Things that went well - no serious injuries or deaths' ethical reasoning in the engineering design process

摘要

The title of our paper is a quote from an actual company report evaluating a then recently concluded design process. It gives a contradictory message. The fact that something morally bad dido t happen is seen as a reason to give a positive evaluation of the foregoing design process. The quote rather gives the impression of a lucky escape. Maybe injuries and deaths had been expected at the beginning of the process, and fortunately didn't occur. However another explanation could he that often engineers are making moral and ethical decisions based on little more than what we might call intuition and fortune. In an attempt to clarify what this ethical intuition might he, this paper examines the type and extent of ethical reasoning made during the engineering design process. In carrying out this study we hope to contribute to building a firmer basis upon which ethical education in engineering design can rest.