Ethical Engineering: Definitions, Theories and Techniques - Ethical Engineering for International Development and Environmental Sustainability - page 38

codes of values. However, this does not mean that all possible codes of values
should be considered ethical.
Unfortunately specifi cations to be met by ethical codes of values or tests to
determine which sets of values are ethical have not yet been devised. However,
common elements have been noted in the values systems of very different societies
and groups. For instance, it has been suggested (Kluckholm 1955 ) that every culture
has a concept of murder and distinguishes murder from other types of killing which
are not considered murder and that every culture has some regulations about permitted
and forbidden sexual behaviour. However, the signifi cance may be in the details,
where there are often very great differences rather than in the superfi cial commonality.
Even within one society, there are often signifi cant differences in values, as evidenced
by intense debates about abortion, euthanasia and capital punishment.

3.1.2 Bad Faith

The notion of bad faith in ethical decision making is due to Jean-Paul Sartre.
It involves people not being honest with themselves, often but not always, by
burying themselves in professional or other roles. This can lead to a total identi-
fi cation with the role and a focus of the role requirements and result in individu-
als no longer thinking for themselves and abdicating moral responsibility. This is
in particular very much counter to existentialist ethics, which requires people to
take responsibility for their thoughts and actions and not to automatically take on
the beliefs of their society or the beliefs and behaviour expected of someone in
their particular role.
An associated problem is letting other people, such as doctors, lawyers, politi-
cians and 'experts', make decisions for you. This is another type of abdication of
moral responsibility. For some people, it can be very tempting. It means they do not
have to make decisions or be responsible and there is someone else to blame when
things go wrong. It is often easier to complain or blame someone else than try to
change things.

3.1.3 Values: The Johari Window

The Johari window was originally developed as a diagrammatical device by which
people may be made more open to one another and is widely used in refl ective
learning (Brockbank and McGill 1999 ). Figure 2.3 illustrates the typical Johari win-
dow. It can be used to help people work out their own value systems (Stapleton and
Hersh 2003 ).
The quadrants of the window represent one person in relation to others, with
each quadrant revealing awareness of behaviour, emotions and subjective space.
Some awareness is shared (intersubjective) and some is not. Material is allocated to
a quadrant on the basis of who knows about it.