Abstract
The aim of this chapter is to clarify the scope of engineering ethics. We suggest a definition of engineering as practice, with its own virtues and internal goods, guided by a common good. A complementary function of engineering is also proposed, analogous to the translation between the objective lawfulness uncovered by theoretical sciences and the social lifeworld, through the materialization of truth in processes and commodities. These definitions make it possible to consider an ethical framework for the practice of engineering, which goes back to the Humboldtian maxim of transforming knowledge into deeds, that is, the question of how to convert the universality of facts into the particularism of values. Engineering ethics should not be confused with just another professional ethics, guided only by the internal regulations of the profession and by ethical standards and codes. On the other hand, it must not turn engineers into new moral heroes, the only social players responsible for solving dilemmas and ethical issues that arise with the massive arrival of technologies. Engineering should be understood as a collective practice of translation, creation and cooperation of alternative designs. This can contribute to the discussion of the philosophical relevance and ultimate goals of engineering practice.
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Notes
- 1.
Article 141 of the articles of association of the Order of Engineers in Portugal provides that engineering shall be at the service of mankind. Compare with the definition of van de Poel. “As a first approximation we might characterize engineering as an activity that produces technology. Producing is here to be understood very broadly, including such activities as research, development, design, testing, patenting, maintenance, inspection, and so on” (van de Poel, 2010: 2).
- 2.
Ethical consequentialism is a way of extending cost-benefit analysis to various topics without criticism of their limitations. Likewise, it does not seem to be sufficient for integral full analysis of engineering practice. Although these analyses may be applied simply and quantitatively, in line with engineering standards, they fail to consider the incommensurability and ambiguity of externalities. The fact that they are presented by numbers also gives the impression of neutrality, impersonality and objectivity. Cf Doorn (2012) for further reading.
- 3.
I am aware there is some place for confusion here, in that the concepts of internal and external goods, based on MacIntyre, would seem to be more in line with an internal and an external notion of responsibility, respectively. Reidel’s work, however, seems to classify external responsibility as an internal good. I have adopted his approach.
- 4.
Hans Jonas said the same eloquently when he noticed that “Judgment […] is the faculty of subsuming the particular under the universal; and, since reason is the faculty of the universal and science the operation of that faculty, judgement as concerned with particulars is necessarily outside science and strictly the bridge between the abstractions of the understanding and the concreteness of life. […] Hence it follows that the use of theory does not itself permit a theory: if it is enlightened use, it receives its light from deliberation, which may or may not enjoy the benefits of good sense” (Jonas, 1984a: 68–70).
- 5.
“American universities, later mimicked by Europeans and those from other continents, are now directly involved in industrial development, increasingly abandoning their nature as suppliers of science as a ‘public good’ and actively participating in the patent system and in exclusive licensing agreements of their results with the economic organizations they choose” (Garcia & Martins, 2009: 86).
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Carvalho, T.M. (2023). Lost in Translation? Ethics and Engineering Practice. In: Jerónimo, H.M. (eds) Portuguese Philosophy of Technology. Philosophy of Engineering and Technology, vol 43. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-14630-5_11
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