental values enshrined within different cultures or religion are always consistent. Even as we examine the Judeo-Christian framework of ethics that portrays human as agents with their own rights, there still exist a God being the moral compass of human existence. Hence, extrapolating this concept to professions and businesses beyond engineering, any profession that has the power and privileged to enact changes through the course of their work has the responsibility to act in accordance to the moral principles or code of ethics enshrined within the professional guidelines, which typically involves safeguard the interests of the disadvantaged or the underprivileged as they further the interests of another group.
Perhaps, the consistency of the fundamental values is what allows all of us to adopt the acceptable understanding surrounding ethics, and build a framework around it. Ultimately, the NSPE code of ethics and the framework we were taught in the engineering professionalism module provides us a “playbook” that guides our moral compass. More importantly, the key is to recognise when it is necessary to move away from the cost-benefit analysis, which is controversial and unpalatable in cases where the benefit and cost are not borne by the same party (e.g. HVAC optimisation project).
My takeaway is: we need to realise that there is a way to reconcile the difference between being competent in one’s profession and being human. This has to start by seeing our action as a reflection of our self, and as a reflection of the ethos of the profession. Building ethics and virtue into engineering profession can be done through discourses or systematic framework, but ultimately, it relies and calls upon the learner to form a connection and arrive at an understanding of how these ethics and virtue relate to the well-being of society. Ultimately, engineers’ action needs to be reflective of the socio-cultural and moral values that have shaped society so that we—the society and us—can co-create and live in a world that everyone can continuously dream about. After all, engineering is about collectively building the world, turning ideas into reality, and creating a society that is more liveable, humane, caring, and progressive.