this is the assignment :
read this artical and write a 3-page paper in which you consider a specific engineering project using these two different perspectives. The engineering project is China’s construction of the Three Gorges Dam.
I don’t care where you read about this project, as long as you document your sources. Specifically, I would like you to discuss the implications of this project, and the reasons for and against doing it, using both the Utilitarian and Respect for Persons approaches. How would it stack up under each theory?
3.7 UTILITARIAN THINKING
In its broadest sense, taking a utilitarian approach in addressing moral problems
requires us to focus on the idea of bringing about ‘‘the greatest good for the greatest
number.’’ However, there is more than one way to attempt this. We consider three
prominent ways.
The Cost–Benefit Approach
How are we to determine what counts as the greater good? One approach that has
some appeal from an engineering perspective is cost–benefit analysis: The course of
action that produces the greatest benefit relative to cost is the one that should be
chosen. Sometimes this is a relatively straightforward matter. However, making
this sort of determination can present several difficulties. We consider three here.
First, in order to know what we should do from the utilitarian perspective, we must
know which course of action will produce the most good in both the short and the
long term. Unfortunately, this knowledge is sometimes not available at the time decisions must be made. For example, we do not yet know whether permitting advertising
and competitive pricing for professional services will lead to some of the problems suggested by those who oppose it. Therefore, we cannot say for sure whether these are
good practices from a utilitarian perspective. Sometimes all we can do is try a certain
course of action and see what happens. This may be risky in some circumstances.
Second, the utilitarian aim is to make choices that promise to bring about the
greatest amount of good. We refer to the population over which the good is maximized as the audience. The problem is determining the scope of this audience. Ideally,
it might be thought, the audience should include all human beings, or at least all
human beings who might be affected by the action to be evaluated. Perhaps the audience should even include all beings capable of experiencing pleasure or pain. But
then it becomes virtually impossible to calculate which actions actually produce the
most good for so large an audience. If we limit the audience so that it includes
only our country, our company, or our community, then we face the criticism that
others have been arbitrarily excluded. Therefore, in practice, those with utilitarian
sympathies need to develop acceptable ways of delimiting their range of responsibility.
A third difficulty with the utilitarian standard is that it seems sometimes to favor
the greater aggregate good at the expense of a vulnerable minority. Imagine the following: A plant discharges a pollutant into the local river, where it is ingested by fish.
If humans eat the fish, they experience significant health problems. Eliminating the
pollutant will be so expensive that the plant will become, at best, only marginally
profitable. Allowing the discharge to continue will save jobs and enhance the overall
economic viability of the community. The pollutant will adversely affect only a relatively small proportion of the population—the most economically deprived members
of the community who fish in the river and then eat the fish.
Under these conditions, allowing the plant to continue to discharge the pollutant might seem justifiable from a utilitarian perspective, even though it would be
unjust to the poorer members of the community. Thus, there is a problem of
justly distributing benefits and burdens. Many would say that the utilitarian solution
should be rejected for this reason. In such cases, utilitarian reasoning seems, to some,
to lead to implausible moral judgments, as measured by our understanding of
common morality.
Despite these problems, cost–benefit analysis is often used in engineering. This
approach attempts to apply the utilitarian standard in as quantifiable a manner as possible. An effort is made to translate negative and positive utilities into monetary terms.
Cost–benefit analysis is sometimes referred to as risk–benefit analysis because much of
the analysis requires estimating the probability of certain benefits and harms. It is possible to determine the actual cost of installing equipment to reduce the likelihood of
certain health problems arising in the workplace. However, this does not guarantee
that these health problems (or others) will not arise anyway, either from other sources
or from the failure of the equipment to accomplish what it is designed to do. In addition, we do not know for sure what will happen if the equipment is not installed;
perhaps money will be saved because the equipment will turn out not to have been
necessary, or perhaps the actual consequences will turn out to be much worse than predicted. So factoring in probabilities greatly complicates cost–benefit analysis.
Cost–benefit analysis involves three steps:
1. Assess the available options.
2. Assess the costs (measured in monetary terms) and the benefits (also measured
in monetary terms) of each option. The costs and benefits must be assessed
for the entire audience of the action, or all those affected by the decision.
3. Make the decision that is likely to result in the greatest benefit relative to cost;
that is, the course of action chosen must not be one for which the cost of implementing the option could produce greater benefit if spent on another option.
