John B. Dilworth's Commentary: Teaching Engineering Ethics-Testing by a CO-OP Student
Author(s):
John B. Dilworth
Did co-op student Jack Jacobs falsify the test data? Let us
assume that he did, to keep the case ethically interesting.
Then we can quickly agree that he should not have done it, and
that he should be approached to find out why he did it. Also,
clearly there is a need for much more stringent monitoring of
co-op students, given that one of those in whom the supervisors
had the highest confidence nevertheless betrayed it. The most
pressing question above concerns why he did it. Not, I hasten
to add, as a question about Jack's individual psychology, but
rather as a question about his social and scientific attitudes
insofar as these were molded by his education. We need to
discover what was missing in his training, or what was present
yet in some very inadequate form, which resulted in him being
able to do such a thing. Or, to put the matter in another way,
what factors should we emphasize more in education, in order to
effectively prevent students such as Jack from falsifying data
in future?
The case queries us as to whether material on professional
ethics should be included in student education. This should
certainly be of some help in cutting down on the amount of data
falsification, plagiarism, and other unethical practices.
However, ethics by its very nature has two separable aspects or
sides, a theoretical and a practical side. The theoretical side
concerns ethical knowledge and truth. The practical side
concerns personal motivation and commitment to act upon one's
ethical beliefs. Unfortunately, an intelligent student could
fully understand (or seem to fully understand) and even agree
with ethical claims such as that is unethical to falsify data,
but still have little or no commitment or motivation to
actually live up to such ethical beliefs. Another way to put
this point is that unless the person him/herself is
significantly changed by the ethics course (or in no need of
change), the practical goal of preventing data falsification is
unlikely to be achieved.
Ideally we would ensure that students achieved (or already
possessed) a good moral character at school, because merely
changing their knowledge and beliefs will not guarantee good
behavior or any real commitment to morality. Is there anything
else we can do, in case students fail to acquire or have enough
moral character? Fortunately there are still some other fairly
powerful motivators, which involve the self-interest of
students. Methods based on self-interest are admittedly
second-best methods, because students influenced by them do the
right things for self-interested rather than specifically moral
reasons.
Nevertheless, we should not despise any legitimate methods
which can help to prevent moral evils such as data
falsification. 'Self-interest' methods can be divided, as in
the traditional fable about a donkey, into 'carrot' and 'stick'
approaches. A donkey can be encouraged to move forward by hope
for the reward of a carrot, while a stick is available to
punish any refusal to move forward. Similarly, in the present
case we can convince students that there will be rewards for
them if they behave as good scientists should, while on the
other hand there will be punishments if they do not behave
correctly.
On the positive, 'reward' side, one of the more interesting
approaches would be to convince students that it is actually in
their interest to acquire a good moral character. For example,
a good case can be made that if students work on becoming more
conscientious, concerned about the truth, etc., they are much
more likely to find scientific work satisfying and enjoyable,
and much less likely to perceive science as often tedious and
pointless. Other self-interested rewards of science for good
individual behavior are more closely linked to potential
punishments for bad behavior. For example, the reward of a
long, secure career in science is available only to those who
avoid certain punishments, such as being dismissed from a post
after falsification of data is discovered.
An education which stresses both how attractive a successful
scientific career can be, and also how disastrous to one's
career even a trivial immoral act might be, has the best chance
of ensuring self-interested good behavior from students during
their careers. At the same time, we may continue to hope that
such 'self-interested' educational methods will become
increasingly unnecessary.