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

Engineering ethics and design processes
that the company is ISO 9001 certified. Process-based trust derives from the
developing relationship between people. 10 A regulative framework can produce
institutions-based trust. The public will tend to trust engineers to make good
designs because the engineers adhere to the rules and standards of the regulative
frameworks and act in a trustworthy manner.
The trustworthiness of engineers should not just refer to not acting on bad
intentions towards the person(s) trusting you. Trustworthiness also includes
being competent (cf [Jones, 1996, 7]). Engineers designing products have to have
the competence to make good designs if they are to be trusted as engineers.
Trustworthy engineers know what their competence is and when to ask someone
else for help or advice to produce a safe design. Trust in engineers that mean
well but do not have a clue as to what they are doing is misplaced.
The public expects engineers to design products that will, in normal
circumstances and use, not lead to disasters. If disasters do happen then trust
may have to be reconsidered. Perhaps the design engineers behaved in an
untrustworthy manner or maybe some unanticipated and unforeseeable
circumstances materialized. A regulative framework has to incorporate these
circumstances if the public is to trust engineers making designs using the same
regulative framework again. It can be said that the boundaries within which trust
in engineers is the default are drawn anew in cases in which regulative
frameworks are changed following undesirable effects.
Trust in engineers might be misplaced if the regulative framework is not
adequate. I assume that an adequate regulative framework provides a basis for
warranted trust. Grunwald’s requirements may be construed as requirements
for an adequate regulative framework. If trustworthy and experienced engineers
are given regulations that they should follow and do indeed follow, these
regulations should lead to the protection of what people value. This might be
achieved by requiring that the framework is accepted. The requirements that a
regulative framework should be complete, unambiguous and consistent can be
regarded as requirements that make sure that the rules of a regulative
framework can be used in design processes. Based on the above I formulate the
hypothesis that trust in engineers making designs is warranted if engineers (1)
have good intentions (2) are competent and work according to a regulative
framework and (3) the regulative framework is adequate, e.g. it complies with
Grunwald’s requirements. I will analyse this hypothesis in more detail in
chapter 9.
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An example of process-based trust is that if loyalty has been shown then trust will be
strengthened.
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