Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
satisfactory performance of technological systems may even require the subordination
of technological specifi cations to the needs of the people involved. In addition, all
the engineering institutions are now trying, often not very successfully, to attract
more women to a historically male profession (in most countries). It is interesting to
apply some of the lessons from the use of narrative ethics in nursing to engineering
due to the pre-eminence of the human relationships between nurses and their
patients and the predominance of women in nursing.
One of the interesting points in the literature on narrative ethics and nursing is
that nurses tend to use narrative approaches to ethics, whereas doctors prefer the
application of rules and principles (Widdershoven and Smits
1996
), generally
autonomy, benefi cence and/or non-malefi cence. There are a number of possible
explanations, including the fact that nurses are generally more closely involved with
their patients as people, whereas doctors may tend to focus on particular conditions
or diseases. If this is the case, then there is an implication that narrative ethics may
be particularly appropriate for human-centred approaches to engineering.
However, narrative and rule-based approaches to ethics should not be considered
to be in opposition, but rather to complement each other. In addition there can be
benefi ts in applying multi-loop action learning to encourage the development of
further layers of the narrative. Narratives are often about the relations between indi-
viduals, but these relations take place within and are often conditioned by the ethos
of an organisation and/or the wider social context. For example, a discussion of the
use of narrative ethics to obtain insurance funding for rehabilitative exercise treat-
ment (Lindsay and Graham
2000
) does not consider the wider ethical question of
why individuals in the US have responsibility for obtaining funding for their own
treatment rather than this being considered a societal responsibility and provided by
national, state or local government through taxation. However, there is no reason
why narratives cannot be considered in their wider context and include factors such
as power structures and socio-economic inequalities.
3
Methods, Approaches and Techniques for Applying
Ethical Principles in Practice
3.1
Values and the Johari Window
3.1.1
Values
In some cases, the requirements for ethical action in a particular situation are very
clear. However, in others applying different ethical theories, philosophies or
approaches will clarify the issues, but value judgements will still be required to sup-
port decision making. There are a number of different sources of values, including
religion, politics, humanist or other non-religious philosophies, education, family
and friends, culture and the surrounding society. There are also considerable differ-
ences between the ethical values of different societies and a wide range of different
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