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THE ETHICAL COMPONENT
OF ENGINEERING
EDUCATION
Wojciech Gasparski
Business Ethics Center
a joint unit of Kozminski University and the Polish Academy of
Sciences (Institute of Philosophy & Sociology)
Warsaw, Poland
[email protected]
Ethical dimension of
engineer’s activity
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Engineer’s activity, as any other professional activities, needs not
only technological competence but also observance of the norms
based on values characteristic for social roles/duties fulfilled by
engineers.
This is the subject of Engineering Ethics.
Engineering Ethics is a discipline that is busy with moral
problems related to technology and engineering as well as to the
contexts of their impact.
The content of Engineering Ethics is situated in the crossroad of:
 Ethics (moral philosophy)
 Philosophy of Technology
 Engineering Studies (knowledge of engineers’ activities)
W. Gasparski, The Ethical Component of
Engineering Education
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Praxiology and the Philosophy
of Technology
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Praxiology and Philosophy of Technology are twin disciplines
They were born as successors of the same parents devoted to
practical thinking and doing:
 Aristotle and his immediate followers – pragma = deed, act
 Louis Bourdeau - the science of functions
 Alfred Victor Espinas - the science of techniques characteristic for
human action
 Tadeusz Kotarbinski - a general methodology
 Ludwig von Mises – an aprioristic foundation of economics
 Mario Bunge - a human action theory
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Engineering Education
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Praxiology and practical disciplines
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For many authors praxiology is a theoretical and/or
methodological basis for other disciplines of technological
character, e.g. of the sciences of the artificial, as Herbert A.
Simon called applied/practical disciplines.
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It is necessary to stress that both Kotarbiński and Simon identify
design as a characteristic feature of the practical/applied
sciences.
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American technology philosopher Carl Mitcham suggests that the
praxiological aspect is widely present in the practice of
technology and in disciplines that serve as its theoretical basis.
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Engineering Education
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Praxiology speaks...
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Praxiologically speaking, technology does not exist merely to
satisfy the human need in an effective and efficient way.
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It is not possible to want and desire a goal that is met and
satisfied simply by the means of “good work.”
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The problems of the modern world and the questions we must
ask are much more complicated than what the voluntaristic
model dictates.
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Our preparatory actions are complicated, demanding, and initially
mysterious, perhaps even partly subconscious.
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Engineering Education
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Engineering ethics & management ethics
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Although Engineering Ethics is a professional ethics
of engineers, it is – according to many authors –
related to management/business ethics as well, for
engineers are either managers or make decisions of
economic importance.
Therefore moral aspects of engineering and
business are mutual dependent, especially in
relation to the issue of quality, production
organization, and social responsibility of the effects
of the products and procedures.
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Engineering Education
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Ethical considerations
are imminent
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Important questions:
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Can we trust the producers of technology?
Can we trust the users?
When technology is commercialized, how are the relevant responsibilities
created, distributed, and controlled?
Are the free markets responsible at all, or is this notion already obsolete?
Technology and the market are inseparable now, at the same time
responsible behaviour is more important than ever.
Neo-Luddism has a point as long as technology and its commercial
applications are not under responsible control.
The free world is free in the sense that excludes responsibility and its
ethics.
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Can we trust technological players?
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Engineering Education
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Towards the technology
examined
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Heraclitus says that unexamined life is not worth
living.
In the same way one can claim that unexamined
technology is not worth applying.
It creates more harm than benefits.
We have a moral duty to examine our tools and not
just assume, naively, that they are neutral and
innocent simply because they are tools.
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Engineering Education
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The importance
of an actor/inventor
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Praxiology today plays a similar role in the domain of action as
logic plays in the domain of cognition; however, logic is not
enough.
Efficacy of action depends not only on nature, but also, maybe to
a greater degree even, on culture.
Praxiology as such offers an insight into the reality it studies, but
the use of its discoveries depends on people, as the actors.
This use is more indirect than direct and needs the actor’s
reflection of his or her own practicality.
Therefore the more an actor is a reflective practitioner, the
greater is the efficacy of his or her action.
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Engineering Education
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Engineers as reflective practitioners
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The importance of the moral aspects of
engineering activity speaks for its presence in
engineering education as a part of relevant
curricula.
