A news story can be found almost every day about a product that has injured someone, which needs to be recalled or that is compromised by some other issue. Often, those problems can be traced back to the product’s design, which raises the question: How much can—and maybe more important, how much should—engineers say when red flags go up during product design process?

Ethical puzzles at the engineering stage can take many forms: An engineer is asked to draw up a permit for a building that might not meet environmental standards; a software engineer is pressured to rush a product that he knows is not bug-free; a decision to use cheaper materials makes for an unstable product; an engineer fears that a subcontractor’s poor work could endanger a project’s success.

Karl Stephan says that a good engineer does things right and also does the right thing. Staying ahead of such ethical traps takes vigilance and integrity. In the words of Texas-based consulting engineer Karl Stephan, who also teaches engineering at Texas State University, San Marcos, a good engineer does things right and does the right thing. That begins at the product conception and initial design stages—processes that are heavily influenced by engineering input.

“It can depend on the size of the company and the scale of the product, but if someone is the main engineer in a small company, obviously you have a great deal of input,” says Stephan.

Guiding Principles of Engineering Ethics

The general principles of ethics for engineers call for such measures as making public safety and welfare paramount, resisting scenarios of fraud and corruption and working only in areas in which they are competent.

Meeting those standards can be challenging. Fortunately, engineers often have a strong voice in product development in settings where those in upper management are also trained engineers, says Timothy R. Austin, president of the National Society of Professional Engineers and office manager of Kaw Valley Engineering in Wichita, Kan. “Engineers’ input is highly desired in most industries,” he says.

Timothy Austin says that “Engineers’ input is highly desired in most industries.” If an engineer is involved in the early stages of product development, that is the ideal time to bring up ethical issues and questions. That requires what Stephan calls an ethical imagination; products are used by all sorts of people, and unless an engineer consciously exercises some imagination, he or she is likely to presume that the consumer thinks in a similar way. That is not always the case, such as with products that might be used by children.

“Considering the variety of people who might use the product is the first step in coming up with ethical scenarios around the product,” says Stephan. “An engineer might think of a way to use a properly engineered product improperly and say, ‘Nobody would ever do that.’ Well, if you sell enough of them, you’ll get someone who does just that.” Imagining the worst case scenario can help in the early stages, he says.

When an engineer feels pressure, implicit or otherwise, to sign off on products and initiatives they are not sure about, what do they do then? Stand up and point out something they are not sure of? Or be a “team player” and go along, saying nothing?

Not surprisingly, there are no easy answers. The decision often can depend on where the engineer is in the chain of command, says Stephan.

“If you’re one of 2,000 engineers in a giant company, the most influence you can have is to keep your eyes open for something obviously fishy and then try to get the attention of your manager,” he says. “Otherwise, all you can really do is be honest.”

When faced with a clear ethical dilemma, the engineer’s principal obligation is to shed light on the matter and express his or her concerns. Fortunately, most industries and businesses have internal processes that facilitate discussion of those concerns, according to Austin.

“Management generally will listen to the engineer and have them go back and find a solution,” he says. “Most products go through a series of discussions and iterations anyway. Concerns can be raised during that part of the process.”

Document the Facts

It is key for engineers to document their concerns and make sure of their facts. It is important that concerns can objectively be determined to be well-founded.

Many medium- and large-sized companies have ethics hot lines where engineers (or anyone) can leave anonymous messages about problems. Ideally, that keeps the problem within the company, where it can be studied and solved. If the people who monitor such avenues of communication are ethical themselves, they will take action.

“A lot of dealing with ethical issues is having the facts on your side,” says Jameson Wetmore. If there is no doubt that an ethical situation is what it seems, the engineer’s immediate supervisor is likely the first place to go. Ideally, the supervisor will agree that the issue should be brought up to the next layer of management. “A lot of dealing with ethical issues is having the facts on your side, but a lot of it is also turning those facts into a story that makes sense to management,” says Jameson Wetmore, an assistant professor at Arizona State University’s Center for Nanotechnology in Society.

The last resort when an engineer’s ethical concerns are ignored or stonewalled by management is to go to the authorities. Federal and state laws in the U.S. are intended to protect workers who expose wrongdoing in the workplace, although most state laws apply to public employees only.

That is the good news. The bad news is that whistleblowers almost always commit professional suicide. If an engineer goes that route, he or she probably will either lose his or her job or else be made so uncomfortable that he or she quits.

“It’s a very serious step to go outside the organization entirely,” says Stephan. “Be absolutely sure not only that you’re right, but also that you have documentation showing that you’re right.”

Shared Responsibility

The push lately has been to build in systems where there’s accountability and discussion at each stage, says Wetmore. “The ideal is to create an atmosphere of group responsibility so that you don’t need one person sacrificing himself for the greater good.”

A final issue to consider is that ethical issues do not all necessarily involve life-and-death situations. Even innovation that is intended for the greater good will likely be adopted at the detriment of someone somewhere. For example, consider a new technology that puts hundreds of people out of work or causes jobs to be moved to lower-cost areas of production. Those kinds of “soft” ethical considerations are often ignored, says Wetmore.

In the end, though, dealing with ethical dilemmas will be driven by the engineer’s own principles, and the stability and integrity of his employer.

“There’s natural tension between an engineering solution and the goal of a product design,” says Austin. “But by and large, those two competing interests tend to get satisfied.”