On engineers engaging ethics through dis-location and reconnection

As part of the Global Perspectives: Engineering Ethics Across International and Academic Borders project, as described in this issue by Sunderland et al. (2014), the initial workshop at UC Berkeley in August of 2013 proved to be an interesting experience. Importantly, it was also quite successful at reaching many of the goals it set, the arguably most central of which I would like to briefly discuss. The program set out to create “a common space where we could build trust and break down disciplinary hierarchies”. In such a space, it would be possible for engineers to engage emotionally with the ethical challenges that permeate their work as well as their working environments.

The program did indeed manage to create an engaging discursive space in which the heartfelt concerns of the engineering graduate students could be discussed, and be discussed in ways that are at times difficult or unwelcome in their daily work environment. Moreover, they were discussed in a hybrid mode of argumentation that swayed back and forth between sharp and critical analysis of current practices and consequences (both technically and institutionally¹) and the more ethical demand for profound normative justification (asking “Why?” instead of “How?”). One thing became immediately clear: if Newberry (2004, 344) is indeed correct that engineering students often fail to care for ethics, this does not at all mean that our Berkeley peers failed to care. Many of them entered engineering because they realized the enormous moral potential that technology offers, and still strongly hold to that potential. They came to their respective fields partly through a moral drive, which one could call emotional, intuitionist, responsible, or some other concept that links to a particular ethical theory. The exact origins or proper terminology for this drive is beyond this commentary, but driven they most certainly are.

However, in a world of engineering research described by the participants² as holding rationality, calculation, and pragmatic problem-solving in high regard and which is sometimes quite distanced from the eventual consequences of its designs;³ in a world that can get overly hierarchical and competitive (both of which can diminish the possibilities for personal initiative concerning ethically problematic issues), and where engineers' moral drive is supposed to be channeled toward creating technologies that might contribute to a better world instead of the other ethical issues the participating engineers worried about; the development of technology through engineering has seemingly become self-justificatory. To put it bluntly, the end (innovation) justifies the means (research practice). Partly due to this dynamic, that drive, that critical call to action that got the engineers into their respective fields in the first place, is allowed too little place for critical engagement with the less desirable aspects of said field (e.g. minimizing research into societal impacts, suboptimal regard for safety regulations, using technological enthusiasm as sufficient reason for risky experiments) within the confines of engineering practice.

This seemed to be the major benefit that the dis-location the workshop offered: pulling engineers out of the boundaries of their labs, their institutional and interpersonal positions, out of their regular vocabularies and thinking patterns, and into the proximity of face-to-face interaction with ethicists and one another. While engineering was familiar enough to most participants and thus thematic proximity was maintained, the distance from the working environment created by this new space opened up possibilities for critical appraisal of engineering as well as a coming-together despite disciplinary differences. In such novel surroundings, that moral drive that all of us shared could be actively reconnected to morally relevant features of engineering practice, and this reconnection would occur through critical and reflective argumentation. Based on real experiences inside and outside the lab, questions and subsequent discussions arose that went beyond a normal focus on technological risks and “mere” scientific integrity, e.g. “What constitutes a proper justification for the development of certain technologies/artifacts?”; “How can I incorporate moral considerations in early phases of technology development and research?”; “Should the ‘societal impact’ section of grants applications not receive increased attention, and why is this so difficult?”; and “Is it justifiable to make trade-offs between efficiency and safety in the lab? If not, when and how do I act?” Such critical reflection upon dominant practices, rules, and norms, action in light of what is good or right can rightfully be called ethics (van de Poel and Royakkers 2011, 51). On top of this, the pressing reality of the content of discussions lifted the sessions beyond a mere exercise or application of ethical theory to some distant cases (a staple method of engineering ethics education). Rather, it made them into serious, existential inquiries into what it means to be a good or responsible engineer and/or researcher. As such, the space to which the engineers were dis-located proved a fruitful breeding ground and opportunity for a reconnection of their fundamental moral drives, ethics, and engineering practice; to caring for engineering ethics.

Admittedly, it is doubtful whether the productive dynamic that typified the workshop has (already) managed to penetrate the more rigid structures of the academy. Indeed, the barriers to further dissemination of ethical concern in the workplace seem robust. Nevertheless, I can only hope that the workshop, and the future activities of the Global Perspectives: Engineering Ethics Across International and Academic Borders project manages to reconnect a generation of engineers to engineering ethics in the way I feel it has done in August 2013. And finally, but certainly not least, I hope it can continue to inspire scholars working on the ethics of technology as it has by giving us the opportunity to engage with engineers and engineering in a way that, for me, was conducive of a level of mutual understanding and appreciation I had hardly dared to expect.

Notes on contributor

Jan Peter Bergen is a doctoral candidate in Ethics of Technology at Delft University of Technology. His main topic is the irreversibility of nuclear energy technologies, and how to deal with this responsibly. Additionally, he teaches engineering ethics to graduate students. His participation in the Global Perspectives Course was supported by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (grant number 016.114.625).

Notes

1. The engineering graduate students brought forward an astonishing awareness of the institutional barriers that prevented them from addressing and remediating ethically dubious practices and decisions around them, and were remarkably open to insights from the humanities in trying to make sense of these.

2. What follows is a relatively one-sided reading of the engineers' experiences. It was clear that they loved technology, their research, and engineering as a worthwhile activity. However, the barriers to ethical engagement with engineering are what concerns me here, so those are what I will briefly present.

3. This was especially pertinent for those engineers working on ‘enabling technologies’, since uncertainty about eventual applications and hence, consequences, is substantial.