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Ethical engineering work
5

Ethical engineering work

Ethical engineering work

(OP)
In a discussion in another forum I mentioned that I had recently decided not to work on a particular project as I was not convinced of its environmental soundness (locating an NGL plant on supposedly sensitive island when pleanty of space is available only a short distance to the mainland). One response was more or less of a nature suggesting, why not, money is nice".  While I would generally agree that money is nice, surely there must be some limits in engineering work.  Many nuclear scientists stopped working on certain projects in history, because it didn't fit into their view of the world's future.  Is there an ethical limit to engineering work?  

I'm curious about how other engineers view my decision and if they can envision themselves taking a similar decision based on environmental soundness, or some other reason.  Is there a project that would cross your line and what might it be?

**********************
"Pumping accounts for 20% of the world's energy used by electric motors and 25-50% of the total electrical energy usage in certain industrial facilities."-DOE statistic (Note: Make that 99% for pipeline companies) http://virtualpipeline.spaces.live.com/

RE: Ethical engineering work

For many years, land development was the best an engineer could do in my hometown (subdividing beautiful farmland into tract housing subdivisions). I refused to do that because it stood exactly for what I detested in life.

I guess you could say that was ethics, but really it was a personal belief of mine. I didn't want to contribute to exactly what I didn't like seeing happen back home.

Cedar Bluff Engineering
http://cedarbluffengineering.webs.com

RE: Ethical engineering work

While as engineers we are often bound by a formal set of professional ethics rules, the most important ethics are our personal ones.  So I think the decisions by both of you were reasonable and individually responsible.

RE: Ethical engineering work

I think that's the kind of thing you have to make your own decisions on based on your own beliefs.

I used to work in defence, literally designing things that go bang and destroy stuff, including humans if they're in the vicinity, not just vaguely related items.  I never had any qualms about this but I've known people that did about relatively tangential work in aerospace.

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RE: Ethical engineering work

I once refused work in the tobacco industry. I don't regret that, especially since the work involved having to smoke when in public.

I have respectfully declined to continue an interview with a head hunter when I discovered that they were recruiting for a company I would not work for because I thought the company in question pushed for sales at any cost.

Regards
Pat
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RE: Ethical engineering work

BigInch,
You have to remember that sometimes while your advocating that you don't work on those projects. Some of us do work on on those projects for all the good same reasons that you don't. The old two sides to every story as they say. However I will not try to change your mind your call is your call.

but to add a bit to the discussion I noticed in the wind farm discussion you said you wouldn't get involved in the engineering of the wind farms. As a person that has the designed a heap of footings for these wind towers, I don't share the same view. However as suggested by others that it is based on money it taking a very simple cash flow estimate of life.

While i am yet to join the wind farm discussion i have been following it fairly closely, I am not one at the pointy end of the knowledge base with regards to power development ect, SO I keep my head down, i really don't know whether they are good or bad. I don't refuse to work on these projects assuming i know enough to decide that they are bad. I decided to work on these things because at the end of the day they could be good, i am a person that likes to see technology advance and wind farms are fairly advanced and getting more advanced, probably one day they will be advanced enough to do what the people that own the power grids want them to do. With the wind history getting better, and other inputs that make up a wind farm.

Just thought you may be interested in the flip side. but however i would never hold your view against you. Everyone has one, and strangely nothing is black and white, Even nuclear bombs.  

Arguing with an engineer is like wrestling with a pig in mud. After a while you realize that they like it

RE: Ethical engineering work

As engineers, we all know that it's extremely rare to get a problem that is so black and white that the decision is completely binary.   

In most cases, there is a trade between two comparably bad outcomes.  In your example, the non-development of the NGL plant in the local area might mean that the local populace is removed from a potentially large job pool, and that would drive them to attract an installation with an even worse environmental impact.

TTFN

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RE: Ethical engineering work

I have often pondered this. If our duty is to the public and to consider the enviromental impact (low carbon future etc). Why do we work on and praise schemes such as the articficial sky slope in dubai. I can;t imagine that is in anyway good for the enviroment. And if the engineering institutions are so pro enviroment why are they not critisising these types of schemes? It seems most people have beliefs unless there is money involved, so I applaud you.  

