Responsibility without Moralism in Technoscientific Design Practice

While engineering ethics usually addresses the responsibility of engineers in rare cases of whistle blowing, the authors broach the question to what extent engineers can be held responsible in normal practice. For this purpose, they define the conditions under which individuals can be imputable as they prevail in ethics and common sense. From outcomes of science and technology studies research, the authors conclude that these conditions are seldom met in modern technoscientific research practice. By examining such practice in a case study and comparing the results with perceptions of engineers on social responsibility as expressed in interviews, the authors are able to demonstrate that (1) a change in structural characteristics of this practice, such as funding rules, stimulates engineers to attune the inner politics of science to wider societal policies and concerns, and (2) it helps them to overcome the shifting of social responsibility to others as a consequence of the lack of agency they usually perceive.

[1]  William T. Lynch,et al.  Engineering Practice and Engineering Ethics , 2000 .

[2]  C. Walton,et al.  Business Ethics: Concepts and Cases , 1982 .

[3]  Thomas J. Misa,et al.  Managing Technology in Society , 1995 .

[4]  R. Boudon,et al.  La logique du social : introduction à l'analyse sociologique , 1979 .

[5]  B. Williams,et al.  Responsibility , 2016, The Journal of Ethics.

[6]  Arie Rip,et al.  Societal Embedding and Product Creation Management , 1997 .

[7]  I. R. van de Poel,et al.  Design of Technology Assessment for Early Warning: The SESR Project at the University of Twente , 1993 .

[8]  Wiebe E. Bijker,et al.  Of Bicycles, Bakelites, and Bulbs: Toward a Theory of Sociotechnical Change , 1995 .

[9]  Arie Rip,et al.  Expectations in Technological Developments: an Example of Prospective Structures to be Filled in by Agency , 1998 .

[10]  Madeleine Akrich,et al.  A Summary of a Convenient Vocabulary for the Semiotics of Human and Nonhuman Assemblies , 1992 .

[11]  In and of the world , 2019, The World Looks Like This From Here.

[12]  M. Callon.  Society in the making: The study of technology as a tool for sociological analysis , 1987 .

[13]  S. Shapin.  Laboratory life. The social construction of scientific facts , 1981, Medical History.

[14]  A. Kellerman,et al.  The Constitution of Society : Outline of the Theory of Structuration , 2015 .

[15]  Helge Toutenburg,et al.  The Social Control of Technology , 1982 .

[16]  Vololona Rabeharisoa,et al.  The Management and Evaluation of Technological Programs and the Dynamics of Techno-economic networks , 1992 .

[17]  Boelie Elzen,et al.  Socio-Technical Networks: How a Technology Studies Approach May Help to Solve Problems Related to Technical Change , 1996 .

[18]  Arie Rip,et al.  The Rise of Membrane Technology , 1998 .

[19]  Eugene A. Rosa,et al.  The Challenger Launch Decision: Risky Technology, Culture, and Deviance at NASA. By Diane Vaughan. University of Chicago Press, 1996. 575 pp. $24.95 , 1997 .