Abstract
In this paper, I make a novel case for an expansive approach to engineering ethics education, one that regards micro-ethics and macro-ethics as essentially complementary. Although others have voiced support for including macro-ethical reflection within engineering ethics education, I advance a stronger claim, arguing that isolating engineering ethics from macro-level issues risks rendering even micro-ethical inquiry morally meaningless. I divide my proposal into four parts. First, I clarify the distinction between micro-ethics and macro-ethics as I am construing it, defending my characterization against a potential worry. Second, I consider but reject some arguments for a restrictive approach, one that excludes macro-ethical reflection from engineering ethics education. Third, I offer my central argument for an expansive approach. Finally, I suggest that macro-ethics education can learn something valuable from micro-ethics pedagogy. On my proposal, students consider both micro- and macro-ethical problems from the deliberative perspective, situating micro-ethical problems within a broader social framework but also situating macro-ethical problems within an engaged, practical framework. By emphasizing the value of the deliberative perspective, my proposal contributes to a growing call to broaden the scope of engineering ethics education while maintaining its practical relevance.
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Notes
See Fichtelberg (2006) for a thoughtful discussion of this issue.
Note that the micro-ethics/macro-ethics distinction is not meant to reflect a difference in relative importance. To say that micro-level issues are those internal to the professional world of engineers is not to say that they are mere matters of corporate convention on par with dress codes and break room etiquette. On the contrary, questions of professional integrity involving, say, bribery or fraud speak to problems of corruption that are among the most serious ethical challenges facing society at large.
For a nuanced treatment of these issues, see Hardimon (1994). For a discussion of the responsibilities of engineers qua engineers, see Smith et al. (2014). The “role morality” of professional roles can also engender special permissions as well as special obligations (see, e.g., Katz & Sandroni, 2019).
I take it that such role obligations correspond to Michael Davis’s claim that “[to] be a member of a profession is to be subject to a set of special, morally-binding standards beyond what law, market, and morality (otherwise) demand. …The professional whose deeds fall short of her profession’s standards is open to moral criticism she would not be open to had she not declared her commitment to those standards. To be a professional is to be open to a range of moral criticism to which a non-professional doing identical work is not” (1997, p.421).
I thank an anonymous reviewer for pressing me on this objection and for highlighting the relevance of Davis’s definition of a profession to it.
I thank the same anonymous reviewer for this helpful way of putting it.
See, for example, the controversy over the American Institute of Architects’ decision to prohibit members from designing prison execution chambers (Jacobs, 2010).
For a seminal discussion of engineering as a profession and the professional responsibilities it creates, see, again, Davis (1997), though Davis’s own conception of what constitutes a profession is not without controversy, as he acknowledges in the article.
Davis (1998) arguably favors this kind of restrictive approach, though his conception of professional responsibilities and constraints is relatively broad, as discussed in the previous section of this paper.
The corollary of this educational controversy is the controversy within business and investment over so-called corporate social responsibility (CSR). See, e.g., Lindgreen and Swaen (2009) and other articles included therein.
It is consistent with this view, of course, that a profession might also have an explicit moral ideal at its center, as discussed in the previous section.
In 2011, the last American producer of sodium thiopental stopped manufacturing it over concerns it would be used in executions. See Grissom (2011).
One could draw a comparison to Dow Chemical’s August 3, 1966, position on the production of napalm and its sale to the US military during the Vietnam War. See “Dow letter to employees”.
It is worth noting that a company’s or employee’s stance on a given macro-ethical issue need not take the form of an “all or nothing” judgment. Such stances are often more nuanced, and reasonably so. For example, a defense contractor may contemplate not whether to develop weapons at all but rather how to ensure that the weapons support only just wars justly executed. I thank an anonymous reviewer for emphasizing this point.
Herkert (2005, p 376) makes essentially the same point regarding ABET criteria, albeit an earlier version of them.
Indeed, NCEES, which administers both the FE exam and the subsequent Principles and Practice of Engineering (PE) exam, tacitly acknowledges this point when it specifies that the latter exam merely “tests for a minimum level of competency” in a given engineering discipline (NCEES 2023b). I thank an anonymous reviewer for flagging this language.
Their assessment is more nuanced in Pauer-Studer and Velleman (2015a, p. 88), where they state that Morgen could have relied on a judicial view (which he appears to endorse elsewhere) that grants a judge broad discretion when the system of laws to which he would usually be beholden is itself immoral.
This claim may appear to conflict with Davis’s claim that “[to] be a member of a profession is to be subject to a set of special, morally-binding standards beyond what law, market, and morality (otherwise) demand” (1997, p.421), but such an appearance is misleading. The micro-ethical norms that apply to individuals in virtue of their adopting professional roles may indeed be more stringent than those of ordinary morality, engendering, say, a special duty to protect confidentiality or a special duty to avoid conflicts of interest. My point is that adhering to those special duties in service of producing morally repugnant effects robs that adherence of its moral worth. I thank an anonymous reviewer for pushing me on this point.
As Ebels-Duggan (2015) argues, fostering autonomy might itself include promoting intellectual charity and humility.
See Davis (1996) for a discussion of the challenge of defining and fostering professional autonomy in engineers.
For a recent study and proposal concerning the case study method, see Martin et al. (2021).
This focus on the individual deliberative perspective is not to deny that many macro-ethical problems—such as climate change—are themselves collective action problems. See, e.g., Gardiner (2006) for a powerful diagnosis of climate change along these lines.
See, e.g., Flores and Johnson (1983) for a classic treatment of some of these issues.
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McAninch, A. Go Big or Go Home? A New Case for Integrating Micro-ethics and Macro-ethics in Engineering Ethics Education. Sci Eng Ethics 29, 20 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-023-00441-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-023-00441-5