Chapter 15: Ethics and Engineering

Ethics cases to ponder...

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Read:
Individual Cases of Scientific Misconduct: link
To see how easy it is to fabricate and falsify results. 

Why would someone want to falsify results?
one example...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Bio-Test_Laboratories


List of accidents and disasters by death toll - link
Infamous fatigue failures - link

List of industrial disasters - link

Lists of nuclear & radioactive incidents - link

List of oil spills - link

List of structural failures and collapses - link

Lists of rail accidents - link

List of commercial aircraft accidents- link

List of spaceflight accidents - link

List of product recalls - link
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Three varieties of meta-ethical theories:

1. Ethical skepticism – believes ethics are subjective personal opinions – believes there are no reliable ethical standards.

2. Ethical relativism – ethical standards are relative to society or culture.

3. Ethical absolutism – same ethical standards apply to everyone.

Which ethical variety do engineering ethics fall under?

How responsible should engineers be?
Should it depend on the society? Laws? Culture?

*Normative Ethics – appropriate standards of morality, ie, always tell the truth, keep your promises, protect innocent life, etc.

*Utilitarian/Consequentialist ethics – actions should promote the general welfare or benefit all people – the greatest good for the greatest number

Conflicts in Ethics:
 Always tell the truth – (How do I look? You look horrible!)

Intentions vs. actions – drunk driver did not "intend" to kill anyone...
Engineering – obligated to avoid getting into situations which are dangerous   

"Sincere intentions or wishful thinking have no special ethical value, nor are they legitimate excuses for ethically bad behavior."



Do or do not – there is no try. 
Engineers are expected to act with integrity and be trustworthy at all times both on and off the job. 


Consider the recent economic recession - 
main cause: widespread dishonest and unethical conduct within the U.S. housing and financial markets.

reaction: enact more & stronger regulations.

Are regulations the answer?
Perhaps rules & regulations will dissuade some from unprincipled conduct, but others will simply get more creative in their circumvention.

  There can never be enough rules to anticipate and cover every situation, and even if there were, enforcement would be impossibly expensive and burdensome. This approach leads to diminished freedom for everyone.

What is needed to uphold and maintain ethical practices?


Thoughts on the below statements?
"In the end, it is only an internal moral compass in each individual that can effectively maintain ethical practices. Individuals must be persuaded that service and sacrifice for the well-being and happiness of others are far superior to making one’s own comfort and possessions the highest priority.

A lack of internal control by individuals breeds attempted external control by governments or anarchy. To maintain a safe society, ethical discipline must be a matter of self-discipline based on moral standards to choose the right for no other reason than because it is right, even when it is hard." - D. TODD CHRISTOFFERSON.
.
"We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion . . . Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." - John Adams



Expecting everyone to be ethical on their own:
 is this being too optimistic? Unrealistic?

Engineers are valued for what they are, not just for what they know & make….

Valued characteristics:
honest, 
reliable, 
trustworthy, 
 hardworking, 
integrity 
upholds a high moral standard both on and off the job.  

All of us experience temptations, ethics requires discipline. To be a respected leader, is to first prove that you can govern yourself.

IOW- don't be a sleazy, unethical, untrustworthy, scumbag!

Code of Hammurabi - link

Babylon. 2200 BCE

A. If a builder builds a house for a man and do not make its construction firm and the house which he has built collapse and cause the death of the owner of the house - that builder shall be put to death.

B. If it cause the death of the son of the owner of the house - they shall put to death a son of that builder.

C. If it cause the death of a slave of the owner of the house - he shall give to the owner of the house a slave of equal value.

D. If it destroys property, he shall restore whatever it destroyed, and because he did not make the house which he built firm and it collapsed, he shall rebuild the house which collapsed at his own expense.

E. If a builder build a house for a man and do not make its construction meet the requirements and a wall falls in, that builder shall strengthen the wall at his own expense. 

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2001 Breakdown of NSF (National Science Foundation) misconduct cases:

• 61% Plagiarism (copying anther's work)
• 17% Fabrication (made-up results)
• 11% Falsification(manipulated results)
• 11% Other

2002 - Journal editors start testing authenticity of photos.  The Journal of Cell Biology - found 25 percent of all accepted manuscripts (sense 2002) had one or more illustrations that were manipulated (Photoshopped) in ways that violate the journal's guidelines - link.

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 ....Success is the mother of failure, 
failure is the father of success...

The Engineering Cycle:
- success leads to overconfidence,
- overconfidence leads to failure,
- failure leads to increased understanding,
- increased understanding leads to greater success.

We all make mistakes...
Ideal case: work environment is open to hearing concerns, and forgiving and thankful to those who admit & report problem areas.

Reality: People are punished for making mistakes, so problem areas are covered up.

