Unit-5
GLOBALIZATION
Globalization means
integration of countries through commerce, transfer of technology, and exchange
of information and culture. In a way, it includes acting together and interacting
economies through trade, investment, loan, development schemes and capital
across countries. In a different sense, these flows include knowledge, science,
technology, skills, culture, information, and entertainment, besides direct
human resource, tele-work, and outsourcing. This interdependence has increased
the complex tensions and ruptures among the nations. For the engineers, the
issues such as multinational organizations, computer, internet functions,
military development and environmental ethics have assumed greater importance
for their very sustenance and progress.
MULTINATIONAL
CORPORATIONS
Organisations who have
established business in more than one country, are called Multinational
Corporation. The headquarters are in the home country and the business is
extended in many host countries. The Western organizations doing business in
the less-economically developed (developing, and overpopulated) countries gain
the advantage of inexpensive labour, availability of natural resources,
conducive-tax atmosphere, and virgin market for the products. At the same time,
the developing countries are also benefited by fresh job opportunities, jobs
with higher remuneration and challenges, transfer of technology, and several
social benefits by the wealth developed. But this happens invariably with some
social and cultural disturbance. Loss of jobs for the home country, and loss or
exploitation of natural resources, political instability for the host countries
are some of the threats of globalization.
International
Human Rights
To know what are the moral responsibilities
and obligations of the multinational corporations operating in the host
countries, let us discuss with the framework of rights ethics. Common minimal
rights are to be followed to smoothen the transactions when the engineers and
employers of MNCs have to interact at official, social, economic and sometimes
political levels. At international level, the organizations are expected to
adopt the minimum levels of (a) values, such as mutual support, loyalty, and
reciprocity,
(b) the negative duty
of refraining from harmful actions such as violence and fraud, and
(c) basic fairness and
practical justice in case of conflicts.
ENVIRONMENTAL
ETHICS
Environmental ethics is
the study of (a) moral issues concerning the environment, and (b) moral
perspectives, beliefs, or attitudes concerning those issues. Engineers in the
past are known for their negligence of environment, in their activities. It has
become important now that engineers design eco-friendly tools, machines,
sustainable products, processes, and projects. These are essential now to
(a) ensure protection
(safety) of environment
(b) prevent the
degradation of environment, and
(c) slow down the
exploitation of the natural resources, so that the future generation can
survive.
The American Society of
Civil Engineers (ASCE) code of ethics, has specifically requires that
“engineers shall hold paramount the safety, health, and welfare of the public
and shall strive to comply with the principles of sustainable development in
the performance of professional duties” The term sustainable development
emphasizes on the investment, orientation of technology, development and
functioning of organizations to meet the present needs of people and at the
same time ensuring the future generations to meet their needs.
Compaq Computer
Corporation (now merged with HP) was the leader, who exhibited their commitment
to environmental health, through implementation of the concept of ‘Design for
environment’ on their products, unified standards all over the world units, and
giving priority to vendors with a record of environmental concern.
Engineers as
experimenters have certain duties towards environmental ethics, namely:
1. Environmental impact assessment: One major
but sure and unintended effect of technology is wastage and the resulting
pollution of land, water, air and even space. Study how the industry and
technology affects the environment.
2. Establish standards: Study and to fix the
tolerable and actual pollution levels.
3. Counter measures: Study what the protective
or eliminating measures are available for immediate implementation
4. Environmental
awareness: Study on how to educate the people on environmental practices,
issues, and possible remedies.
Disasters
1. Plastic Waste Disposal
In
our country, several crores of plastic bottles are used as containers for water
and oil, and plastic bags are used to pack different materials ranging from
vegetables to gold ornaments. Hardly any of these are recycled. They end up in
gutters, roadsides, and agricultural fields. In all these destinations, they
created havoc. The worse still is the burning of plastic materials in streets
and camphor along with plastic cover in temples, since they release toxic fumes
and threaten seriously the air quality. Cities and local administration have to
act on this, collect and arrange for recycling through industries.
2. e-Waste Disposal
The
parts of computers and electronic devices which have served its useful life
present a major environmental issue for all the developing countries including
India. This scrap contains highly toxic elements such as lead, cadmium, and
mercury.