There are serious problems with using cost–benefit analysis as a sole guide for
protecting the public from pollution that endangers health. One problem is that
the cost–benefit analysis assumes that economic measures of cost and benefit override
all other considerations. Cost–benefit analysis encourages the elimination of a pollutant only when it can be done in an economically efficient manner. However, suppose
the chemical plant we have been considering is near a wilderness area that is damaged
by one of the plant’s emissions. It might not be economically efficient to eliminate the
pollutant from the cost–benefit standpoint. Of course, the damage to the wilderness
area must be included in the cost of the pollution, but the quantified cost estimate
might still not justify the elimination—or even the reduction—of the pollution. Yet
it is not necessarily irrational to hold that the pollutant should be eliminated, even
if the elimination is not justified by the analysis. The economic value that anyone
would place on saving the wilderness is not a true measure of its value.
Another problem is that it is often difficult to ascertain the costs and benefits of
the many factors that should enter into a cost–benefit analysis. The most controversial issue is how to assess in cost–benefit terms the loss of human life or even serious
injury. How, we may ask, can a dollar value be placed on a human life? Aside from the
difficulty of determining the costs and benefits of known factors (such as immediate
death or injury), it is also difficult to predict what factors will be relevant in the
future. If the threat to human health posed by a substance is not known, then it is
impossible to execute a definitive cost–benefit analysis. This problem becomes especially acute if we consider long-term costs and benefits, most of which are impossible
to predict or measure. In addition, cost–benefit analysis often does not take into account the distribution of costs and benefits. Using our previous example, suppose a
plant dumps a pollutant into a river in which many poorer members of the community fish to supplement their diets. Suppose also that after all of the known costs and
benefits are calculated, it is concluded that the costs of eliminating the pollutant outweigh all of the health costs to the poor. Still, if the costs are paid by the poor and the
benefits are enjoyed by the rich, then the costs and benefits are not equally shared.
Even if the poor are compensated for the damage to their health, many would say
that an injustice has still been done. After all, the wealthy members of the community
do not have to suffer the same threat to their health.
Finally, cost–benefit analysis might seem to justify many practices in the past that
we have good reason to believe were morally wrong. In the 19th century, many
people opposed child labor laws, arguing that they would lead to economic inefficiencies. They pointed out, for example, that tunnels and shafts in coal mines were
too small to accommodate adults. Many arguments in favor of slavery were also
based on considerations of economic efficiency. When our society finally decided
to eliminate child labor and slavery, it was not simply because they became economically inefficient but also because they came to be considered unjust.
Despite these problems, cost–benefit analysis can make an important contribution to moral problem solving. We can hardly imagine constructing a large engineering project, such as the Aswan High Dam in Egypt, without performing an elaborate
cost–benefit analysis. Although cost–benefit analysis may not always succeed in
quantifying values in ways that do justice to them, it can play an important role in utilitarian analysis. Its ability to evaluate many conflicting considerations in terms of a
single measure, monetary value, makes it invaluable in certain circumstances. As
with all other tools for moral analysis, however, we must keep its limitations in mind.
3.8 RESPECT FOR PERSONS
The moral standard of the ethics of respect for persons is as follows: Those actions or
rules are right that regard each person as worthy of respect as a moral agent. This
equal regard for moral agents can be understood as a basic requirement of justice.
A moral agent must be distinguished from inanimate objects, such as knives or airplanes, which can only fulfill goals or purposes that are imposed externally. Inanimate
objects certainly cannot evaluate actions from a moral standpoint. A paradigm example of a moral agent is a normal adult human being who, in contrast to inanimate
objects, can formulate and pursue goals or purposes of his or her own. Insofar as
we can do this, we are said to have autonomy.
From the standpoint of respect for persons, the precepts of common morality
protect the moral agency of individual human beings. Maximizing the welfare of
the majority must take second place to this goal. People cannot be killed, deceived,
denied their freedom, or otherwise violated simply to bring about a greater total
amount of utility. As with our treatment of utilitarian thinking, we consider three
approaches to respect for persons thinking.
