ENGINEERING AS SOCIAL

ENGINEERING AS SOCIAL

ENGINEERING AS EXPERIMENTATION

Engineering should be regarded as an inherently risky activity as many products of technology present some potential dangers. Therefore in order to explore its ethical implications, it is suggested that engineering should be viewed as an experimental process. This experiment is not conducted solely in the lab under controlled conditions. Rather it is an experiment on a social scale involving human subjects.

Experimentation is commonly recognized as playing an essential role in the design process. Preliminary tests or simulations are conducted from the time it is decided to convert a new engineering concept into its first rough design. Materials and processes are tried out, usually employing formal experimental techniques. Such tests serve as the basis for more detailed designs, which in turn are tested. At the production stage further tests are run, until a finished product is developed. The normal design process is thus iterative, carried out on trial designs with modifications being made on the basis of feedback information acquired from tests. Beyond those specific tests and experiments, however, each engineering project taken as a whole may be viewed as an experiment.

Similarities to Standard Experiments

1.      Any project is carried out in partial ignorance. There are uncertainties in the abstract model used for the design calculations, characteristics of materials processing and fabrication, and the nature of the stresses the finished product will encounter. The engineer has to compromise and cannot wait till all the relevant facts have been received before commencing work. At some point, theoretical exploration and laboratory testing must be bypassed for the sake of moving ahead on a project.

2.      The final outcomes of engineering projects, like those of experiments, are generally uncertain.  A dam may leak or break and may not even serve its intended purpose. A jumbo airplane may bankrupt the small airline that bought it as a status symbol. A nuclear plant may exhibit unexpected problems that endanger surrounding populations, leading to its untimely shutdown at great cost to owner and consumers alike.

3.   Effective engineering relies upon knowledge gained about products both before and after they leave the factory, the knowledge needed for improving current products and creating better ones. Thus ongoing success in engineering depends upon gaining new knowledge. However, ultimate test of a product’s efficiency, safety, cost-effectiveness, environmental impact and aesthetic value lies in how well that product functions within society. In other words how good it is for client use.

Learning from the Past

Usually Engineers learn from their own earlier design and operating results. They also learn those of other engineers, but unfortunately lack of proper communication, misplaced pride in not asking for information or negligence often impede the flow of such information and lead to many repetitions of past mistakes.

Here are a few examples:

The ‘Titanic’ lacked a sufficient number of lifeboats. A number of years after most of the passengers and crew perished on the steamship ‘Arctic’ because of the same problem.

There are a number of tragic incidents of errant ships colliding with bridges over navigable waterways:

·         Complete lack of protection against impact by shipping caused Sweden’s worst ever collapse of a bridge on January 24, 1980, as a result of which eight people were killed.

·         On May 15 of the same year a similar rather more severe disaster occurred at Tampa Bay, Florida.

·         Empty phosphate freighter “Summit Venture” slammed into a pier of the bridge knocking 1261 feet of center span, cantilever approach, and roadway into the bay along with 35 people on board a Greyhound bus.

·         Other well-known cases include the Maracaibo Bridge (Venezuela, 1964) and Tasman Bridge (Australia, 1975).

Engineers recommend floating concrete bumpers that can deflect ships, but it is not being properly implemented.

In June 1966 a section of the Milford Haven Bridge in Wales collapsed during construction. A bridge of similar design was being erected by the same contractor (Freeman Fox and Partners) in Melbourne, Australia, when it, too, partially collapsed, killing 33 people and injuring 19.

The nuclear reactor at Three Mile Island on March 28, 1979 met an accident due to lack of information about open and shut state of pressure relief valve. Similar malfunctions had occurred with identical valves on nuclear reactors at other locations. This information was passed on to Babcock and Wilcox, the reactor’s manufacturer to modify the design, but no attention had been given to them.                 

These examples illustrate that it is not enough for engineers to rely on handbooks & computer programs. They should visit construction sites to learn from workers. They should remain alert and well informed at every stage of a project’s history.  

CONTRASTS WITH STANDARD EXPERIMENTS

Engineering differs in some respects from standard experimentation. These differences help in identifying moral responsibilities of all those engaged in engineering.

Experimental Control:   In a standard experiment this involves the selection, at random, of members for two different groups. The members of one group receive the special, experimental treatment. Members of the other group, called the control group, do not receive that special treatment, although they are subjected to the same environment as the first group in very other respect.

In engineering, this is not the usual practice because the experimental subjects are human beings or finished products out of the experimenter’s control. Indeed, clients and consumers exercise most of the control because it is they who chose the product or item they wish to use. This makes it impossible to obtain a random selection of participants from various groups.

Informed Consent:   Viewing engineering as an experiment on a societal scale, the experiment is performed on persons and not on inanimate objects. Informed consent includes knowledge and voluntariness. First, subjects should be given not only the information they request, but all the information needed to make a reasonable decision. Second, subjects must enter into the experiment voluntarily and not by force, fraud or deception. Respect for the fundamental rights of dissenting minorities and compensation for harmful effects are taken for granted here.

Knowledge Gained:   Scientific experiments are conducted to gain new knowledge, while engineering projects are experiments which do not produce very much knowledge but unexpected outcomes. The best outcome in this sense is one that tells us nothing new but merely affirms that we are right about something. Unexpected outcomes send us on a search for new knowledge involving a scientific experiment.

ENGINEERS AS RESPONSIBLE EXPERIMENTERS

Although the main technical enablers or facilitators, engineers are not the sole experimenters. Their responsibility is shared with management, the public and others. Yet their expertise places them in a unique position to monitor projects, to identify risks, and to provide clients and the public with the information needed to make reasonable decisions. For an engineer to become a responsible person, he should have four characteristics i.e. conscientious commitment to live by moral values, a comprehensive perspective, autonomy, and accountability.

1.      Conscientiousness:  

It means a primary obligation to protect the safety of human subjects and respect their right of consent. Engineers are guardians of the public interest, whose professional duty is to hold paramount the safety, health, and welfare of human subjects who are affected by engineering projects. The engineers should not force their own views of the social good upon society, rather should respect the participant’s right of consent both voluntary and informed.

2.      Comprehensive Perspective:     

Conscientiousness is incomplete without relevant factual information. Hence showing moral concern involves a commitment to obtain and properly assess all available information that is pertinent (relevant) to meeting one’s moral obligations. This information consists of a constant awareness of the experimental nature of any project, it’s possible side effects and a reasonable effort to monitor them. 

3.      Moral Autonomy:

The engineer should be morally autonomous and should have personal involvement in all steps of a project.

Autonomy means self-determining and independent. Moral autonomy means the skill and habit of thinking rationally about ethical issues on the basis of moral concern. The foundation of moral concern is derived primarily from the training we receive as children in being sensitive to the needs and rights of others, as well as of ourselves. Moral beliefs and attitudes should be held on the basis of critical reflection rather than passive adoption of the particular conventions of society, church or profession. Moreover moral beliefs and attitudes should become core of one’s personality in a manner that leads to committed action.      

4.      Accountability:

Responsible people accept moral responsibility for their actions. Usually “accountable” is understood in narrow sense of being culpable and blameworthy for misdeeds. But the term refers to submission of one’s actions to moral scrutiny and is open and responsive to the assessments of others. It involves willingness to present morally cogent reasons for one’s conduct when called upon to do so. Submission to an employer’s authority, or any authority for that matter, creates a narrowed sense of accountability for the consequences of their actions.