Do Engineers Have Social

Responsibilities?

People enjoy what technology can do for them while often ignoring what it can do to them

--Edward Wenk

ENGINEERING
Engineering is a great profession. There is a
fascination of watching a figment of the
imagination emerge, through the aid of
science, to a plan on paper. Then it moves to
realization in stone or metal or energy. Then it
brings jobs home to men. Then it elevates the
standards of living and adds to the comfort of
life. That is the engineer's high privilege.To
the engineer falls the job of clothing the bare
bones of science with life, comfort, and
hope
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--Herbert Hoover
(

What does having social

responsibilities mean?
It means a commitment from the engineering profession,
and, by proxy, the individual engineers who belong to the
profession, to place the public safety and interest ahead
of all other considerations and obligations.
It means that engineers take into account and show due
regard for the consequences of their conduct for the
well-being of others as well as for the impact of their
work on society and the citizenry.
This requires the engineer to make determined efforts to
discover all of the relevant facts concerning the design,
development, and deployment and all of the possible
outcomes of the choices available that may positively
and negatively affect/impact society and the citizenry
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Social Responsibilities of Engineers (Some

Examples)
Ensure the safety and well-being of the public
Ensure that societys funds and resources concerning
technology are well used
Refusing to work on a particular project or for a particular
company
Speaking out publicly against a proposed project
Blowing the whistle on illegality or wrong-doing
Professional Societies obligation to provide protection
for whistleblowers
Individual and organizational concern about the impact
of engineering projects on society
Contributing ones services to worthy, non-profit groups
and projects
Engineering schools commitment to educating future
engineers about their social responsibilities
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Social Responsibilities of Engineers

(Some Examples)

Commitment of engineering professions and organizations to principles of

social responsibility
Commitment of risk assessment experts to ethical risk/safety assessments
Actively promote the ethical development and use of technology
Voluntarily assume the task of educating the public about important
consequences of various technological and scientific developments
Commitment of engineers to design and develop sustainable technologies
Provide expert advice to non-experts
Take part in democratic procedures for technology decision making and
policy management
Social activism of engineers in the public Interest
Explicit care and concern about technologys impact on Nature and the
Environment
Abiding by the principles of sustainable development when thinking about
engineering designs
Abiding by the precautionary principle when thinking about engineering
designs
In engineering design, engineers have practiced social responsibility by
applying factors of safety to their designs

Engineering Social Responsibility

Why do engineers have the responsibility to think about
the interaction of technology and society?
Because engineers are the ones who create all of the
technology
Responsible are supposed to think about the effects of
their own actions and creations especially if they impact
others
Possible response: but engineers and scientists, like
professionals in general, are supposed to implement the
goals of their employers and clients, not decide what
those goals should be
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Arguments that Engineers Dont (Shouldnt/Couldnt)

Have Social Responsibilities

1. Engineering is not a true profession so society

should not expect that engineers have social
responsibilities like the other true professions
2. Engineering is a value-free enterprise that
deals only in objective facts
3. Engineers are not qualified to make ethical
judgments on behalf of society so it is unfair to
think they should or could
4. The nature of engineer-manager relations in
large organizations

Engineers lack decision-making autonomy and

power
7

Arguments that Engineers Dont (Shouldnt/Couldnt)

Have Social Responsibilities (Argument One)
1. Engineering is not a true profession and so society
shouldnt hold the profession of engineering, or
individual engineers, to higher ethical standards as it
does other true professions such as medicine, law, and
university professors
1. Professions have social responsibilities but engineering is not a
profession like medicine and law and so it does not have the
same, higher, social responsibilities
2. Engineering does not serve a crucial social need and high ends
that is the basis of an implicit social contract
3. Engineering is not given the same privileges other professionals
so there is not a social contract that promotes engineering
social responsibility
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Engineers Dont (Shouldnt/Couldnt) Have

Social Responsibilities: Argument One

Differences between engineers and other

professionals such as medicine, law, university
professors, etc.
Such professions serve crucial social needs and
high ends such as Health (Doctors), Truth and
Knowledge (Professors), Social Justice
(Lawyers)
Society grants special privileges to such
groups for socially recognized essential needs
Engineering lacks such ends, privileges, and
protections
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Engineers Dont (Shouldnt/Couldnt) Have

Social Responsibilities: Argument Two

Engineers maintain a value-free

objectivity following a scientific
methodology absent of any
subjectivity

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Engineers Dont (Shouldnt/Couldnt) Have

Social Responsibilities: Argument Three
The individual engineer is not qualified to make
judgments as to the ethical acceptability or
unacceptability of technology
The choices as to which technology should be
designed or built can only be made on the basis
of systems of human values incapable of
validation by the scientific and/or the
engineering method

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Engineer-Manager Relations in Large

Corporations or Organizations: Argument Four
The Received View:
The corporate engineer lacks the sufficient autonomy
necessary to be responsible and ethical
The engineer is in constant conflict with management
who often ends up overriding engineering judgment
concerning engineering designs.
Lack of professional autonomy leaves scant room for
ethical decision making (but not ethical judgment)

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Engineer-Manager Relations in Large Corporations or

Organizations: Argument Four (cont.)

