Amalan Kejuruteraan Professional

(SMM4901)
Chapter 2: Professional Ethics

Prof Ir Dr. Ab Saman b. Abd Kader,
(Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, UTM)

THE ENGINEER AS A PROFESSIONAL
MAN
- Engineering is a predominantly an employee profession
- Absence of personal practitioner-client relationship
- Engineer tend to practice their profession as member of team, led and managed by
Senior Engineers
- Senior Engineer tend to concerned with their leadership and management of large
resources of men, material and finances.
- Junior member always involved in detail technical practice.
- In engineering management, engineer is responsible in a very direct sense for control
over the resources of the community.
- Engineering therefore; is a unique profession in which all of the marks of the professional
man have a curial importance:
- He must have High level skills & must develop different skills as he career advance.
- Must have strong motivation for service.
- The whole community is the ultimate client.

ETHICS AND PROFESSIONALISM
- Engineering is closely involved in human relations and in business and
commerce.
- Ethics means laws and morals, it carries an additional connotation of
rightness
- The code is statement of the principle of rightness, and to enable an intelligent
man to deduce for himself the course of his own professional conduct.
- Under the code, the professional man must be worthy, through his conduct and
must be trusted within the community and his colleagues.
- Must be confident in any situation.
- Each professional man must have positive attitude and live by the rules of their
profession.
- Most professional engineers adopt an institutional view of the originations of the
profession i.e loyalty and support without direct personal gain.
- The true professional man always give a support to his organization and
sometime grudgingly.
ENGINEERS AND SOCIETY
- Engineer are responsible to his own image.
- Engineer must perform excellent job to gain respect for the public.
- Engineer must always aware of technological advancements, and get
involved in research and development.
- Engineer have a brain, technology and expertise, just need an effort and
commitment.
- Engineer not only provide human resources for infrastructure development
but also important devices necessary for the welfare, health and safety of the
pubic.
- Engineer yield a degree of influence over decisions makers and polices. If the
influence based on self-interest, the interest and welfare of community
became secondary important i.e. corruption will happen.
- Engineer must emphasizes the positive qualities in a job or occupation.

WHAT IS ETHICS?
- From Greek word ETHOS.
- Meaning ATTITUDE and CULTURE that determine behavior of the
society.
- Associated with actions, elaborations and objectives.
- It is a discipline of moral, action and appropriate behavior of human
being.
- Engineering ethics consists of responsibilities and rights and also of
desirable idea and personal commitments in engineering.
- Engineering ethics is the study of the decisions, policies and values.
WHAT IS ETHICS?... CONT.
- Morality concerns respect for persons, both others and
ourselves.

- It also involve being fair and just, meeting obligations and
respecting right and not causing unnecessary harm by
dishonesty and cruelty.
ETHICS VS LAW
- Ethics is enforce by heart and
going against it hurts.
- Ethics ensure limits of culture,
idealism, belief and moral values.
- Following ethical code mean follow
the law.
- Ethical code is more general.
- Ethics can be expended to
attitudes to good and bad behavior.
- Ethics can be determine more
value and cover guide to good and
bad behavior in society.
- The law is enforced by court and
culprits can be punished.
- The law ensure limits too. Going
against it is a criminal act.
- Obeying the law does not equal to
following ethics.
- The law is the minimum regulations to
control criminal act.
- The law enforces the predetermine
regulations.
- The law is inadequate to ensure moral
values.
- The law does not cover individual guide
and various societies.
ETHICS & ISLAM
- Al Quran is the guide for good and bad not only for Muslims but for ALL
human beings.

- Dan hendaklah ada diantara kamu segolongan umat yang menyeru
kepada kebajikan, menyuruh kepada makruf dan mencegah dari yang
mungkar (surah Ali Imran : 3:104)

- Sesungguhnya engkau (hai muhammad) menpunyai budi pekerti
(etika) yang baik (surah al Qalam, 68:4)
CODE OF ETHICS
- In every profession, there are various set of positives qualities.