The Golden Rule Approach
Like utilitarian approaches to moral thinking, respect for persons approaches employ
the idea of universalizability. Universalizability is grounded in an idea that is familiar
to all of us. Most of us would acknowledge that if we think we are acting in a morally
acceptable fashion, then we should find it morally acceptable for others to do similar
kinds of things in similar circumstances. This same insight can lead us to ask questions about fairness and equal treatment, such as ‘‘What if everyone did that?’’ and
‘‘Why should you make an exception of yourself ?’’
The idea of universalizability implies that my judgment should not change simply
because the roles are reversed. When we broaden our focus to consider what kind of
act is involved, the question of whether it is all right to falsify data is bound to appear
quite different than when thinking only about the immediate situation. Reversibility is
a special application of the idea of universalizability: In thinking about treating others
as I would have them treat me, I need to ask what I would think if the roles were
reversed. If I am tempted to tell a lie in order to escape a particular difficulty, then
I need to ask what I would think if I were the one to whom the lie is told.
Universalizing our thinking by applying the idea of reversibility can help us realize that we may be endorsing treating others in ways we would object to if done
to us. This is the basic idea behind the Golden Rule, variations of which appear in
the religious and ethical writings of most cultures.
Suppose that I am a manager who orders a young engineer to remain silent
about the discovery of an emission from the plant that might cause minor health
problems for people who live near the plant. For this order to satisfy the Golden
Rule, I must be willing to have my supervisor give a similar order to me if I were
the young engineer. I must also be willing to place myself in the position of the
people who live near the plant and would experience the health problem if the emission were not eliminated.
This example reveals a possible problem in using the Golden Rule in resolving a
moral problem. On the one hand, am I the kind of manager who believes that
employees should obey their supervisors without question, especially if their supervisors
are also professionals who have many years of experience? Then I would not object
to remaining silent in accordance with my supervisor’s orders if I were in the young
engineer’s position. Am I a member of the public whose health might be affected by
the emission? Am I also concerned with economic efficiency and skeptical of environmental regulations? Then I might even be willing to endure minor health problems in order to keep the plant from having to buy expensive new pollution-control
equipment. Thus, it seems that the Golden Rule could be satisfied. On the other
hand, if I do not have these beliefs, then I cannot justify my action by the
Golden Rule. The results of using the Golden Rule as a test of morally permissible
action seem to vary, then, depending on the values and beliefs of the actor.
One way of trying to avoid some of these problems is to interpret the Golden
Rule as requiring not only that I place myself in the position of the recipient but
also that I adopt the recipient’s values and individual circumstances. Thus, not
only would I have to put myself in the young engineer’s place but also I would
have to assume her values and her station in life. Because she was evidently troubled
by my order to remain silent and probably is in a low position in the firm’s hierarchy,
I have to assume that I would find the order contrary to my own adopted wishes and
values as well, and that I believe a professional has the right to question her supervisor’s judgment. Thus, I would not want to be ordered to remain silent, and my
action as a manager in ordering the young engineer to remain silent would fail the
requirements of the Golden Rule. I also have to assume the position of the people
who would experience the minor health problems. Many of them—especially those
whose health would be most directly affected—would be as concerned for economic
considerations as I am and would object to the emissions.
Unfortunately, this tactic does not resolve all the problems. In other situations,
placing myself in the position of the other people and assuming their values creates a
new set of problems. Suppose I am an engineer who supervises other engineers and I
find that I must dismiss one of my supervisees because he is lazy and unproductive.
The engineer whom I want to dismiss, however, believes that ‘‘the world owes me a
living’’ and does not want to be punished for his irresponsibility. Now if I place
myself in the position of the recipient of my own action—namely, the unproductive
engineer—but retain my own values, then I might use the Golden Rule to justify dismissing him. This is because I might believe that irresponsible employees should be
dismissed and even be willing to be dismissed myself if I am lazy and unproductive. If
I place myself in my supervisee’s position and assume his values, however, I must
admit that I would not want to be dismissed. Thus, dismissing the young engineer
fails this interpretation of the Golden Rule requirement, even though most of us
probably believe that this is the right thing to do.
We have identified two kinds of problems with the Golden Rule: those that
result from exclusive attention to what the agent is willing to accept and those
that result from exclusive attention to what the recipient is willing to accept. However, both perspectives (agent and recipient) seem important for an appropriate interpretation of the Golden Rule.