Engineers should be educated as reflective
practitioners.
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Engineering Education
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The concept of
a reflective practitioner
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A reflective practitioner is an actor who, according to
Donald A. Schön, has the following skills:
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is able to acquire new abilities
is able to acquire new knowledge
is able to prepare an action conceptually (to design)
is able to evaluate an action multidimensionally in the
space I have called as the “triple E” for:
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effectiveness
efficiency
ethicality
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The "double E"
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Effectiveness relates the effect attained in action to what was intended
– the goal of the action
the action is the more effective the greater the degree in which the goal of the
action is realized
Efficiency compares the effect with the resources used in the action
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E-cy
A person carrying out an action (the actor) does it sometimes better,
sometimes worse.
Praxiology uses two dimensions to measure the results of actions:
effectiveness and efficiency.
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E-ss
the action is the more efficient the more shrewdly the resources were used in its
course
Effectiveness and efficiency together (the “double E”) are called the
efficacy of action
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Axiological context of
human actions
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The praxiological “double E” is not sufficient to explain human action in
society, in a community of other people.
Acts of choice made by people are not limited to formal choices alone.
One thing that must not be disregarded when analyzing action is its
axiological context, resulting from the fact that action is undertaken by
the subject always in a community that is a fragment of a greater whole
– society.
Both the community of which the acting subject is a member and the
society as a whole have their attitude toward the actions of the subjects
constituting these groups, determined by the dominating values
It is due to these values that some actions receive social approval while
others do not.
Approved actions are those that serve good as defined on the grounds
of the dominating values, while disapproval concerns those actions that
cause evil in the sense of the actions’ axiological context.
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Engineering Education
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Ethical judgment
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Apart from its praxiological dimension (effectiveness and
efficiency making up an action’s efficacy), engineering &
business activity, like any human activity, is subject to
ethical judgment
It reflects the framework of social acceptance for defining
the objectives and using means to achieve them that are
typical of the culture of the society whose members are
involved in the activity in question.
Ethics adds the third "E" to the praxiological "double E"
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Engineering Education
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The "triple E"
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Analysing business activities according to any of the three dimensions:
effectiveness, efficiency or ethicality, is methodologically justified.
It is methodologically justified to express the dimensions of efficacy
(effectiveness and efficiency) in monetary terms.
Meanwhile, it is methodologically improper to carry out business
activities, i.e. synthesize it, without taking into account the “triple E”, i.e.
all three of these characteristics of action.
It is methodologically improper to reduce ethicality to the measurable
space, i.e. to express ethicality in monetary terms.
Ethicality is the qualitative condition sine qua non that allows only for
the performance of engineering & business activities that meets this
condition.
Ethicality of engineer’s activity, therefore, is a primary norm that defines
the endo- and exo-morality of engineering and business, while
economic efficacy, i.e. effectiveness and efficiency in monetary terms, is
a secondary norm among the norms defining the social order of the
activity in question.
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Engineering Education
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The needs of the design approach
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Over a quarter of a century ago I presented a paper “A Designing Human Society: A
Chance or a Utopia?” [Gasparski 1984].
The “Managing as Designing” UN Global Forum (2009) was a good opportunity to
revisit the idea expressed in the paper following the proverb that novelty is an old
stuff forgotten long enough. Let me, therefore, to punctuate the main issues raised in
the paper referred.
It seems that raising the idea of ‘designing society” could be a chance to overcome
threats and to slow their rate of increase. […] Acceptance of the proposed policy
requires making rather difficult decisions on a global scale, decisions concerning
three main problems:
First, the fallacious axiom of unlimited resources available to man must be rejected
with all its consequences.
Second, the survival of mankind should be regarded as a supreme goal for all acting
members of the species Homo sapiens, living now and in the future.
Third, solving (in the epistemological sense) practical problems has to be regarded as
the only method for making decisions concerning the practical behavior of man.
Design conceived as conceptual preparation of action (change) should become a way
of solving practical problems; the society accepting this way and acting according to it
is suggested to be called the designing society.
[Gasparski, W. W., 1984/ 2009, http://connect.case.edu/p84955584/].
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Engineering Education
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Moral dimensions of
designs/innovations etc.
