Transparency in Responsible Design

Transparency in Responsible Design: Avoiding Engineering Overconfidence and Supporting Societal Acceptance

Vermaas, P.E. (TU Delft Ethics & Philosophy of Technology)

2019

In this contribution it is argued that in responsible design engineers should be transparent towards stakeholders about the goals they intend to realise with their designs. The emergence of responsible design in, e.g., value-sensitive design, design for values, social design, nudging and positive design, is to be welcomed. It has however the weakness of overconfidence which may lead engineers to suspend earlier commitments to society as given in engineering codes of conduct and ethics, and practices of seeking informed consent and taking blame. It is argued that these earlier commitments lead to the requirement that engineers should be transparent about the goals in responsible designs. Providing this transparency support moreover the societal acceptance of responsible design since it positions engineers doing responsible design as subscribing to values such as respect, honesty and trust. I illustrate the argument with a case of social design and a case of nudging.

Communication
Engineering codes of conduct
Ethics
Social responsibility
Transparancy

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:cbb482a0-6443-49a5-aef9-05cafe0f74be

https://doi.org/10.1017/dsi.2019.350

Proceedings of International conference on engineering design, ICED19, 2019-August

International Conference on Engineering Design, 2019-08-05 → 2019-08-08, Delft, Netherlands

Proceedings of the International Conference on Engineering Design, ICED, 2220-4334

Institutional Repository

conference paper

© 2019 P.E. Vermaas