Engineering business and professional ethics 2007

Engineering business and professional ethics 2007

Engineering, Business and Professional Ethics This page intentionally left blank Engineering, Business and Professional Ethics Simon Robinson, Ross Dixon, Christopher Preece and Krisen Moodley AMSTERDAM • BOSTON • HEIDELBERG • LONDON • NEW YORK • OXFORD PARIS • SAN DIEGO • SAN FRANCISCO • SINGAPORE • SYDNEY • TOKYO Butterworth-Heinemann is an imprint of Elsevier Butterworth-Heinemann is an imprint of Elsevier Linacre House, Jordan Hill, Oxford OX2 8DP 30 Corporate Drive, Suite 400, Burlington, MA 01803 First published 2007 Copyright © 2007, Simon Robinson, Ross Dixon, Christopher Preece and Krisen Moodley. All rights reserved The right of Simon Robinson, Ross Dixon, Christopher Preece and Krisen Moodley to be identified as the authors of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 No part of this publication may be reproduced in any material form (including photocopying or storing in any medium by electronic means and whether or not transiently or incidentally to some other use of this publication) without the written permission of the copyright holder except in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 or under the terms of a licence issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency Ltd, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London, England W1T 4LP. 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You may also complete your request on-line via the Elsevier homepage (http://www.elsevier.com), by selecting ‘Customer Support’ and then ‘Obtaining Permissions’ British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress ISBN–13: 978-0-7506-6741-8 ISBN–10: 0-7506-6741-9 For information on all Butterworth-Heinemann publications visit our web site at http://books.elsevier.com Printed and bound in Great Britain 07080910 10987654321 Working together to grow libraries in developing countries www.elsevier.com | www.bookaid.org | www.sabre.org Contents Introduction vi Authors ix Acknowledgements xi 1 Why be ethical, or whose responsibility is it anyway? 1 2 The foundations of ethics 25 3 The practice of ethics 48 4 Ethical codes 69 5 Ethics and business I 123 6 Ethics and business II 145 7 Environmental ethics and sustainability 167 8 Global ethics 189 9 Call yourself an engineer? 219 Index 239 Introduction The skills of ethical reflection are central to the practice of engineering and man- agement. Sometimes these reflections are practised via legislation, such as in the area of Health and Safety, or the process of consultation as a major project is developed. Sometimes ethics simply emerge in the context of a project because of work-based practices that are questionable, because of conflicts that arise out of basic ideas, purpose or values. The case of the Challenger Flight 51-L (referred to as the Challenger, which will be examined in some detail in this book) is a good example. In that, engineers and managers looked at problems from very different perspectives, and the influence of these, far from enabling the contrasting and conflicting values to be explored and worked through, led to disaster. Sometimes ethical issues may arise out of a clash of cultures. A firm’s policy of not accepting gifts may come up against accepted practice in a country where this is seen as normal. Indeed, it may be seen as unethical to refuse a gift. Reflection involves finding the best ways of recognizing and dealing with such issues, and this process might require a closer look at the values of the individual, organizations or culture in question and how such differing values can be appreciated and most creatively accommodated. Such issues are faced by engineers and managers on a regular basis, and, with the growth and spread of multinational corporations, they are faced with ever more complicated and challenging situations and dilemmas. In practice they often get on with the response to a situation without actually identifying or even recognizing any aspect of it as ‘ethics’. The result has been that the engineering professions have not, unlike Medicine or the Law, developed a strong body of history or training on Applied Ethics. Medicine and Law in particular have seen the creation of almost a separate, high-profile discipline of applied ethics. This is probably because their work frequently involves headline issues, such as euthanasia, abortion or the fate of conjoined twins (Lee 2003). The latter case is a fascinating example of very different issues, such as right to life, the definition of the individual, responsibility for making decisions and the several different perspectives of those involved, from the Roman Catholic Church, to the judges, to the parents, to the twins themselves. Engineering and Management Ethics do not at first sight have the same profile, partly because they are not apparently faced with the same complexity of dilemma. Yet engineering does raise key issues, sometimes with much greater consequences, affecting large groups of people, sometimes even society and the environment. An example is the Chernobyl disaster, which has quite rightly been set down in the Introduction vii history of engineering as an event to be studied and from which valuable lessons must be learned. A review of such projects shows how any technical decision is set in a context of values, and how values and attitudes can affect the way in which engineering professionals actually see their situation. Alongside the high-profile projects and disasters are the normal everyday issues. These too can hold ethical challenges, part of the complex demands of the profes- sion. We hope to show that much can be learned from both types of experiences in this book. This book intends to offer the reader as a professional engineer, manager or engineering manager how to: • Develop a practical method of ethical decision-making. • Think holistically and proactively so that ethical reflection becomes part of professional practice, and not simply a bolt-on extra to professional practice. • Become familiar with ethical theory and different belief systems that inform engineering and management practice. • To explore and understand the particular issues in engineering management ethics. Philosophers are often wary of method-based approaches. Just