Macroethics and Engineering Leadership

Society judges engineering success on outcome. In this sense, engineering is very much a utilitarian endeavor. If we design infrastructures and systems that improve and protect life and well-being, we are successful. Conversely, if the risks outweigh the benefits, we have failed. Thus, engineering research is evaluated based on its risks and reliability. However, when it comes to emerging technologies, society will apply an additional set of metrics. We may be asked if we have appropriately considered human and ecological impacts, not merely from the way we design, but also based on downstream impacts in time and space. Engineering must be sustainable, but emerging technologies present a particular challenge, because of the numerous areas of uncertainty. Could the design lead to risks to public health and the environment? Will this risk be distributed disproportionately throughout society? When we answer such questions, we must consider social justice and sustaining and improving environmental quality for the future.

Engineering leadership requires balance. Society demands that the state-of-the-science be advanced as rapidly as possible and that no dangerous side effects ensue. Engineers must be adept at optimizing among numerous variables for the best design outcomes. Emergent areas are associated with some degree of peril. A recent query of top scientists regarding biotechnologies needed to help developing countries indicates the range of concerns (Table 1). The international experts were asked the following questions about the specific technologies:Thus, engineers as leaders of technological progress are at a pivotal position. Biomedicine and sustainability are increasingly crucial components of the new infrastructure. Technology will play an increasingly important role in future society (Bassingthwaighte 2002). The concomitant societal challenges require that every engineer fully understand the implications and possible drawbacks of technological advances. Key among them will be biotechnical advances at smaller scales, well below the cell and approaching the molecular level. Technological processes at these scales require that engineers improve their grasp of the potential ethical implications.

One means of describing an ethical situation is by its reach in space and time. Thus, approaches to ethics can differ by scale. For example, the engineering profession has a moral responsibility to society to ensure that designs and technologies are in society’s best interest. In addition, the individual engineer has a specific set of moral obligations to the public and the client. The moral obligations of the profession as a whole are greater than the sum of the individual engineers’ obligations. The profession certainly needs to ensure that each of its members adheres to a defined set of ethical expectations. This is known as the “bottom-up” perspective, which is a necessary but insufficient condition for the ethos of engineering. The bottom-up approach of ensuring an ethical engineering population does not completely ensure that many societal ills will be addressed.

Political theorist, Langdon Winner has succinctly characterized the twofold engineering moral imperative:

Ethical responsibility . . . involves more than leading a decent, honest, truthful life, as important as such lives certainly remain. And it involves something much more than making wise choices when such choices suddenly, unexpectedly present themselves. Our moral obligations must . . . include a willingness to engage others in the difficult work of defining what the crucial choices are that confront technological society and how intelligently to confront them (Winner 1990).

Thus, leadership necessitates both the bottom-up and the top-down approaches.

One approach to ethics that may help to resolve professional situations is offered by the famous philosopher Immanuel Kant. Kant (1785) proposed a solution to the problem with his categorical imperative, which states that to determine whether something is ethical, one should consider what would happen if that act were a law adopted by everyone. If the law upholds the ideal of showing respect for humankind, the act is moral; if, on the other hand, it hurts others on the whole, the act is immoral. Although Kant’s categorical imperative is an important ideal, it may well not be followed by a sufficient number of individuals to preserve and sustain a resource.

Kant used the categorical imperative to underpin duty ethics (also known as “deontology”) with empathetic scrutiny. However, empathy is not the exclusive domain of duty ethics. Other philosophers also incorporated the empathic viewpoint into their frameworks. In fact, John Stuart Mill’s utilitarianism’s axiom of “greatest good for the greatest number of people” is moderated by his “harm principle” which states that even though an act can be good for the majority, it may still be unethical if it causes undue harm to individuals. John Rawls (1971) moderated the social contract with the “veil of ignorance” as a way to consider the perspective of the weakest, one might say the most disenfranchised, members of society.

Engineers strive for excellence, as articulated in the codes of ethics. The engineering profession seeks ways to do what is right. Part of the formula for ethical leadership is to know who is directly and indirectly affected by an action. So for whom do we strive to do what is right? Certainly, the company, agency, or holders of contracts are clients, but leadership calls for more than to simply solve immediate problems for a specific client. Rather, design decisions should be assessed for their implications for the larger public and for future generations.

