Engineering Responsibility for Human Well-Being

Abstract

Engineering codes and other authoritative engineering sources implicitly claim that engineering promotes human “well-being,” but the term is not defined. Philosophical attempts to define well-being can be divided into desire-fulfillment (or preference) theories, hedonistic (or mental state) theories, and objective list theories. Psychological accounts of well-being are either hedonic or eudemonic. Both the objective list theory and the eudemonic theory consist of a set of goods that comprise well-being, and the lists have some similarity. The Capability Approach (CA) can also be interpreted as positing a set of conditions necessary to achieve well-being. I propose a reorganization of Martha Nussbaum’s well-known list of capabilities and show their relation to engineering. The design criterion that CA suggests is that technology should enhance the capabilities of those who use it to achieve a life that they have reason to value. Some of the most noteworthy attempts to design for well-being have been directed toward the special needs of people in developing societies. The focus on designing for human well-being, which I call aspirational ethics, suggests that, in addition to following rules that prevent harming the public, engineers should develop certain virtues. In designing for developing societies, the most important virtues are empathy and compassion. For developed societies, the most important virtues are concern for the environment, sensitivity to the effects of technology, especially on society and human relationships, and creativity.