Chapter 1 - The Responsibilities of Engineers

Question 1

What is role responsibility?

Answer 1

the responsibility that is based on the role one has or plays in a certain situation

Question 2

What is moral responsibility?

Answer 2

responsibility that is based on moral obligations, moral norms, or moral duties

Question 3

What is professional responsibility?

Answer 3

responsibility that is based on one’s role as professional in as far it stays within the limits of what is morally allowed

Question 4

What is passive responsibility?

Answer 4

backward looking responsibility, relevant after something undesirable occurred; specific forms are accountability, blameworthiness, and liability

Question 5

What is accountability?

Answer 5

backward-looking responsibility in the sense of being held to account for, or justify one’s actions towards others

Question 6

What is blameworthiness?

Answer 6

backward-looking responsibility in the sense of being a proper target of blame for one’s actions or the consequences of one’s actions; in order for someone to be blameworthy, usually the following conditions need to apply: wrong-ding, causal contribution, foreseeability, and freedom

Question 7

What is active responsibility?

Answer 7

responsibility before something has happened referring to a duty or task to care for certain state-of-affairs or persons

Question 8

What are the features of active responsibility?

Answer 8

Adequate perception of threatened violations of norms; Consideration of the consequences
Autonomy; Displaying conduct that is based on a verifiable and consistent code;Taking role obligations seriously

Question 9

What are ideals?

Answer 9

strivings which are particularly motivating and inspiring for the person having them, and which aim at achieving an optimum or maximum

Question 10

What are professional ideals?

Answer 10

Ideals that are closely allied to a profession or can only be aspired to by carrying out the profession

Question 11

What is technological enthusiasm?

Answer 11

the ideal of wanting to develop new technological possibilities and taking up technological challenges

Question 12

What is effectiveness?

Answer 12

the extent to which an established goal is achieved

Question 13

What is efficiency?

Answer 13

the ratio between the goal achieved and the effort required

Question 14

What is separatism?

Answer 14

the notion that scientists and engineers should apply the technical inputs, but appropriate management and political organs should make the value decisions

Question 15

what is the tripartite model?

Answer 15

model that maintains that engineers can only be held responsible for the design of products and not for wider social consequences or concerns; in the tripartite model three separate segments are distinguished: politicians, engineers, and users

Question 16

what is a hired gun?

Answer 16

someone who is willing to carry out any task or assignment from his employer without moral scruples

Question 17

what is technocracy?

Answer 17

gov’t by experts

Question 18

what is paternalism?

Answer 18

the making of moral decisions for others on the assumption that one knows better what is good for them than those other themselves

Question 19

what is whistle blowing?

Answer 19

disclosure of certain abuses in a company by an employee in which he or she is employed, without the consent of his/her superiors, and in order to remedy these abuses and/or to warn the public about these abuses

Question 20

what is an actor?

Answer 20

any person or group that can make a decision how to act and that can act on that decision

Question 21

what is a user?

Answer 21

people who use a technology and who may formulate certain wishes or requirements for the functioning of a technology

Question 22

what are regulators?

Answer 22

organizations who formulate rules or regulations that engineering products have to meet such as rulings concerning health and safety, but also rulings linked to relations between competitors

Question 23

what are interests?

Answer 23

things actors strive for because they are beneficial or advantageous for them

Question 24

what are stakeholders?

Answer 24

actors that have an interest in the development of a technology

Question 25

what is a technology assessment?

Answer 25

systematic method for exploring future technology

Question 26

what is a constructive technology assessment?

Answer 26

approach to technology assessment in which TA-like efforts are carried out parallel to the process of technological development and are fed back to the development and design process