Ethics, Technology, and Engineering: An Introduction

Citation

van de Poel, I., & Royakkers, L. (2023). Ethics, Technology, and Engineering: An Introduction (2nd ed.). Wiley-Blackwell.

Chapter Summary

The book has nine chapters, an introduction, six appendices and about 384 pages in all. Every chapter ends with a chapter summary, study questions and discussion questions, and the opening chapter begins with a list of learning objectives and a case (Volkswagen's Dieselgate). The publisher describes the central tool as the "ethical cycle", a systematic approach to moral problems, supported by case studies from the United States, Europe and elsewhere.

Chapters 1–2: The Responsibilities of Engineers; Codes of Conduct

Chapter 1 distinguishes passive responsibility, meaning blameworthiness, from active responsibility, and sets out the four conditions of blameworthiness. It then discusses the professional ideals of engineers (technological enthusiasm, effectiveness and efficiency, and human welfare), the relation between engineers and managers (separatism, technocracy, whistle-blowing) and the social context of technological development. Chapter 2 turns to professional and corporate codes of conduct, and to their limits: self-interest, the need for interpretation, whether moral judgments can be codified, whether codes can be lived by, and enforcement.

Chapter 3: Normative Ethics

The theory chapter. After separating ethics from morality, descriptive statements from normative judgments, and values, norms and virtues, it introduces relativism and then the main theories: utilitarianism, Kantian ethics, virtue ethics, care ethics and the capability approach, followed by the non-Western traditions Ubuntu and Confucianism. Utilitarianism and Kantian theory are each applied to the Ford Pinto case, and most theories have subsections on criticism and on application in engineering.

Chapter 4: The Ethical Cycle

The method chapter. It starts from ill-structured problems and presents the cycle in five steps: moral problem statement, problem analysis, options for action, ethical evaluation and reflection. A worked example follows, and the chapter closes with collective moral deliberation and social arrangements.

Chapters 5–6: Design for Values; Ethical Aspects of Technical Risks

Chapter 5 covers embedding values in technology: stakeholder analysis, conceptualising and specifying values, ways of resolving value conflicts (cost-benefit analysis, multiple criteria analysis, thresholds, respecification, innovation) and prototyping and monitoring. Chapter 6 defines risk terms and the engineer's responsibility for safety, then discusses risk assessment, when risks are acceptable (informed consent, advantages against risks, alternatives, just distribution), risk communication and uncertainty, including the precautionary principle and engineering as a societal experiment.

Chapters 7–9: The Distribution of Responsibility in Engineering; Sustainability, Ethics, and Technology; Responsible Innovation

Chapter 7 takes up the problem of many hands, using the CitiCorp building, then responsibility and the law (liability, negligence versus strict liability, corporate liability), responsibility in organisations and the effect of technological design on how responsibility is distributed. Chapter 8 covers environmental ethics, sustainable development (the Brundtland definition and its moral justification) and design for sustainability, including life cycle analysis. Chapter 9 defines responsible innovation, gives process criteria (anticipation, inclusiveness, reflexivity, responsiveness), and ends with disruptive innovation and the engineer's responsibility.

Appendices

Six appendices: engineering qualifications and organisations in several countries, the NSPE Code of Ethics for Engineers, an Engineers Europe position paper on codes of conduct, examples of corporate codes, a corporate whistleblower policy, and a set of cases.

Key Concepts

Chapters 1–2: Responsibility and codes

• Passive and active responsibility: blameworthiness for past actions versus a forward-looking duty to prevent harm.
• Professional ideals: technological enthusiasm, effectiveness and efficiency, and human welfare.
• Codes of conduct: professional and corporate codes, and their possibilities and limitations.

Chapters 3–4: Theory and method

• Ethical theories: utilitarianism, Kantian theory, virtue ethics, care ethics, the capability approach, Ubuntu and Confucianism.
• Ethical cycle: moral problem statement, problem analysis, options for action, ethical evaluation and reflection.

Chapters 5–9: Design, risk and society

• Design for values: identifying, conceptualising and specifying values, and resolving conflicts between them.
• Acceptable risk: informed consent, balance of benefit and risk, alternatives and fair distribution.
• Problem of many hands: difficulty of assigning responsibility when many people contribute to an outcome.
• Responsible innovation: anticipation, inclusiveness, reflexivity and responsiveness as process criteria.

Critical Analysis

Strengths

• A method, not only a survey. The ethical cycle gives students a repeatable procedure, and Chapter 4 demonstrates it on an example, with one subsection for each step.
• A broad range of theories. Beyond the usual utilitarian, Kantian and virtue approaches, Chapter 3 includes care ethics, the capability approach, Ubuntu and Confucianism, and applies two theories to one case so they can be compared.
• Beyond the individual engineer. Chapters 5, 7, 8 and 9 deal with design, organisations, sustainability and innovation, so the book treats ethical questions as shaped by systems and not only by personal choices.
• Teaching apparatus. Each chapter ends with a summary, study questions and discussion questions, and the appendices reproduce a professional code, a European position paper, corporate codes and a whistleblower policy for discussion.

Limitations

• Compressed treatment of each theory. Seven theories and traditions share one chapter, and each subsection runs from roughly three to nine pages, so students who want depth on any one of them will need further reading.
• No technology-specific chapters. The publisher stresses novel technologies, but the chapter list contains no chapter devoted to a particular technology area; new technologies are met mainly through design for values, risk and responsible innovation.
• Codes drawn from the United States and Europe. The professional codes reproduced in the appendices are the NSPE code and a European position paper, although Chapter 3 includes non-Western ethical traditions and Appendix I covers qualifications in several countries.

Where It Fits in the Course

Among the books in this engineering ethics course, this is the most philosophically structured, with an explicit method and a wide range of theories. Fleddermann's Engineering Ethics is a compact introduction that explains the theories in plain terms and applies a structured method to safety and other topics, and is a lighter first read. Harris and colleagues' Engineering Ethics: Concepts and Cases and McGinn's The Ethical Engineer are case-based, which suits students who learn best from detailed cases, and Martin's Ethics in Engineering treats engineering as social experimentation. The Routledge Handbook of the Philosophy of Engineering is a scholarly reference for readers who want to go further than any textbook.

How to Use This Book

The book is aimed at engineering students and practitioners and also at readers in business and entrepreneurship; no philosophy background is assumed. A sensible reading order is Chapter 1, then Chapters 3 and 4 together, since the theories feed the ethical cycle. Chapter 2 on codes can be read before or after them. Chapters 5 to 9 are topical and can be selected to match a course: Chapter 5 for designers, Chapter 6 for safety and risk, Chapter 7 for organisations and law, Chapter 8 for environmental concerns, Chapter 9 for innovation work.

Use the study and discussion questions at each chapter's end, and apply the ethical cycle to a case from Appendix VI. For courses that include professional practice, pair Chapter 2 with the NSPE code (Appendix II) and the corporate codes in Appendix IV.