Engineering Ethics Paper 4

O R I G I N A L P A P E R

Just Sustainability? Sustainability and Social Justice in Professional Codes of Ethics for Engineers

Cletus S. Brauer

Received: 12 September 2012 / Accepted: 25 November 2012 / Published online: 7 December 2012

� Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2012

Abstract Should environmental, social, and economic sustainability be of primary concern to engineers? Should social justice be among these concerns? Although the

deterioration of our natural environment and the increase in social injustices are among

today’s most pressing and important issues, engineering codes of ethics and their par-

amountcy clause, which contains those values most important to engineering and to

what it means to be an engineer, do not yet put either concept on a par with the safety,

health, and welfare of the public. This paper addresses a recent proposal by Michelfelder

and Jones (2011) to include sustainability in the paramountcy clause as a way of rec-

tifying the current disregard for social justice issues in the engineering codes. That

proposal builds on a certain notion of sustainability that includes social justice as one of

its dimensions and claims that social justice is a necessary condition for sustainability,

not vice versa. The relationship between these concepts is discussed, and the original

proposal is rejected. Drawing on insights developed throughout the paper, some sug-

gestions are made as to how one should address the different requirements that theory

and practice demand of the value taxonomy of professional codes of ethics.

Keywords Professional codes of ethics � Engineering ethics � Paramountcy clause � Sustainability � Social justice

Introduction

Most major professional engineering bodies’ codes of ethics contain what is known as

the paramountcy clause (PC), which states that engineers shall ‘hold paramount the

C. S. Brauer (&) Department of Philosophy and Ethics, School of Innovation Sciences; 3TU.Centre for Ethics

and Technology, Eindhoven University of Technology, IPO 1.10, PO Box 513,

5600 MB Eindhoven, The Netherlands

e-mail: [email protected]

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Sci Eng Ethics (2013) 19:875–891

DOI 10.1007/s11948-012-9421-4

safety, health, and welfare of the public’. The PC is at the heart of professional codes of

ethics for engineers: it contains those values most fundamental to, and even definitive of,

the engineering profession. Consequently, such values override both subordinate and

instrumental values, as well as non-moral concerns (‘paramountcy’).

Two candidates for inclusion in the PC that are frequently mentioned are

sustainability and social justice, which, due to their structural and material

similarities, are often addressed simultaneously or subsequently. However, both

concepts have met with considerable opposition concerning their role in engineering,

both on empirical grounds (can sustainability and/or social justice be engineered?)

and normative grounds (should sustainability and/or social justice be of primary

concern for engineers?). Social justice scarcely features in engineering codes at all,

and claims for its inclusion are regularly rejected. In contrast, most professional

engineering bodies have embraced the concept of sustainability in their current codes

in one form or another. This acceptance of the importance of sustainability takes the

form of either commitments directly to ‘sustainability’ and ‘(the principle of)

sustainable development’ or to ‘nature’ and ‘the environment’. However, sustain-

ability and its equivalent concepts are rarely part of the PC and are never considered

to have a similar degree of bindingness: they are advisory (ought to, shall strive for),

not prescriptive (must hold paramount). In terms of value taxonomy, it seems that the

engineering profession does not perceive sustainability or social justice as

paramount, but rather as additional values or merely as being instrumental for the

safety, health and welfare of the public.

At the 2010 inaugural meeting of the ‘forum on Philosophy, Engineering &

Technology’ (fPET) at the Colorado School of Mines and in a subsequent paper,

Michelfelder and Jones (2011) made a case for including sustainability in the PC as a

means to rectify what they viewed as severe shortcomings of the current codes’

formulations with respect to sustainability and social justice. In their paper, Michelfelder

and Jones discuss the relationship between sustainability and social justice, their

respective bearing on the engineering profession and its codes of ethics, the engineer’s

role as public trustee, and engineering education. Their work culminates in a proposed

rewording of the PC, which prioritizes sustainability similarly to the safety, health, and

welfare of the public, as well as a rewording of the ‘Guidelines to Practice’ under the

main canon, featuring both explicit and implicit references to social justice. By framing

sustainability as ‘a justice’ and applying a Rawlsian framework, they argue that by

including sustainability in the PC, the codes’ blind spot for social justice concerns could