RE: Ethical engineering work

(OP)
Yes, sometimes its hard enough to chose between existing alternatives, but deciding to work on one because it might prevent a future worse one doesn't sound like logic I can use.  The flip side of that is you could also be prohibiting a future project with even a better symbiosis.  One is something I might think about, the other is definately better, the third possibility is nobody builds anything there, so its better to not do anything bad which would block either of the other two.

Rowing,  I'm not totally decided about wind farms, but I am concerned enough to .... NO. Never mind. I won't.   

**********************
"Pumping accounts for 20% of the world's energy used by electric motors and 25-50% of the total electrical energy usage in certain industrial facilities."-DOE statistic (Note: Make that 99% for pipeline companies) http://virtualpipeline.spaces.live.com/

RE: Ethical engineering work

(OP)
KENAT, I know wind turbine projects are obviously in the personal choice column; bombs too, but I think bombs would give me a headache.  What about landmines and cluster bombs?  Now that most of the world has banned their use (with one or two notable exceptions), would designing these be an ethical issue, or still personal choice?  Could an engineer ethically work on poisonous gas processing facilities, if its a violation of the Geneva Convention and s/he knew it would be used for warfare?

**********************
"Pumping accounts for 20% of the world's energy used by electric motors and 25-50% of the total electrical energy usage in certain industrial facilities."-DOE statistic (Note: Make that 99% for pipeline companies) http://virtualpipeline.spaces.live.com/

RE: Ethical engineering work

It all depends on cost to work at these places; I would guess if you're working on something outside the Geneva Convention, they are using something more than currency to get you to work.  So in essence you asking would we work on a chemical bomb used to kill millions if I had to select between the work and my family/friends?  Personally I would like to say no I wouldn't work but the truth is if you asked me to tell that to my family/friend right now, I doubt I could be serious and do it.

As for the sky scrapers, it has been found that they are a better alternative to houses, again not black and white. I think we are discussing shades of grey, really at the end of the day, the question is do you really want to know if what your doing is wrong? because if you don't know you can still sleep well at night.  As they say ignorance is bliss.
 

Arguing with an engineer is like wrestling with a pig in mud. After a while you realize that they like it

RE: Ethical engineering work

(OP)
OK, I agree that its a personal decision on wind turbines and sky scrapers and the like.  But is it really a personal decision on landmines and cluster bombs.  They are actually banned by most of the world.   

I also am getting at trying to find out if anybody else has acually made a decision not to work on a project in the past, or has decided that there definitely are some generic types of projects that might not be appropriate for them to work on in the future.  It can't be just me.

**********************
"Pumping accounts for 20% of the world's energy used by electric motors and 25-50% of the total electrical energy usage in certain industrial facilities."-DOE statistic (Note: Make that 99% for pipeline companies) http://virtualpipeline.spaces.live.com/

RE: Ethical engineering work

Could an engineer ethically work on poisonous gas processing facilities, if its a violation of the Geneva Convention and s/he knew it would be used for warfare?

I see that you are on to me.

I admire your choice.  I would object to an NGL offloading facility in a big city.

RE: Ethical engineering work

I won't work on war toys.

My dad refused to work for tobacco companies.  Given his later success in his chosen field, that's a good thing for everyone.

RE: Ethical engineering work

(OP)
Sorry Pat.  I missed your earlier response.  I'm not totally alone ... but getting that way.  I smoke in public.

**********************
"Pumping accounts for 20% of the world's energy used by electric motors and 25-50% of the total electrical energy usage in certain industrial facilities."-DOE statistic (Note: Make that 99% for pipeline companies) http://virtualpipeline.spaces.live.com/

RE: Ethical engineering work

(OP)
Now we're getting somewhere.  NGL in the city.  Could be.

Tick, Interesting.  You really mean toys as in "toys", or as in "big boy's toys"?
 

**********************
"Pumping accounts for 20% of the world's energy used by electric motors and 25-50% of the total electrical energy usage in certain industrial facilities."-DOE statistic (Note: Make that 99% for pipeline companies) http://virtualpipeline.spaces.live.com/

RE: Ethical engineering work

I mean weapons.  The human race is ingenious enough about destruction.  That's one place where they certainly don't need my help.  I once had an idea on how to make hand grenades more effective, and idea which I will never utter.

