Engineering ethics mainly focuses on ethical elements of actions and decisions that are taken by engineers at an individual or collective level. The design is always the most important and initial part of the engineering process. Therefore, the engineering ethics starts with the design and engineers must adhere to ethical requirements during the design process. Failure to consider ethics in engineering design is likely to cause fatal accidents and disaster. Complying with ethics in engineering design requires an effective balancing between cost and the required engineering standards (Van Gorp & van de Poel, 2001).
Some Ethics Issues in Engineering Design
One of the main ethical issues in engineering design is the trade-off between safety and economic cost. The trade-off between safety and economic cost is the main ethical issues that engineers face in the design process (Van Gorp & van de Poel, 2001). In many cases, engineers pay more attention to economic considerations during the engineering design process. At the same time, economic considerations influence the safety standards that are implemented by engineers. Engineers are likely to ignore safety requirements that they consider to be costly. Sundsvall Bridge in Sweden that occurred on 4th August 2015 is an example of accidents that had taken place when engineers compromised safety for economic during the design process (Post, 2014). Engineers who constructed the bridge undersized the connections to reduce the number of bolds that were required to hold the bridge. This is an ethical issue that is common in engineering design process.
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The second ethical issue in engineering design is the trade-off between safety and sustainability. Internal design team norms always influence the trade-offs between safety and sustainability. At the same time, the standards are based on design experience, skills, and the educational level of the design team. There are regulatory frameworks that guide engineers on how to trade-off between safety and sustainability. However, the framework does not contain all ethical issues and apply to all situations (Van Gorp & van de Poel, 2001). Therefore, some engineers using the loopholes in the framework to focus on either safety or sustainability. Besides, the regulatory framework is also not accepted by all actors. Hence, the available regulatory framework does not comprehensively address all ethical issues on engineering design, leading to imbalance tradeoffs.
To solve ethical issues in engineering design, engineers should not be part of the team that is formulating the design requirements or criteria. The role of engineers should be to determine what is technologically viable based on the needs. This will ensure that engineers are morally neural during the engineering design process. The ethical issues can also be solved by formulating a comprehensive regulative framework for engineering design tradeoffs (van Gorp, 2005). The framework should cover all aspects of engineering design to eliminate loopholes that can lead to an unethical decision.
Case Studies: Space Shuttle Accidents of the Challenger in 1986 and Columbia in 2003
The accident of the Challenger in 1986 was mainly caused by the explosion that occurred on the external tank. The blast on the external tank happened after the gases in the tank mixed, reacted, and then exploded, making the Challenger break into pieces (Post, 2014). The accident was also associated with human factors. For instance, the decision to launch the Challenger was based on faulty judgment and mismanagement of information. At the same time, the pressure to meet political, organizational, and political needs led to flawed engineering and management decisions. The Shuttle management team was under pressure to meet conflicting needs. On the other hand, the investigative team mainly attributed the cause of Columbia accident on 2003 to a large piece of insulating foam that came off the external tank (Post, 2014). However, apart from the technical cause, it was also realized that political pressure and poor communication between team members led to the accidents.
One of the main similarities between the two cases is that technical factors mainly caused them. The Challenger accident was caused by the explosion of an external tank while the Columbia was caused by insulating foam that came off the external tank. However, one of the main common ethical issues is that the engineering teams of both cases were acting under pressure to meet political needs as well as organizational needs (Dien & Llory, 2004). Consequently, they did not pay much attention to the safety needs. Hence, safety requirements were compromised to meet political needs, raising an ethical concern.
The concept of blame, responsibility, and causation is common, mainly when an accident or disaster occurs. It refers to a situation where one entity is blamed for the cause while another is expected to take responsibility. At the same time, the concept may apply to a scenario where no one is ready to take lame of responsibility after some negative thing has occurred. For instance, in the case of the Challenger and Columbia accidents, the incidents were mainly associated with technical errors (Post, 2014). Besides, none of the entities wanted to be held responsible for the accidents.
Many ethical issues in engineering design pose a dilemma to engineers. However, the tradeoffs between safety and cost and safety and sustainability are the main ethical issues. Many engineers always consider cost before safety, leading to engineering design errors and accidents like that of the Challenge and Columbia in 1986 and 2003 respectively. Hence, safety requirements should be given a priority in the engineering design process.
References
Dien, Y., & Llory, M. (2004). Effects of the Columbia space shuttle accident on high-risk industries or can we learn lessons from other industries. Hazards , 18, 23-25.
Post, S. L. (2014). Space shuttle case studies: Challenger and Columbia. ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition , 3(1).
Van Gorp, A. C. (2005). Ethical issues in engineering design; safety and sustainability (Vol. 2). 3TU Ethics.
Van Gorp, A., & van de Poel, I. (2001). Ethical considerations in engineering design processes. IEEE Technology and Society Magazine , 20 (3), 15-22.
