Using Moral Theories to Help Engineers Make Ethical Decisions

There are a variety of ways engineering ethics can be taught in the university. One common approach is to use case studies. Engineers like to think of themselves as practical people, and examining actual situations appeals to many engineers. In their popular book, Engineering Ethics: Concepts and Cases 1 , Harris, Pritchard, and Rabins use many real world case studies to illustrate the issues that are faced by engineers. Texas A & M University has created an extensive engineering ethics web page with many useful case studies 2 . In order to make the cases more interesting to the average engineer, a number of cases with significant numerical components have been created and posted on Texas A & M University’s Engineering Ethics web page 3 . Two of them are by the first author of this paper 4,5 . Another example of the case studies approach is in the first author’s paper at the 2002 Regional GSW ASEE meeting 6 . While case studies can be quite useful, and we have been involved in creating some of them, they may not be sufficient to give guidance in all situations. A second approach emphasizes the making of good decisions. Harris’ book 1 discusses various decision making methods. One way an engineer can make good decisions is to have a firm perspective on the world that helps her to evaluate each case that comes to her. This leads to the issue of using moral theories to help make ethical decisions. Martin and Schinzinger’s books 7,8 provide more information to the engineer about what moral theories are and how they can be used. Their first book 7 describes moral theories in more detail and we have used them to evaluate the legitimacy of the various engineering codes of conduct 9 . One problem with both the case studies approach and the good decision making approach is the question of what should be used as the basis upon which to decide. Many authors have used the engineering codes of conduct as their basis. However, as we have previously pointed out 9,10 , these codes are not perfect, and will not cover all the possible issues that the engineer might face. We