Believe it or not, I'm actually OK with boys playing with war toys.  Just part of the explosive imagination of boys.  None of the kids I played war or cowboys-andn-[good folk of the First Nations defending their native homelands] with are criminals or killers or wife beaters.

RE: Ethical engineering work

If you think about, there really is no project that is environmentally friendly.  Whether you build a sandbox for your kids or a steel mill for XXX corporation, you consume raw materials, alter land use, burn energy.  Even converting landfills to parks consumes resources.  Where do you draw the line?

It depends on your ideology, principles and commitment there to.

Hadn't thought too much about it, but I've worked on many large transportation projects that involved eminent domain.  Maybe if it was my grandmother's house that was taken, I would have refused to be involved.
 

RE: Ethical engineering work

I worked on Nuclear Submarines (boomers and attack) for a while and I thouroughly enjoyed the work. I am of the "walk softly and carry a big stick" school of thought.

What burned me more than anything else were the people (and there were plenty) who had the opinion that everything we built and worked on was wrong but still worked there and drew a salary.

I respect anyone who turns down profitable opertunities to stand up for thier beliefs whether I agree with what they think or not. It shows backbone and that is becomeing a rare thing the world over.

At the end of the day though, you have to ask yourself, is the plant going to be built?

If the answer is a definitave yes, is it better to stay out of the project or become involved and attempt to minimize its impact?

Or perhaps the answer is to run for public office and sell your belief that this is wrong on the open market. We could certainly use fewer lawers running things.

Always remember, free advice is worth exactly what you pay for it!   

RE: Ethical engineering work

Biginch, I would not work on landmines and cluster bombs in a situation where to do so was illegal.  

However, I don't have ethical objections to them and so if in a country that hadn't signed up to those agreements would at least consider working on them, especially cluster bombs.  In fact, depending on ones point of view, I may have tangentially worked one of them before the conventions were in place.

Then again I think both of those pieces of legislation were ill conceived by a bunch of do gooders that didn't really know what they were on about.  If one of it's main proponents hadn't happened to die very publicly I wonder if they'd have even been adopted.  I sometimes wonder if we learnt nothing from the Washington treaty and the other arms restriction agreements of the inter war period.

I have stood up to be counted on safety issues and like to think I'd do so again.

I'd probably have a hard time working for big tobacco.  Also, while I'm not sure I can come up with a convincing logic for my stance, even if they weren't illegal by most definitions I'd have a bit of trouble working on poison gases etc.

Either way, kudos for putting your money where your mouth is.

Though here's one, if ever in the situation, is it more ethical to refuse a job you find ethically problematic and instead live on government welfare or some kind or another, or is it more ethical to take the job rather than sponging off the state, especially if you have dependants?

Hmm, wonder if I've said a bit too much for a public forum, hope I don't come to regret it.

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RE: Ethical engineering work

I have observed that countries that are not directly in armed conflict involving their own country can afford to be all righteous with indignation, but when push comes to shove, they invariably sing a different tune.  

This is no different than at the personal level.  I might have an abstract objection to violence, but if my wife or children were threatened, I have no doubts as to what I might be willing to do to resolve the situation.  People are also great at rationalizing, after the fact.

Note that the Ottawa Treaty only band anti-personnel mines, and many of the mine types mentioned heretofore are not banned in the treaty: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottawa_Treaty

TTFN

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RE: Ethical engineering work

(OP)
Technicality. smile  They all go boom.

**********************
"Pumping accounts for 20% of the world's energy used by electric motors and 25-50% of the total electrical energy usage in certain industrial facilities."-DOE statistic (Note: Make that 99% for pipeline companies) http://virtualpipeline.spaces.live.com/

RE: Ethical engineering work

I salute your decision BigInch and appreciate you bringing up this subject.  Faced with a similar situation I might have done the same thing as you if I could.  But, as has been pointed our, everything engineers do has impacts.  In an effort to reduce them I try to always consider future inspectability and maintainability in my designs.  But sometimes you just gotta hold your nose.  I have participated in the design of several prestressed and post-tensioned concrete structures with full awareness that it might be a bear to deal with them 50-60 years down the road.  How do you replace the deck of a segmental box girder bridge?  Maybe it's karma but in my current job I oversee the upkeep of a massive 50 year old post-tensioned concrete girder viaduct.  Everytime it gets a biennial inspection, there is another difficult structural problem to deal with.  Someday, who knows when, we will have to replace the superstructure.  Will I fight for a steel structure even it is more expensive?  Hmm, something to think about.