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In the domain of designing two types of moral dimensions are identified:
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endomorality
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egzomorality
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Endomorality deals with the moral code of design activity
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Egzomorality dels with social responsibility of what is done by professional
designers
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Both define elements of designer’s accountability:
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endomorality in respect of truth and honesty in relation to the designer’s
product – a design, innovation etc.
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egzomorality in respect to societal benefit and not harm
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both in respect to relevancy of what is designed for practical use
[Gasparski, W.W., Automation in Construction 12 (2003) 635-640]
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Engineering Education
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Technological imperative
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"Thou shalt design or help implement only projects that will not
endanger public welfare, and shalt alert the public against any
projects that fail to satisfy this condition.” [Bunge 1985, 310]
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Being able to design means being able to make decisions based on
the force of argument, not the argument of force, or plus ratio quam
vis - to quote the words from the inscription in Jagiellonian
University’s Collegium Maius, Cracow.
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This is the purpose that should be served by cognitively wellfounded knowledge provided to engineers and managers of different
specialties by the schools which educate them.
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Engineering Education
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Conclusions
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To remember of the ethical component of engineering education is
important for:
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Technological changes and major technological innovations often give rise to new
value structures or modifications of the existing ones [L. Tondl]
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We must always be on guard against becoming slaves to our machines
[W.E.Herfel]
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[whatever it is, it] has a constant need to know how to solve problems and convert
technologies into creative and effective solutions and systems [G. Nadler]
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[...]because [...] technology has gained a degree of autonomy alongside with
humans [...] we should acknowledge the fact and start thinking on the basis of the
facts towards a new ethics of technology [T. Airaksinen]
For more arguments see the pages of this book and other references
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References
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E. Agazzi, 1997, Good, Evil and Science (in Polish) with a Forward by W. W. Gasparski, OAK Publishers & IFiS PAN, Warsaw.
Bunge M., (1985), Treatise on Basic Philosophy, Vol. 7 Part II, Reidel, Dordrecht.
T. Forester, P. Morrison, Computer Ethics, MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass. 1995.
W.W. Gasparski, 1984, Understanding Design: The Praxiological-Systemic Perspective, Intersystems
Publications, Saside CA; (Revisited for Global UN Forum "Business as an Agent for World Benefit",
2009).
W. W. Gasparski & T. Airaksinenem, eds., 2008, Praxiology and the Philosophy of Technology,
Transaction, New Brunswick (USA) – London (UK).
W. W. Gasparski, ed., 2008, Responsible Management Education, 2008, Academic and Professional
Publishers, Warsaw.
W. W. Gasparski, 2003, Designer’s Responsibility: Methodological and Ethical Dimensions, Automation in
Construction, No 12, pp. 635-640.
W. W. Gasparski, 2002, Good, Evil and Technology: Towards a Design of an Engineering Ethics Course,
contr. to XIV European Meeting on Cybernetics and Systems Research. Vienna.
W. W. Gasparski, 2002, Effectiveness, Efficiency and Ethicality in Business and Management, in: L.
Zsolnay & W. W. Gasparski, eds., Ethics and the Future of Capitalism, Transaction Publishers, New
Brunswick, N.J. (USA) - London (UK), pp. 117-136.
W.W. Gasparski, L.V.Ryan & S. Kwiatkowski, eds., 2010, Entrepreneurship: Values and Responsibility,
Transaction Publishers, New Brunswick, N.J. (USA) - London (UK).
P. Goujon & B. H. Dubreuil, eds., Technology and Ethics: A European Quest for Responsible Engineering,
Peeters, Leuven 2001.
K. K. Humphreys, What Every Engineer Should Know About Ethics, Marcel Dekker, Inc., New York 1999.
A. Siciński, 1995, On Designer’s Responsibility, in: A. Collen & W. W. Gasparski, eds., Design and
Systems: General Applications of Methodology, Transaction, New Brunswick (USA) – London (UK), pp.
403-414.
D. A. Schön, 1987, Educating the Reflective Practitioner, Jossey-Bass Publishers, San Francisco.
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Engineering Education
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The door to ethics in engineering education
was half-opened only ...
...thank you for that
and for your
attention