![]() ![]() While the advancement of technology has brought about many improvements and conveniences to the lives of people, it can also inflate the damages to human lives when mishaps involving technology occur. Similarly, many developed countries such as Singapore are also setting aside a substantial portion of their gross domestic product in technological research and development (The Research, Innovation and Enterprise Council 2010). It is believed that these multinational corporations are investing most of their resources on research and development efforts to further enhance their scientific and technical capabilities. Global recognition of engineering contributions is evident with the establishment and growth of many prominent multinational corporations like the General Electric Company and the Siemens AG that focus on engineering-related businesses. In particular, the principles of engineering have been applied extensively in many sectors of the industry and society. Traditionally, engineering has been regarded as a profession which acquires and applies scientific knowledge and technical know-how to the designing and developing of machineries, materials, devices or structures to improve the daily lives of people. This paper argues for an ethical framework, or at the very least, an ethical conversation within the field of system dynamics. A model of social assistance in Norway in the context of immigration pressures illustrates some possibilities for addressing these ethical concerns. This discussion renews the ethics conversation in system dynamics by considering this shift in philosophical perspective, and investigates how consequentialist moral philosophy applies to the modeling process and in communicating with decision-makers. When the ethical considerations are taken away from the modeler and directed to what the model does, the ethical boundaries extend beyond the proximity of the model. ![]() In this perspective, the ethical considerations shift from the behavior of the modeler (and away from validation) to the model itself and the model’s inherent uncertainty. This concept is explored by discussing model uncertainty from an engineering perspective. Seen from a consequentialist perspective, the consequences of policies developed from system dynamics models determine the model’s moral value (ethical/unethical). Since a system dynamics model is a product of the modeler’s design decisions, the modeler should consider the life cycle consequences of using the model. This paper investigates the issue using system dynamics modeling as an example. Consequences of model design are a part of the model lifecycle that is often neglected. P>Consequentialism is a moral philosophy that maintains that the moral worth of an action is determined by the consequences it has for the welfare of a society. How does an engineer avoid the error of the Nazi engineers in their embrace of an evil ideology underlying their technological creations? How does an engineer know that the values he embodies through his technological products are good values that will lead to a better world? This last question, I believe, is the fundamental issue for the understanding of engineering ethics. In this essay, I examine several arguments about the ethical judgments of professionals in Nazi Germany, and attempt a synthesis that can provide a lesson for contemporary engineers and other technological professionals. ![]() In their own professional lives, my former students should not only be good engineers in a technical sense, but good engineers in a moral sense. I need to educate my students in the ethical practices of this hellish regime so that they can avoid the kind of ethical justifications used by the Nazi engineers. As an educator at a technological university, I need to explain to my students-future engineers and architects-the motivations and ethical reasoning of the technological professionals of the Third Reich. The death camp operations were highly efficient, so these technological professionals knew what they were doing: they were, so to speak, good engineers. Engineers, architects, and other technological professionals designed the genocidal death machines of the Third Reich. ![]()
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