The Sustainability Imperative - Sustainable Design: The Science of Sustainability and Green Engineering - page 223

including those in the future. And if we add that others includes the nonhu-
man components, the weakest, most vulnerable parts of the planet need special
protections.
The fundamental canons of the National Society of Professional Engineers
(NSPE) code of ethics 9 captures what engineers “ought” to do. It states that
engineers, in the fulfillment of their professional duties, must:
1. Hold paramount the safety, health, and welfare of the public.
2. Perform services only in areas of their competence.
3. Issue public statements only in an objective and truthful manner.
4. Act for each employer or client as faithful agents or trustees.
5. Avoid deceptive acts.
6. Conduct themselves honorably, responsibly, ethically, and lawfully so as to
enhance the honor, reputation, and usefulness of the profession.
Let us consider each canon as it relates to sustainability. The canons are the
professional equivalents of morality, which refers to societal norms about ac-
ceptable (virtuous/good) and unacceptable (evil/bad) conduct. These norms are
shared by members of society to provide stability as determined by consensus. 10
Philosophers consider professional codes of ethics and their respective canons
to be normative ethics , which is concerned with classifying actions as right and
wrong without bias. Normative ethics is contrasted with descriptive ethics , which
is what a group actually believes to be right and wrong and how it enforces
conduct. Normative ethics regards ethics as a set of norms related to ac-
tions. Descriptive ethics deals with what “is” and normative ethics addresses
“what should be.”
The philosopher Bernard Gert categorizes behaviors into what he calls a
common morality , which is a system that thoughtful people use implicitly to make
moral judgments. 11 According to Gert, humans strive to avoid five basic harms:
death, pain, disability, loss of freedom, and loss of pleasure. Arguably, the job of
the designer is to design devices, structures, and systems that mitigate against such
harms in society. Similarly, Gert identifies 10 rules of common morality:
1. Do not kill.
2. Do not cause pain.
3. Do not disable.
4. Do not deprive of freedom.
5. Do not deprive of pleasure.