Abstract
This paper provides an empirically informed perspective on the notion of responsibility using an ethical framework that has received little attention in the engineering-related literature to date: ethics of care. In this work, we ground conceptual explorations of engineering responsibility in empirical findings from engineering student’s writing on the human health and environmental impacts of “backyard” electronic waste recycling/disposal. Our findings, from a purposefully diverse sample of engineering students in an introductory electrical engineering course, indicate that most of these engineers of tomorrow associated engineers with responsibility for the electronic waste (e-waste) problem in some way. However, a number of responses suggested attempts to deflect responsibility away from engineers towards, for example, the government or the companies for whom engineers work. Still other students associated both engineers and non-engineers with responsibility, demonstrating the distributed/collective nature of responsibility that will be required to achieve a solution to the global problem of excessive e-waste. Building upon one element of a framework for care ethics adopted from the wider literature, these empirical findings are used to facilitate a preliminary, conceptual exploration of care-ethical responsibility within the context of engineering and e-waste recycling/disposal. The objective of this exploration is to provide a first step toward understanding how care-ethical responsibility applies to engineering. We also hope to seed dialogue within the engineering community about its ethical responsibilities on the issue. We conclude the paper with a discussion of its implications for engineering education and engineering ethics that suggests changes for educational policy and the practice of engineering.
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Notes
We use the terms moral and ethical interchangeably in this paper.
Portions of the “Data Source” and “Data Selection” sub-sections were adapted from Campbell et al. (2012), which reported on a pilot study using a slightly different data set, and Wilson et al. (2013), which used the same data set but for a different type of analysis.
This school is classified as a doctorate-granting Research University RU/VH (very high research activity) according to the Carnegie Basic Classification (2010).
As observed by an anonymous reviewer of this manuscript, use of the word “ethical” in the prompt makes the question less open-ended and less probing of student senses of responsibility than if the word had been omitted. We acknowledge this point. We also take this opportunity to invite the reader to consider whether the phrase “ethical response” might serve as lay-language for the notion of care-ethical responsibility.
Most, but not all students followed the structure suggested by the numbered essay questions, and some included introductions and/or conclusions that addressed multiple essay questions.
However, in a few cases, clues about certain demographics were found within the essay either directly, such as through statements indicating a student’s home country, or indirectly, through writing styles indicative of English as a second language. Nevertheless, a conscious effort was made by the coder to bracket this knowledge so that it did not influence the coding process, especially during the more interpretive phase of the analysis, in case patterns related to participant demographics should emerge (see section “Implications for Empirical Educational Research”).
Use of the phrase “responsibility assumption” in this work is intended to be used interchangeably with the phrase “assumption of responsibility.” While the more common phrases of “responsibility acceptance” or “responsibility ascription” could also have been used, these were not chosen because the associated connotations of external assignment and blame are not consistent with the adopted care-ethics framework, which employs a more internal and voluntary notion of responsibility as described in the section entitled “Care-Ethical Responsibility” above.
For example, the second and third categories of Table 2 were applicable to essays in which both engineers and others were associated with responsibility (i.e., contained at least one instance of “Engineers responsible” and “Others responsible” from the “Descriptive Coding” section).
As a case in point, Sophia explicitly indicated that she did this when she wrote: “Though it is possible to speak about the “ethical” responsibilities of everyone involved, this paper will focus its attention on the efforts of engineers, the masterminds and first line of responsibility in the creation and distribution of these electronics”.
Though such a predictive measure would be most appropriately used for formative educational purposes or research, rather than for summative evaluation.
Unfortunately, this may be a common practice—see http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2008/01/high-tech-trash/essick-photography (retrieved March 23, 2016).
Thanks to an anonymous reviewer for suggesting this connection to a related body of literature.
White skin privilege is part of the implicit social system of racism that provides opportunities to some people, but not others, based on the color of their skin (Tronto 1993, p. 121). Unfortunately, those who benefit from this system need neither recognize their privilege, nor feel any responsibility for racism’s continued existence because they do not think they have a prejudice. Therefore, those in the dominant group, who have the most power to change the system, see no reason to do so. They need not even deliberately refuse to assume responsibility for the problem because they simply do not see it, and therefore, the difficulties experienced by minority groups persist.
The context-dependent nature of the work is consistent with the care-ethical framework we adopted, which recognizes that the “right thing to do” is dependent on situational factors including the specific actors involved. Theorists looking for universal or widely generalizable claims might view this as a limitation, but if so, they may be missing some important dimensions of care ethics, namely, its practicality and the challenge it poses to abstract, universalistic approaches to ethics (see Held 2007).
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Acknowledgments
The authors wish to express their sincere gratitude to Dr. Ken Yasuhara at the University of Washington Center for Engineering Learning & Teaching (CELT) for his invaluable feedback and encouragement throughout the development of this manuscript. This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0909817. Partial support for this research came from a Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development research infrastructure grant, R24 HD042828, to the Center for Studies in Demography & Ecology at the University of Washington.
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Campbell, R.C., Wilson, D. Engineers’ Responsibilities for Global Electronic Waste: Exploring Engineering Student Writing Through a Care Ethics Lens. Sci Eng Ethics 23, 591–622 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-016-9781-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-016-9781-2