1. Universal positive qualities, which pertains to any job or occupation like
dedication, hardworking (diligence) and honesty.

2. Positive qualities which are particular to the job or occupation at hand

3. Professional ethics and this is the category of social and moral awareness
of the implications or effects of the ones job on the wider community and
environment.

CODE OF ETHICSCONTS.
- The following skills are related to engineering ethics.

1. Moral awareness recognizing problem and issues in engineering.
2. Cogent moral reasoning Clarifying and assessing arguments on
opposing sides of moral issues.
3. Moral coherence forming consistent and comprehensive
viewpoint base on relevant fact
4. Moral imagination creative in solving solution.
5. Moral communication precision in language, able to express
views.
CODE OF ETHICS CONTS
6. Moral reasonableness willingness and ability to be moral
reasonable.
7. Respect for persons concern for the well-being of other as well
as oneself.
8. Tolerance of diversity respect for ethnic and religious differences
and acceptance of reasonable difference in moral perspectives.
9. Moral hope using rational language to resolving moral conflicts
10. Maintaining moral integrity and integrating ones professional life
and personal convictions.

MEANING OF
RESPONSIBILITY
1. Obligations.
- morally mandatory and some obligations are incumbent on each of us,
such as to honest, fair and decent.
- Other are role responsibilities, acquired when we take an special role
such as parents, employees and professionals.
2. Accountable
- capacity to understand and act on moral reasons.
- answerable for meeting particular obligations.
- acted as what we did.
- admit on wrongdoing. (voluntary wrongdoing or negligence).
3. Conscientious
- do right thing at the first time and everytime.

WHY PROFESSIONAL ETHICS IS IMPORTANCE TO
ENGINEERS?
1. A hallmarks professionalism only professional have code of
ethics.
2. Basic qualification requirement to state the moral responsibilities
of engineers and the freedom to exercise them.
3. An edge in competition to give customer or public confident by
protecting and serving the public interest.
4. Guidance to good practices and deterring wrongdoing.
5. Offering inspiration
6. Establishing shared standard and contributing to education.
7. Ultimate benefit of profession have a value of honest &
transparency.


ETHICAL DILEMMAS
- usually result from loyalties to 2 groups

duties to employers/clients and the public

Example - The China Syndrome (fiction) Nuclear plant
employee discovers safety problems, reports them to
administration, but cannot convince them to address them.
Conflict between loyalty to company and loyalty to public.

Example - Destination Disaster (fact) Flaws in design of DC-10
were made known to sub-contractor by an engineer, but
subtracter company withheld the information from McDonnell-
Douglas for financial reasons. Conflict between professional
obligation of public safety and to abide by company procedures.


REGULATIONS ON PROFESSIONAL CONDUCTS
All professional group have 2 main characteristics:

1. Professionals in the same discipline institutionalize themselves into a
professional body with recognized standard of academic and practice
qualifications for members.

2. The professional body has a Code of Ethics to govern the conduct of
its members and disciplinary procedures in the event of breach of
such code.
3 PROFESSIONAL ENGINEERING BODIES IN MALAYSIA
IEM Codes of Ethics

BEM Code of Professional Conduct

Association of Consulting Engineers, Malaysia (ACEM)
IEM CODE OF ETHICS
- Lays down general guidelines for the conduct of member vis--vis
his relationship and his transactions with:
- The community
- The employer
- Clients
- Peers
- Involving moral and philosophical considerations to public safety
and health, conservation of resources and environment, upgrading
of technology, assuming responsibility within ones competence.
- Also include the dos and donts between engineer and employee,
client and peers.

BEM CODE OF PROFESSIONAL
CONDUCT
- Under Section 15 of The Engineers Act 1967, Board may order the
cancellation of the registration of any engineer, if:-

- He is guilty of fraud, dishonesty or moral turpitude,
- He accepts illicit commission,
- He fails to disclose to his client any vested financial interest in
his dealings with client.