Rather than focus simply on what a particular individual (agent or recipient)
wants, prefers, or is willing to accept, we need to consider matters from a more general perspective—one in which we strive to treat others in accordance with standards
that we can share.12 We must keep in mind that whatever standards are adopted, they
must respect all affected parties. Viewing oneself as, potentially, both agent and
recipient is required. This process certainly requires attempting to understand the
perspectives of agents and recipients, and the Golden Rule provides the useful function of reminding us of this. Understanding these perspectives does not require us to
find them acceptable, but at some point these perspectives can be evaluated in terms
of the standard of respect for persons. Is the manager respecting the young engineer’s professional autonomy when attempting to silence her? Understanding what
the manager might be willing to accept if put in the position of the engineer does
not necessarily answer this question.
The Self-Defeating Approach
The Golden Rule does not by itself provide all the criteria that must be met to satisfy
the standard of respect for persons. But its requirements of universalizability and reversibility are vital steps in satisfying that standard. Next, we consider additional features of universalizability as they apply to the notion of respect for persons.
Another way of applying the fundamental idea of the universalizability principle
is to ask whether I would be able to perform the action in question if everyone else
performed the same action in the same or similar circumstances: If everyone else did
what I am doing, would this undermine my own ability to do the same thing?13 If I
must say ‘‘yes’’ to this question, then I cannot approve others doing the same kind of
thing I have done, and thus universalizing one’s action would be self-defeating. To
proceed anyway, treating myself as an exception to the rule is to pursue my own
good at the expense of others. Thus, it fails to treat them with appropriate respect.
A universalized action can be self-defeating in either of two ways. First, sometimes the action itself cannot be performed if it is universalized. Suppose John borrows money, promising to pay it back at a certain time but having no intention of
doing so. For this lying promise to work, the person to whom John makes the promise must believe that he will make good on his word. But if everyone borrowed
money on the promise to return it and had no intention of keeping the promise,
promises would not be taken seriously. No one would loan money on the basis of
a promise. The very practice of promising would lose its point and cease to exist.
Promising, as we understand it, would be impossible.
Second, sometimes the purpose I have in performing the action is undermined if
everyone else does what I do, even if I can perform the action itself. If I cheat on an
exam and everyone else cheats too, then their cheating does not prevent me from
cheating. My purpose, however, may be defeated. If my purpose is to get better
grades than other students, then it will be undermined if everyone else cheats because
I will no longer have an advantage over them.
Consider an engineering example. Suppose engineer John decides to substitute
an inferior and cheaper part in a product he is designing for one of his firm’s large
customers. He assumes that the customer will not check the product closely
enough to detect the inferior part or will not have enough technical knowledge to
know that the part is inferior. If everyone practiced this sort of deception and
expected others to practice it as well, then customers would be far more inclined
to have products carefully checked by experts before they were purchased. This
would make it much less likely that John’s deception would be successful.
It is important to realize that using the self-defeating criterion does not depend
on everyone, or even anyone, actually telling promises without intending to keep
them, cheating on exams, or substituting inferior and cheaper parts. The question
is, What if everyone did this? This is a hypothetical question—not a prediction that
others actually will act this way as a result of what someone else does.
As with other approaches, the self-defeating criterion also has limitations. Some
unethical actions might avoid being morally self-defeating. Engineer Bill is by nature
an aggressive person who genuinely loves a highly competitive, even brutal, business
climate. He enjoys an atmosphere in which everyone attempts to cheat the other
person and to get away with as much deception as they can, and he conducts his business in this way. If everyone follows his example, then his ability to be ruthless in a
ruthless business is not undermined. His action is not self-defeating, even though
most of us would consider his practice immoral.
Engineer Alex, who has no concern for preserving the environment, could design
projects that were highly destructive to the environment without his action’s being selfdefeating. The fact that other engineers knew what Alex was doing and even designed
environmentally destructive projects themselves would not keep him from doing so or
destroy the goal he had in designing such projects, namely, to maximize his profit.
However, as with the Golden Rule, we need to remember that the universalizability principle functions to help us apply the respect for persons standard. If it
can be argued that Bill’s ruthlessness fails to respect others as persons, then it can
hardly be universalized; in fact, Bill would have to approve of being disrespected
by others (because, by the same standard, others could treat him with disrespect).