RE: Ethical engineering work

Kenat,
" is it more ethical to refuse a job you find ethically problematic and instead live on government welfare or some kind or another, or is it more ethical to take the job rather than sponging off the state, especially if you have dependents?"

Sounds like the old is it right to steal a loaf of bread to feed a staving child? Question then is - how big the loaf?.

Same with your question just how "ethically problematic" are we talking? If it was a 9/10 problem I would say going on the dole sounds like the way to go, however if it was a 2/10 I would work on spite the fact, anywhere in between 2/10 to 9/10 is grey.  

Arguing with an engineer is like wrestling with a pig in mud. After a while you realize that they like it

RE: Ethical engineering work

Like Kenat, my wife, and so tangentially myself, worked on cluster bomb delivery systems in a past life.  I have no problems with the fact that these were used to kill a lot of people, or (more close to the truth) destroy a lot of materiel being used by those people who were actively engaged in "bad behavior".  My personal rationalization was that the use, or threat of use, of weapons I may have helped design, may save the lives of a lot of neighbors and friends...and maybe some of those "civilian lives" in foregin countries too.

If I didn't like the situation the weapons were being used in, I would actively engage in the methods at hand to change that - write my congress critter, protest, write to the editor of the local paper...etc.  Unlike the playgrounds of our youth, you can't just take your ball and go home in this game, you are in the game whether you like it or not.

Anybody who thinks they have never worked on something defense related just doesn't have enough imagination.  Oil wells produce petroleum that is used to propel all of the neater war toys.  Development of high strength alloys allows better armor-piercing ammunitions.  R&D in plastics leads to lighter weapons that allow soldiers to carry more equipment, and therefore kill more people more quickly.  Better bridge building techniques can allow heavier equipment to be deployed by armies, or conversely, the knowledge of those techniques can be used by those who would bring the bridges down.  Ad infinitum.  So, yeah, it's a matter of degrees.  

But - I have no problem with anybody who refuses work on ethical grounds.  I've done so too, although not at the level that BigInch talks about, more along the lines of Pat's post.  We have to live with ourselves.

RE: Ethical engineering work

Oh, and the cluster bomb treaty is "in progress"...see

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_on_Cluster_Munitions

from there:

"The treaty allows certain types of weapons with submunitions that do not have the indiscriminate area effects or pose the unexploded ordnance risks of cluster munitions. Such weapons must meet strict criteria for a minimum weight, a limited number of submunitions, the capacity for each submunition individually to detect and engage a single target object and the presence of electronic self-destruct and self-deactivation mechanisms."

Those are/were the types of weapons my wife and I were helping to develop.  They had self-destruct mechanisms built in, both to reduce civilian casualties but also to reduce hazards to occupying friendly troops.  So I guess we are just a bit less tainted...legal on a technicality, eh?

RE: Ethical engineering work

btrue, no fair, the 'tangential involvement' issue was my back up plan if I got any heat, you beat me to it.  I checked too and I don't believe what I worked directly on falls in the currently banned list, though again, some definite tangential involvement with at least one maybe more that do.

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RE: Ethical engineering work

(OP)
Humm... Tangentials certainly are a problem.  I'll have to introduce a level factor.  
Cluster bombs = 100%,
Petroleum = 5% ??,  
Petroleum Storage for Defence Ministry = 100%.  Ought Oh.

**********************
"Pumping accounts for 20% of the world's energy used by electric motors and 25-50% of the total electrical energy usage in certain industrial facilities."-DOE statistic (Note: Make that 99% for pipeline companies) http://virtualpipeline.spaces.live.com/

RE: Ethical engineering work

When it comes to weapons or items that have legitimate peaceful and military uses, the ethics lay with the user or those who ultimately control the user much more than the creator.

 

Regards
Pat
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RE: Ethical engineering work

(OP)
Looking back, it seems like ethical issues have been crossed with personal moral issues.  I wonder if we can separate them?

**********************
"Pumping accounts for 20% of the world's energy used by electric motors and 25-50% of the total electrical energy usage in certain industrial facilities."-DOE statistic (Note: Make that 99% for pipeline companies) http://virtualpipeline.spaces.live.com/

RE: Ethical engineering work

I doubt it.  To some extent what is ethical is dependant on what is moral.  Ethical tending to pertain more to what is right or wrong according to your proffesion than personally.

