Philosophy & Engineering a World of Things, Not Facts Design Problems and Ethics Which Wastewater, Whose Risks?

Davis, Michael " Distinguishing engineers from other " Technologists " : A case study " .. ABSTRACT Abstract: When one mentions philosophy of engineering, people often point out that Wittgenstein was an engineer – in order, perhaps, to quell their initial skepticism about the viability of the subject. Although Wittgenstein's engineering background may have had no direct influence on his philosophy, a comparison between a philosophy of engineering and Wittgenstein's later philosophical views can demonstrate the validity and value of the philosophy of engineering. In his later years, Wittgenstein turned to the world, to the context of real human interactions, in order to better understand mind and language and to shed light on previously intractable philosophical problems. If philosophers of science and epistemologists are willing to look at how knowledge is exercised in the world, through the application of knowledge to practical problems, they too will get a better understanding of their subject and will get new insight into problems they have wrestled with for centuries. ABSTRACT An engineer's decision about what to do to solve a particular design problem does not rest wholly on the crystalline clarity that quantification provides, but on ethical considerations. Engineers may well blanche at the idea. For, they may think, if the design solution depends, even in a small part, on ethical considerations , something qualitative, vague, subjective, and contentious will have found its way into that pristine quantitative realm they think is the heart of engineering. Perhaps, some may concede, ethics is relevant to engineering. After all, they would admit, what engineers do can cause harm or produce good. But, they would argue, engineers ought to concentrate on those aspects of their practice which permit quantitative answers and let others consider whatever may be the qualitative and so contentious moral implications of their work. Some engineers may be willing to concede that their practice has moral implications, but eschew letting those implications be a factor in engineering practice since letting such factors in means, they believe, letting into a quantitative area where agreement can be reached issues about which no agreement is possible. However mild and reasonable this response may seem, it rests upon a mistaken contrast between engineering and ethics, one that permeates discussions of ethics in engineering texts and, most important, rests upon mistaken understandings of both engineering and ethics. As I shall argue, there is no getting around the idea …