- BEM code as regulating body, has the force of law
- Can distinguish between what is legal and what is not.
- Protect interest between Engineer, his employee or his clients.

ASSOCIATION OF CONSULTING
ENGINEERS, MALAYSIA (ACEM)
- Engineer who practice as Consultants are governed by their
memorandum and articles of association.

- ACE code is designed for area like advertising and promotion of
works, fees and other remuneration, competition with other
members, submission of bids, or proposals and related subjects.

- Articles 16 to 27 of association, is Duties of Members

- Code of ACE places an onerous duty on its members to conform
both the IEM and BEM Codes as well as their own specific rules
governing the conduct of Consulting Engineering business.

APPLYING GLOBAL ETHICS IN
ENGINEERING ORGANIZATIONS
- New era i.e. Globalization, refer to integration of nations through
trade, investment, transfer of technology and exchanges of ideas
and culture.
- Global interdependency affect engineering and engineers in many
ways where moral challengers arises:

- Who loses jobs at home when manufacturing is taken
offshore?
- What does the host country lose in resources, control over its
own trade, and political independence?
- What are moral responsibilities of corporations and individuals
operating in less economically developed countries?

APPLYING GLOBAL ETHICS IN
ENGINEERING ORGANIZATIONS
What are global issues?

Global issues:
World-wide impacts (the world is shrinking)
Long time periods
Cross-cultural, multi-national (real impacts; is doing
engineering the same here as everywhere else?)

Relevance to engineering?

Broad thinking in engineering design process is essential!
Engineering is naturally cross-cultural (e.g., students)
Globalization is happening!
Impact on engineering profession is unfolding
CASE STUDY - BHOPAL
- Union Carbide in 1984 operated in 37 host countries in addition to its home country,
USA.
- On 3
rd
Dec 1984, the operators of Union Carbides plant in Bhopal, India became
alarmed by a leak and overheating in storage tank.
- The tank contained methyl isocyanate (MIC), a toxic ingredients used in pesticides.
- Within 1 hour, the leak exploded that sent 40 tons of deadly gas into atmosphere.
- This is the worst industrial accident in history
- 500,000 persons exposed to the gas
- 2500 to 3000 deaths within few days
- 10,000 permanently disabled
- 100,000 to 200,000 injured
- 10 years later, 12,000 death claims and 870,000 personal injury claims had been
submitted
- Only $90 million of Union Carbides settlement had been distributed.

UNION CARBIDE PRODUCT
Products

Union Carbide both produces and purchases ethylene, a basic building-block chemical, from
components of crude oil and natural gas. We convert ethylene to polyethylene or react it with
oxygen to produce ethylene oxide, the precursor to many of the products we sell: ethylene
glycol and hundreds of solvents, alcohols, surfactants, amines and specialty products.

Some of the chemicals we make go directly into products used every day: polyethylene and
polypropylene into food containers or toys; ethylene glycol into automotive antifreeze, and
isopropanol into rubbing alcohol. Others are used in manufacturing processes to enhance
quality and performance: ethyleneamines for wet-strength in paper towels; biocides as bacteria-
growth inhibitors in cosmetics, and surfactants for soil removal in industrial cleaning. Other
essential products include: deicing and anti-icing fluids to remove or prevent ice buildup on
airplanes; amines for removing impurities in oil and gas refining processes; solution vinyl resins
for industrial coatings to prevent corrosion, and polyethylene glycols to make tablets and pills
easier to swallow.

Whether they are adding strength to stretch wrap, or smoothness to paint, removing static from
laundry or simply making a teddy bear more cuddly, the products of Union Carbide make great
chemistry a part of daily life.
WHAT WENT WRONG?
- The disaster was caused by a combination of extremely lax safety procedures, gross
judgment errors by local plants operators and possible sabotage with unintended
consequences.
- Greater sensitivity to social factors was needed in transferring chemical technology to
a country foreign to supplier of the technology.
- US engineers make regular on-site safety inspections
- In 1982, financial pressures relinquish its supervision of safety at the plant.

