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By: Jacob Gan
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Engineering profession
A profession is a learned career requiring systematized familiarity and familiarization as well as a passion to a societal good. Engineering is the imaginative art of applying technical knowledge for the gain of all people and therefore is a profession.
The use of science has to regard the responsibility to provide high-value products and services. This sense of obligation also includes creating a productive impact on society and the good of life. Because engineering is a profession, engineers must have in mind the impact of their activities.
Ethics and standards
Ethic may be stated as "pertaining to morals" and ethical as "in accordance with the convention or values for desirable conduct or practice, especially the principles of a profession." As moral values can be changed by the cultural values of the society, each profession therefore has to devise its own set of standard rules so that there is a well-understood view of what practices are suitable and what are not. In this way, not only the members of the profession know which actions are applicable, others outside the profession will be able to know what to anticipate from the profession also.
Constraints of ethical standards
However, it is not plausible to provide directives to cater to all circumstances. Therefore, there are times when they are shades of gray with no intrinsic right answer. In such quandary, engineers must obtain their best personal solutions. Many choices will have equally major results. Many interest groups are impacted differently and to different degrees.
Solutions to ethical settings are seldom clear-cut issues. In making decisions when ethical quandary arise, engineers need to be aware of how their decisions will hit diversed groups. What may make the consideration making extra unfavorable is that the options that are more ethical may put the engineers themselves, or their employer, at a position that is very disadvantageous to themselves.
An ethical dilemama situation
We shall go to show the predicaments often faced by engineers by refering to the well-understood Challenger space craft disaster case.
In order for the space craft to have sufficient thrust to escape from the gravity to reach the orbit, the shuttle's own rockets are enhanced by two booster rockets that use solid fuel. These solid-fuel rocket boosters were made by Morton Thiokol. As a result of the cold condition expected at the launch of the space shuttle, a teleconference was held the night before the launch between NASA managers and Thiokol representatives and engineers. We can deem that all the representatives were either engineers or familiar with shuttle technology.
The first recommendation by Thiokol was not to launch the shuttle until the temperature had risen to a high enough level so that the O-rings would be able to perform the sealing job. However, as a result of the displeasure by NASA representatives over the recommendation, it was modified to launch recommendation. Unfortunately, the space vehicle exploded soon after lift-off.
Let us keep in mind the predicaments faced by each of these three groups in this case:
Group 1 - NASA Representatives
Group 2 - Thiokol Managers
Group 3 - Thiokol Engineers
Dilemma of NASA managers
The NASA officials were under the constraint to launch the shuttle because of a couple of reasons. Further delay in the launch would affect the launches of later missions. Delay in the launch would result in more cost and made the shuttle project less economically attractive. The lauch date was critical as President Reagan would be making the State of the Union talk as the space vehicle was in space. In addition, he was to talk about education, and what better time for the president to discuss education than when a teacher was in orbit?
Notwithstanding, NASA managers were not supplied with solid proof to conclude that the launch would be risky because of low temperature. Also, they did specify the perfromance of the solid-fuel rockets even at a cold temperature, although not as low as what was expected at the time of the launch.
Dilemma of Thiokol officials
Insisting on the no-launch recommendation would antangonize the company's ties with NASA officers and affects their prospect for further business dealings. What's more, their engineers could only provide circumstantial evidence of the danger of cold condition on the perfromance of the O-rings but it was not very complete.
Dilemma of thiokol engineers
Although they were aware of the unsatisfactory sealing ability of the O-rings at low temperature, they did not have ample time to prepare a very convincing case. Although they expressed strong protestation to the change in the recommendation from no-launch to launch, they were over-ruled.
Lessons
The points of view of a situation depend substantially on the position a professional is in. Specifically, a young professional is usually very apprehensive with the techical problems though as he moves up the organizational ladder, he becomes more and more fearful with the business problems of the organization. When we teach engineering ethics, we have to deliberate over the disquiet faced by engineers at different levels of their professions.
Article Source: http://www.ezarticles.info
Jacob Gan PhD (Michigan) writes for succezz.com, JacobGan.com, JacobEducation.com, DemystifyCancer.com, understanding-orchids.com, motivate2success.com, www.JacobLearning.com and hosts Jacob.TheeLearningcentre.com, an elearning portal.
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