[SystemSafety] Automobile Emissions "Cheat" Devices

Peter Bernard Ladkin ladkin at rvs.uni-bielefeld.de
Tue Jun 21 14:54:30 CEST 2016


On 2016-06-21 14:14 , Les Chambers wrote:
> ... sociologist Diane Vaughan calls this phenomenon “normalization of deviance” and classifies it as a pathological 
> behaviour particularly prevalent in engineering organizations. 

I think you're right about this being an example of normalisation of deviance, but whether it is a
pathology is, I suggest, culture-specific.

British engineers belong to a professional society, which has a code of practice, which includes a
duty of care to the public as a whole (in some form of words), which includes another duty to call
practices inconsistent with that duty of care to the attention of people with the power to act on
that knowledge (with their own duty of care).

Put more simply:
* you musn't screw the public over;
* you should inform others of violations of a duty of care to the public, if they occur and are
known to you.

As became clear to some people during the Volkswagen scandal, that is not necessarily the way in
which all organisations work. Anglo-Saxon commentators found that Volkswagen runs a strong
authoritarian culture. As an engineer, you do what you are told to do by those who assign you your
work. As an employee, you do not go to a rival, or an outside person or organisation, and tell them
what (you consider to be) bad things are going on at your company.

It's not just Volkswagen. It should be clear that those are two different ethical approaches to
engineers' duties.

> As for the keepers of the secret of the "defeat device", it might be instructive to find one and look into his/her eyes. 
> I think one would find something missing.

You'll find a proud engineer, doing exactly what heshe is expected as an engineer to do.

Me, I prefer the extended duty-of-care/duty-to-inform ethic over the corporate-hegemony model. It
ensures to some extent a form of professional behaviour which is not solely determined by one's
employer or client and therefore less subject to those narrow, not necessarily social conformant,
interests

If Britain exits the EU, any chance of extending that duty-of-care/duty-to-inform ethic more broadly
within Europe would be lost.

PBL

Prof. Peter Bernard Ladkin, Faculty of Technology, University of Bielefeld, 33594 Bielefeld, Germany
Je suis Charlie
Tel+msg +49 (0)521 880 7319  www.rvs-bi.de





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