I didn't take any great oath of ethics or the like at any point in my education or after graduation.

However, as I mentioned above I take safety very seriously, and I think I've mentioned before that I like to deal ethically with vendors and the like and so on and so forth.

If it's ethically wrong for an Engineer to work on weapon systems then there's a whole lot of folks you need to expell from engineering.

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RE: Ethical engineering work

Umm...no, BigInch you can't, or at least not easily.  Every person has their own personal beliefs that drive a major part of what they call ethics.  You wouldn't ask a Hindu to work in a Chicago stockyard/slaughterhouse (if such even still exists, but you get my drift).

RE: Ethical engineering work

(OP)
I'd hesitate to make it an ethical issue, unless there was a legal compication, such as working under a contract for items to be furnished to an "embargoed country", an item prohibited by some convention to which the host country has subscribed, etc., or maybe it could be something as apparently benign as designing a hotel for Cuba while being resident in the US.  You can't buy cigars from there you know.  It does seems like the solid line definitely starts where legal issues begin, if nowhere else, although "conflict of interest" would appear to be a rather soft line along that path.

**********************
"Pumping accounts for 20% of the world's energy used by electric motors and 25-50% of the total electrical energy usage in certain industrial facilities."-DOE statistic (Note: Make that 99% for pipeline companies) http://virtualpipeline.spaces.live.com/

RE: Ethical engineering work

While there may not be a solid distinction between ethics and morality, a starting place would be the engineering code of ethics. That said, how do engineers in munitions manage to follow the part about holding public safety paramount? Aren't the civilians of enemy or occupied nations not members of the public even we were to exclude the soldiers and terrorists?

 

RE: Ethical engineering work

Safety for the user of those types of things.  You do not want it to blow up on you.  Where the bullet/bomb goes is up to the user, just like driving a car.  Will an automotive engineer be put to the same scrutiny since it is not safe for a car to hit a pedestrian?

RE: Ethical engineering work

OK, I'll bite.

What's this "engineering code of ethics" you're on about.

Is this one of those PE things.

In which case I'm bound to point out that most Defence work is in exempt industry.

As to the civilians V combatants I think Pat covered that.  I could go out of my way to design something that is super accurate, super reliable, has a very well defined and small 'lethal' zone etc.   However, if the user decides to send it into a schoolroom packed with children, civilians are going to get hurt.

When in the field I did my part for the public safety.  Explosive devices are color coded so that people finding one can have a good idea of what it can do.  It's not just bomb squad/EOD folks but even firemen, police and the like.

Some idiot Chartered Engineer (UK equivalent of PE) wanted to not follow this color coding to save a few cents per unit.  He was the new golden boy who had the ear of management etc.   I kicked up a stink, I wasn't going to knowingly let it happen, even if it didn't bode well for my career.  I won out, though for a while I thought it wasn't going to do my career any favours.

Was the use of weapons by the allies to defeat Nazi Germany ethical, if so was the engineering of those weapons ethical?  How about what other users of those weapons did with them?  Shermans may have been developed to fight WWII but were used for many years afterwards by many countries, almost certainly in some less easily justifiable conflicts or internal repression.

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RE: Ethical engineering work

(OP)
A PE doesn't make ethics any more applicable IMO.  Its something everyone has or hasn't.  And I'm not so concerned about what the letter of the law of ethics says, if you can find it written down anywhere I doubt it would be any more clear than whatever you think it might mean anyway.  It mostly translates into whatever your mother told you, or that old book, "Everything you need to know you learned in kindergarten."  I was just trying to see amongst this community of engineers, if the line is heavy and thick, or if it was a wide spray painted grey line.  So far, it seems to start as a faint blury grey line, and may or may not reach a solid edge, or a solid dashed line (line style #7 smile)perhaps depending on where you live.  Although I don't understand the last part very much.

Thanks all for your opinions.   

