Ethical issues in engineering design - 3TU.Centre for Ethics and ...

Ethical issues in engineering design
their families are harmed when a ship capsizes. There were, and are, simple
technical solutions if one wants to prevent rapid capsizing when water enters a
deck. Bulkheads created on the decks can easily prevent water from flowing freely
over a deck and prevent rapid capsizing [www.safetyline.wa.gov, 2005].
Bulkheads on decks, however, give rise to longer loading / unloading times and
take up space on the decks, hence this costs money.
When we look at ethical problems in relation to the design of the Herald and
comparable ships, ethical issues become relevant at different stages of the design
process and during the use of the product. Ethical issues are relevant during the
formulation of criteria and requirements for the design and in the acceptance of
trade-offs between requirements. I will focus on the formulation of safety
requirements for a ro/ro passenger or freight ferry, and on the trade-offs that
exist between safety and economic requirements. This description will explain
why ro/ro ferries were not designed in a way that would prevent rapid capsizing if
water floods a deck.
When it comes to formulating legal safety requirements, the International
Maritime Organisation (IMO) has an important part to play. This international
organisation is responsible for adopting legislation for ships. IMO’s safety
legislation deals with the ship and passengers. The SOLAS (Safety of Life at Sea)
convention is especially concerned with passenger safety and with lifesaving
equipment on passenger ships. IMO officials knew as early as 1981 that if water
entered the car decks of a ro/ro ferry, the ship could be lost in a rapid capsize
[Van Poortvliet, 1999, 52]. Water entering the car deck will flow to the lowest
point leading to a greater inclination, resulting, if the inclination exceeds a certain
angle, in a rapid capsize. This fact has been regarded as common knowledge in
the maritime world, at least since 1981. The IMO did not adjust its regulations to
solve this problem, even though simple technical solutions, e.g. bulkheads, were
available.
Legislation adopted by the IMO needs to be implemented by governments,
and only governments accepting the IMO convention will implement it. Thus
when making a convention, it is important to make it acceptable for as many
governments as possible, otherwise only a small percentage of all fleets will be
obliged to abide by the convention. A shipping company can decide to sail under
the flag of another country which has not ratified an IMO convention, if, in the
opinion of company management, complying with the convention will cost a lot
of money. So there is a certain amount of pressure on the IMO not to issue safety
requirements that are considered by some governments to be too tight or too
costly to implement.
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