Why Engineers Must Consider the Ethical Implications of Their Work

An anonymous reader writes "An article by Abbas El-Zein at The Guardian explores the ethical responsibilities for engineers who create and maintain 'technologies of violence.' He says, 'Engineers who see themselves as builders of the shelter and infrastructure for human needs also use their expertise in order to destroy and kill more efficiently. When doctors or nurses use their knowledge of anatomy in order to torture or conduct medical experiments on helpless subjects, we are rightly outraged. Why doesn't society seem to apply the same standards to engineers? There is more than one answer to the question of course, but two points are especially pertinent: the common good we engineers see ourselves serving and our relationship to authority. ... Our ethics have become mostly technical: how to design properly, how to not cut corners, how to serve our clients well. We work hard to prevent failure of the systems we build, but only in relation to what these systems are meant to do, rather than the way they might actually be utilised, or whether they should have been built at all. We are not amoral, far from it; it's just that we have steered ourselves into a place where our morality has a smaller scope.'"

Comments

Re:Because...

[StripedCow]

Playing the devil's advocate, when was the last time you got sued for malpractice for bugs in your code?

What is wrong with that concept, really?

I've no problem hearing Kaching! every time I get a blue screen.

Re:Already does.

[Mr D from 63]

Engineers should be held to the same strict standards as politicians.

Re:Thats a loaded question

[CreatureComfort]

In collage, I learned that Aerospace Engineers design weapons. Civil Engineers design targets.

/B.S.A.E.