What is the malpractice model?
minimalist model only concerned with meeting requirements of profession
- engineers must conform to standard operating procedures
- existing regulations tend to be minimalist
- responsibility linked with legal liability
- focus on blame and punishment
Reasonable Care Model
in-between malpractice and good works, focused on exceeding existing regulations if they are insufficient but not going above and beyond
- meet the standard that a naive non-professional would expect
- concern for public welfare instead of trying to avoid blame
- responsibility as a civic virtue
- focus on prevention of harm
Good Works Model
maximalist model focused on going above and beyond the call of duty and prioritize the public
- an engineer who does not meet this standard cannot be blamed or be considered morally deficient (since they aren’t expected to be doing this much)
- often met with resistance (tight time schedules, limited budgets, other priorities)
What’s an example of when the malpractice model was used? What happened?
Flight 191 American Airlines crash in Chicago in 1979, engineers just met the standard regulations and the left engine broke of the wing, killing 274 people
What’s an example of when the good works model was used?
development of sealed beam headlights in 1930s to fix glare and distraction of current headlights, the engineers worked on their own time and overcame considerable resistance to improve safety of public with nothing in return
Why are there multiple ethical theories instead of just one?
- all are useful for decision-making
- none are universally true or clearly superior
- applying different ethical theories provides different perspectives and new insights to the problem
What are the 4 classical ethical theories?
Mill’s utilitarianism, Kant’s duty ethics, Locke’s rights ethics, Aristotle’s virtue ethics
What is care ethics? What is the difficulty to it?
- developed over past few decades
- emphasizes responsiveness
- no standard rule to follow, should rather be proactively responsive to the contexts, values, and needs of vulnerable people impacted by our actions
- difficulty: demands initiative, leadership, and sensitivity to intercultural differences
What is Mill’s utilitarianism?
- provide the maximum benefit for greatest number of people
- legal system and democratic government based on these principles
- common approach by engineers (cost-benefit analyses)
- no discrimination based on class, social statues, gender, race religion
- equal distribution of benefits
What is the difficulty to Mill’s utilitarianism?
hard to calculate maximum benefit because it depends on 3 key factors: intensity, duration, number
What is Kant’s formalism?
- also called duty ethics
- every individual’s duty is to behave in an ethical manner, everyone has a moral duty
- universally acceptable code of conduct
- what is fair for one is fair for all!!
- don’t lie/steal, be fair, do no harm
- good intentions are more important than results/consequences
What is the difficulty with Kant’s formalism?
these duties (do no harm, don’t lie, don’t steal, be fair to others, etc.) have no exceptions
What are Locke’s rights ethics?
- everyone has rights that arise from their existence as a human being
- duty is a consequence of personal rights
- right to life/liberty are fundamental as embedded in Canadian Charter of Rights/Freedoms
- influenced the French/American revolutions
- acts are morally right when they are best way to respect human rights of everyone affected
What is the difficulty with Locke’s right ethics?
if some people are affected positively and some are affected negatively, how do you decide whose rights are most important?
What are Aristotle’s virtue ethics?
- virtues are qualities of character
- humans can achieve happiness by developing virtues through thought, reason, deduction, and logic
- an act is good if it is in accordance with reason
- should select the golden mean between 2 extremes
- does not focus on how to make good decisions but rather how to be a good person
- assumes good people will make good decisions
What is the difficulty with Aristotle’s virtue ethics?
how do you define virtues
How do you solve complex ethical problems?
- recognize need/problem
- gather information (different perspective, laws, all actions may be undesirable, moral dilemmas)
- define problem
- generate alternative solutions (be creative)
- evaluate alternatives (use ethical theories)
- decision making (can use a decision table)
- implement quickly
What are the 3 tests for an ethical decision?
- transparency: if my choice was made public, will I be able to defend it
- exemplary: can my choice serve as an example for similar situations
- reciprocity: if I was subject to the consequences of my choice, would I still consider it the right choice
How do you use an ethics decision table?
- list all the people affected in the first column
- list all possible courses of action in first row
- put a numerical value in each box and sum
What is the code of ethics?
- prescribe acceptable conduct for professional engineers (many different conducts)
- all have duty to society, employers, clients, colleagues, subordinates, profession, and oneself
What is risk homeostasis?
tendency of people to assume more risk when safety measures are present
What are the 3 project management tools?
- timeline
- gantt chart
- pert chart
What is the traditional view for working with other teams? What is the new view?
traditional is each team goes one at a time, current model is that they overlap
What is a Gantt chart?
- all tasks are listed and then the time when they need to be done is boxed off in a giant layered timeline
- shows which tasks need to be done when, what’s going on at the same time, etc.