Question: How can you handle (and or change) a competitive work environment that:

- punishes mistakes?
- values profit over safety?
- produces a product that is not entirely ethical?
    (designs product to fail so you have to buy a new one, or designs it to be addictive, or designs it without regard to environment, etc.) 
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The Engineers' Creed

As a Professional Engineer, I dedicate my professional knowledge and skill to the advancement and betterment of human welfare.
I pledge:

• To give the utmost of performance;
• To participate in none but honest enterprise;
• To live and work according to the laws of man and the highest standards of professional conduct;
• To place service before profit, the honor and standing of the profession before personal advantage, and the public welfare above all other considerations.

In humility and with need for Divine Guidance, I make this pledge.
Adopted by National Society of Professional Engineers, June 1954

15.1
A person’s ethical behavior is always ethical when one:
A) Does what is best for oneself

B) Has good intentions, no matter how things turn out.

C) Does what is best for everyone…

D) Does what is most profitable

15.2
Which of the following ensure that behavior is ethical?
i. following the law

ii. acting in the best interest of a society..

iii. following non-legal standards for socially approved conduct..

15.3
Engineers should follow their professional code of ethics because:
a) it helps them avoid legal problems such as getting sued

b) it provides a clear definition of what the public has a right to expect from responsible engineers…
c) it raises the image of the profession and hence gets engineers more pay

d) the public will trust engineers more once they know engineers have a code of ethics

15.5
The first and foremost obligation of a registered PE is to:
a) the public welfare.

b) their employer

c) the government

d) the engineering profession

Engineer’s Obligation
to Society,
to employer and clients, and
to other engineers:
- only approve designs that safeguard life, health, welfare, and property of the public
- if an engineer’s professional judgment is overruled resulting in a safety concern, it is their responsibility to notify employers, clients, authority figures, the public, and all involved.
- Engineers should be objective, truthful, and unbiased. 
- Engineers should not express opinions in areas they are not qualified in,
- Engineers should not associate with anyone or anything that is unethical



Brief History of a few Engineering Failures:

1628 The Vasa (ship)
35-50 sailors killed

1862 Hartley Colliery Mining Disaster
204 killed

1889 -Johnstown Flood, Pennsylvania

2, 209 killed from dam failure

1912 Titanic
1500 people killed


1917 - Halifax Cargo Ship Explosion, Nova Scotia, Canada
Over 1,600 people killed instantly
9,000 were injured.
Every building within a 2.6 kilometres (1.6 mi) radius, over 12,000 total, was destroyed or badly damaged

1919 Boston Molasses Disaster - link
21 killed, 150 injured when
2,300,000 US gal
large molasses storage tank collapsed.

 


1928 - St. Francis Dam failure link
450 killed (Los Angeles)

The California Water Wars - conflicts between the city of Los Angeles, farmers and ranchers in the Owens Valley of Eastern California, and environmentalists- so much water was diverted from the Owens Valley that agriculture became difficult. This led to the farmers trying to destroy the aqueduct.

1929 R101 Airship Disaster
48 killed
Lord Thomson had personal political ambitions in India and wanted to see a regular airship service from London to Karachi, via Egypt. As a result of this pressure, repairs were hurried and the airship patched with a rubber solution.

1930's Dust Bowl  
100,000,000 acres destroyed, 500,000 Americans left homeless 

1937 Hindenburg
35 killed, end of the airship era.


1937 Texas (New London) School explosion
natural gas leak 
killed more than 295 students and teachers

1944 - Cleveland East Ohio Gas Explosion
130 people killed, completely destroyed town of Santa Paula

 

storage tank number with liquefied natural gas in East Ohio Gas Company's tank farm begins to emit vapor Winds carries vapor into the sewer lines, mixed with the sewer gas
the mixture ignited....One manhole cover was found several miles away

At first it was thought that the disaster was contained, and spectators returned home thinking that the matter was being taken care of ...then a second above-ground tank exploded, leveling the tank farm.
explosions and fires continued to occur, trapping many who had returned to what they thought was safe... the explosions traveled through the sewers and up through drains into homes

1947 Texas City disaster
568 killed

Fire on French-ship holding ~ 2,100 metric tons of ammonium nitrate escalates,  attracts a crowd of spectators - Spectators see boiling water around the docked ship, and the splashing water touching the hull of the ship was vaporized into steam...  After an hour or so, the entire ship blows up.  Initial blast creates chain-reaction of explosions in other ships and nearby oil-storage tanks, killing 581 + people, including all but one member of the Texas City fire department.


