Responsibility

The primary goal that many engineers share is to understand and change the world for the better. These changes can impact the lives of many individuals and so engineering is an inherently morally motivated activity making ethical reflection and knowledge all the more important in this field.

Passive Responsibilty

Responsibilty is often linked to the role that an individual has in a particular sitation and we call this role responsibility. For example, at work you have the responsibility of an employee, and in your country you have the responsibility of a citizen. Each role has its own responsibilites and we tend to have more than one role at a time which we need to manage.

The role responsibility of an engineer is to carry out their work in a competent way. With that fact, professional responsibility is the responsibility that is based on your role as professional engineer as long as it stays within the limits of what is morally allowed.

Passive responsibility which is also known as accountability is that the person who is held responsible must be able to provide an account why they followed a particular course of action and why they made certain decisions. This responsibility often involves blameworthiness which means that it is proper to blame someone for their actions or the consequences of those actions. However, for blameworthiness, all the four following conditions need to apply...

1. Wrong-doing: The person carried out the certain action in question which violated a norm or did something wrong. This can be a rule/guideline in an organization, a legal norm, or a moral norm.
2. Casual Contribution: The person made a casual contribution that caused the consequence.
3. Foreseeability: The person had a sense of what harmful consequences could arise from their actions.
4. Freedom of Action: The person had the freedom of action meaning they did not act under compulsion.

Active Responsibilty

Responsibilty is also something that comes into play before a disaster occurs and this is called active responsibility. If someone is actively responsible for something, then they are expected to act in a way such that undesired consequences are avoided as much as possible.

The active responsibility of engineers can be understood by looking at the ideals (ideas or strivings) which motivate engineers. These are not all the possible motivation but are some of the common ones...

1. Technological Enthusiasm: It is the desire to develop new technological possibilities and take up technological challenges.
2. Effectiveness and Efficiency: It is the desire to be effective which is to achieve an established goal to an extent. The desire is also to be as efficient as possible which means to achieve the goal with the least amount of effort required.
3. Human Welfare: It is the desire to use their knowledge and skill for the enhancement of human welfare. Their goal is also to keep the safety, health, and welfare of the public overall.

The first two ideals are not always morally commendable because they become immoral when pursed with immoral goals. On the other hand, the third goal is morally laudable and that is why it is part of the professional responsibility of engineers.

Conflict Resolution

There are times when your professional responsibility as an engineer may conflict with your responsibility as an employee. Some models that are used to deal with tensions and conflicts between engineers and managers include...

1. Separatism is the model where engineers apply technical inputs only while the managers make all the value decisions. The disadvantage of this model is that engineers may end up serving immoral goals because of the managers.
2. Technocracy is the model where engineers take over the decision power of managers. The disadvantage to this is that engineers do not possess the expertise on basis of what they can decide for others. The other disadvantage is that this model is paternalistic which is when you are making the decisions for others on the assumption that one knows what is good for them than the others themselves.
3. Whistle-Blowing is the model where an engineer speaks out in public about abuses or dangerous situations in a company. The disadvantage is that although it may sometimes be required, it can cause harm to the engineer themselves.

Oftentimes it is better to work on a relation between engineers and managers that is more cooperative and mutally supportive instead of these three models. The issue is this is not always the case.

Whistle-Blowing

Whistle-blowing can be necessary but it often leads to conflicts with the employer. In fact, in most cases whistle blowers end up not only losing their job but they also have the very difficult task of getting hired again. All this may even cause the loss of friends and family. This is why there are some guidelines (proposed by Richard De George in 1990) you should follow to determine if whistle-blowing is morally required. These include...

1. The organization, through its product or policy, will do serious and considerable harm to the public.
2. The whistle blower has identified the harm and reported it to their immediate superior by making it clear about the threat itself and their objection to it. Even after doing this, the superior has done nothing effective to resolve the threat.
3. The whistle blower has exhausted all other internal procedures within the organization to deal with the harm.
4. The whistle blower has evidence that would convince a reasonable and impartial observer that their view of the threat is correct.
5. The whistle blower has good reason to believe that speaking out to the public will prevent the harm at a reasonable cost.

If all these conditions are met then you have a moral obligation to become a whistle blower.

Precautionary Principle

There are times where threats have serious or irreversible damage and in these cases having full certainty that these threats can occur is not required. This idea comes from the precautionary principle which states that where there is an identifiable risk of serious or irreversible harm, we can take precautionary measures without having to wait until the reality and seriousness of the threat becomes fully known. This essentially means the burden of proof which advocates inaction until cause is proven is unneccessary when the risk has serious or irreversible harm.