1 The responsibilities of engineers
Active responsibility: before something happened. You must act so to avoid undesired consequences
and realize positive consequences.
Ideals: ideas/strivings which are particularly motivating and inspiring. It is typical that they aim at
achieving an optimum/maximum.
Professional ideals: are closely allied to a profession or can only be aspired by carrying out the
profession. Different kinds:
- Technological enthusiasm: wanting to develop new technological possibilities and take up
technological challenges.
- Effectiveness: extent to which an established goal is achieved.
- Efficiency: ratio between the goal achieved and the effort required.
- Contributing to human welfare, for instance health, the environment and sustainability.
Passive responsibility: after something (undesirable) has happened. You can have accountability
(being held to account for/justify one’s actions towards others) or blameworthiness (it is proper to
blame someone for his actions or the consequences of the actions, you are blameworthy if 4
conditions apply: wrong-doing, causal contribution, foreseeability and freedom).
Role responsibility: based on the role one has or plays in a certain situation.
Moral responsibility: based on the obligations, norms and duties that arise form moral
considerations.
Professional responsibility: based on your role as a professional engineer, as in far it stays within the
limits of what is morally allowed.
Separatism: scientists and engineers should apply the technical inputs, but appropriate management
and political organs should make the value decisions. Well illustrated by the tripartite model:
- Politicians, policy makers and managers establish the objectives for engineering projects and
products and make available resources without intervening in engineering matters.
- Engineers, who take care of the designing, developing, creating and executing
- Users, who make use of the various technologies.
Engineers can only be held responsible for the technical creation of products.
Hired gun: someone who is willing to carry out any task from his employer without moral scruples.
Technocracy: government by experts. It is undemocratic and paternalistic (certain group of
individuals make (moral) decisions for others on the assumptions that they know better what is good
for them).
Whistle-blowing: employee discloses certain abuses in a company in which he is employed without
the consent of his superiors and in order to remedy these abuses and/or to warn the public about
these abuses.
Actor: any person/group that can make a decision how to act and that can act on that decision:
- Developers and producers of technology.
- Users: use technology and formulate certain wishes or requirements for the functioning of
the technology.
- Regulators: government, who formulate rules/regulations that the products have to meet.
They all have certain interests; things they strive for.
Stakeholders: actors that have an interest in the development of a technology, but cannot
necessarily influence the direction of technological development.
Active responsibility: before something happened. You must act so to avoid undesired consequences
and realize positive consequences.
Ideals: ideas/strivings which are particularly motivating and inspiring. It is typical that they aim at
achieving an optimum/maximum.
Professional ideals: are closely allied to a profession or can only be aspired by carrying out the
profession. Different kinds:
- Technological enthusiasm: wanting to develop new technological possibilities and take up
technological challenges.
- Effectiveness: extent to which an established goal is achieved.
- Efficiency: ratio between the goal achieved and the effort required.
- Contributing to human welfare, for instance health, the environment and sustainability.
Passive responsibility: after something (undesirable) has happened. You can have accountability
(being held to account for/justify one’s actions towards others) or blameworthiness (it is proper to
blame someone for his actions or the consequences of the actions, you are blameworthy if 4
conditions apply: wrong-doing, causal contribution, foreseeability and freedom).
Role responsibility: based on the role one has or plays in a certain situation.
Moral responsibility: based on the obligations, norms and duties that arise form moral
considerations.
Professional responsibility: based on your role as a professional engineer, as in far it stays within the
limits of what is morally allowed.
Separatism: scientists and engineers should apply the technical inputs, but appropriate management
and political organs should make the value decisions. Well illustrated by the tripartite model:
- Politicians, policy makers and managers establish the objectives for engineering projects and
products and make available resources without intervening in engineering matters.
- Engineers, who take care of the designing, developing, creating and executing
- Users, who make use of the various technologies.
Engineers can only be held responsible for the technical creation of products.
Hired gun: someone who is willing to carry out any task from his employer without moral scruples.
Technocracy: government by experts. It is undemocratic and paternalistic (certain group of
individuals make (moral) decisions for others on the assumptions that they know better what is good
for them).
Whistle-blowing: employee discloses certain abuses in a company in which he is employed without
the consent of his superiors and in order to remedy these abuses and/or to warn the public about
these abuses.
Actor: any person/group that can make a decision how to act and that can act on that decision:
- Developers and producers of technology.
- Users: use technology and formulate certain wishes or requirements for the functioning of
the technology.
- Regulators: government, who formulate rules/regulations that the products have to meet.
They all have certain interests; things they strive for.
Stakeholders: actors that have an interest in the development of a technology, but cannot
necessarily influence the direction of technological development.