Engineers are a captive profession in a highly

compartmentalized work environment.
Managers choose what to do, divide work up into
small groups, and assign each engineer to a
particular one
Communication between engineers and
managers is kept to a minimum to assure
management control
Engineers identify options, test them, and report
the work to managers
Managers combine these reports with business
information they alone have.
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Managers decide, engineers merely advise

Engineer-Manager Relations in Large Corporations or

Organizations : Argument Four (cont.)

Corporate engineers are used as hired hands

who develop technology with the sole purpose of
advancing the economic demands of the
corporation or client
Engineers are not independent professionals
They are employees
Emerging from the canal and railway building
enterprises of the nineteenth century American
engineering is a creature of large bureaucratic
organizationsindividual engineers were the
original organization man
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The concept of Organization Man

This term was coined in the 1960s when sociological
analyses of bureaucracies were conducted
An organization man is someone who represses or
suppresses his or her individual desires and values and
molds their personal behavior to conform to the
demands of the organization he or she works for.
Another definition is a employee of large corporations
who has adapted so completely to what is expected in
attitudes, ideas, and behaviors of the corporation so that
they lose a sense of personal identity or independence
Someone who so fully adapts that their personal identity
and values are absorbed by organizational objectives
and values
Someone who sacrifices his or her own individuality for
what is perceived as the good of the organization
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Engineer-Manager Relations in Large

Corporations or Organizations: Counterargument
Recent research: The Received View is False
Instead of rigid hierarchical and
compartmentalized decision making process of
the received view
There exists a highly fluid process depending
heavily on meetings and less formal exchange
of information across departmental boundaries
Managers seemed to have little control over
what information would reach the engineers
Managers are anxious to get engineers to hook
up with one another for collaboration
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Arguments/rationales for the Social

Responsibility of Engineers
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.

Codes of Ethics
Professionalism
Social Contract Model
Engineering Societies
Principle of Proportionate Care
Engineering as Social Experimentation
The Impacts of Technology on Society
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Rationales for Social Responsibility of Engineers

Fundamental Canons
1. Hold paramount the safety, health, and
welfare of the public
2. Perform services only in areas of their
competence
3. Issue public statements only in an objective
and truthful manner
4. Act for each employer or client as faithful
agents or trustees
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Professionalism
WHAT IS A PROFESSIONAL?
Today, it is one who is duly qualified in a specific
field
* special theoretical knowledge or education
* appropriate experience
* knowledge and skills vital to the well-being of
a large portion of the society
* Professional organization and a code of ethic
* special social sanction
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Models of Professionalism
Business Model
*

professional status provides economic gain

monopoly provides for high pay

self-regulation avoids government regulation

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MODELS OF PROFESSIONALISM
Social Contract Model
Professionals are guardians of the public trust
Professions are social institutionsthey are organized by
some act of society and are granted special powers in
return for socially beneficial goods and services (Licensure)
An implicit, unstated agreement exists between
professional and society
Society may subsidize training of professionals
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The Implicit Contract Between Society

and the Engineering Profession

Professionals agree to:

* provide a service
- for the public well-being
- promote public welfare, even at
own expense
* self-regulation
- enforce competence
- enforce ethical standards
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The Implicit Contract Between Society

and the Engineering Profession

Clients place their trust not only in individual professionals but also
in the professional organization and they trust professionals
because the exercise of professional discretion at the individual
level is governed by rules which are prescribed and enforced by the
group

The professions for self-regulation : This means that the profession

of engineering has a strong responsibility to make sure that
technology is produced that is good and beneficial to society, and
technological goods should be distributed fairly and justly among all
members of our society

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The Implicit Contract Between Society

and the Engineering Profession
Self regulation places the burden of proof
collectively on the organization to ensure that
individual members are technically competent to
perform their duties according to high ethical
standards and that engineers have genuine
concern for how technology impacts society,
both negatively as well as positively
To voluntarily claim the benefits of a profession a
member of that profession is obligated to follow
the rules and norms of that professionIf not,
they would be taking unfair advantage of a
voluntary cooperative practice
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Principle of Proportionate Care