**********************
"Pumping accounts for 20% of the world's energy used by electric motors and 25-50% of the total electrical energy usage in certain industrial facilities."-DOE statistic (Note: Make that 99% for pipeline companies) http://virtualpipeline.spaces.live.com/

RE: Ethical engineering work

This sounds more like situational ethics. The line may fade or darken, depending on the crcumstance. I am against war, but reality dictates war is inevitable, and I am in favor of winning versus losing. I volunteered for deployment on Desert Storm-the 82nd Engineer BN kicked serious butt. I am in principle against war, I was proud of the combat engineers.
 
Is stealing different if it is stealing to feed your family, or stealing because you want another million dollars? Both are stealing. One may have a greater opprobrium attached, a moral matter. If stealing were legal, would that remove any ethical impediments? Slavery was once legal in this country, I would not consider it ethical treatment of other human beings.

Some times there is no resolution except for your sense of morality and responsibility. I worked in the middle east on five projects. The Host Nation law required mandatory fees, bakshish, to the Host Nation government representative. Federal law required compliance with Host Nation laws, and at the same time disallowed gratuities to Host Nation government representatives. The projects had to be completed or our soldiers would be sleeping and working in  damaged facilities which were obviously unsafe. What would be the ethical thing to do?

I've quit a job, and I have turned down much higher paying jobs, over moral objections, and would do it again. Personally, I would not trust any person that took a job and stated it was against their ethical or moral code. If they would bend their ethics that far, it would be hard to tell how much further it could be bent.

RE: Ethical engineering work

Not so much a PE thing as an engineering thing. Industry may be exempt from requiring PEs, but PEs in industry are not exempt from the code of ethics. And many engineers, registered or not, belong to engineering societies; most of which have codes. Similar wording in all of them. Try Google, and you will find them.

RE: Ethical engineering work

"...perhaps depending on where you live.  Although I don't understand the last part very much."

BigInch, I don't understand.  Is this in reference to Indians in slaughterhouses (cultural ethics/mores being different across cultures), or a reference to American engineers whose country has not yet signed a weapons treaty?  

I guess if the latter, I would counter that it cuts both ways: if a (for instance) New Zealand engineer claimed he'd never worked on a cluster munition, it would be less of a big deal to me than if a Yankee claimed the same thing.  One has more or less had the moral issue decided for him by geography or citizenship, the other has/had to make a concious moral decision.  

I am sure that the cluster bomb treaty is being discussed by the various interest parties within the USA.  I am not sure which way I personally lean on the matter of the US signing the treaty, but see no problems if it does, given the weasel wording that I pointed out.  Signing the treaty would obsolete a (I think) huge pile of older type munitions that the US has had in storage since the '60s, and their destruction would not bother me in the least, both because it would be a good thing to get rid of the nasty things (even if replaced by the newer, more accurate, less persistent munitions), but also because it would keep the MIC alive and kicking, and my neighbors/friends/family working.

Would I work in a plant, today, making the older style munitions, or worse, persistent land mines, say, to try and get a few more dollars before the treaty got ratified?  Not likely, both for the moral reasons, but also because I'd know I'd likely be looking for work again too soon.

FWIW, I am proud of you for walking away from a possibly well-paid job because you didn't like the possible environmental impacts.  I hope you spoke up about your reasons to the hiring manager...maybe if enough small voices were raised y'all could be heard.  Or, maybe one small voice (yours?) in the right political ear...

RE: Ethical engineering work

(OP)
Nothing specific.  The location reference was to no country in particular.  Could be US for a Cuban project, Syria for a project in Israel, anywhere for nuclear materials for Iran or NKorea.  Any country that has prohibited commercial or military cooperation or maintains sanctions of some kind against another.

**********************
"Pumping accounts for 20% of the world's energy used by electric motors and 25-50% of the total electrical energy usage in certain industrial facilities."-DOE statistic (Note: Make that 99% for pipeline companies) http://virtualpipeline.spaces.live.com/

RE: Ethical engineering work

Perhaps a couple examples may help. Many of us might consider it immoral to help a criminal avoid the consequences of his actions. A lawyer assigned to defend such a criminal is obligated by his code of ethics to do just that.
 
Many of us would consider it moral to assist in a state execution in order to ensure the act was done as humanely as possible. Medical ethics, though, forbid doctors to assist in any way; even though the execution will proceed regardless.

Ethics is not simply a personnal decision. What we believe individually may may not be so important. We are likely to sit in judgement by our peers for our ethical lapses.

RE: Ethical engineering work

(OP)
Good examples of the difference Steve.   

