The Anatomy of Cases Ronald Kline Science and Technology Studies Department, and School of Electrical Engineering Cornell University

Gas tanks ruptured, filler tube sprayed burning gasoline over passengers in back seat, causing severe burn deaths. Led to increased product liability suits. This is an example of cost-benefit analysis run amok. Rear-ended Ford Pinto

Current Priority of Issues Research Ethics Engineering Ethics 1. Integrity of Research 2. Credit and Authorship 3. Conflict of Interest 4. Welfare of Subjects, Experimenters, and Environment 5. Social Consequences of Research 1. Public’s Health, Safety, and Welfare, Including the Environment 2. Being a Faithful Agent of the Employer 3. Conflict of Interest 4. Credit and Authorship 5. Integrity of Reports Why? Traditional distinction between products of science and technology: scientists create knowledge and engineers build things. That is problematic in the past and today. In trying to assure ethical conduct of science, we lose sight of the consequences of research on nuclear weapons, genetic engineering, nanotechnology, etc. Tendency is to say I can’t control how someone else uses my research. In trying to avoid accidents (safety is the usual focus of the first tenet, not health or welfare), we lose sight of how engineering is conducted. Focus is on product liability, not practice of engineering. We need a better balance. And we need to consider areas left out of this picture: e.g., gender relations, how we determine scientific facts and design artifacts.

Classification of Cases in Engineering Ethics: Problematic Dichotomies Hypothetical Historical Positive Role Model Negative Role Model Everyday Events Large-scale, Rare Events Individual Actions Organizational Actions Prospective Analysis Retrospective Analysis Conflict Line-drawing Thin Description Thick Description Microethics Macroethics

DC-10 Cargo Door Case, 1968-1974

Accident: Depressurization of the cargo cabin, with passenger cabin pressurized, caused the cabin floor to collapse, cutting control lines to the tail stabliziing surfaces, which caused the fully-loaded plane to nose-dive. McDonnel Douglas chose an over-center latch and to put control cables and hydraulic lines in the cabin floor. Boeing put theirs in the ceiling. In late 1968, McD switched to an electric actuator at request of AA to save weight. Hydraulic actuator (as used on DC-8 and DC-9, fails gracefully.

Vent door and adjustable linkages added after the ground test “incident” in 1970 Convair recommended vents in the floor. Douglas made a “unilateral decision to incorporate vent doors in the cargo doors” (Fielder, p. 103). Vent door, by remaining open, is supposed to prevent pressurization of the cabin if the door is not latched properly. Applegate refers to this as a band-aid fix. Fix degraded original design because it introduced a flexible linkage. Vent door, torque tube, and adjustable mechanism (?) were added to the design of the door after the 1970 ground test incident. Torque tube was weak, and linkages could be out of adjustment. Could “force locking handle down with the locking pins jammed against the latch flange rather than passing behind them” (78). Vent door was not directly connected to lock pins as in the Boeing design (next slide).

Support plate and peephole added after the Windsor “incident” in 1972 Peepholes and support plate were added. One-inch diameter peepholes let you see lock pin position

Turkish Airlines, DC-10 Crash, March 3, 1974 Killed all 346 people aboard Took off from Paris Orly, headed for London.

Lake Source Cooling Project Cornell University