Even
the radioactive waste will lose 89% of its toxicity after 200 years, by which
time it will be no more toxic than some natural minerals in the ground. It will
lose 99% of its remaining toxicity over the next 30,000 years. The toxic
chemical agents such as mercury, arsenic, and cadmium retain toxicity
undiminished for ever.
3.
Depletion
of Ozone Layer The ozone layer protects the entire
planet from the ill-effects of ultraviolet radiation and is vital for all
living organisms in this world. But it is eaten away by the
Chloro-fluro-carbons (CFC) such as freon emanating from the refrigerators, air
conditioners, and aerosol can spray. This has caused also skin cancer to
sun-bathers in the Western countries. Further NO and NO2 gases were also found
to react with the ozone. Apart from engineers, the organizations, laws of the
country and local administration and market mechanisms are required to take up
concerted efforts to protect the environment.
4.
Global
Warming Over the past 30 years, the Earth has warmed by 0.6
°C. Over the last 100 years, it has warmed by 0.8 °C. It is likely to push up
temperature by 3 oC by 2100, according to NASA’s studies. The U.S.
administration has accepted the reality of global climate change, which has
been associated with stronger hurricanes, severe droughts, intense heat waves
and the melting of polar ice. Greenhouse gases, notably carbon dioxide emitted
by motor vehicles and coal-fired power plants, trap heat like the glass walls
of a greenhouse, cause the Earth to warm up. Delegates from the six countries —
Australia, China, India, Japan, South Korea and US met in California in April
2006 for the first working session of the AsiaPacific Partnership on Clean
Development and Climate. These six countries account for about half of the
world’s emissions of climate-heating greenhouse gases. Only one of the six,
Japan, is committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by at least 5.2 per
cent below 1990 levels by 2012 under the Kyoto Agreement.
5.
Acid
Rain
Large emissions of sulphur oxides and nitrous oxides are being released in to
the air from the thermal power stations using the fossil fuels, and several
processing industries. These gases form compounds with water in the air and
precipitates as rain or snow on to the earth. The acid rain in some parts of
the world has caused sufficient damage to the fertility of the land and to the
human beings.
COMPUTER
ETHICS
Computer ethics is
defined as (a) study and analysis of nature and social impact of computer
technology, (b) formulation and justification of policies, for ethical use of
computers. This subject has become relevant to the professionals such as
designers of computers, programmers, system analysts, system managers, and
operators. The use of computers have raised a host of moral concerns such as
free speech, privacy, intellectual property right, and physical as well as
mental harm. There appears to be no conceptual framework available on ethics,
to study and understand and resolve the problems in computer technology.
Different
types of problems are found in computer ethics.
1.
Computer as the Instrument of Unethical Acts
(a) the usage of
computer replaces the job positions. This has been overcome to a large extent
by readjusting work assignments, and training everyone on computer applications
such as word processing, editing, and graphics.
(b) Breaking privacy.
Information or data of the individuals accessed or erased or the ownership
changed. (c) Defraud a bank or a client, by accessing and withdrawing money
from other’s bank account.
2.
Computer as the Object of Unethical Act
The data are accessed
and deleted or changed.
(a) Hacking: The
software is stolen or information is accessed from other computers. This may
cause financial loss to the business or violation of privacy rights of the
individuals or business. In case of defence information being hacked, this may
endanger the security of the nation.
(b) Spreading virus:
Through mail or otherwise, other computers are accessed and the files are
erased or contents changed altogether. ‘Trojan horses’ are implanted to distort
the messages and files beyond recovery. This again causes financial loss or
mental torture to the individuals. Some hackers feel that they have justified
their right of free information or they do it for fun. However, these acts are
certainly unethical.
(c) Health hazard: The
computers pose threat during their use as well as during disposal.
3.
Problems related to the Autonomous Nature of Computer
(a) Security risk:
Recently the Tokyo Stock Exchange faced a major embarrassment. A seemingly
casual mistake by a junior trader of a large security house led to huge losses
including that of reputation. The order through the exchange’s trading system
was to sell one share for 600,000 Yen. Instead the trader keyed in a sale order
for 600,000 shares at the rate of one Yen each. Naturally the shares on offer
at the ridiculously low price were lapped up. And only a few buyers agreed to
reverse the deal! The loss to the securities firm was said to be huge, running
into several hundred thousand. More important to note, such an obvious mistake
could not be corrected by some of the advanced technology available. For
advanced countries like Japan who have imbibed the latest technology, this
would be a new kind of learning experience.
