Chapter 2 Rules of Skill: Ethics in Engineering

  Part I Reflections on Practice

Abstract 

Rules of skill are instructions that guide professionals in achieving specific outcomes, such as baking a cake or constructing a building. These rules are fundamental to any profession, from surgeons removing tumors to software engineers programming applications. They encompass not only technical procedures but also the norms of the profession, which have ethical implications. When not followed correctly, significant harm can result, thus it is an ethical duty of professionals to adhere to these rules.

In engineering, these rules are integral to solving design problems; any design solution is essentially a rule of skill. Ethically, such solutions should not cause unnecessary harm. This ethical dimension is embedded in the use of professional tools and the creation of design solutions. Engineers have an ethical obligation to apply the correct rules of skill in their work and ensure their solutions do not cause undue harm. Ideally, solutions should also aim to maximize benefits over harms, but at a minimum, avoiding unnecessary harm illustrates how ethics is central to engineering practice.

2.1 Introduction

Professionals possess a unique set of skills essential to their fields. For instance, surgeons learn to remove cancerous tissue, lawyers to argue legal points, and engineers to design buildings that withstand high winds or create reliable software. These skills are derived from specific rules of skill that guide professional actions.

Despite these rules, failures do occur, often from misunderstandings or misapplications of these rules, as illustrated by NASA's Mars Climate Orbiter loss due to a unit conversion error, or the Hubble telescope's initial malfunction because engineers did not account for zero gravity's effect on the lens.

These rules, while sometimes second nature to practitioners, are critical for achieving specific outcomes in each profession. While Kant suggests that such rules have no moral weight since they don't consider the goodness of the ends they achieve, this view is contested. Rules of skill do have ethical implications:

• They guide how an end should be achieved ethically.
• When the end itself is good or necessary for achieving a good end, the norms of the rules inherently carry ethical significance.

Understanding the ethical dimensions of these professional rules is crucial, as they inherently bind ethics to the core of professions like engineering.

2.2 The Nature of Rules

Rules structure and give coherence to activities by defining their start, sequence, and end, turning random actions into ordered processes. They differentiate relevant actions from irrelevant ones, like distinguishing a tennis serve from a player blinking.

Rules also impose constraints while simultaneously enabling us. For example, they restrict how we open a door but also teach us the effective way to do it. Following rules gives us the security of achieving desired ends because they are tested and refined over time.

In professions, adhering to established rules is paramount. For a lawyer defending a physician, whether the physician followed standard procedures can be crucial. Deviating from these rules risks both the individual's and the profession's reputation.

Innovation requires pushing the boundaries of these rules without recklessly abandoning them. Rules set standards and norms within a profession, telling us how we should act. Ignoring these norms opens us to criticism, underscoring the normative aspect of rules—that they dictate what we ought to do.

2.3 Following the Rules

There are several ways we can fail to follow a rule, including not doing all the steps, doing them incorrectly, in the wrong order, using the wrong rule, or having no rule at all. An example in cooking could be messing up a fudge recipe by adding ingredients at the wrong time or in the wrong amounts.

In engineering, the lack of a consistent rule or changing rules can lead to catastrophic failures. The 2010 BP oil spill is used to illustrate this. In the lead-up to the disaster, there were multiple changes to the procedures for capping the well, with no clear standard rule being followed. This lack of a consistent, vetted rule contributed to the disaster.

Rules in professional practice provide security when they are established through experience or formal approval. In the BP case, the frequently changing procedures lacked the authority of a standard practice, leaving engineers without a clear guide and thus undermining the security that follows from a well-established rule. If a rule is not solidified by experience or formal assessment, its authority is questionable, and following it does not ensure the safety or effectiveness of the actions taken.

2.4 How Ethics Enters

Ethics is integrated into professional activities through the use of rules of skill, which outline procedures for achieving specific outcomes. While not all failures to follow these rules are ethically significant—like a poorly baked cake—some, like those leading to the BP oil spill, have dire consequences that raise ethical concerns.

When professional failures result in significant harm or death, ethical issues are undeniable. Engineers and other professionals have an ethical duty to properly utilize established rules of skill. It doesn't matter if harm was unintended; what counts is whether proper rules were used and followed correctly.

In engineering, ethics is deeply embedded not just when following existing rules, but also in the creation of new rules for solving design problems. Each new solution essentially forms a rule of skill that should minimally adhere to the principle of causing no unnecessary harm. Ethics, thus, is at the core of engineering both in the observance of established practices and the innovative processes of design.

2.5 Creating Rules of Skill

Rules of skill in professions delineate not just the actions required to achieve a specific outcome, but also the manner in which these actions are executed. A task may be done poorly or excellently, and this distinction is important ethically when the task has significant consequences.

In engineering, the creation of rules of skill is about solving design problems. These solutions, however, do not arise inevitably from the problem statement—they are contingent and can vary widely in quality. A poorly designed solution can cause unnecessary harm, raising ethical concerns.

For instance, designs that result in non-recyclable parts, use of toxic materials, or are user-unfriendly can lead to negative outcomes, from environmental damage to user injury. Such designs, even if compliant with all rules, may still be ethically problematic.

Moreover, a professional's ethical duty is not just to avoid harm but to excel, to continually improve their work. Complacency and satisfaction with mediocrity are seen as moral failings in the professional context because they hinder the progression and purpose of the profession, which is recognized and regulated by the state.

Therefore, ethics in engineering is connected not only to following established rules but also to the pursuit of excellence and the creation of design solutions that prioritize safety, efficiency, and benefit without causing unnecessary harm.

2.6 Summary

In engineering, we celebrate the successes—durable roads, stable bridges, and reliable software—all results of engineers’ effective application of innovative and established rules of skill. However, we also encounter engineering shortcomings, such as faulty doorknobs or difficult shower controls, which are all too common and can be not just inconvenient but harmful.

These issues highlight the ethical dimensions of engineering: whether it’s the non-adherence to or improper application of standard rules, or new rules that result in avoidable harm. Such failures, especially when they lead to unnecessary harm, underline the ethical importance of following and creating rules of skill. Contrary to Kant's view, the application of these rules carries ethical significance in engineering practice.