ENGINEERING ETHICS Professional Ethics in Engineering Part 5
- Slides: 10
ENGINEERING ETHICS Professional Ethics in Engineering, Part 5: Ethical Decision-Making Prof. Dr. Abduladhem Abdulkareem Ali, SMIEEE, MACM Department of Computer Engineering, College of Engineering University of Basrah
How can we approach moral problems? • Identify – Affected parties – Rights and responsibilities – Additional information needed • Consider alternative actions • Imagine possible consequences
• Same problem-solving skills as for technical problems. • First analyze situation. Additional information to make a wise decision: requires ability to see what is not there, without hallucinating. • Analysis, Synthesis, and Evaluation of those alternatives according to their consequences. • Not automatic procedure.
How can we approach moral problems? • Basic ethical values—honesty, fairness, civility, respect, kindness, etc. • Harms test: Cost-benefit test. Consider both short term and long term harms. If I throw out anomalous data, I can make my results graph look good and finish the lab report right now. But what happens to my long term reputation for integrity?
• Reversibility test: Very useful to imagine perspectives of other people, to trade places. If you are reading my lab report and you know I’ve falsified the data, can you trust the report? President Dwight Eisenhower used to ask, “How does this look to the other guy? ” • Common practice test: What if everybody in a similar situation chose the same action? What if everybody falsified lab data? Then no one would be able to trust any lab results. If you’ve study formal philosophical ethics, this is Kant’s categorical imperative, or universalizability test.
compare their features Extortion Grease payment Gift Large size -----------x-- Small size Transaction x------------Friendship Before action x------------ After action Influence ----x---------- No influence requested by-----x------- Not requested by recipient
How can we evaluate morality of actions? • Legality test: Would this choice violate a law or a policy of my employer? • Colleague test: What would professional colleagues say? : Also consider code of ethics • Wise relative test: What would my wise old aunt or uncle do? • Mirror test: Would I feel proud of myself when I look into the mirror afterward? • Publicity test: How would this choice look on the front page of a newspaper?
Example: Can sending spam be moral? • Spam is unwanted bulk e-mail • Could be honest, free speech, (Spammers claim that they merely exercise their free speech rights. Unless message is deceptive, spamming is But we can apply the moral tests Harms: Costly, reduces trust in e-mail Reversibility: Senders dislike receiving spam Common practice: Would clog network Legality: CAN-SPAM law does not apply outside U. S. , where much spam originates not dishonest. ) • •
In the Method of Casuistry, we find negative and positive paradigm cases • In another country, should we give a customary “grease payment” to a low-level government official for expedited handling of our paperwork? • Negative paradigm (clearly wrong): Extortion • Positive paradigm (clearly right): Gift
Relationships with clients • Agency – Client has primary responsibility (professional is “hired gun”) • Paternalism – Professional has primary responsibility (Professional tells client what to do, but doesn’t know client’s priorities among values. ) • Fiduciary – Client trusts professional (joint responsibility. Professional provides options, client consents to one option. )
- Descriptive ethics
- Ethics engineering
- Tbpe roster
- Society of professional journalists code of ethics
- 8 general moral imperatives
- Code of conduct professional ethics
- Definitiveness of ethical human conduct is also known as
- Holistic technology in professional ethics
- Ratesetter legal finance
- State legal ethical and professional aspects of security
- Risk-benefit analysis in professional ethics