
The most important job of engineers is to progress technology and society in a safe manner. This does, however, raise the question of what does a safe manner include? The simplest way to accomplish this is by making a design able to accommodate a higher load than what it is intended to support. This is counter intuitive to another job of the engineer or designer, which is to minimize the cost of a design and still get the job done. This is struggle is normally controlled using regulations to define how much safety one must have to ensure that each design is safe and the amount of risk is minimized. When something goes wrong the first and more often than not the person that is mostly likely to be blamed is the designer or engineer who designed the building or machine. These laws and regulations also give the designers a layer of protection if something unforeseen happens, but I believe this methodology of determinizing guilt is flawed. The most beneficial way to define the responsibilities of engineers is not anyone single ethical theory, but a combination of deontology and the ethics of virtue. 

It would be very remiss of me if I did not establish a set of boundaries for my argumentation, because of the wide scope that these terms encompass. The main ethical frameworks that defines the practice of engineering are the theories of deontology and consequentialism theory of consequentialism that will be used is utilitarianism as defined by John Stuart Mill. The basis of consequentialism is the principal of maximizing the happiness of society or minimizing suffering. Mill particularly emphasizes following the Golden Rule, which is the concept of treating others how you would want to be treated (Mill 22).  Deontology, viewed through the teachings of Immanuel Kant, is an ethical framework that is centered around the idea that morality is centered around obligations, and if you follow those obligations then the outcomes of those actions are irrelevant. An analogy that exemplifies deontology is that if you were a truck driver in Nazi Germany and in the back of your truck you were hiding a group of Jewish people, if a group of Nazi soldiers pulled you would tell them about the Jewish people hiding in the back of your truck. This is because lying is wrong, and it is your duty to do no wrong. Consequentialism is the belief that the outcomes of actions or decisions are the only factors that contribute to how ethical a decision is. These two theories are the traditionally accepted ways of determining what an engineer is and is not responsible for, but in recent years there has been a movement to revive and incorporate the theory of virtue. This ethical theory is more fluid and diverse than the other two theories, and is based not upon obligations or outcomes but the intentions of the individual, and characteristics or skills that the individual finds value in, also known as virtues.  

In both "Changing The Paradigm For Engineering Ethics" and “"The Responsibilities Of Engineers" the authors take the time to define and defend the stance that engineering is a practice. A practice can be defined as, “any coherent and complex form of socially established cooperative human activity through which goods internal to that form of activity are realized in the course of trying to achieve those standards of excellence which are appropriate to, and partially derivative of, that form of activity (qtd. In Schmidt 3).” Doing this establishes that engineering, as a practice, must have both internal goods and a deep social dimension, as opposed to being a task of technical problem-solving. This social dimension of engineering is what Schmidt attributes to the usual cause of engineering failures saying, “Engineering failures can usually be traced to social breakdowns, rather than technical mistakes (Schmidt 8).”  The social dimension of engineering is important because of the complexity and uncertainness that is involved with working with other human beings. This complexity combined with the added difficulty of pressuring factors such as time constraints and material constraints require practical judgment in addition to technical rationality (Schmidt 8). This allows furthers the argument that engineering cannot be reduced to a set of rules and guidelines. 

 The value of the ethics of virtue is in the fact that while deontology and consequentialism focus on the ideas of rules and obligations, the ethics of virtue focus more on what bettering oneself and striving towards perfections. There are individuals that would make the argument that while someone may conform to a rule or standard because it is the law, but merely following the letters of law does not mean that you are also aligned with the spirit of the law. Let us begin with the rule that thanking someone for doing something benefits you is morally correct. You can thank someone for doing a good deed without being sincere. An adherent to the ethics of virtue would argue that the virtue of sincerity is more important than following the socially correct thing to do.  Schmidt argues that strict rules or obligations are needed for novice practitioners to give them structure and a set of guidelines for how to solve problems, but the expert or highest level of practitioner no longer follows rules as much as knows how to solve a problem based on experience (6). This establishes the need for rules and obligations, but also recognizes the need for freedom once an individual becomes an expert practitioner.  

