Abstract
Many engineering ethics classes and textbooks introduce theories such as utilitarianism and Kantianism (and most others draw from these theories without mentioning them explicitly). Yet using ethical theories to teach engineering ethics is not devoid of difficulty. First, their status is unclear (should one pick a single theory or use them all? does it make a difference?) Also, textbooks generally assume or fallaciously ‘prove’ that egoism (or even simply accounting for one’s interests) is wrong. Further, the drawbacks of ethical theories are underestimated and the theories are also otherwise misrepresented to make them more suitable for engineering ethics as the authors construe it, viz. the ‘moral reasoning’ process. Stating in what various theories disagree would allow the students to frame the problem more productively in terms of motive–consequence or society–individual dichotomies rather than in terms of Kant–utilitarian.
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Notes
One could say that students must pick one of the ‘accredited’ theories, not any theory in general. But this would arbitrarily exclude many philosophers and many philosophies (viz. Epicurus, stoicism, Spinoza, Nietzsche, emotivism, existentialism, etc.). It will be retorted that (as with any class) there is not enough time to teach everything. While this is of course true, lack of time says nothing about which theories to keep. Moreover, the situation here is different from most classes. An engineer who needs a piece of technical knowledge that was not taught in college will learn (from books, colleagues, etc.) when the need arises. But when would the need to learn about Nietzsche arise? A student who never heard of him in college will probably never even know that such a philosopher exists. Concretely, excluding a philosophy from an engineering ethics class excludes it from the life of engineers.
I will only mention limitations which are relevant to engineering ethics. The concept of happiness—central to utilitarianism—has been attacked from several directions. For instance, MacIntyre [10, p. 61] wrote that “the notion of human happiness is not a unitary, simple notion and cannot provide us with a criterion for making our key choices.” But in the context of engineering, a precise definition of happiness is generally not necessary, so that this weakness of utilitarianism needs not concern us.
More generally, to utilitarianism it is necessary to account for consequences of what one does do but also for consequences of what one does not do. What would engineering ethics say about Challenger? Beforehand: that the launch should have been postponed for the sake of the safety of the astronauts. Afterwards: that the safety standards of NASA should be increased. What would a utilitarian say? That improving safety at NASA means spending billions to safeguard the lives of a handful of people: this money could be spent far more ethically otherwise. (Arguably this is true by any standards, but utilitarianism is more likely to pay attention to this fact).
The Greeks saw ethics as grand questions such as ‘what is the good life?’. Engineers see it as ‘flowchart ethics’ and ‘ethics skills,’ as if life were a gigantic job interview where one must boast skills.
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Bouville, M. On Using Ethical Theories to Teach Engineering Ethics. Sci Eng Ethics 14, 111–120 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-007-9034-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-007-9034-5