Personal Responsibility and Supporting Social Structures

Nevertheless, engineers are subjected to pressures in their professional life that can make this ethical task difficult. It is therefore of benefit if engineers participate in what was described in Chap. 1 as a base community—a community in which ethical discourse is promoted and in which generous ethical action is stimulated. The present chapter will consider two examples of such base communities trade unions and faith communities. Specific cases will be described to show that such base communities can greatly enhance innovation in the acceptance and expression of ethical responsibility in engineering. 

In an article that is very relevant to professional ethics, Alasdair MacIntyre imagined the case of J (somebody, jemand) who used to inhabit a social order, or rather an area within a social order, where socially approved roles were unusually well defined. Responsibilities were allocated to each role and each sphere of role-structured activity was clearly demarcated...The key moral concepts that education had inculcated into J were concepts of duty and responsibility [1]. In his 

Engineering Ethics, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-04096-7 6, Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2014 

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Ways in which the acceptance and expression of the ethical nature of engineering can be promoted will be considered the acceptance of personal responsibility and participation in supporting social structures and convincing others through human rights approaches and the elucidation of engineering... 

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