To the extent that the engineers, due to their
special knowledge of technology, and the fact
that technology could be risky and dangerous,
could harm society, they must exercise due care
in the practice of their profession.
The more engineers are in a position to harm
society, the more they should be held to a higher
ethical standard
Society requires this in order to ensure the safe
and reliable design, development, and
deployment of technological systems.
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Principle of Proportionate Care

There is a direct relationship between their
ability to cause harm and the need to hold
engineers to the highest of ethical
standards
High Level of Harm

Potential to cause harm

High Level of Ethics

Level of Ethical Standard

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Defining Engineering

Engineering is that profession in which knowledge of the mathematical and natural

sciences gained by study, experience, and practice is applied with judgment to
develop ways to utilize, economically, the materials and forces of nature for the
benefit of mankind. (The Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology
ABET, 1992)
Engineering is the application of scientific and mathematical principles to practical
ends such as the design, manufacture, and operation of efficient and economical
structures, machines, processes, and systems.
Engineering is the art of directing the great sources of power in nature for the use
and the convenience of people. In its modern form engineering involves people,
money, materials, machines, and energy. It is differentiated from science because it is
primarily concerned with how to direct to useful and economical ends the natural
phenomena which scientists discover and formulate into acceptable theories.
Engineering therefore requires above all the creative imagination to innovate useful
applications of natural phenomena. It seeks newer, cheaper, better means of using
natural sources of energy and materials. (Science and Technology Encyclopedia,
McGraw Hill)
Engineering is the professional art of applying science to the optimum conversion of
the resources of nature to the uses of humankind. (Encyclopedia Britannica)
Engineering is the application of science and mathematics by which the properties of
matter and the sources of energy in nature are made useful to people (MerriamWebster Dictionary)
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Engineering and Ethics

If we accept these definitions of engineering, it is
crucial to realize the centrality of ethical
concerns at the core of the engineering
enterprise
Concern for social well being and humanity are
part of the very definition of engineering
Assuming the intellectual rigor of these
definitions, the need of ethics in engineering is
nothing superfluous or added, but it is the
essence of the engineering profession
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Engineering and Social Values

Today the consequences of human creativity in the areas of

engineering, technology, and science have reached measures that
only a few decades ago were unimaginable (e.g., genetic
engineering, biotechnology, nanotechnology, information
technologies, artificial intelligence)
This capacity and development mean an enormous amount of
Power
Knowledge is Power
With Power comes Responsibility
Knowledge implies responsibility the obligations of the engineer
must be commensurate with the level of his or her knowledge and
power
With Responsibility comes Obligation and Accountability
The fact of living in a complex, global, and intercultural world
coupled with the unquestionable technological power wielded by
governments and societies
Makes it necessary that engineers amplify the horizon of their
technical knowledge with humanistic values and harmonize their
specialized formation and development with knowledge of the
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norms, principles, and ideals of ethics

Engineering and Social Values

In view of the enormous power of technology
and science and the enormous potential risks
they pose, it is indispensable to stimulate and
develop the norms of the moral responsibility of
engineers
There exists an urgent need to complement
technical knowledge with the development of
values, attitudes, and knowledge that facilitate
professional and ethical excellence
It is necessary to develop social skills and team
work based in the respect for the proper values
of civic and social ethics
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Engineering Ethics

The institutionalization of engineering ethics is a social necessity

due to the fact that the actions of engineers can have such
enormous impact on the lives of individuals, states, cultures, the
environment, and the entire planet
An engineer is a professional who uses technologiesand the
knowledge that he possesses of diverse technical systems: objects
of all kinds, and in particular, machines, tools and systemsto
create other technical systems that satisfy human needs and wellbeing
It is necessary to develop with rigor and depth a concept of ethics
and responsibility commensurate with our immense technological
powers in order to advance to a safer and more just world

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Engineering as a Humanity
Is Engineering more like Natural Science
or more like a field of studies in the
Humanities?
If you look at the very definition of
engineering, you will see that engineering
is intimately connected to the humanities
because it is the application of scientific
theory to solve certain problems of
humanitynamely its need for technology
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The Ultimate Purpose of Engineering

Does the profession of engineering serve
a higher purpose, like the professions of
medicine (health), law (justice), professors
(education)?
Serving a higher purpose means that it
serves a crucial social value
This value is crucial to society because it
is deemed necessary for social existence
and social flourishment
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