Ethics in Engineering - Research Paper Example

Ethics in Engineering The decisions and actions of engineers have a profound impact on the world we live in, and society at large. Making a clear andpublic commitment to operating with integrity and honesty is essential to create a greater level of trust and confidence, and a positive perception of the engineering profession. (Statement of Ethical Principals). While we would all agree on the above statement, the principals behind this statement may be at times difficult to apply. As always, variables can enter into the decisions of a professional that have more to do with factors and pressures other than applications based on morality or other philosophical standards. This is particularly true when it comes to fellow professionals or protecting the reputation of our particular field. While “whistleblowers” are praised for their courage and integrity, the personal cost of “doing the right thing” can mean death to a career. Such behavior can also seriously affect the career of fellow professionals. A good example of the problems involved in balancing ones duty to fellow professionals and doing the right thing when one sees something wrong is clearly laid out by Michael Davis in Thinking Like an Engineer: Studies in the Ethics of a Profession. Davis outlines events leading up to the now infamous Challenger disaster brought on by certain engineering decisions regarding the questionable safety of ORings (4 Codes and Ethics of the Challenger, p 43-44). In reading the account the “blame” seems to fall upon one man, Robert Lund, vice president of engineering at Morton Thiokol, manufacturer of faulty ORings which were blamed for the tragedy. A team of engineers had recommended the flight be scraped, but Lund, with pressure from various people at the Space Center, was persuaded to allow the project to go forward. Space Center officials were “appalled at the evidence on which the no-launch recommendation was based.” (p44). Lund was in a professional bind. Should he take the advice of fellow engineers at Thiokol, or go with the recommendation of officials at the Space Center most of them engineers, to go forward. There was a lot of money at stake for Thiokol, and Lund knew it. The reputations of engineers were also at stake. He had to choose between duty to fellow professionals and pressure from outsiders to “think like a manager.” (p44) He chose the latter to disastrous results. It is easy as a professional to judge Lund’s decision in hindsight. Should he have blown the whistle then? Did he even think it necessary? For Roger Boisjoly, a Thiokol engineer who eventually did, the choice was obvious. Davis admits that “Whistleblowing is one way engineers have to show that the public health, safety, and welfare means more to them than employer, career, and even their own material welfare. (Avoiding the Tragedy of Whistleblowing, p 73) ASME Codes of Ethics say engineers should, “hold paramount the safety, health and welfare of the public in the performance of their professional duties.” (Bucciarelli, Airbus Autopilot Case, p 3) Davis, however, while acknowledging the need for whistleblowing in certain circumstances, prefers to avoid it when possible, suggesting instead work environments and relationships between engineers and companies that preclude the need for whistleblowing, which usually has disastrous affects on careers. (Avoiding, p 73). While both sources have their points, obviously the ideal would be the latter. However, a firm ethical standard and allegiance to one’s profession that insists engineers do all they can to share concerns with fellow engineers regarding ethical issues is needed. Every effort should have been made to examine the ORing issue, which it obviously was not. Officials at the space center, most engineers, did not respect the opinion of their fellow engineers at Thiokol. That said, it appears Lund did not meet his obligation to “hold paramount...” He also did not do his duty to his profession and his fellow engineers who begged him to stop the flight. Ensuring that everyone is meeting their professional obligation is an obligation and duty in itself. A duty to develop standards for protecting whistleblowers from unfair reprisals needs to be considered. When it comes to the justification of intellectual property rights, such justification can apply to engineering as well as a myriad of other fields. Considerations are strategic, economic and moral. In discussing justification for intellectual property rights as it pertains to genetic plant engineering, Brian Wright says a wide range of protections of intellectual property rights have been instituted globally, “but in many countries, lack of the more powerful utility patent protection (or lack of effective enforcement of patent rights) can be a serious obstacle for companies that would otherwise be interested in introducing new and superior plant varieties.” (Wright, p 3) Thus an argument for international standards applicable in and between all nations can be made. One of the primary arguments would certainly be the tendency by nations where such patents are not fully protected to either shy away from research into particular genetic strains, or, if a strain is discovered or produced, to keep it to themselves. Given the dire fact that many people in many nations are starving, and the need for more research into new genetic strains of plants is needed, this seems counterproductive to the goal of eliminating world hunger. Yet, “Enhanced intellectual property protection is widely credited with providing an incentive for the increased private investment in crop breeding and genetic engineering since the 1980s” (Wright, p 3) The downside of all this is that the entry of new firms into the field has been discouraged by the sheer number of pending patent claims that has left research in the hands of only a few larger companies worldwide. In this sense, one might say engineering research has in a sense been stifled by intellectual property rights. It may be promoting the interests of big business rather than promoting creative engineering research as sometimes charged. Wright agrees and concludes that “Strengthening intellectual property rights has undoubtedly been important in stimulating the research and development that made genetically engineered varieties of major crops available to farmers. But legal control of key technologies and materials is one of several important factors, including regulatory costs and market acceptance that have hindered the development of other genetically engineered crops...” (Wright, p 5) The Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) set the standards for intellectual property protection in the world today.  The Agreement sets minimum standards in the international rules governing patents, including on medicines. “Implementation of the TRIPS Agreement’s IP standards is having a considerable impact on access to medicines and public health.  By limiting competition and local manufacturing, particularly in under developed countries, the danger is that TRIPS extends high drug prices and worsens the access to medicines crisis.” (Campaign to Access for Essential Medicines). Duncan Matthews in his Globalizing Intellectual Property Right explains that while under developed countries view intellectual property rights as the common heritage of society (humans should have equal access to life-saving medicines, developed nations essentially view the misappropriation of intellectual property as theft. (Matthews, p 8) This presents another interesting viewpoint and speaks to the notion of free market capitalism versus a more socialistic view that puts the good of the group ahead of that of individuals. It is hard to argue, when given the fact that people in need of medicines should have them, that countries should consider the source rather than the positive outcome of, say, the fruits of pirated medical patents. This is especially true since many pharmaceutical companies have only recently made an effort to get needed AIDS medicines to underdeveloped countries. Yet, if a company puts thousands, perhaps millions of dollars into researching a cure, it seems only fair to expect that they should not only be fairly compensated but given credit in some form for having come up with the original idea. In conclusion, I would say that although ethics for engineers can be a complicated matter, professionals have a duty to speak out clearly when directly confronted by unethical behavior. It must be a guiding principal. Sources Davis, Michael, Thinking Like an Engineer: Studies in the Ethics of a Profession, 4 Codes and Ethics of the Challenger, Oxford University Press, 1998 Davis, Michael, Thinking Like an Engineer: Studies in the Ethics of a Profession, 6 Avoiding the Tragedy of Whistleblowing, Oxford University Press, 1998 Engineering Subject Center, Teaching of Engineering Ethics, “Statement of Ethical Principals, The Royal Academy of Engineering. http://www.engsc.ac.uk/er/ethics/index.asp Ethics and Engineering Education, Louis Bucciarelli, MIT, Airbuse Autopilot Case http://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/40284/ethics_20_talk.pdf;jsessionid=C2BEF3C5CF2190068272C3DF69747064?sequence=1 Matthews, Duncan, Globalizing Intellectual Property Rights: The Trips Agreement, Perceptions of International Property Rights, Chapter 1, Routledge, 2002 The Need to Restore Balance: The Doha Declaration http://www.accessmed-msf.org/main/access-patents/introduction-to-access-and-patents/trips/ Wright, Brian D., Plant Genetic Engineering and Intellectual Property Protect, Agricultural Biotechnology in California Series, Publication 8186 http://anrcatalog.ucdavis.edu/pdf/8186.pdf Read More