Still, the idea of universalizability by itself does not generate the idea of respect for
persons; it says only that if some persons are to be respected, then this must be
extended to all. We turn to a consideration of rights to determine if this can give further support to the idea of respect for persons.
The Rights Approach
Many theorists in the respect for persons tradition have concluded that respecting the
moral agency of others requires that we accord others the rights necessary to exercise
their agency and to pursuing their well-being. A right may be understood as an entitlement to act or to have another individual act in a certain way. Minimally, rights
serve as a protective barrier, shielding individuals from unjustified infringements of
their moral agency by others. Beyond this, rights are sometimes asserted more positively as requiring the provision of food, clothing, and education. Here, we focus on
rights as requiring only noninterference with another person, not active support of
that person’s interests.
When we think of rights as forming a protective barrier, they can be regarded as
prohibiting certain infringements of our moral agency by others. Some jurists use the
expression ‘‘penumbra of rights’’ to refer to this protective barrier that gives individuals immunity from interference from others. Thinking of rights in this way implies
that for every right we have, others have corresponding duties of noninterference. So,
for example, if Kelly has a right to life, others have a duty not to kill Kelly; Kelly’s
right to free speech implies others have a duty not to prevent Kelly from speaking
freely; and so on.
Just what rights people have, and exactly what they require from others, can be
controversial. However, the general underlying principle is that an individual should
not be deprived of certain things if this deprivation interferes seriously with one’s
moral agency. If someone takes your life, then you cannot exercise your moral
agency at all. If someone harms your body or your mental capacities, then that
person has interfered with your capacity to act as a moral agent. In the case of some
rights, interference with them is perhaps not wholly negating your moral agency, but
it is diminishing your power to exercise it effectively.
One problem any account of rights must face is how to deal with conflicting
rights. Suppose a plant manager wants to save money by emitting a pollutant from
his plant that is carcinogenic. The manager, acting on behalf of the firm, has a
right to free action and to use the plant (the firm’s property) for the economic benefit of the firm. But the pollutant threatens the right to life of the surrounding inhabitants. Note that the pollutants do not directly and in every case kill surrounding
inhabitants, but they do increase the risk of the inhabitants getting cancer. Therefore,
we can say that the pollutant infringes on the right to life of the inhabitants rather
than violates those rights. In a rights violation, one’s ability to exercise a right in a
certain situation is essentially wholly denied, whereas in a rights infringement,
one’s ability to exercise a right is only diminished. This diminishment can occur in
one of two ways. First, sometimes the infringement is a potential violation of that
right, as in the case of a pollutant that increases the chance of death. Second, sometimes the infringement is a partial violation, as when some, but not all, of a person’s
property is taken.
The problem of conflicting rights requires that we prioritize rights, giving greater
importance to some than to others. A useful way of doing this is offered by philosopher
Alan Gewirth.14 He suggests a three-tiered hierarchy of rights, ranging from more
basic to less basic. The first tier includes the most basic rights, the essential preconditions of action: life, physical integrity, and mental health. The second tier includes
rights to maintain the level of purpose fulfillment an individual has already achieved.
This category includes such rights as the right not to be deceived or cheated, the
right to informed consent in medical practice and experimentation, the right not to
have possessions stolen, the right not to be defamed, and the right not to suffer
broken promises. The third tier includes those rights necessary to increase one’s
level of purpose fulfillment, including the right to try to acquire property.
Using this hierarchy, it would be wrong for the plant manager to attempt to save
money by emitting a pollutant that is highly carcinogenic because the right to life is a
first-tier right and the right to acquire and use property for one’s benefit is a thirdtier right. Sometimes, however, the hierarchy is more difficult to apply. How shall we
balance a slight infringement of a first-tier right against a much more serious infringement or outright violation of a second-tier or third-tier right?
The hierarchy of rights provides no automatic answer to such questions. Nevertheless, it provides a framework for addressing them. We suggest a set of steps that
could be taken:
1. Identify the basic obligations, values, and interests at stake, noting any conflicts.
2. Analyze the action or rule to determine what options are available and what
rights are at stake.
3. Determine the audience of the action or rule (those whose rights would be
affected).
4. Evaluate the seriousness of the rights infringements that would occur with
each option, taking into account both the tier level of rights and the number
of violations or infringements involved.
5. Make a choice that seems likely to produce the least serious rights infringements.