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

Ethical issues in engineering design
2.4 Summary
The idea that design processes are processes in which an organised group of
people tries to solve more or less ill-structured technical design problems
underpinned the data-collection in the case-studies. Information about the
organization of the design team, the design problem, social processes within the
design team and the phase of the design process that was studied, was obtained
during the case-studies
It can be expected that different kinds of ethical questions will come up
during different kinds of design processes. Vincenti’s ideas about design type
and design hierarchy are used to characterize design processes. According to
Vincenti, the design type has two extremes, radical design and normal design.
The design hierarchy refers to whether a complete product or part of a product is
designed. What Vincenti calls normal design may be the same as what
Grunwald calls business-as-usual technology development. The availability of a
pragmatically complete, locally consistent, unambiguous, accepted and observed
normative framework in business-as-usual technology development would,
according to Grunwald, mean that there is no need for ethical reflection by
engineers. Engineers should just follow the normative framework.
Finally, engineers are trusted by the public to design products and
technologies. If a normative framework exists then this may pose the limits
within which trust in engineers making normal designs is the default and not
misplaced. Regulative frameworks can help to maintain and develop institutionsbased
trust. Trust in engineers designing products would then be warranted if
engineers (1) have good intentions (2) are competent and work according to the
regulative framework and (3) the regulative framework is adequate, e.g. it
complies with Grunwald’s requirements.
42