- Government of India required the Bhopal plant to be operated entirely by Indian
workers.

- Union Carbide at first trained the plant personnel in its West Virginia plant.
WHAT WENT WRONG??...CONTS
- 2 years later, safety practices eroded due to
- Personnel problems i.e. high turnover of employees, fail to train new employees,
safety procedures not follow
- Move away from US standard to lower Indian standards
- Sabotage a disgruntled employee unscrewed a pressure gauge and inserted a hose
into it not realizing that it would cause immense damage.
- Extreme hazards i.e.
- tanks storing MIC gas were overloaded,
- standby tank was not empty for emergency dump,
- tank were supposed to be refrigerated but refrigeration was shut down to cut cost
making the tank temperature 3 to 4 times what they should have been.
- Negligence worker knew there was a leaked but did not check for leaks; It was not
my job! because it was the maintenance depart to responsibility to check the safety.
- There were no emergency procedure, no emergency drill and no evacuations plan.
- The incident was not informed to the thousands of squatters in the areas surrounding
the plant.
WHAT ARE THE MORAL RESPONSIBILITIES
MULTINATIONAL CORPORATIONS LIKE UNION
CARBIDE?
- Ethical relativism; the view that actions are morally right within a particular
society when they are approved by law, customs etc.
- this false because it might excuse moral horrors, example: it would
justify low standards if that were all a country requires

- Ethical absolutism; retains precisely the same practices endorsed at home
, never making any adjustments to new culture.
- this is also false because it fails to take account of many variable facts.

- Ethical relationalism; the view that moral judgment are contextual in that
they are made in relation to a wide variety of factors including the customs of
other culture.

TECHNOLOGY AND THE WORK ETHICS
- Technology : value-neutral or value-laden?

Value-neutral : says that technology consists of artifacts or devices
machines, tools, structures perhaps together with knowledge about how to
make and maintain devices.

Value- laden : says that technology consists of value-guided organizations
and general approaches, in addition to artifacts and knowledge.
Engineers need to understand how their work effect public life, as manager,
entrepreneurs, consultants & government official, engineers provides many
form of leadership in development and implementing technology with their
profession & communities.
- Cultural Relativism (sociological relativism): the descriptive view that different groups of people
have different moral standards for evaluating acts as right or wrong.
Ethical Relativism: the prescriptive view that (1) different groups of people ought to have different ethical
standards for evaluating acts as right or wrong, (2) these different beliefs are true in their respective
societies, and (3) these different beliefs are not instances of a basic moral principle.
Ethical Absolutism: the prescriptive view that there are basic or fundamental ethical principles which are
true without qualification or exception as to time, condition, or circumstance.

A. Examples: Kant's categorical imperative, the principle of utility, or the Christian commandment to
love God and neighbor.

B. All other ethical rules, principles, ideals, and norms are contingent upon whether they are entailed
by basic or fundamental moral principles (Q.v., the Case Study on Internal Moral Standards.)

http://philosophy.lander.edu/ethics/problems_topics.html - discuss on moral issue.
CUSTOMS AND ETHICAL RELATIVISM


Ethical Relativism is the view that values are relative to and reducible to
conventions, customs or laws. It is right because the customs say it is right.
Ethical relativism looks like encouraging the virtue of tolerance of differences
among different groups, but it has limits. Ethical relativism might seem
attractive because it is easily confused with other view that are plausible.
1. Descriptive relativism is a statement that beliefs and attitudes about
values differ from culture to culture.
2. Ethical relationalism means moral judgement should be made in relation
to factors that can vary from case to case. Those factors include
customs, conventions, and codes.
3. Ethical pluralism means that customs can have great moral significance
in deciding how we should act.
RELIGION AND DIVINE COMMAND ETHICS