Another argument for the utility of using a flexible ethical framework such as virtue ethics. While rules and obligations are useful as I have previously established, these rules can like all things be incomplete or inadequate. One example is the tragedy of the accident involving the Sleipner A Platform. All that is needed to understand this accident is that the Sleipner A Platform was an underwater structure made mostly of concrete that was being tested before it was put into use. During the test, it began sinking into the ocean and it created a magnitude 3.0 earthquake near the coast of Norway as it hit the ocean floor. The cause of this issue is that while there was enough structural support in theory according to one set of standards, there were other structural standards that were in use at the time that would have prevented this accident (Smith15-16). This example shows that standards are useful only if they account for all unforeseen circumstances. This gives further credibility to the need of something to prevent the blind following of strict guidelines alone. 

There is an interesting view that has been voiced by individuals who do not believe that the ethics of virtue would not be the best ethical framework for determining the responsibilities for engineers. The key points to the argument is that there is a link between Autism Spectrum Disorder(ASD) and STEM(Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) fields (Furey). Furey argues that many people who are high functioning and suffer from ASD(HF-ASD) are attracted to STEM fields and that a shift of ethical framework from a rule based framework like deontology or consequentialism would be harmful for those people who have HF-ASD. One of the characteristics of ASD is difficulty with interpersonal emotional engagement and non-rigid thinking, therefore they would be unable to develop the traits that make someone virtuous. “A study revealed that the rate of individuals with ASD majoring in STEM was 34.31 %—a percentage that is significantly higher than the 22.80 % of the general population who pursued a post-secondary degree in STEM (Furey).” A quote from the APA used by Furey is one of the criteria describing ASD, “Deficits in developing, maintaining, and understanding relationships, ranging, for example, from difficulties adjusting behavior to suit various social contexts; to difficulties in sharing in imaginative play or in making friends, to absence of interest in peers(Furey).”  Many people who have ASD and are high functioning develop methods to compensate for their difficulty understanding and developing emotional, but as I discussed earlier virtue ethics do not take into account the idea outcomes of an action or the how appropriate the actions is in the situation. All that matters are the intentions of the individual when they make the action(s). This means that in this interpretation of virtue someone who has the inability or that has extreme difficulty making emotional or ethical choices can never be virtuous. Another way to view this idea is that if a certain methodology or ethical framework is easier to employ for an individual, then that person should have no problems even if they do not completely conform to this new system. This can be viewed that in a sense adhering to a set of moral obligations could is a virtue to strive towards.

This all brings about the argument that no single ethical framework is perfect for defining the responsibilities for engineers. I believe that the best way for this new ethical framework to be formed from a combination of the beliefs of deontology and virtue. The belief in obligations being the only ethically important part of a decision, and the highly subjective nature of virtue ethics. In keeping with the different levels of skill of a practitioner (Schmidt 6) The belief in Kantian theory describes and gives novices and advanced beginners to develop an understanding of how to begin to solve problems, and to determine what are acceptable practices and what are not acceptable. The ability to go beyond rules is the true mark of an expert practitioner and while it may be disadvantages for those who do not have the same abilities or capabilities to make decisions, but I would argue that it should make no difference whether an individual makes their decisions based on a set of obligations and rules or the if they are based on personal virtues, because at the end of the day all that we can evaluate as observers  is how they completed the task, and whether or not that solution is safe.

I do not claim to know any specifics on how this ethical framework should be created or enforced, but I do believe that this shift is a good and necessary one. Standards should not be the final decision on morality when the standards and codes cannot account for every unforeseen circumstance. Laws must be followed in spirit no matter what the letter of the law is. In short while the standards and codes are wonderful starting points for general guidance, but the judgment of rational beings is a better tool for determining what is acceptable and what is not. This does shift would have disadvantages in areas where people with certain disabilities would have disadvantages, because of their disabilities, however, this can be mitigated or eliminated entirely by the inclusion of principals of deontology into this ethical framework.
