Engineering Ethics
Presented By: Dr. Fadl Bdeir
Chapter 9
The Distribution of
Responsibility in Engineering
The Distribution of Responsibility in Engineering
- The problem of many hands
- Responsibility
- Negligence
- Responsibility and organiza9ons
- Responsibility distribu9on and technological
design.
The Problem of Many Hands
- Till now, we have focused on how individual
engineers can behave responsibly.
- In reality, many actors par9cipate in any
project either directly or indirectly
(government, companies, manager, user...)
The Problem of Many Hands
- Fragmenta9on of decision making lead each
authority (part of organisa9on) to focus on
their own areas of responsibility and thus not
feeling responsible for the design as a whole.
- Difficult to iden9fy who was responsible for
what
- More difficult, who could have prevented a
certain ac9on.
The Problem of Many Hands
The occurrence of situa9on in which the
collec9ve can reasonably be held morally
responsible for an outcome, while none of
the individuals can be reasonably held
responsible for that outcome.
The “Problem of Many Hands” A Barrier to Accountability
• Because so many people contribute in so many
different ways, it is very difficult to determine
who is accountable.
• It can often be extremely difficult to determine an
individual's contribution to failures in large
organizations or large engineering projects
where many people participate and add their
particular skills or expertise (in fact, the same
goes for “successes”). 10
The “Problem of Many Hands” A Barrier to Accountability
• Research on decision making shows that some layers of
the organizational hierarchy are responsible for
decisions that are more visible, concrete, limited in time,
and identifiable with specific individuals than are others
• It is quite natural to assume that when mistakes are
committed, we can associate it with the particular
decision behind it
• If this decision leads to adverse consequences, it is
assumed that the decision maker is at fault 11
The “Problem of Many Hands” A Barrier to Accountability
• People at the top and bottom of organizations tend not to be
blamed when accidents happens
• Braithewaite, J. (1998) “The allocation of responsibility for corporate crime: Individualism, collectivism, and
accountability,” Sidney Law Review 12: 468-513.
• The focus is usually on the managers in the middle because,
although they exhibit enough seniority to make important and
visible decisions, they are not senior enough to be able to
hide behind the diffusion of responsibility that provides top
management cover
12
The “Problem of Many Hands” A Barrier to Accountability
• Empirical research confirms this: Decision making at the
operational level tends to be highly visible and are
marked by clearly defined beginning, middle, and end
states
• Top management decisions are more fluid, evolutionary,
consensual, and temporal, where negations are carried
on with numerous individuals and groups over a period
of time
The Doctrine of “Many Eyes”
• “Many eyes” as a solution to the problem of many hands
• Given enough morally responsible individuals (“many eyes”) the
network of accountability can be managed
• In a responsible organization, the many eyes that watch the many
hands are a watchdog that could prevent risk and harm
• A culture of responsibility can develop if only because one can fix
the errors of another
• Engineers have a responsibility to address the errors of their co-
worker engineers working on the same project
14
The Doctrine of “Many Eyes”
• The motivation and ability to prevent risk and harm is increased, not
by the fear of punishment but rather by the desire to maintain a
respectful standing within the profession or social group
• A framework for moral and ethical debates needs to be developed
that can accommodate meaningful discussions about exercising due
care in engineering design and practice when working on large
projects and/or in large organizations
• Related to the concept of “social responsibility”
The Problem of Many Hands
…………………..is a moral problem:
1. Public wants to hold someone responsible (vic9m
families, engineering compainies)... which might be
hard in complex engineering project. Hence the
no9on “collec9ve responsibility”
2. The desire to learn from mistakes so to do beQer in
future
Causes of the problem of many hands
Distribu9on of Informa9on at the collec9ve
level, the harm is not forseeable.
However on the individual level it might not be
the case.
Causes of the problem of many hands
Example: Car drivers and the greenhouse effect
- One car driver’s emission - In isola9on - are below
harmful level (no wrong doing)
- All car drivers: are collec9vely responsible (there is
wrong doing)
Causes of the problem of many hands
Employee: Knows the defect but not able to fix
it.
Company’s manager: Does not know the defect
but has the authority to fix it.
The END