All design decisions can lead to unanticipated consequences. Leadership requires that precaution be balanced against opportunity risks. With irrational caution we may miss opportunities that would better serve the public and future generations. The key to balancing these connections can be a full and accurate characterization of risks and benefits. Unfortunately, design decisions are often not fully understood until after the fact (and viewed through the prism of lawsuits and negative publicity).

There are schools of thought within psychology which argue that moral development takes a predictable and stepwise progression as the result of social interactions over time. For example, according to Lawrence Kohlberg (1987) and his followers, people first behave according to authority, then in accordance with social norms, before finally maturing to the point where they are genuinely interested in the welfare of others and in upholding philosophical notions like justice.

The Kohlbergian model can be directly applied to the engineering profession (see Fig. 1). The most basic (bottom tier) actions are preconditional. That is, decisions, engineering related or otherwise, are made primarily to stay out of trouble. While proscriptions against unethical behavior at this level are effective, the training, mentorship, and other opportunities for professional growth push the engineer to higher ethical expectations. This is the normative aspect of professionalism. With experience, the engineer moves to conventional stages. Next, the practicing engineer dutifully acts within a range of expectations prescribed by the profession (i.e., the engineering convention). Thus, the engineering practice is the convention, as articulated in our codes of ethics.

Research introduces a number of challenges that must be approached at all three ethical levels. At the most basic microethical level, laws, rules, regulations, and policies dictate certain behaviors. In other words, the expectations are not yet at the conventional level, so only the fear of punishment (e.g., sanctions, job loss) and desire for rewards (e.g., monetary, recognition) prescribes behavior. For example, transportation, environmental, and medical infrastructures are strongly controlled by rules overseen by federal and state agencies. Such rules are often proscriptive, that is, they tell you what not to do, but are less clear on what actually to do.

At the next level, beyond legal considerations, the engineer is charged with being a loyal and faithful agent to the clients; a mesoethical perspective. Engineers must stay within budget, use appropriate materials, and follow best practices appropriate to their respective designs.

The highest level, the macroethical perspective, has a number of aspects. Engineering projects address areas that could greatly benefit society, but may lead to unforeseen costs. The engineer is expected to consider possible contingencies. For example, if an engineer is designing nanomachinery at the subcellular level, is there a possibility that self-replication mechanisms in the cell could be modified to lead to potential adverse effects, such as generating mutant pathological cells, toxic by-products, or changes in genetic structure not previously expected? Thus, this highest level of professional development is often where risk trade-offs must be considered. In the case of our example, the risk of adverse genetic outcomes must be weighed against the loss of advancing the state of medical science (e.g., finding nanomachines that manufacture and deliver tumor-destroying drugs efficiently). This is more complicated than transferring the dilemma to someone else. The engineer must design a solution that optimizes outcomes; that is, not too much risk while advancing the state-of-the-science. This is done using a number of tools, such as cost-benefit ratios and best practice guidelines, as well as transparency in terms of possible downstream impacts, costs, side effects, and interactions.

Beyond the conventional stages, the truly ethical engineer makes decisions based on the greater good of society, even at personal costs. Ongoing cutting-edge research (such as efficient manufacturing of chemicals at the cellular scale, the development of cybernetic storage and data transfer systems using biological or biologically inspired processes, etc.) will create new solutions to perennial human problems by designing more effective devices and improving computational methodologies. Nonetheless, in our zeal to advance science, we must not ignore some of the larger, societal repercussions of our research; that is, we must employ new paradigms of macroethics.

Since engineering leadership begins with the undergraduate experience, education standards require attention to both the macro- and micro-dimensions of ethics. As evidence, Criterion 3, “Program Outcomes and Assessment” of the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (2003) includes a basic microethical requirement for engineering education programs, identified as “(f) an understanding of professional and ethical responsibility,” along with macroethical requirements that graduates of these programs should have “(h) the broad education necessary to understand the impact of engineering solutions in a global and societal context,” and “(j) a knowledge of contemporary issues.” An area that embodies all of these concepts is green engineering.

