Ethical Engineering: Definitions, Theories and Techniques - Ethical Engineering for International Development and Environmental Sustainability - page 16

religious and ethical values and points of view; and the ethos and cultural context of
their environments.
Engineers in particular are frequently required to make decisions with serious
consequences. Many of these decisions have an ethical component. As indicated
above, ethical decision making is not simple, but awareness of this complexity
should not act as a barrier or delaying factor. Doing nothing is also a form of 'action'
which can have its own problems.

1.1 Some Defi nitions

The terms ethics and morals are often used interchangeably. However, it can be
useful to make the distinction that (Gluck 1986 ):

• Morality is concerned with right and wrong conduct and motives.

• Ethics is the philosophical study of morality.

Thus, ethics can be seen as a framework in which to study moral problems
(Bennet 1996 ) and how to solve them (Vesilund 1988 ). However, despite this dis-
tinction, the term ethics is generally used to describe both right and wrong conduct
and motives in a professional context and moral issues and decisions.
Engineers have a number of ethical duties and responsibilities, including the
following:

1. To the people who are or will be using the technologies they are researching,
developing, supplying or otherwise working with.
2. To society as a whole, including anyone who will be affected, whether positively
or negatively, by any technologies they are researching, developing, supplying or
otherwise working with.
3. Private duties and ethical responsibilities as professionals.
4. To the planet.
5. To other species.

I recognise that point 5 and to a lesser extent point 4 are controversial. However,
particularly in the context of environmental stability, we need to recognise ethical
duties to the planet and also to other species.
The approaches to the study of morality can be divided into nonnormative
approaches, which do not involve taking moral positions and normative ethics
which do. Nonnormative approaches can be divided further into (1) descriptive
ethics, which gives a factual description and explanation of moral beliefs and
behaviour, and (2) meta-ethics which involves analysis of the meanings of terms,
such as right, obligation, good, virtue, responsibility and morality.
Normative approaches can be classifi ed as (1) general normative ethics, which
is a philosophical attempt to formulate and defend basic moral principles and stan-
dards of virtue, and (2) practical normative ethics, which is based on the application
of moral principles and standards of virtue.