Abstract
This paper follows a trend in engineering ethics away from universal moral theories towards more contingent/contextual approaches such as pragmatist and care ethics. These methodological considerations are treated in the context of the Volkswagen Diesel Emissions scandal as a case study in the “paradox of loyalty,” (i.e. that company loyalty can be both virtuous and vicious). Building upon a combined pragmatist-care ethics approach, the article outlines an “ethics of commitment,” inspired by the moral philosophy of Josiah Royce. The ethics of commitment locates the site of moral value in an individual’s “commitment to a cause,” where a “cause” refers to a purposive community of persons oriented by a shared end or ideal. The ethics of commitment improves upon a pragmatist-care ethics in two notable ways: first, addressing the problem of determining wrongdoing via pragmatist ethics, and second, by emphasizing the costly nature of moral action as a critical part of ethical deliberation, rather than appealing to empathy or moral sentiment. This process—described metaphorically as “centrifugal commitment”—remains contingent and fallible, but in a way that does justice to the broad scope of moral responsibility incumbent upon engineers.
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Notes
Beginning in roughly 2008, Volkswagen implemented a “defeat device” that enabled VW diesel cars to cheat emissions tests for the better part of a decade. VW successfully (for a time at least) kept the device’s existence hidden from environmental regulators, only to have the scheme unwind publicly beginning in 2015, with continuing fallout even to the present. See Ewing (2018), Gibney (2018) for detailed accounts.
Beyond the convictions of Liang and Schmidt, VW suffered massive financial repercussions, including more than $15 billion in fines just to the United States government. The environmental cost was significant, though difficult to measure. A 2016 study estimated that between 3,400 and 15,000 metric tons of additional nitrogen oxides were generated by the VW diesels per year, totaling between 27,200 and 120,000 metric tons of toxic particles added to the air of cities and towns around the world, causing an increase in respiratory ailments and shortened lifespans for between 250 and 1,000 people (Ewing 2018, pp. 219 − 21).
Throughout this essay, I use the terms “moral” and “ethical” (and associated terms) interchangeably to refer to an experience of value for individuals-in-society. Typically, a distinction is drawn between ‘ethics’ (as a theory of character) and ‘morals’ (as a theory of social norms)…though sometimes this is reversed, with ‘ethics’ referring to objective values, while ‘morals’ refers to an individualized, subjective sense of value. In either case, these terminological distinctions either implicitly or explicitly indicate an ontological distinction between the self and society. My argument does not rely upon (and, in fact, actively challenges) the notion of separating selves from their wider contexts of relations. Rather than opting for one or the other of these terms, and because cited sources vary in their usage of terms, I have chosen to retain and employ both “moral” and “ethical” for aesthetic purposes, recognizing that it is frequent practice in discussions of engineering ethics to slip into the language of “moral problems” and “moral obligations.”
Baron is also dismissive of the process of “perpetual self-scrutiny” which would seem to be the mechanism for making these critical judgments between duties. The combination of a vague standard with a disdain for the process of applying it carefully makes for a rather impoverished resolution to a genuinely pressing ethical problem.
Consider a person devoted to the ethical treatment of animals. Protecting animals from unnecessary harm is an ideal or value that orients their behavior in an ongoing way. This ideal makes sense of their behaviors (e.g., not consuming animal products; yet the ideal is unintelligible without embodiment in action. Such actions are not particular to one person; others who share the same “cause” exhibit similar behaviors. When more than one person is committed to the cause of the ethical treatment of animals, they have a “shared ideal” and thus constitute a purposive community. Such a community may even constitute itself via an institution (for example, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals [PETA]), yet the “cause” of protecting animals from harm cannot simply be reduced to such institutional forms. In a very real sense, a community “claims” its members, even as its members claim it as their “cause.” Thus, both “cause” and “community” refer to the embodiment of an ideal through the collective actions of particular individuals.
This description reflects Bernstein’s “five themes” (1988) of pragmatism: anti-foundationalism, fallibilism, the social character of the self, contingency, and pluralism.
Royce’s status as a pragmatist is a topic of some intrigue (see, e.g. Mahowald, 1972; Anderson, 2006). That Royce considered himself a pragmatist of a sort is indubitable: he said as much, both in The Philosophy of Loyalty and a 1904 essay entitled “The Eternal and the Practical”: “Whatever may be our interest in theory or in the Absolute,” he wrote of himself and his contemporary interlocutors in that essay, “we are all accustomed to lay stress upon practical considerations as having fundamental, even if not the most fundamental importance for philosophy; and so in a general, and, as I admit, in a very large and loose sense of the term, we are all alike more or less pragmatists” (p. 113 − 14). Royce goes on in that essay to summarize his points of agreement with the other pragmatists of his day: that the pursuit of truth is an ethical project, and not merely an informational one; that the will to believe is an essential part of ideas becoming true; that knowledge is constituted through situated interactions, rather than mere passive observations; and that truth is “in the making.” “All this I accept,” Royce says, even as I “appear to be bound…fast in the chains of absolutism.” Royce himself seemed to realize that his own reputation as an abstract absolutist gives the impression of greater distance between him and other pragmatists. But this appearance is deceptive; Royce describes his own position as a “modified” pragmatism. “We must be pragmatists,” he says at one point, “but also more than pragmatists” (p. 135, 137).
In one of my classes, a student memorably remarked of this case that the moral failure here was that the VW engineers “didn’t cheat well enough.” This is to assess their actions according to the standard of competence, which, though relevant generally speaking to engineering ethics, is clearly not the primary commitment at issue in this case. In fact, the degree of technical skill required to design, implement, and maintain the defeat device software actually contributed to the longevity of the fraud. This is an example of the “evil genius” problem (Robison, 2009).
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Shepherd, A.P. “An Ethics of Commitment for Engineers”. Sci Eng Ethics 28, 40 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-022-00395-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-022-00395-0