In recent decades, engineers have increasingly been asked to design buildings, devices, and systems that are sustainable. That is, they provide the benefits not only to the present users, but do so in a way that future people will not be harmed by present benefits. This is at the heart of green engineering. This has been well articulated by the National Academy of Engineering (2004):

It is our aspiration that engineers will continue to be leaders in the movement toward the use of wise, informed, and economical sustainable development. This should begin in our educational institutions and be founded in the basic tenets of the engineering profession and its actions.

The World Commission on Environment and Development of the United Nations in their 1987 report, Our Common Future, introduced the term sustainable development as “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” In 1992, the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (i.e., the Earth Summit held in Rio de Janeiro) put forth the idea that sustainable development is both a scientific concept and a philosophical ideal. The resulting document, Agenda 21, was endorsed by 178 governments (not including the United States) and hailed as a blueprint for sustainable development. In 2002, the World Summit on Sustainable Development identified five major areas that are considered key for moving sustainable development plans forward:

Thus, the underlying purpose of sustainable development is to help developing nations manage their resources, such as rain forests, without depleting these resources and making them unusable for future generations. In short, the objective is to prevent the collapse of the global ecosystems. Future generations should have an equal opportunity to achieve a high quality of life. The goal is a sustainable global ecologic and economic system, achieved in part by the wise use of available resources.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (2006) defines green engineering as:

. . . the design, commercialization and use of processes and products that are feasible and economical while reducing the generation of pollution at the source and minimizing the risk to human health and the environment.

The American Society of Mechanical Engineers (2004) draws a systematic example from ecology:

To an engineer, a sustainable system is one that is in equilibrium or changing at a tolerably slow rate. In the food chain, for example, plants are fed by sunlight, moisture and nutrients, and then become food themselves for insects and herbivores, which in turn act as food for larger animals. The waste from these animals replenishes the soil, which nourishes plants, and the cycle begins again.

Sustainability is, therefore, as systematic phenomenon. At the largest scale, manufacturing, transportation, commerce, and other human activities that promote high consumption and wastefulness of finite resources cannot be sustained. At the individual designer scale, the products and processes that engineers design must be considered for their entire lifetimes and beyond.

Green engineering asks the designer to incorporate “environmentally conscious attitudes, values, and principles, combined with science, technology, and engineering practice, all directed toward improving local and global environmental quality” (Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University 2006). However, the design must also be feasible and must adhere to the first canon of engineering practice; holding paramount the safety, health, and welfare of the public. Green principles are part of the first canon of the engineering profession. Thus, engineering leadership must complement environmental ethics, which is the set of morals, those actions held to be right and wrong, about how people interact with the environment. Three ethical viewpoints dominate environmental literature: anthropocentrism, biocentrism, and ecocentrism (see Fig. 2). Anthropocentrism is the philosophy or decision framework based on human beings. Anthropocentrists believe that all and only humans have moral value. Nonhuman species and abiotic resources have value only in respect to that associated with human values (known as instrumental value). Conversely, biocentrism is a systematic and comprehensive account of moral relationships between humans and other living things. The biocentric view requires an acceptance that all living things have inherent moral value, so that respect for nature is the ultimate moral attitude. By extension of the biocentric view, ecocentrism is based on the whole ecosystem rather than a single species.

Animal research illustrates the continuum in Fig. 2. The difference between humans and animals is an important distinction. To most biologists, the difference is merely a continuum, as indicated by the development of the nervous system and other physiological metrics. These physiological complexities translate into sensory differences, which differentiate the species’ sentience (especially self awareness), which is one of the variables that distinguish “humanness.”

The “metric” column in Fig. 2 provides the measures of whether an act is ethical or unethical. This can be based on outcome; that is, what good will the act produce? It may also be based on duty, such as those prescribed in a professional code. Empathy is a more complicated metric, wherein the ethical course would be decided based on the position of another. For example, would an engineer site a landfill near his or her own residence? The “veil of ignorance” mentioned previously is a highly empathic view, the engineer could assume the role of the most severely impacted or weakest member of society (e.g., a person with asthma). What would be a just decision for the “average” member of the public becomes unjust if one were most vulnerable. The function of various ethical viewpoints can be classified as to the harm that a behavior or decision causes; some of the common concepts are shown in this column.