There are important connections between morality and religion in the lives of
many people.
1. They are related historically.
2. For many people, there are important psychological connections between
moral and religious beliefs. Religious faith and hope imply trust: trust that
we can receive insight into what should govern right action and can be
sustained in that action.
3. Religions sometimes set a higher moral standard than is conventional.
Many religions emphasise particular ideals of character, e.g Christianity
centres on the virtues of hope, faith and love; Buddhism emphasises
compassion, Judaism on virtue of tzedakah (righteousness) and Islam
on ihsan (translated as either piety or the pursuit of excellence).
Divine command ethics claims that an act is right simply means it is
commanded by God, and it is wrong if forbidden by God.
Self-Interest and Ethical Egoism
Ethical egoism is a view that attempts to reduce moral values to self-interest. Ethical
is a theory about morality and egoism is about sole duty of each individual in
maximising his/her own good (well being, happiness).
Psychological Egoism
Psychological egoism is a view that believes that people are psychologically
incapable of caring about anyone but themselves. People are only motivated by
what they believe is good for themselves in some respect.
Predominant egoism is a view that the strongest desires for most people most of the
time is self-seeking.
Mixed motives is a combination of self-concern and concern for others.
Compensation and Self-Interest
Compensation values, such as money, power, and recognition, can be pursued for
the good of others, and play a major role in motivating and guiding human conduct.
THE SEAFARER AS A PROFESSIONAL
MAN
Seafaring is predominantly an employee profession

Absence of a personal practitioner-client relationship

Seafarer tend to practice their profession as members of teams, led and
managed by senior seafarer who are employees, even though they also
assume the role of employers in many aspects of their relationships with
their juniors

The more senior seafarer tend to be concerned with the leadership and
management of large resources of men, materials and finance over
which they have control

It is the juniors who are more involved in the detailed technical practice
of the profession; and technical direction comes from middle levels of
the organizational structure
(cont)
Management implies responsibility and in seafaring management, the
professional engineer is responsible in a very direct sense for control
over the resources of the community

Seafaring therefore, is a unique profession in which all of the marks of
the professional man have crucial importance

he must have high-level skills and he must develop different skills as his
career advances

he must have a strong motivation for service because everything he
does impinges on the community in some way or other

The whole community is the ultimate client rather than the individual
clients as in the case with other professions

2.0 Ethics and Professionalism
Seafaring is closely involved in human relations and in business
and commerce. A great many of the special problems in
personal conduct met by seafarer are likely to arise from this fact

Ethics means something more than "law" and "morals" , it
carries an additional connotation of "rightness

The Code is a statement of the principles of "rightness", of broad
scope and with enough detail to enable an intelligent man to
deduce for himself the course of his own professional conduct

The essence of all professional codes is that the professional
man must be worthy, through his conduct, of the trust placed in
him by the community and his colleagues
(cont)
To act every situation in a manner that will add to the confidence and esteem in
which his profession is held by the community

A profession is no better than its individual members. If they do not have the
professional attitude and live by the rules of the profession, they have no profession

Most professional seafarer adopt an institutional view of the organizations of the
profession

- deserving, even requiring, the loyalty of each engineer as an
expression of this identity as a professional engineer
- organizations are the manifestation of the professional entity and they require the
giving of effort, loyalty and financial support without thought to direct personal
gain

Instrumental view of the professional organizations: support is given, sometimes
grudgingly, on the basis of an expected return in some tangible form. The
instrumental view should have no place in the value system of the man who aspires
to true professional status

3.0 Seafarer and Society
We are responsible for our own image

If we want the public to appreciate our work then we must first do an excellent
job

We must be aware of technological advancements, be designers instead of users
and get involved in research and development

We have the brains, the technology and the expertise; we just need effort and
commitment from ourselves

Seafarer provide not only the necessary human resources for the infrastructure
development of a country but also important devices necessary for the welfare of
the public

cont
Seafarers yield a degree of influence over formulators of policies and
decision makers. If this influence is based on the self-interests of
individuals or a minority in which case the interests and welfare of the
wider community becomes of secondary importance. Corruption is an
extreme example of this

