Transcript MEM 604: Social, Legal and Ethical Considerations for Engineering

ENGM 604: Social, Legal and Ethical
Considerations for Engineering
Responding to the Call of Morality:
Identifying Relevant Facts,
Principles and Solutions.
Bribery or Consideration?
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How do we draw the
line between a token of
consideration
exchanged between
people with shared
interests and bribery?
Read Case 30 on p.
323-4.
What are the facts?
The issues and
principles?
How should the
situation be resolved?
Moral Decisions: A Common
Context
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Despite the disagreements that even a
relatively benign situation like that detailed in
the case can produce, we must always
remember that we typically face moral
decisions from within a shared context of
ethical agreement.
 We might disagree if a particular case is a
case of bribery, but most of us would agree
that bribery is wrong.
Common Morality
This common context is what we’ve called in
the past Common Morality: the set of moral
commitments exhibited by a culture or
society.
 When we ask ourselves why we seem to
share these commitments, we can point to
history, cultural forces, or religion, but the
extent of the agreement suggests that all of
these explanations miss something important.
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Sources of Common Morality
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A more successful answer will look to our
shared human condition, for it is there if
anywhere that we will find what truly binds
us.
Of the characteristics we all share, the
following seem particularly important to our
common moral commitments:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Vulnerability
Autonomy
Interdependency
Shared Expectations and Traits
Common Moral Traits
So What if it is Common?
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What is the relevance of these sources of
common morality? Haven’t we already
emphasized the uniqueness of professional
morality?
 It is true that common morality must be kept
distinct from both personal and professional
(role) morality.
 However, the latter two are incomprehensible
without reference to the first. In particular,
common morality plays an important justifying
role in professional morality.
Appreciating the complexity
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In life, things are rarely as simple as we
would like them to be.
 This is particularly true of our moral
experience, which typically confronts us with
challenges that defy easy or straightforward
resolution.
 Acknowledging this requires that we identify
the features of moral decisions that produce
the complications
 These include: Identification of Relevant
Facts; Specifying Relevant Principles;
Producing Appropriate Resolutions.
Just the Facts
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Appropriately responding to morally
significant situations requires appreciation
and sensitivity to the significant facts.
 That this is the case is apparent from three
features of such situations:
– Moral disagreements often boil down to
disagreements over the facts;
– Resolving factual disagreements is not always
straightforward or easy;
– Resolving factual disagreements often clarifies
non-factual disagreements.
What Facts?
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The difficulties attendant upon resolving
factual disagreements is the most challenging
of these features.
 You need to attend to the relevant facts, but it
may be difficult to agree on just what facts are
relevant.
 It is also the case that we often don’t have all
of the relevant factual information we need.
 Disagreement can also arise in the decision
on how to weight the relevant factual
information.
Just the Principles
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In addition to the range of factual controversy
than can figure in morally controversial
situations, there may be disagreement over
principles.
 This disagreement can occur at a number of
levels:
– People can disagree about the meaning or
significance of ethical concepts.
– People can disagree about the ethical framework
which should be applied to resolve a particular
controversy.
What Does it All Mean?
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If there is disagreement about the meaning of
a term or concept, there are a number of
techniques that can be employed to minimize
the disagreement.
– Minimally, the participants can seek help from
standard reference works.
– More fruitfully, the participants can work together
to develop an understanding of the overlap and
differences between their understandings of the
terms.
Competing Ethical Frameworks
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If the disagreement is more fundamental,
concerning basic ethical perspectives, the
situation is more complex.
 There are a number of common ethical
frameworks that people reflectively or
unreflectively rely on.
 For the most part they are mutually
consistent, however, there are important
differences that being familiar with may be
helpful.
Consequentialism
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Many people would agree that the moral
value of an act is somehow connected to the
consequences of the act.
 Consequentialism is an ethical framework
which formalizes this agreement by arguing
that the moral status of an action determined
by the 'value' of its consequences.
 Different species of consequentialism identify
different ‘values,’ but they all insist that the
rightness or wrongness of an action is
determined by its tendency to produce
‘value.’
Counting it all Up
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Value maximizing theories like
consequentialist ones have the apparent
advantage of a quantifiable element.
 Such theories always require us to compare
the ‘value’ of competing choices and such
comparison requires calculation.
 All such calculations have a few constraints:
– Everyone counts and they all count the same;
– Overall value is what matters;
– Hierarchy of values.
Problems with Consequentialism
The apparent virtue of quantification
turns out to be a mixed blessing.
Consequentialist theories have to deal
with a number of what are called
“measurement problems.”
 They also have a notoriously bad time
with the issue of Justice.
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– Slavery counter-example.
Respect for Persons
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When we think about the consequences of
our actions, we have to admit that in
important ways they are out of our control.
 This recognition is at the heart of a competing
ethical framework that argues that the
reasons for acting are what determine the
moral status of an act.
 The Respect for Persons version of this
approach argues that when we act in a way
consistent with the moral personhood of
others we act rightly; when we don’t, we act
wrongly.
Respect?
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Obviously, the weight of the analysis on this
approach is the idea of respect for moral
personhood.
 Different versions of this theory have
emphasized different accounts of
personhood.
 They converge in the recognition that an
appropriate account of personhood is tied to
our capacity for morality.
Problems for RfP Approaches
Respect for Persons approaches are
also open to criticism.
 Some forms have been accused of too
rigorously or sharply specifying our
moral obligations.
 Another common criticism is that such
theories are insufficiently action guiding.
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One or the Other?
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Consequentialism and the Respect for Persons
approach are just two possible ethical frameworks.
There are a number of other popular competitors.
One question that becomes important is how to
adjudicate the competition.
Happily, for the most part the theories converge on
similar answers to tough questions.
When they disagree, we have to make decisions
about the theories themselves.
Perhaps the best approach is one which attempts to
combine the virtues of a variety of theories.
Moving to Resolution
When we’ve addressed issues arising from
facts and principles, we are in a position to
identify the appropriate resolution to the
situation at hand.
 When the facts and principles are clear and
shared, resolution is typically straightforward.
 In more complex circumstances, techniques
can be employed to help in the resolution
process.
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Resolution Techniques
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Line-Drawing is helpful when the principles in
question do not unambiguously speak to the
relevant facts.
 Middle Way solutions are desirable when
there is dispute about the relevance of
principles.
 Both approaches require flexibility and
imagination.