The ecocentric view asks the engineer to perceive undeveloped land or existing structures as more than a “blank slate.” Similarly, standing building stock should be understood as more than mere three-dimensional structures ready to be built, changed, or demolished as a means to an (engineering) end. It is important to note that no single ethical view in Fig. 2 is universally ideal for engineering leadership. Extreme anthropocentrism can be unsustainable if it ignores the critical interdependence among myriad organisms, including humans, and the environment. Conversely, extreme biocentrism could completely eliminate emerging technologies such as genetic engineering, notwithstanding its usefulness (e.g., genetically modified organisms to treat hazardous wastes). Ecocentrism is attractive since it is comprehensive, but extreme versions can deprive humans of value and dignity (e.g., deep ecology’s view that humans can be “parasites” or “vermin” and that there are “excessive” numbers of people). Engineering leadership calls for an appreciation of numerous perspectives of clients, fellow designers, and the public, and the ability to integrate across them without unduly imposing their personal perspectives. On the other hand, engineering is a discipline that requires standards and rigorous application of the sciences.

Thus, engineering leadership is simultaneously creative and circumspect. For example, even if the local mores and customs call for a particular action, the engineer is only entitled to pursue this action if it does not violate the engineering code of ethics and one’s professional right of conscience.

Engineering leadership embodies a heavy dose of applied social science. Engineering success or failure is in large measure a comparison of what we do with what the profession “expects.” Safety is always a fundamental facet of our professional duties. Thus, we need a set of criteria that tells us when designs and projects are sufficiently safe. Four safety criteria are applied to test engineering safety (Fleddermann 1999):

The first two criteria are easier to follow than the third and forth. The well-trained designer can look up the physical, chemical, and biological factors to calculate tolerances and measures of safety for specific designs. Laws have authorized the thousands of pages of regulations and guidance that demark when acceptable risk and safety thresholds are crossed; meaning that the design has failed to provide adequate protection. Engineering standards of practice go a step further. Failure here is difficult to recognize. Only other engineers with specific expertise can judge whether the ample margin of safety as dictated by sound engineering principles and practice has been provided in the design. Identifying alternatives and predicting misuse requires quite a bit of creativity and imagination. This type of failure falls within the domain of social science.

“Failure” in design can go beyond the textbook examples and cases shared by our mentors or passed on from our predecessors. A notable case is the World Trade Center towers. Most post-collapse assessments have agreed that the structural integrity of the towers was sufficient based on what was known at the time of their design. The challenge for engineering leaders now is to learn the lessons from this tragedy. If they do not, theirs will be less a failure of applying the physical sciences (withstanding unforeseen stresses and strains) than a failure of imagination. Engineers have been trained to use imagination to envision a better way. Unfortunately, now we must imagine things that were unthinkable before September 11, 2001. Success depends on engaging the social sciences in our planning, design, construction and maintenance of our projects. This will help to inform us of contingencies not apparent when exclusively applying the physical and natural sciences.

Imagination is a critical component of green engineering. Contemporary understanding of environmental quality is often associated with physical, chemical, and biological contaminants, but in the formative years of the environmental movement, aesthetics and other “quality of life” considerations were essential parts of environmental quality. Most environmental impact statements have addressed cultural and social factors in determining whether a federal project would have a significant effect on the environment. These included historic preservation, economics, psychology (e.g., open space, green areas, and crowding), aesthetics, urban renewal, and Aldo Leopold’s (1949) land ethic:

A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.

Design must integrate the natural and social sciences. Designers must consider the interrelationships among factors. Engineers control things and, as such, are risk managers. Engineers design systems to reduce risk and to enhance the reliability of these systems. Green design deals directly or indirectly with risk and reliability. The relationship between sustainable development, sustainability, and green engineering is progressive:

The EPA (2004) amplifies the importance of the interrelationships of feasibility, environmental quality, public health, and welfare:

. . . the design, commercialization, and use of processes and products, which are feasible and economical while minimizing (1) generation of pollution at the source and (2) risk to human health and the environment.