Because of the significance and influence of professionals in society, the
value systems which govern their lives and attitudes are needless to say, of
great importance

By professional ethics or professionalism, one is referring to a philosophy
of work that values and emphasizes the positive qualities in a job or
occupation

One would also need to consider the wider implications of one's occupation
in social and moral contexts

4. Code of Ethics
In every profession, there are various sets of positive
qualities

universal positive qualities which pertain to any job or
occupation like dedication, diligence and honesty

positive qualities which are particular to the job or
occupation at hand

professional ethics and this is the category of social and
moral awareness of the implication or effects of one's job
on the wider community and environment





4.1 Ethics
Ethics is the study of morality. It studies
which actions, goals, principles,
policies, and laws are morally justified


It refers to moral values that are sound,
actions that are morally required (right)
or morally permissible (all right), policies
and laws that are desirable

cont
Accordingly, seafaring ethics consists of the responsibilities and rights that
ought to be endorsed by those engaged in seafaring, and also of desirable
ideals and personal commitments in seafaring

Seafaring ethics is the study of the decisions, policies, and values that are
morally desirable in seafaring practice and research

Morality concerns respect for persons, both others and ourselves

It involves being fair and just, meeting obligations and respecting rights, and
not causing unnecessary harm by dishonesty and cruelty

In addition, it involves ideals of character, such as integrity, gratitude, and
willingness to help people in severe distress

And it implies minimizing suffering to animals and damage to the
environment
cont
The following skills are related to seafaring ethics

Moral awareness: proficiency in recognizing moral problems and issues in
seafaring

Cogent moral reasoning: Comprehending, clarifying, and assessing
arguments on opposing sides of moral issues

Moral coherence: Forming consistent and comprehensive viewpoints based
upon a consideration of relevant facts

Moral imagination: Discerning alternative responses to moral issues and
receptivity to creative solutions for practical difficulties
cont
Moral communication: Precision in the use of a common ethical language, a
skill needed to express and support one's moral views adequately to others

Moral reasonableness: The willingness and ability to be morally reasonable

Respect for persons: Genuine concern for the well being of others as well
as oneself

Tolerance of diversity: Within a broad range, respect for ethnic and religious
differences, and acceptance of reasonable differences in moral perspectives

Moral hope: Enriched appreciation of the possibilities of using rational
dialogue in resolving moral conflicts

Maintaining moral integrity, and integrating one's professional life and
personal convictions

4.2 Meanings of "Responsibility"
1. Obligations

a. Responsibilities are obligations-types of actions that are morally
mandatory. Some obligations are incumbent on each of us, such as to
be honest, fair, and decent
b. Other obligations are role responsibilities, acquired when we take on
special roles such as parents, employees, or professionals

2. Accountable

a. Being responsible means accountable. This means having the general
capacities for moral agency, including the capacity to understand and
act on moral reasons
b. It also means being answerable for meeting particular obligations, that
is, liable to be held to account by other people in general or by specific
individuals in positions of authority
c. We can be called upon to explain why we acted as we did, perhaps
providing a justification or perhaps offering reasonable excuses
cont
d. Wrongdoing takes two primary forms:

I. voluntary wrongdoing

Voluntary actions occur when we knew what we were doing was wrong and
we were not coerced

Some voluntary wrongdoing is recklessness, that is, flagrant disregard of
known risks and responsibility

Other voluntary wrongdoing is due to weakness of will, whereby we give in
to temptation or fail to try hard enough

II. Negligence occurs when we unintentionally fail to exercise due care in
meeting responsibilities. We might not have known what we were doing, but
we should have

3. Conscientious

Morally admirable seafarer accepts their obligations and is conscientious in
meeting them. They diligently try to do the right thing, and they largely
succeed in doing so, even under difficult circumstances

4.3 Key Concepts
Ethical dilemmas, or moral dilemmas: situations in which reasons, conflict,
or in which the application of moral values is problematic, and it is not
immediately obvious what should be done

Steps in resolving ethical dilemmas:

