Moral Foundations of Engineering Ethics

Engineering ethics involves the study of moral issues and decisions. It seeks answers to questions about conduct and behavior that is morally correct. It is appropriate therefore that we examine some of the foundations of moral development. 

Kohlherg (JO, 11) suggests that an individual may reason and approach moral decisions from three main levels of moral cognitive development. The most primitive he calls the Preconventional Level, in which proper conduct is regarded as what directly benefits oneself. This is the level of development of most young children. At this level, individuals are motivated primarily by an unquestioning submission to power, by a desire to avoid punishment, or by a desire to satisfy their own needs. 

At the next level of moral development, termed the Conventional Level, the individual accepts the norms of one s family, group, or society as the standard of morality. At this level, individuals are motivated by the desire to please others and to conform to the expectations of the social unit rather than upon their self interest. Here an act is deemed to he morally right when it is approved by convention or law and wrong when it violates group customs or laws. 

According to Kohlherg, the highest level of moral development is the Post-conventional Level, at which an individual is motivated by what is morally reasonable for its own sake without regard to self-interest or to social conventions. Such individuals are morally autonomous because they think for themselves and do not respond to ulterior motives or assume that group customs are always right. 

It is helpful to examine further the moral underpinnings of ethical behavior. What makes certain actions morally right and others morally wrong Martin and Schinzinger (JO) describe four types of moral theories that help to answer this question  

---