1948 - Ship explosion kills 6,000 Chinese troops
link

1979 American Airlines Flight 191
273 people killed, grounded all DC-10's

1979 - 1980 Pemex oil disaster
3 million barrels + leaked


1980 Alexander L. Kielland oil platform capsizing

123 people killed

Of the 212 people aboard 123 were killed, making it the worst disaster in Norwegian offshore history since WWII... the rig collapsed owing to a fatigue crack in one of its six bracings, which connected the collapsed D-leg to the rest of the rig. This was traced to a small 6mm fillet weld... 


1981 -
Hyatt Regency Hotel Walkway Collapse
114 killed, 200+ injured 

 

1982 - Ocean Ranger link
All 84 oil workers killed, no survivors 

1984 -  San Juanico disaster
industrial disaster - explosions at a liquid petroleum gas (LPG) tank farm 500–600 people killed, and 5000–7000 others suffering severe burns

1984 - Bhopal disaster
500,000?  people exposed to methyl isocyanate gas, 3,000-16,000?  killed.

1986 - Space Shuttle Challenger disaster

1986 - Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant Disaster
336,000 people relocated, ~ 4,000 killed



1987 MV Doña Paz 1,565–4,400 lives

1988 Piper Alpha
167 men killed

An explosion and the resulting oil and gas fires destroyed it on 6 July 1988, killing 167 men, with only 61 survivors. The death toll includes two crewmen of a rescue vessel. Total insured loss was about US$3.4 billion. At the time of the disaster, the platform accounted for approximately ten percent of North Sea oil and gas production, and was the worst offshore oil disaster in terms of lives lost and industry impact.

1989 Ufa train disaster, Soviet Union
575 killedexplosion occurred when a leaking natural gas liquids (mainly propane and butane) pipeline created a highly flammable cloud that was ignited by sparks created by two passenger trains passing each other. Both trains were carrying children: one was returning from a holiday vacation on the Black Sea and the other was taking children there.





1994 Estonia - 852 deadhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estonia_(ship)





2001 Petrobras 36 - oil platform that sank
11 killed



two explosions in the aft starboard column at or around the emergency drain tank. The first explosion was caused by an overpressure event, the second by ignition of leaking hydrocarbon vapor. At the time there were 175 people on the rig; 11 were killed. Following the explosions, the rig developed a 16° list, sufficient to allow down-flooding from the submerged fairlead boxes.
Marine salvage teams tried over the weekend to save the platform by pumping nitrogen and compressed air into the tanks to expel the water, but they abandoned the rig after bad weather.
The platform sank five days after the explosions (March 20), in 1,200 m (3,940 ft) of water with an estimated 1,500 tonnes (1,700 short tons) of crude oil remaining on board.

 2004 Sri Lanka tsunami-rail disaster
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_Sri_Lanka_tsunami-rail_disaster



2010 - Deepwater Horizon (BP) oil spill

11 people killed, ~ 5 million barrels leaked

 

2011 - Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant
Backup cooling pump failure

April 24, 2013 - Rana Plaza collapse, (Bangladesh)
at least 1,129 killed
Approximately 2,515 injured people were rescued from the building alive.

May 13, 2014 Soma Mine Disaster

NSPE Code of Ethics for Engineers - link
National Society of Professional Engineers

• This is one of the documents used for interpreting ethical dilemmas submitted by engineers, public officials, and members of the public. 
• We will use this code to analyze several cases of possible engineering ethics violations, through which you will need to argue the innocence or guilt of the engineers involved, what principles they violated, and what steps they can take in the future to prevent any similar failures.
• Read through the NSPE Code of Ethics
• Highlight anything that seems important, or is confusing to you.

NSPE Board of Ethical Review - link 

Assignment:

• Imagine you are on the NSPE Board of Ethical Review.  Read through a few previously addressed Ethics cases:
  
  http://www.nspe.org/Ethics/EthicsResources/BER/index.html#2012
  
  then-
  • Choose a recalled product, or engineering disaster from the above lists and examples.
  Work in groups of 2-3 
• Use the Ethics code to answer questions concerning the case, and present your case to the class.

 Engineering Case Study Report & Presentation:  

1. Cite the disaster or product recall that you decided to investigate.

2. (10 points) Briefly list (in bullet form) the facts about the incident.


3. (10 points) List the ethical issues involved, and prioritize these issues from most critical to least critical.



(12 points) 4. How was our case resolved in real life?  (ie, who lost their job, how much $ were the victims paid, what new regulations were imposed, etc.) Do you agree with outcome on your case?  Should more have been done? less?  Support your answer by citing relevant sections in the Code of Ethics, and through using background info on the resolution of other similar cases.


(9 points) 5. Discuss this case from the perspective of 
a.) The public

b) The company managers

c) The company employees


(9 points) 6. After this incident was resolved, if you were an authority figure for the company, what steps would you take to ensure future ethics violations would not occur?  How would you communicate your policies to:

a) Your Employees



b) Your Clients


c) The Public.