to have a method, it is argued, discourages taking responsibility for the ethical reasoning, and means there is little discussion of what ethics actually means – what is right and wrong and they might be justified. Practitioners, on the other hand, are wary of the academic philosopher or theologian. They are perceived to have many wonderful theories about right and wrong but their heads are simply not in the ‘real world’ of the engineering project. There is often a fear on both sides that they are being judged by the other. We hope to establish a shared discourse that values both theory and practice. Professional ethics textbooks all too often do not take seriously the relationship between ethical theory and practice. They tend to begin with theories, and then move into reflection on practice that does not embody the meaning of that theory. We aim to be practice centred, with theory informing that practice. The book is intended to be a journey of discovery through ethics, professionalism, engineering and management. Chapter 1 looks at the reasons for ‘being ethical’. It notes that there are many good self-interest-based reasons for being ethical, but that these are not sufficient in themselves. The second part of this chapter explores the sense in which being ethical is part of what it means to be a professional engineer, and how this differentiates the engineer from a technician. The more we ask the question ‘why should I be ethical’, however, the more we find that we need to know just what this ‘ethics’ comprises. Hence, Chapter 2 explores the meaning of ethics, the underlying theories of ethics – noting their importance and also their viii Introduction limitations. We look at ethics as part of the broader reflection on practice that seeks to make meaning, and the different ways in which meaning is made. This moves us from regarding ethics seen simply as solving puzzles about right and wrong to ethics as concerned about character, with words like integrity brought to the fore. From this understanding we will look at the core virtues, those capacities that enable all of us to be aware of ethical issues and respond to them. We suggest what the virtues of the professional engineer might be and end the chapter by offering some ethical operational principles. Chapter 3 then looks at ethical methodology, asking ‘how do you do ethics’. If ethics is not simply to be about the unthinking application of rules or prin- ciples then we need capacity to respond appropriately to any challenge and also a method that will enable this response. Towards these ends we begin by focusing on reflective practice, then developing an ethical methodology. We will then show the ethical dimension of the engineering project. Chapter 4 investigates the professional codes comparing several standard ethical codes, reflecting on what codes are for, what they should contain and how they should be used. The relationship of codes to practice and the identity of the professional community are then developed. The second part of the book moves from engineering and professional ethics to the context of the ethics of the engineer in business. Chapter 5 looks at the basis of business ethics, noting the importance of taking it beyond simply individual decisions in business. Chapter 6 focuses on the details of corporate social respons- ibility. Chapter 7 develops environmental ethics and sustainability. Chapter 8 takes the business into the area of global ethics. Increasingly, the issues of environmental and global ethics are forcing businesses, small and large, into becoming aware of the social and physical environment and of the need for their practice to be transparent. Chapter 9 draws these issues together and sets them in a consideration of the wider philosophy of applied science. We hope that the book as a whole will set the values of engineering into a meaningful context, and above one that will make a difference to practice. Finally, we would like to thank three groups of people without whom this book would not have been possible: our students who constantly challenge us on ethical issues, our colleagues in academia and industry who have constantly asked the awk- ward questions and our loved ones who have not complained about long absences from the domestic scene and, indeed, strangely seem to have quite enjoyed them. July 2006 REFERENCE Lee, S. (2003). Uneasy Ethics. London: Pimlico. Authors Rev. Prof. Simon Robinson, MA, BA, PhD, FRSA Professor of Applied and Professional Ethics, Leeds Metropolitan University, Associate Director, Ethics Centre of Excellence, and Visiting Fellow in Theology, University of Leeds. Educated at Oxford and Edinburgh universities, Simon Robinson entered psychiatric social work before being ordained into the Church of England priest- hood in 1978. After spells in the Durham diocese, he entered university chaplaincy at Heriot-Watt University and the University of Leeds, developing research and teaching in areas of applied ethics. In 2004 he joined Leeds Metropolitan University. Ongoing research interests include professional ethics; ethics in higher education; spirituality and professional practice; corporate social responsibility and ethics in a global perspective. Books include The Social Responsibility of Business; Ethics in Engineering; Agape, Moral Meaning and Pastoral Counselling; Case Studies in Business Ethics (edited with Chris Megone); Living Wills; Spirituality and Healthcare (with Kevin Kendrick and Alan Brown); Ministry amongst Students; Values in Higher Edu- cation (edited with Clement Katulushi); The Teaching and Practice of Professional Ethics (edited with John Strain); Ethics and Employability; Spirituality and Sport. J. Ross Dixon, BSc, CEng, MICE Ross Dixon is a Chartered Civil Engineer with over 30 years’ experience in the construction industry. After training with a major civil engineering contractor he has worked in consulting engineering companies as Resident Engineer, Design Engineer, Chief Civil Engineer and Technical Director in practices based in the United Kingdom and Hong Kong, Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE and the Philippines. He has broad experience in the preparation of feasibility studies and the plan- ning, design, construction and project management of building and civil engineer- ing works.