Musings

Ethics, I believe, is a way of behaving that is best achieved through open discussion, self-awareness, awareness of my relationship to others, observation of the nature of the people and the world around me (both past and present), and reflection on the answer to the question, “Why am I here?” In short, I believe that an ethical life is the outcome of thinking, and I do not believe it is achievable unless I am willing to spend considerable time intentionally thinking about it.

I recently completed a wonderful book by John C. Maxwell (2009) titled How Successful People Think. In his book Maxwell writes, “A person who knows how may always have a job, but the person who knows why will always be his boss.” Building an ethical life is not simply about knowing how. It is not simply a skill that can be taught like calculus or fluid mechanics. Blindly following a set of rules with no serious thought as to “why I am doing this” will often bear good results. Unfortunately, it will, as often, lead either to unproductive or misguided results or to a stimulation of my best creativity as I set out to find defensible reasons why the rules don’t really apply in this context—in other words, as my self-interests become paramount. With respect to my leading an ethical life, I believe the “why” is because I am here for the benefit of all those around me. And because what I do defines who I am.

I therefore present you, the reader, with food for thought in this column. It is my hope that you will read these musings and carefully reflect on them. It is not important whether you agree or disagree with the thoughts and ideas I present. It is important that you think about them and that you determine, for yourself, what your thoughts are and whether or not you are comfortable with the person in the mirror holding those thoughts.

It is my truth that you cannot build an ethical life without being a thinking person.

Let me begin with the ASCE Code of Ethics. Canon 1 states, “Engineers shall hold paramount the safety, health and welfare of the public and shall strive to comply with the principles of sustainable development in the performance of their professional duties.” Now there are six other canons, which I often refer to as editorial commentary to Canon 1. I do not do so because the other canons are unimportant or to be otherwise unkind in any way. I refer to them in this way because the word paramount means “ranking higher than any other, as in power or importance; chief; supreme” (Webster’s New World College Dictionary 2010). It seems to me that to add six other canons only adds confusion, for each of the other canons has been, at some time in my career or the careers of others whom I have known, in direct conflict with Canon 1. And Canon 1 does not end with “except when” or “unless.” The six other canons are important ideas that are worthy of much thought and careful consideration, but if I am to lead a life in accordance with what I interpret as the spirit of the ASCE Code of Ethics, I must make a conscious decision that my purpose for being here is to preserve and protect the safety, health, and welfare of the public, under any and all circumstances and above any and all other duties. And each and every act I undertake must support this mission.

Now consider, if you will, the discussion in “A Question of Ethics” in the May 2011 issue of Civil Engineering magazine (Hoke 2011). The discussion in the article centers around the question, “Does the Society’s Code of Ethics govern a member’s private activities as well as his or her professional activities? If not, where should the ethical line be drawn?” The article presented four different examples of ASCE members conducting themselves in ways that were called into question as either inappropriate or illegal and discussed the line of reasoning that the Committee on Professional Conduct (CPC) went through in arriving at its decisions related to each. If you haven’t already, I encourage you to carefully read this article.

My thought regarding an ethical life is that, first and foremost, it is defined by the sum of all my acts. I do not commit ethical acts because I am governed; I commit them voluntarily because they define who I am. A code of ethics looked upon as having applications in some places but not others is not a code of ethics. It is a set of laws, rules, regulations, or other codified demands created by a body of people whose aim is to control the actions of others. I do what they demand as a means of avoiding conflict or pain or as a means of garnering a reward for myself through their approval. If I look on ethics in this way, then my human nature will always lead me to aggressively seek a loophole whenever this regulation appears to affect me in what I see as a negative manner. Living by a code of ethics must always lead me to the conclusion that it applies everywhere, at face value, regardless of my perception of the impact on me personally. Adherence to a true ethical code means leading a life that is committed to an authority to which I thoughtfully commit my “self,” and all of my acts are intentionally in conformance with it.