Moral clarity: Identify the relevant moral values
Conceptual clarity
Informed about the facts. Obtain relevant information
Informed about the options: Consider all genuine options
Well-reasoned: Make a reasonable decision

Right-wrong, better-worse: Some ethical dilemmas have solution that are
either right (obligatory) or wrong (morally forbidden); other dilemmas have
more that one permissible solution, some of which are better or worse that
others either in some respects or overall
4.4 Importance of codes of ethics
Codes of ethics state the moral responsibilities of seafarer as seen by the
profession and as represented by a professional society

Because they express the profession's collective commitment to ethics,
codes are important in stressing engineer's responsibilities and also the
freedom to exercise them

The essential roles of codes of ethics:

(1) serving and protecting the public
(2) providing guidance
(3) offering inspiration
(4) establishing shared standards
(5) contributing to education
(6) deterring wrongdoing
(7) strengthening a profession's image
5.0 Regulations on professional
conducts
All professional groups have two main characteristics:

Professionals in the same discipline institutionalize themselves into a
professional body with recognized standards of academic and practice
qualifications for membership

The professional body has a Code of Ethics to govern the conduct of its
members and disciplinary procedures in the event of breach of such Code

When we speak of a Code of Ethics, we are not talking about law. In the
Code of Ethics, our concern is with what is morally right or wrong
cont
Situations which require the Professional Engineer to consider the morality
of his actions arise under circumstances in which they may exist conflict of
interest between the individual professional and any or all of the entities with
which he has to interact i.e. Community, Employer, Clients and/or Peers

The professional owes a duty of care towards those he serves in ensuring
that their interests are protected, and in this respect, there is a guideline
which is what the Code of Ethics is all about

The three Professional Seafaring bodies in Malaysia have complementary
functions in the regulation of professional conduct

All three bodies have their own Code of Ethics designed to suit their specific
requirements according to the objectives for which each body is constituted


6.0 Applying global ethics in shipping
organizations Globalization refers to the increasing integration of nations through trade,
investment, transfer of technology, and exchange of ideas and culture

Global interdependency affects seafaring and seafarer in many ways as in
multinational corporations where moral challenges arises:

Who loses jobs at home when manufacturing is taken offshore?
What does the host country lose in resources, control over its own
trade, and political independence?
What are the moral responsibilities of corporations and individuals
operating in less economically developed countries?
cont
Technology transfer is the process of moving technology to a novel
setting and implementing it there

Technology includes both hardware (machines and installations) and
technique (technical, organizational, and managerial skills and
procedures)

A novel setting is any situation containing at least one new variable
relevant to the success or failure of a given technology: example,
the setting may be a foreign country

Appropriate technology refers to identification, transfer, and
implementation of the most suitable technology for a new set of
conditions and it includes social factors


7.0 Technology and the work ethics
Technology: Value-neutral or value-laden?

Value-neutral: says that technology consists of artifacts or devices -
machines, tools, structures perhaps together with knowledge about how to
make and maintain devices

Value-laden: says that technology consists of value guided organizations
and general approaches, in addition to artifacts and knowledge

Technological determinism is the view that the primary structures of human
society are determined by technology, rather than human beings controlling
technology

Social constructionism is the view that emphasizes 2 way causal
interactions between technology and society & highlights the importance of
human perceptions & interpretations
cont
An example: automobile

It is a necessity but the effects include the depletion of world oil
supplies, pollution and deaths (accidents)
Another example: Tomato harvester- plucks and sorts tomatoes with a
single pass. Cost of harvesting tomatoes was reduced. But jobs were
lost, small growers forced out of business. Funding to develop new
technology comes from the taxpayers

Seafarer need to understand how their work affects public life

As managers, entrepreneurs, consultants & government officials, seafarer
provide many form of leadership that should include moral leadership in
developing and implementing technology within their profession &
communities

Moral leadership is the success in moving a group toward morally desirable
goals using morally desirable procedures.



abdsaman@fkm.utm.my