(b) Loss of human
lives: Risk and loss of human lives lost by computer, in the operational
control of military weapons. There is a dangerous instability in automated defence
system. An unexpected error in the software or hardware or a conflict during
interfacing between the two, may trigger a serious attack and cause irreparable
human loss before the error is traced. The Chinese embassy was bombed by U.S.
military in Iraq a few years back, but enquiries revealed that the building was
shown in a previous map as the building where insurgents stayed.
(c) In flexible manufacturing systems, the
autonomous computer is beneficial in obtaining continuous monitoring and
automatic control.
WEAPONS
DEVELOPMENT
Military activities
including the world wars have stimulated the growth of technology. The growth
of Internet amply illustrates this fact. The development of warfare and the
involvement of engineers bring out many ethical issues concerned with
engineers, such as the issue of integrity in experiments as well as expenditure
in defense research and development, issue of personal commitment and
conscience, and the issues of social justice and social health. Engineers
involve in weapons development because of the following reasons:
1. It gives one job
with high salary.
2. One takes pride and honour
in participating in the activities towards the defence of the nation (patriotic
fervor).
3. One believes the he
fights a war on terrorism and thereby contribute to peace and stability of the
country. Ironically, the wars have never won peace, only peace can win peace!
4. By research and development, the engineer
is reducing or eliminating the risk from enemy weapons, and saving one’s
country from disaster
. 5. by building-up
arsenals and show of force, a country can force the rogue country, towards
regulation. Engineers can participate effectively in arms control negotiations
for surrender or peace, e.g., bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima led to
surrender by the Japanese in 1945.
MORAL
LEADERSHIP
Engineers provide many types of leadership in
the development and implementation of technology, as managers, entrepreneurs,
consultants, academics and officials of the government. Moral leadership is not
merely the dominance by a group. It means adopting reasonable means to motivate
the groups to achieve morally desirable goals. This leadership presents the
engineers with many challenges to their moral principles.
Moral leadership is
essentially required for the engineers, for the reasons listed as follows:
1. It is leading a
group of people towards the achievement of global and objectives. The goals as
well as the means are to be moral. For example, Hitler and Stalin were leaders,
but only in an instrumental sense and certainly not on moral sense.
2. The leadership shall direct and motivate
the group to move through morally desirable ways. 3. They lead by thinking
ahead in time, and morally creative towards new applications, extension and
putting values into practice. ‘Morally creative’ means the identification of
the most important values as applicable to the situation, bringing clarity
within the groups through proper communication, and putting those values into
practice.
4. They sustain
professional interest, among social diversity and cross-disciplinary
complexity. They contribute to the professional societies, their professions,
and to their communities. The moral leadership in engineering is manifested in
leadership within the professional societies. The professional societies
provide a forum for communication, and canvassing for change within and by
groups.
5. Voluntarism: Another
important avenue for providing moral leadership within communities, by the
engineers is to promote services without fee or at reduced fees (pro bono) to
the needy groups. The professional societies can also promote such activities
among the engineers. This type of voluntarism (or philanthropy) has been in
practice in the fields of medicine, law and education. But many of the
engineers are not self-employed as in the case of physicians and lawyers. The
business institutions are encouraged to contribute a percentage of their
services as free or at concessional rates for charitable purposes.
6. Community service:
This is another platform for the engineers to exhibit their moral leadership.
The engineers can help in guiding, organising, and stimulating the community
towards morally- and environmentally-desirable goals. The corporate
organizations have come forward to adopt villages and execute many social
welfare schemes, towards this objective.
The Codes of Ethics
promote and sustain the ethical environment and assist in achieving the ethical
goals in the following manner:
1. It creates an
environment in a profession, where ethical behavior is the basic criterion.
2. It guides and
reminds the person as to how to act, in any given situation.
3. It provides support
to the individual, who is being pressurized or tortured by a superior or
employer, to behave unethically.
4. Apart from
professional societies, companies and universities have framed their own codes
of ethics, based on the individual circumstances and specific mission of the
organisations. These codes of conduct help in employees’ awareness of ethical
issues, establish, and nurture a strong corporate ethical culture.