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

Ethical issues in engineering design
by an individual user about safety and sustainability are usually of a much
smaller magnitude than those for decisions made during a design process.
When designing a printer/copier, a choice needs to be made as to whether the
printer/copier will be able to print two sided or not. Once a choice is made for
two sided printing and copying, an additional choice needs to be made about the
default properties. If two sided printing is the default option, users have to make
an explicit choice to print one sided. Usually the prints and copies coming of the
machine will be printed two sided. Only in exceptional cases, where the two sided
copies and prints option is switched off by the user, will papers be printed one
sided. This default option will probably save a lot of paper compared with a
printer/copier that can only print one side. The environmental effects of saving
paper are not that big if a single printer/copier is regarded but when the total
number of printers/copiers in use is considered the amount of paper saved by
printing two sided copies and prints is enormous. As paper is produced from
wood, a reduction in paper use will also reduce the amount of wood used. The
production of paper, the transportation of wood and the transportation of paper
all require energy. The amount of energy used will also be reduced and the total
reduction in the resources used will be significant on a global scale. This example
shows that decisions made during a design phase of a product, and that seem
trivial during that phase, can have large environmental effects.
Another example of the ethical impact of design decisions is the following. A
person may decide not to drive too fast as this is usually dangerous and not
environment friendly. The government of a country might decide to regulate the
speed of cars by imposing speed limits. If there are speed limits imposed drivers
can still drive as fast as they wish, and is possible in their car, but they will run
the risk of being fined when exceeding the speed limits. Car engineers might
decide to design a car in which it is impossible to exceed the speed limits. Trucks
for example in the Netherlands are equipped with a speed regulator that makes it
impossible for the driver to drive faster than 90 km/h. This example illustrates
the influence engineers may have; they can promote or prevent speeding.
Independently of what regulation requires or what speed limits are legally
enforced, engineers can design cars with lower top speeds. 4 Cars with top speeds
of 300 km/h make speeding possible and might perhaps invite drivers to test the
top speed while installing a speed regulator or designing a car with a less
powerful engine would make such speeding impossible. Designing cars with
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4 In the Netherlands only trucks are legally required to be equipped with speed regulators.
Engineers might, however, decide to equip cars with speed regulators even if this is not legally
required. There is a gentlemen’s agreement between German car producers to limit the speed of
a car to 250 km/h, examples are the Mercedes Benz CLK 55 AMG cabriolet, the BMW M5 (with
speed limiter 250 km/h without 338 km/h), Audi A3 sportback 3.2 Quatro. Although MG is not a
German car producer, the MG ZT/ZT-T260 is also limited to 250 km/h [Carros, 2004].
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