Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
positive and negative biases, it is accepted that people from different traditions may
have different needs and experiments are used to explore temporary win-win
solutions which satisfy these different needs.
Each of the postmodernist approaches has advantages and disadvantages and the
three methods can be combined. Reconstruction can bridge cross-cultural differences
to solve problems, whereas deconstruction can enable people to act constructively
by removing individual blame, and neopragmatism can facilitate low-risk incre-
mental improvements. However, reconstruction will not work when the divisive
effects of negative biases are stronger than the unifying effects of positive ones and
deconstruction can expose the critics of a powerful system to victimisation. There
may be no win-win experimental outcomes for neopragmatism or the process may
break down.
4
Ethical Issues Associated with Processes and Outcomes
4.1
Introduction
As discussed previously, both processes and outcomes can raise ethical issues.
For instance, the arms trade by its nature raises a number of ethical issues about
outcomes, whereas projects involving research on animals or discharging pollutants
into the local river raise process-related ethical issues. In some cases, there are
ethical problems associated with both processes and outcomes. Much of the engi-
neering literature has focused on processes or how activities are carried out and
ignored outcomes, e.g. examined the ethical conduct of a project or ethical behav-
iour of an engineering fi rm, but not whether the project aim or core business of the
engineering fi rm was ethical. For instance, one of the case studies produced by a US
National Science Foundation-funded project on introducing ethics into engineering
teaching considers the case of three civilian chemical engineers convicted for ille-
gally storing, handling and disposing of hazardous waste while developing a new
chemical weapon. This case study considers a range of ethical issues associated
with hazardous chemicals, but not the ethics of developing or using chemical
weapons. Some of these process-related issues are discussed by Magnusson and
Hanson (
2003
) and Seymour and Ingleton (
1999
).
In the area of assistive technology, outcomes-related ethical issues include the
following:
1. End users being pressurised into using inappropriate assistive devices which
have not been designed to meet their needs.
2. Negative changes to the social and other relationships between disabled end
users and their family, friends and personal assistants resulting from device use.
3. Mismatches between the requirements for devices of disabled end users and
those of their family, personal assistants, social workers or other professionals
working with them.
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