NE 571 | Discussion on Engineering Ethics

My reflection:

Thank you to everyone for engaging in the conversation, over the past week and a half, about the responsibility of engineers, values, different modes of argumentation, and the importance of emotion and empathy in argumentation and decision making. I hope that I did not come across as judgmental; it was not my intention. I was trying my best to push you into new, uncomfortable territory through the readings that I selected, the take-home quizzes and the in-class discussion.

Some of us have biases that we’re not aware of that weigh in on credibility. One bias in engineering (from which I am quite likely not immune) is gender bias – women may be perceived as giving more importance to contextual decision making, communication and emotions. It’s cultural conditioning in fact: girls’ games train those skills, boys’ games train structure, hierarchy, discipline and competition. Speaking in front of the classroom on a topic that relates so closely to gender bias and stereotypes can put me in a challenging position of establishing credibility. That being said, may of you engaged fervently in this module of the class – some to disagree some to agree – and that was great. Thank you!

It was particularly interesting to notice the very different points of view amongst everyone in the classroom. Working to explicitly bring up those different approaches and beliefs when working in a team or an organization will help you capitalize on the diversity. We inherently seek commonalities when working with our colleagues – seek also to be curious about differences, to make differences explicit. One way to start such a conversation is to ask: what makes you happy about your work? What makes you proud?

More readings and resources can be found here and more student discussion on the topic of engineering ethics can be found here.

In-class discussion:

  1. What do you do about mis-information?
    • For example, somebody was using a map for Tsunami wave-height, misinterpreting it as a radioactivity map. How might an engineer respond to this?
    • The society-engineer system will never be perfect. Mis-information will abound. Transparency and abundance of trustworthy information and trust can balance the existence of mis-information. Trust is key, for information to make an impact.
  2. The benefit it the energy. The risks are local. How could one ever balance the risks with the benefits?
    • Take measures provide additional societal support to those who are more heavily affected by the risks. A relocation support system that the government establishes and funds, for example; it is not within the scope of the electric utility to provide such a support. This also helps bring the conversation of nuclear-non-nuclear from adversarial to collaborative: yes, I empathize with relocation risks being a concern with the community; how could the government change the relocation practices and financial support packages to be acceptable to the community, let’s work together on this vs. the two-camp dialogue that is common today: “I worry about relocation and radiation – Radiation isn’t going to kill anybody and we need the energy”
  3. Doesn’t the NRC represent “democracy”?
    • It does, in the case of safety analysis: the NRC is independent of the DOE or the nuclear industry, and its decision process involves public comment periods. However, the Yucca Mountain site was not selected by the NRC. It was selected, from among a total of three technically-appropriate sites, by the federal government, without state or community involvement. The evaluation of the safety of Yucca Mountain by the NRC would be a democratic process.
  4. What can we do when democracy fail, when lobbyists push money towards oil and coal?
    • Make nuclear cheaper, train engineers to be/partner with effective leaders and communicators that influence policy making?
  5. If baby boomers left us with economic downturn and global warming, who is to say who is responsible for our future generations. Who is to say if we have much say in the grand scheme of things?
    • Let’s learn from the lessons that history gives us. I think that we want things to be better in the future, not just as bad as what history has given us. There are already plenty of inherited problems – I would argue that we should work towards avoiding the creation of more legacy problems – historically we’ve seen that prevention and immediate management of problems is much cheaper than remediation of legacy problems. Take a look here at the DOE Office of Environmental Management List of Clean-up Sites.
    • Hanford is a good example of a problem of many hands. The State of Washington takes the stands that it’s the federal government’s responsibility to clean it up (and has economic benefits from continued investment in site-clean-up by the Federal Government). The Federal Government expects the State of Washington to makes policy decision that expedite the clean-up process. The both have good intentions.
  6. How to make sure countries can accurately evaluate the intersection of their social culture with safety culture.
    • Make that an objective in the safety analysis. That will ensure that the right people with the right skills are hired.
    • When exporting technology, put a management plan in place for two-way training – the exporters/technology vendors to learn about the culture, skills, practices, infrastructure of the importer; the importers to learn about the expectations of the exporters. This impacts both safety and economics. Interesting case studes to research: Olkiluto (Finish sites at which the French company Areva is building a PWR) and Haiyang and Sanmen (Chinese sites at which the US Company Westinghouse is building reactors).
  7. How to implement ethics in nuclear-related policy when the ethics of elected officials is questionable?
    • “They didn’t know it was impossible, so they did it.” Mark Twain
    • Trying is already better than not trying. Making values explicit, and making a narrative to which the policy-makers can relate is a starting point.
    • I think it’s important to start with the premise that you being wrong is just are likely as them being wrong. Adopting the perspective of “policy makers are bad – engineers are good” is, in my opinion, not wise. Sometimes you’ll disagree with the values of the policy-makers, but probably not with all of their values. Use the common values as a starting point of collaboration with those policy makers.
    • Sometimes you’ll agree with their values, but the outcomes of their work fall short. Policy makers and lobbyists try, but fail, because it’s a difficult job. Find a way for technology to enable their policies, and find ways in which policy can enable creativity in technology.

Quiz-discussion:

Take a look at some of the discussion I posted in response to your take-home quizzes, and also at the well-articulated arguments of your colleagues in the class:

  1. http://nameless33.edublogs.org/2018/03/07/quiz-37/
  2. http://nameless33.edublogs.org/2018/03/11/quiz-312/
  3. https://brownne571.edublogs.org/2018/03/07/severe-accidents-reading-assignment/
  4. http://ne571luism.edublogs.org/2018/03/12/take-home-quiz-31218/#comment-5
  5. http://ne571luism.edublogs.org/2018/03/12/take-home-quiz-31218/
  6. http://ogujiuba.edublogs.org/2018/03/09/ne-571-quiz-03092018/
  7. http://ogujiuba.edublogs.org/2018/03/12/take-home-quiz-03122018/
  8. http://kzander411.edublogs.org/2018/03/07/ne-571-quiz-march-7th-2018/#comment-19
  9. http://kzander411.edublogs.org/2018/03/11/ne-571-quiz-march-12-2018/#comment-22
  10. https://kanderson29.edublogs.org/2018/03/12/ne-571-take-home-quiz-2/#comment-8

 

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