2 - The responsibilities of engineers - Van De Poel Flashcards
What is responsibility?
Fact of being held accountable for actions and their effects
Which types of responsibility can be distinguished with respect to when something happens?
- Active: before something happens, aimed to avoid undesired consequences (prevention)
- Passive: after something unexpected happened, aimed to limit the negative consequences (damage containment)
Which types of responsibility can be distinguished with respect to the context?
- Role: based on the role played in that context (can be multiple => can conflict between each others)
- Moral: based on obligations from moral considerations
How role responsibility is declined at work and how is it related with the moral one?
Declined into professional and limited by the moral one
Which are the main types of passive responsibility?
Accountability and blameworthiness
What is accountability?
Extent to which someone is required to provide account for the actions/decisions taken
What is blameworthiness?
Extent to which someone can be target for blame
What the necessary conditions to determine the right amount of blameworthiness?
- Wrong-doing: degree of violation of the norms or just errors in the choice taken
- Causal contribution: degree of causality between the choice taken (even if it is not to act) and the consequences
- Foreseeability: degree of predictability of unavoided consequences
- Freedom of action: degree of freedom of the actor in making the choice (MOST DIFFICULT to evaluate)
What are ideals?
Ideas or striving inspiring and motivational, aimed to achieve an optimum
How active responsibility is linked to ideals?
Ideals are what pushes people to feel a responsibility in their actions and pushes them towards a direction instead of another
What is (in general) a professional ideal?
Spur/push towards a certain field of study
Which are some of the main ideals for engineers?
- Technology enthusiasm
- Effectiveness & efficiency
- Human welfare
What is technology enthusiasm and how is it related to values?
Desire to develop new technologies and face new technological challenges.
In abstract neutral, but leads to overlook possible negative effects and ignore relevant social constraints
Make an example of technology enthusiasm in history
Von Braun: rocket engineer for both nazi Germany and post-war USA.
First case rockets as bombs and research to exterminate people
Second case to send people on the moon
What are effectiveness and efficiency and how are they related to values?
Effectiveness: extend to which a goal is reached
Efficiency: ratio between effectiveness and effort spent to reach it
Value-laden because depend on the goal for which they are pursued
Make an example of research of effectiveness and efficiency in history
Taylor: optimize workers’ movement and make unions useless.
Pros: help scientific management & put engineers as capable of promoting social interests
Cons: push workers exploitation
What is human welfare and how is it related to values?
Idea of enhancing human conditions and improve human lives.
Intrinsic representation of moral values
Make an example of research of human welfare in history
Van Veen: effort to highlight the inadequacy of Netherlands dykes + attempt to expose the related problems
What is the main cause of conflict between managers and engineers?
Managers hold the decision-making power, engineers hold the know-how and the expertise in a certain field
Which are (hypothetically) possible approach to handle the managers-engineers conflict?
- Separatism
- Technocracy
- Whistle-blowing
(4. [Constructive] Technology Assessment)
What is separatism?
Application of tripartite model to separate technological input (engineers) from decision-making process (managers)
Model is composed by managers to define the objectives, engineers to design and develop projects and users to use the final product
Which are the main pros and cons of separatism?
Pros: allow a clear and distinct separation of roles and power => apparent clear division of responsibilities
Cons: limit role of engineers to just technology creators (no responsibility on use) => borderline situations (like Von Braun’s one)
What is technocracy?
Government of the experts
Which are the main pros and cons of technocracy?
Pros: (potentially) optimal management due to the high knowledge of experts
Cons: difficult to find right definition of expert + who should be the experts of the goal to be pursued by the other experts?
Heavily paternalistic => clashes with people’s autonomy
What is whistle-blowing?
Disclosure of company abuses by employee without consent from superior
Which are the main pros and cons of whistle-blowing?
Pros: prevent great harm + disclose problematics otherwise unknown
Cons: heavily disruptive (huge price to be paid by employee + damage of trust) + limited effectiveness => not feasible as general framework
Which are the conditions to apply whistle-blowing?
- Evidence + threat identified and reported (with consequences) and no change in organization intentions + all internal procedures exhausted
- Consequences mean serious public harm (preventable by whistle-blowing)
Which are the actors to be considered during the technological development?
- Developers: produce technology
- Users: use technology
- Regulators: control and regularize development process
- STAKEHOLDERS: anyone with something at stake but NO possibility to influence development (while 1-2-3 provide steering inputs)
What is the main consequence of the multiplicity of actors in the technological development?
Difficulty of control (conflicting interests) and unpredictability of process (high number of variables)
What is a Technology Assessment (TA)?
Systematic method to analyze consequences of technology development
Which are the main pros and cons of a TA?
Pros: planned check over the process to identify problems in advance
Cons: Collingridge dilemma = early detection and warnings often NOT possible & once negative consequences materialize it is too late
What is a Constructive TA (CTA)?
Method to parallelize TA efforts with development and design processes
Which are the main pros and cons of a CTA?
Pros: more stakeholders involvement
Pros/Cons: shift of engineers’ responsibility (just one actor among others, BUT MUST consider stakeholders)
Cons: discussion engagement fundamental step