Engineering leadership calls for improved efficiencies that save time, money, and other resources in the long run. This means that leaders must approach infrastructures systematically by:

Green initiatives are replacing or at least changing pollution control paradigms. For example, the concept of a “cap and trade” has been tested and works well for some pollutants (Allada 2000; Billatos 1997). This is a system where companies are allowed to place a “bubble” over a whole manufacturing complex or trade pollution credits with other companies in their industry instead of a “stack-by-stack” and “pipe-by-pipe” approach (i.e., the so-called “command and control” approach). Such policy and regulatory innovations call for some improved technology-based approaches as well as better quality-based approaches. For example, leveling out the pollutant loadings and using less expensive technologies to remove the first large bulk of pollutants, followed by more efficient operation of difficult-to-treat effluents and emissions. The net effect can be a greater reduction of pollutant emissions and effluents than if each stack or pipe was treated as an independent entity.

Green engineering encompasses numerous ways to improve processes and products to make them more efficient from an environmental standpoint. Every approach depends on viewing possible impacts in space and time. Engineering and architecture have always been concerned with space. Architects consider the sense of place; engineers view a site map as a set of fluxes across the boundary. Time is a bit more difficult. A design must consider short and long-term impacts, and sometimes these impacts only occur or worsen in futures beyond us.

Adverse impacts may not manifest themselves for decades. In the mid-twentieth century, designers specified the use of what are now known to be hazardous building materials, such as asbestos flooring, pipe wrap, and shingles; lead paint and pipes; and even structural and mechanical systems that may have increased human exposure to molds and radon. It is easy in retrospect to criticize these decisions, but many were made for noble reasons, such as fire prevention and durability of materials.

Engineering leaders must be aware of risk trade-offs. Consider, for example, asthma medication that has been delivered to the lungs using greenhouse gas (GHG) propellant: at first glance the green engineering perspective may forbid it. However, if the total amount of the propellant used in these devices only constitutes 0.0001 percent of the total GHG used, perhaps the contribution to global warming is considered insignificant. The problem, as illustrated by the Tragedy of the Commons (Hardin 1968), is that if all of the “insignificant” contributions are ignored, collectively they could become significant and cause irreversible damage. When it comes to public health trade-offs, the significance is determined by medical efficaciousness. For example, if there are alternatives to this particular GHG that are not greenhouse gases and that are just as effective at delivering the medication, then they are preferable from a risk management perspective. For example, some asthma medications are now delivered mechanically and/or by patient suction. If there are no effective alternatives, the trade-off with the environmental effects may be justifiable.

Few design decisions can be made exclusively from a single perspective. Design decision making can be envisioned as attractions within a force field, where the center of the diagram represents the initial condition with a magnet placed in each sector at points equidistant from the center of the diagram (see Fig. 3). If the factors are evenly distributed and weighted, the diagram might appear as that in Fig. 4. But, as the differential in magnetic force increases, that factor will progressively drive the decision. In siting and designing a medical facility, the healthcare access and medical efficacy drive the decision (Fig. 5). The stronger the pull the greater the likelihood that the decision that will actually be made will be pulled in that direction. Thus, physicians and medical policymakers may drive the decision in one direction; lawyers may pull in another direction; whereas the environmental professionals may pull in a different direction. The net effect is a decision that has been “deformed” in a manner unique for that decision and that must be considered by the designer.

All design decisions are made under risk and uncertainty. The risk management process is informed by the quantitative results of the risk assessment process. Managing risks also must consider other quantitative information, such as economic costs and benefits, as well as qualitative information, such as opinions shared by neighbors or community leaders. The shape and size of the resulting decision force field diagram give an idea of what are the principal driving factors that lead to decisions. Therefore, the force field diagram can be a useful, albeit subjective, tool to account for factors in a design decision.

Engineering leadership is a balance between adherence to individual duties, as articulated in the codes of ethics, and societal needs; therefore, it must embody both micro- and macroethics. Notable among macroethical responsibilities is the engineering profession’s obligation to protect the environment. Decision-making tools are available to help to ensure that designs are ethical and responsible and to support a systematic perspective of the often complex relationships in the life cycle of infrastructures. This perspective is crucial as the engineering profession continues to hold paramount the safety, health, and welfare of the public. Social responsibility is at the heart of engineering leadership.