Ethics in Engineering Practice and Research

Cambridge University Press, 1998

Caroline Whitbeck

Table of Contents

Chapter Title	Page Number
Preface
Outline and Summary	xiii
Order of Topics and Use in Courses	xiv
Acknowledgments	xvii
Foreword by Woodie C. Flowers	xviii
Introduction to Ethical Concepts	1
Part 1: Values and Value Judgments	3
Values Distinguished from Preferences	3
Types of Value and Value Judgments	6
Ethics and Ethical Relativism	9
Ought, Good-Bad, Right-Wrong	11
A Note on Normative Ethical Theory	12
Moral and Amoral Agents	13
Consequences, Harms, and Benefits	15
Part 2: Moral Rights and Moral Rules	18
Moral Rights	18
Moral Obligations, Moral Rules and Moral Standing	27
Part 3: Moral Character and Responsibility	35
Virtues and Vices	35
Ethical Responsibility and Official Responsibility	37
Trust and Responsibility	44
Part 4: Privacy, Confidentiality, Intellectual Property and the Law	46
Privacy and confidentiality	48
Ethics, Conscience and the Law	49
Chapter 1: Ethics as Design: Doing Justice to Ethical Problems
Design Problems	55
The Design Analogy	56
Four Moral Lessons from Design Problems	61
the Dynamic Character of Ethical Problems	66
Problems as Experienced by Agents	68
Making and Assessing Ethical Judgments	70
Summary & Conclusion: Improving on Excellence	72
Chapter 2: The Basis and Scope of Professional Responsibility
Professions and Norms of Professional Conduct	74
How Ethical Standards Vary With Profession	76
Responsibilities, Obligations and Moral Rules in Standards of Ethical Behavior	82
Trustworthy Professional Practice	86
Which Mistakes are Culpable?	88
The Autonomy of Professions and Codes of Ethics	93
Does Employee Status Prevent Acting as a Professional?	100
Summary	104
Chapter 3: Central Professional Responsibilities of Engineers
How Criteria for Professional Conduct Change	108
The Emerging Consensus on the Responsibility for Safety among Engineers	109
Knowledge, Foresight, and the Responsibility for Safety	111
the 1979 American Airlines DC-10 Crash	114
Hazards and Risks	118
the Scope and Limits of Engineering Foresight	122
Matching an Engineer's Foresight With Opportunities for Influence	128
Summary	129
Chapter 4: Two Models of Professional Behavior: Roger Boisjoly & the Challenger, William LeMessurierÀs Fifty-Nine Story Crisis
Part 1: Roger Boisjoly's Attempts to avert the Challenger Disaster	133
Moral Lessons from Roger Boisjoly's Response to Safety Problems	133
Background and the Post-Flight Inspection in January, 1985	134
Being Asked to Tone Down the Hypothesis about Cold Temperature	135
Stagnation in the Face of Mounting Evidence about Seal Erosion	136
A Company's Concern about Its Image	139
Working With Poor Management Support	139
The Day and Evening Before the Flight	140
Preventing Accidents	144
The Challenger Disaster as a Formative Experience for Many Engineers	145
Part 2: William LeMessurier's Handling of the "Fifty-Nine Story Crisis"	146
LeMessurier's Innovative Design for the Citicorp Tower	147
The Discovery of the Change from Welds to Bolts	148
Investigating the effects of Quartering Winds	149
Wind Tunnel Evidence of the Danger	150
Mobilizing Support	151
Accomplishing the Repair without Causing Panic	152
The Final Touch: LeMessurier's Good Name	153
Part 3: Conclusion: Comparison of Boisjoly and LeMessurier	154
Chapter 5: Workplace Rights and Responsibilities
Engineers and Managers	157
Organizational Complaint Procedures	160
Government Agencies	163
Mixed Results: the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC)	164
American Forestry Service	165
The Hanford Joint Council for Resolving Employee Concerns	166
Employment Guidelines from Engineering and Scientific Societies	168
Organizational Control & Individual Privacy: The Biological Testing of Workers	170
Limits on Acceptable Behavior in the Large Corporation	175
Lockheed Martins Ethics Game	176
Advice from the Texas Instruments Ethics Office	181
The Work Environment, Ethical and Legal Considerations	182
Title VII of the U.S. Civil Rights Act of 1964	183
U.S. Supreme Court Decision on Harris v.s. Forklift	184
From Overcoming Prejudice to Valuing Diversity	185
Organizational Responses to Offensive Behavior and Harassment	187
Ethics in a Global Context	189
Conclusion	190
Chapter 6: Responsibility for Research Integrity
Research Misconduct or Research Integrity?	196
The Search for Adequate Terms	197
What Counts as Research Misconduct?	200
Does "Scientific Fraud" Describe Research Misconduct?	203
Fabrication, from Hoaxes to Undone Work	205
The Rare Cases of Fraud	207
Robert Millikan's data selection	208
The Debate and the Silence about MillikanÀs Lie	211
Responding to Changing Moral Standards	213
From Honest Mistakes to Negligence and Recklessness	214
Self-Deception and Research Misconduct	219
conclusion	221
Chapter 7: The Responsibility of Investigators for Experimental Subjects
Human Subjects in U.S. Medical and Psychological Experiments	227
Requirements for the Use of Human Subjects in Research	229
Human Subjects in Product Testing	231
Why Experiment on Animals to Benefit Humans?	231
Responsibility for Experimental Animals	234
Conclusion	234
Chapter 8: Responsibility for the Environment
The Rise of Ecology	237
Rachel Carson	238
Key Environmental Legislation	240
The Concept of an Ecosystem	241
Hazards and Risks	242
Illustration from the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Case	245
Responsible Behavior in Assessing Risk	245
Ecological Thinking and the Question of Who Counts	247
The Moral Standing of Non-Humans	247
The Case of Timbering and the Northern Spotted Owl	249
The 1995 Supreme Court Decision on "Taking" of a Threatened Species	251
Acid Rain and Unforeseen Consequences of Human Action	252
Effects of Chlorofluorocarbons on the Ozone Layer	253
Superfund Sites and the Monitoring of Communities for Toxic Contamination	255
Changing Norms in U.S. Corporations	258
Summary and Conclusion	259
Chapter 9: Fair Credit in Research and Publication
The History of the Significance of Authorship in Scientific Research	266
PlagiarismãFrom Copying Text to Appropriating Significant Ideas	268
The Criteria for and Responsibilities of Authorship	271
Ethical Guidelines for the Publication of Research	278
Conflict of Interest and Potentially Conflicting Interests	284
Credit Issues Among Faculty, Post-Docs, and Graduate Students	289
The Review of Grant Proposals	291
Conclusion	292
Chapter 10: Fair Credit in Engineering Practice
Patents and Trade Secrets	295
Individual Credit and the Ownership of Innovation	300
Benchmarking and Reverse Engineering	301
Conclusion	304
Epilog: Making a Life in Engineering and Science
Miguel Barrientos, Building a Water Pump for Andean Alpaca Breeders	307
Jim Melcher, Witnessing against Waste and Violence	310
Bibliography and References	313

See also:

The Philosophical Appendix to Ethics in Engineering Practice and Research

cwhitbeck@onlineethics.org

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