Abstract
The rationality of scientific goals has been a much discussed topic in philosophy of science since the publication of Larry Laudan’s Science and Values in 1984 (e.g. Iranzo 1995; Baumslag 1998; Cíntora 1999). Until now, significantly less attention has been paid to the rationality of engineering goals, although exceptions exist (e.g. Hughes 2009; Kroes et al. 2009; de Vries 2009). As goals have a central action-directing and coordinating function in the engineering design process, there seems to be a gap in the research. Engineering projects usually start with an identified customer need or desire that is transformed into a set of functional requirements and design specifications for the development of the artefact. These needs, requirements and specifications serve as criteria for the development, testing, evaluation and readjustment of different design solutions. Negotiating and trading off different and often competing requirements is therefore an essential part of the engineering design process.
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Notes
- 1.
Throughout this chapter, the term “rationality” is given a wide interpretation. The term “rational engineering goal” is used to denote a goal that fulfils the typical function of goals to direct action in order to facilitate goal achievement. Readers who prefer a more restricted usage of the term “rationality” may instead use the terms “functional engineering goals” or “successful engineering goals” when references are made to “rational engineering goals.”
- 2.
Edvardsson and Hansson (2005) indicate that a goal should ideally also satisfy the criterion of motivity, that is, it should have the capacity to motivate action that facilitates goal achievement. This criterion is not discussed at any length in this chapter because it has a subordinate role in engineering design. Engineers work professionally and are therefore committed by external forces to act in ways that further goal achievement; hence, the motivation to do so is not triggered by the goals themselves.
- 3.
The fact that engineering projects start with an established customer need does not necessarily mean that an actual customer has expressed this need. Sometimes, engineering design projects proceed from the engineers’ own estimations of what customers (or the market) desire or can be made to desire (de Vries 2009, p. 494).
- 4.
Criterion 5(b), ABET Criteria for Accrediting Engineering Programs 2009–2010, www.abet.org (accessed 10 April 2010).
- 5.
The customer can, for example, be an individual or a group of individuals, a public or private organisation, a company, the general public or the market. In large-scale engineering projects, such as flood barrier construction, the customer is often a public or semiprivate organisation that is formally authorised to represent a particular community or the general public.
- 6.
Consider mobile phones and laptops. These have been developed because people need to be able to make calls and do work even when they are not physically in their offices. Being portable is thus a functional requirement; hence, the weight of a mobile phone or a laptop is a functional requirement that can be expressed in physical terms, for example, “x should not weigh more than”. I am grateful to Sven Ove Hansson for pointing this out.
- 7.
According to Cross (2000, pp. 14–15), ill-defined design problems are characterised by the following:
-
1.
The design problem is vaguely defined (i.e. goals are ambiguous, many constraints and criteria are unknown, and the problem context is poorly understood).
-
2.
Any problem formulation may contain inconsistencies.
-
3.
Formulations of the design problem are solution dependent (i.e. it is difficult to formulate the design problem without referring to a solution concept).
-
4.
Searching for design solutions is a means of understanding the design problem.
-
5.
There is no definitive solution to the design problem.
-
1.
- 8.
Information about the MOSE project and other interventions to safeguard Venice and the Venice lagoon can be found on the Consorzio Venezia Nuova website (www.salve.it).
- 9.
Construction details of the barrier are described in Eprim (2005).
- 10.
The last goal formulation is taken from Eprim (2005, p. 257).
- 11.
See footnote 7.
- 12.
However, to the author’s knowledge, no such research has been undertaken on engineering goals.
- 13.
- 14.
An analogous argument has been made by Hansson (1998), who argues against the position that a person’s moral values always need to be consistent. The reason for this is that strategies that reduce the incidence of moral dilemmas tend to have side effects that are not worth the price. For example, to avoid dilemmas as much as possible, a person would have to systematically avoid commitments to other people since virtually any such commitment increases the risk that they will later be caught in a dilemma.
- 15.
For a description of some of these methods, see Chapter 10 in Cross (2000) and de Vries (2009).
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Acknowledgments
I would like to thank Professor Marc de Vries, Professor Sven Ove Hansson and Professor Peter Kroes for their valuable comments and suggestions. I would also like to thank the participants at Track 7: Philosophy of Engineering and Design at the 2011 Society for Philosophy and Technology (SPT) conference in Denton, Texas, for their comments. Any remaining errors, if any, are mine.
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Björnberg, K.E. (2013). Rational Goals in Engineering Design: The Venice Dams. In: de Vries, M., Hansson, S., Meijers, A. (eds) Norms in Technology. Philosophy of Engineering and Technology, vol 9. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-5243-6_6
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