Interestingly enough, the CPC cites several of the Code of Ethics canons in presenting its reasoning and decisions, but Canon 1 is never mentioned. And what is also a bit saddening to me is that the CPC decided that in some cases the alleged act was not in violation (more legal thinking!) of the ASCE Code of Ethics, which gives the appearance that the act might somehow be acceptable. In reading the anecdotes of the acts in question, it is clear to me that they all represent behavior that diminishes the public’s perception of the trustworthiness and judgment of members of our profession. And I believe that lowered perception of our trustworthiness naturally leads the public to seek ways to avoid placing its safety, health, and welfare in our hands. The public may be required to engage those in our profession, but it will never trust us if it perceives that there will come a time when our interests or desires will take precedence over its own.

ASCE has recently been very vocal about seeking a leadership role in our culture. It has been aggressive in claiming to work toward a profession whose members are seen as master planners and master builders, a profession that brings great benefit to and deserves the trust of the public it serves. But it seems to be doing so without acknowledging the reality that being a civil engineer, a member of our learned profession, is a privilege, and as such it comes with both responsibility and cost. Possibly one of the biggest costs to be paid is the cost of regular, heartfelt reflection on one’s acts to ensure that one’s self is under control and one’s claimed code of ethics is, in fact, being given authority over one’s life (note that I did not say “professional life”!). The public has eyes, and its judgments as to my trustworthiness will be based on what it sees me do, on the totality of all of my acts, not on what it hears me say. The public knows that no matter how hard it may try, the leopard does not change its spots.

As a bit more food for thought, consider the case of a local university that has recently constructed a LEED-certified building to house its school of civil engineering technology. The school is, understandably, quite proud of this facility and of its choice to intentionally invest the time and money required to “go green.” One of the items that the project received LEED points for was the use of motion control sensors that will automatically turn the lights off in an unoccupied room, thereby saving the energy wasted in lighting unoccupied rooms. To many, this seems, on its surface, like a good idea. But let’s think a little deeper.

Let’s say there are 100 rooms in the building and that each room is occupied 5 different times during a normal day, 5 days each week, for 30 weeks each year. And let’s further say that the sensors turn the lights off 15 minutes after the last sensing of motion. That means that the capital cost of light switches was more than doubled when the building was constructed and that the lights are powered in 100 unoccupied rooms for 187.5 hours during each academic year (18,750 squandered hours of lighting!). But worst of all, it means that every year a class of civil engineering technology graduates is produced that has been taught, by example, that the way to preserve and protect our environment somehow does not include a constant personal awareness of what can be done in one’s immediate surroundings to optimize consumption. A group of graduates has been produced believing that their responsibility for protecting the safety, health, and welfare of the public does not include thinking about what is in front of their nose and within their immediate control. Imagine the value of the learning experience available (and squandered) by using simple on/off switches and installing a camera on the door that records the last person leaving the room and whether or not the lights are still powered. Let’s say that for each time a student leaves the room and the lights are on, the grade on the last exam for the course is reduced by half a letter grade (or some other attention-getting amount). I believe that after 4 or 5 years in such an environment, the graduates would take with them a keen awareness of whether or not the lights are on when they leave the room and a sense of personal responsibility for seeing that the lights are turned off if nobody is left in the room. And, as possibly the most valuable outcome, the graduates would set an example for others of the importance of awareness, resource conservation, and personal responsibility.

Now it is surely true that technology, in many forms, has a beneficial and appropriate use. However, it is my belief that any environment that diminishes the requirement and expectation for awareness and thinking places the public’s safety, health, and welfare at unnecessary risk. In my view, this LEED award-winning facility is an example of a teaching opportunity lost. The people who envisioned and designed this lighting system did so because the LEED rating system awarded points for such a solution, and the garnering of a LEED award was the objective. Regrettably, nobody asked about the cost of the missed teaching opportunity (in this and other areas) and the cost this missed opportunity would inflict on the public through unthinking civil engineering technology graduates.

We cannot lead if we will not think.