**********************
"Pumping accounts for 20% of the world's energy used by electric motors and 25-50% of the total electrical energy usage in certain industrial facilities."-DOE statistic (Note: Make that 99% for pipeline companies) http://virtualpipeline.spaces.live.com/

RE: Ethical engineering work

I was a member of the relevant society in the UK, part of the career path toward being chartered, and I don't clearly recall any code of ethics.  In fact, many of the society seminars etc. were about weapons and they had working groups specializing in that area and so on.

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RE: Ethical engineering work

Well, doesn't that go along with the notion, "Guns don't kill, people do"  i.e., it's not unethical to build weapons, it's unethical to use weapons indiscriminately.

Seems to be well within the putative position of the NRA.

I think that the dividing line, at least in defense circles, is whether the collateral damage from the deployment of a weapon has been reasonably mitigated.  However, even there, the issue is more related to the bad PR that we would get, as opposed to the death and suffering incurred.

TTFN

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RE: Ethical engineering work

Just checked out my old societies website and about the only relevant thing relating to ethics I found was:

"Manage and apply safe systems of work"

The only date mentioned was after I'd joined the society, but I hadn't got as far as being chartered yet so maybe it would have come up then.

However, I don't see the above being a conflict with designing weapons systems.

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RE: Ethical engineering work

Well, we could probably argue the finer points of the code, ad naseum.  Note however, that "ensure that all work is lawful and justified" has comparable importance with "hold paramount the health and safety of others."  These, however, are conflicting requirements in weaponry.  One can take the obvious way out, and not work on weapons, and there would be no conflict.

One could, however, tread the fine line.  In my particular line of weaponry, it's ethical to kill an opponent outright, but not OK to maim or blind them, even if they are going to die 40 seconds later.  It is a curious line, though.

That basic line would hold that weaponry in a "lawful and justified" conflict would perforce be required to kill the opponent, but that the death of innocent bystanders ought to be minimized to the maximum extent possible or feasible.

 

TTFN

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RE: Ethical engineering work

For any conventional war fought between nations and within the boundaries set by the Geneva Convention then blinding and maiming weapons are very difficult to defend as 'acceptable'. Once the enemy decides that the rules include blowing up passenger trains and using airliners to knock down skyscrapers then as far as I'm concerned the enemy can be burned, blinded, gassed or nuked with absolute justification.
  

----------------------------------
  
If we learn from our mistakes I'm getting a great education!
 

RE: Ethical engineering work

I totally agree Kenat: innocent parties are innocent, whether they live in Afghanistan or London or New York. On the other hand pumping poison gas into Osama's Tora Bora cave hideout wouldn't keep me awake very long at all.

It will be interesting to see what happens if Putin delivers on his threat to 'break the spine' of terrorism after the attack on the Russian train. After seeing the size of the force deployed against Georgia the Chechens must be expecting little mercy when the Red Army arrives.
  

----------------------------------
  
If we learn from our mistakes I'm getting a great education!
 

RE: Ethical engineering work

I wasn't referring to blinding civilians, only opposing combatants.  There was, at one point in time, concern about the 1064-nm laser designators used for laser guided munitions being non-eyesafe.  So, picture this
> I see a tank
> I designate it
> The tank driver looks up and is blinded
> 25 seconds later, the munition kills the driver and the tank

This was somehow interpreted to be unacceptable.  There's still great desire to develop an eye-safe laser designator in the defense industry.

TTFN

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RE: Ethical engineering work

(OP)
Sounds good.  Keep working on it.  The higher level of immediate medical care and increased rate of survival experienced in warfare these days would make that very relevant.  

**********************
"Pumping accounts for 20% of the world's energy used by electric motors and 25-50% of the total electrical energy usage in certain industrial facilities."-DOE statistic (Note: Make that 99% for pipeline companies) http://virtualpipeline.spaces.live.com/

RE: Ethical engineering work

An eye save laser would be useful for when you paint a friendly.

Peter Stockhausen
Senior Design Analyst (Checker)
Infotech Aerospace Services
www.infotechpr.net

RE: Ethical engineering work

I knew what you were talking about IRstuff.  Of a more practical concern, if the lasers aren't eye-safe it can limit where you can train with them.  People don't like their own airforce flying around potentially zapping them with lazers that could blind.

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