Promoting Peace in Engineering Education, Essay Example

Explain Friedman’s arguments about social responsibility?

In “Capitalism and Freedom,” Friedman states that , “there is one and only one social responsibility of business to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits so long as it stays within the rules of the game, which is to say, engages in open and free competition without deception or fraud” (Friedman :63).  This means that the core objective of business is to focus on profits. Friedman views the pursuit of profits as an ethical responsibility of corporations.  Friedman argues that social responsibility of individuals is different from that practiced by businesses. He points out this difference when he talks about the nature of CEOs noting that,  while they are capable of being clear headed and farsighted in regards to the internal needs of business “they are incredibly short-sighted and muddle-headed in matters that are outside their businesses but affect the possible survival of businesses in general. This short-sightedness is strikingly exemplified in the calls from many businessmen for wages and price guidelines or controls or income policies” (Friedman :62). Friedman points out that this short sightedness results in businessmen feeling obligated to speak on social responsibility and claim that their companies are being socially responsible according to the expectations of society and the public standard of what’s considered socially responsible. Friedman points out that when CEOs do publicly state they are being socially responsible it’s not in reference to the pursuit of profits, as it should be, but claims that they are abiding by the same standards of society that view the pursuit of profits as being immoral. Perceiving social responsibility in business in this way undermines the true nature of business as a conscious ethical practice and it reinforces the belief that corporate performance must be limited or controlled by outside forces.

Compare and contrast McFarland, Perrow, and Martin and Schinzinger on ways to make engineering safer.

Sociologist Charles Perrow argues that modern technology is in such a complex state that it makes it very difficult for engineers to understand completely how technology will impact the safety of their products . Charles Perrow  argues that engineers need  to recognize limitations within their own  knowledge as well as potential issues that may arise from these limitations to anticipate the potential risks their work may impose on society.   It’s noted that Perrow divides these potential risks into three categories  “risks that can be reduced through minor improvements, risks that will require substantial effort to address, and risks that far outweigh any benefit, at which point the technology should be abandoned” (Perrow: 35). Perrow feels that risk assessment needs to be made a significant part of all engineering projects when deciding on the benefits of new technology.   Even utilizing Perrow’s  risk assessment method to make engineering safer can’t change the fact that engineers are confronted with uncertainty on a daily basis, when it comes to the potential outcomes of their projects. In order to produce work with a safer framework, Mike Martin and Roland Schinzinger offer an approach they feel better accounts for uncertainty and the knowledge limitations that Perrow fails to confront  simply with just risk assessment.   Mike Martin and Roland Schinzinger argue that engineers should view all of their projects like they are ‘‘social experiments.’’ They feel that new technological breakthroughs never completely understood in their initial innovation or discovery period.  They believe that viewing projects as social experiments entails viewing the project as ‘an experiment on a social scale involving human subjects’’ (Martin and Schinzinger, :89). Martin and Schinzinger believe that engineering in this way can enables engineers  to face uncertainty.

The prime example of Martin and Schinzinger’s persepctive can be seen with how new software or technological tools are brought to market in the modern era. Usually these products go through a beta testing phase prior to being released. Even after they are released, while the public utilizes the product, they are given the opportunity to take consumer surveys or provide feedback in the form of social media interaction. The companies use word of mouth to improve on mistakes they may see occurring with the product. In some rare occasions, Martin and Schinzinger’s methods collide. For example, when Toyota does a recall of their automobiles for safety reasons, it’s usually because a certain safety  issue fell through the cracks of their initial risk assessment, but there are enough reported incidents by consumers after the product is on the market that the company has to issue a recall. This example demonstrates how the Martin and Schinzinger method is less ideal than the Perrow method of sustaining safety in engineering. Of course, it would be best to anticipate all potential risks and design to avoid them, but this can not always be done. The main difference between the two safety methods is that one focuses on planning ahead while the other is more naturalistic and focuses on evolving knowledge through monitoring the natural performance of the product as it’s used by the consumer.

Compare and Contrast Haws’ and Catalano’s ideas about how to teach Engineering Ethics with the way this class was run.  Evaluate which is “better.”  Why?

Catalano advocates for the use of  the UN Models of Teaching within the engineering profession.  This method places an emphasis on professional ethics and research ethics  principles of peace, democracy, and sustainability development into ABET accreditation standards (Catalano: 399). Catalano proposes “The Integral Model of Education for Peace, Democracy and Sustainable Development” as a promising component for engineering accreditation.  This method recognizes the orientation between peace, democracy and sustainability with others, oneself, and nature. Catalano proposes an integration and harmonization of each of these, in itself and in relation to the others. This is the core grounds for how Catalano suggests engineering programs can instruct students and still account for the pursuit of democracy, peace, and sustainable development.

Haws draws on just war theory to call attention to ethical concerns for engineers who apply their expertise to projects of war and defense (Haws, 365). Haws asserts that the principal modes of instruction for engineering ethics (codes, heuristics, case study, theory) “can be associated with stages of moral development” (Haws:204). For him, moral development moves from blind obedience to externally imposed rules to autonomous ethical judgment and “a deeper ethical conviction” (Haws, 204). Haws seeks to improve moral reasoning within engineering. Haws does not detail a specific course towards how this improvement will be achieved, but does suggest his method is an improvement on clear cut dogma, heuristic procedures, deductive protocols, or a case based inductive approach. He attributes his method to being an improvement on these other forms due to the fact that they have impacted ethics teachings in such a way to make them fragmented where his methods reveals the continuum or connection between the different aspects of morality and ethics. He feels the alternative to these fragmented views of ethics, is meta-ethics because it presents moral theory to the discussion.

I personally, feel Catalano’s method is more effective as it presents a more concrete an fundamental approach to ethics and moral issues as they are applicable within the field of engineering. Haws seems to focus more on ethics and morality as a concept than providing any practical way in which it can be fundamentally applied within the field. On the other hand, Catalano proposes a formal standard which he feels should be implemented within engineering instruction.

Work Cited

Catalano, George D. “Promoting peace in engineering education: Modifying the ABET criteria.” Science and engineering ethics 12.2 (2006): 399-406.

Friedman, Milton. The social responsibility of business is to increase its profits. springer berlin heidelberg, 2007.

Haws, David R. “The importance of meta-ethics in engineering education.”Science and Engineering Ethics 10.2 (2004): 204-210.

Haws, David R. “Engineering the Just War: Examination of an approach to teaching engineering ethics.” Science and engineering ethics 12.2 (2006): 365-372.

Jensen, Karsten Klint. “Corporate responsibility: the stakeholder paradox reconsidered.” Journal of agricultural and environmental ethics 20.6 (2007): 515-532.

Martin, M. W., & Schinzinger, R. Ethics in engineering. Boston: McGraw Hill (2004): 89.

McFarland, Ross A. “Psychological and behavioral aspects of automobile accidents.”Traffic Safety Research Review (1968).

Perrow, C. (1984). Normal accidents: Living with high-risk technologies. New York: Basic Books, Inc.