be overcome if complemented by adjustments in the teachings for undergraduate

engineering students. While I am highly sympathetic to their cause, I will argue that the

suggested code amendment cannot deliver what it promises. Reformulating the PC so

that it incorporates a commitment not to social justice but to sustainability as a way to

address social injustice stemming from engineering practice misunderstands the

relationship between the concepts of sustainability and social justice. To make

sustainability, but not social justice, ‘paramount’ could effectively cause engineers to

address certain social justice concerns, as argued by Michelfelder and Jones, but would

at the same time fail to address equally important social justice matters that are not

covered by the notion of sustainability. Consequently, subsequent code amendments

aimed at a more holistic treatment of social justice would be less likely to reach the status

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of paramountcy. Therefore, to change engineering codes of ethics in the way suggested

by Michelfelder and Jones would do a disservice to their own goals.

In this paper, I discuss Michelfelder’s and Jones’ original paper (section ‘‘Social

Justice as a Dimension of Sustainability’’), address a number of concerns that I believe

show that their suggested reformulation of the PC does not deliver what it intends to

(section ‘‘Critique’’), address a number of potential objections to my arguments

(section ‘‘Objections’’), and provide a brief conclusion (section ‘‘Conclusion’’). My

main objectives here are to rebut Michelfelder’s and Jones’ code amendment and to

suggest constructive ways to attain their main goals: to raise awareness about the

importance of long-term environmental issues and the fair distribution of the social

goods, in terms of harms and benefits, that are affected by engineering practice and to

encourage both scholars and practitioners to engage in debate on how the engineering

profession should best address these pressing matters.

Social Justice as a Dimension of Sustainability

Michelfelder’s and Jones’ central claim is that sustainability ought to be included in

the PC. They argue that sustainability is neither made redundant by nor of lesser value

than the safety, health, and welfare of the public and that its inclusion is therefore

necessary. This section elaborates on their main claims and lines of argumentation,

starting with an explication of their working definition of sustainability.

The traditional definition of sustainability stems from the Brundtland Report,

issued by the United Nation’s ‘World Commission on Environment and Development

(WCED)’ in 1987 under the title ‘Our Common Future:’ ‘‘sustainable development

[…] implies meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.’’ This merely relational but materially

empty definition, however, provides no way of operationalising sustainability in terms

of engineering. Instead, Michelfelder and Jones decide to use the more practice-

oriented, engineering-specific definition by Mihelcic et al. (2003:5315):

Sustainability is the design of human and industrial systems to ensure

humankind’s use of natural resources and cycles does not lead to diminished

quality of life due either to losses in future economic opportunities or to

adverse impacts on social conditions, human health, and the environment.

For the purpose of formulating a professional engineering code of ethics,

Michelfelder and Jones prefer this latter definition, as it explicates the needs in

question more clearly, and does so ‘‘in terms that can be more easily operationalized

by engineers as design criteria and constraints’’ (Michelfelder and Jones 2011:7).

Furthermore, it integrates what have come to be known as the three pillars of

sustainability since the 2005 UN World Summit 1 : the environment, the economy,

and human society. This extended three pillars-version of sustainability is

1 United Nations (2005) World Summit Outcome, p. 11–12, reads ‘‘efforts [to reaffirm our commitment

to achieve the goal of sustainable development] will also promote the integration of the three components

of sustainable development—economic development, social development and environmental protection -

as interdependent and mutually reinforcing pillars’’.

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preferable not only because it broadens the notion of sustainability beyond the realm

of nature and its conservation, but is especially relevant for engineering:

Engineering practice impacts all three domains in many ways and conceptualising

sustainability as three interdependent and mutually enforcing pillars enables the

revealing interdependencies between different impacts; therefore they cannot and

must not be treated independently. This in turn helps clarifying the role that

engineers play.

Michelfelder and Jones (2011:6) state that

from a sustainability perspective, the job of an engineer is to design

technological systems to meet societal demand (growth), and in so doing,

reasonably reduce negative impacts in terms of the range of economic

opportunities, social conditions, human health, and environmental health for

current and future generations.

By such standards virtually all engineering codes of ethics are deficient. As

Michelfelder and Jones show, many large engineering associations’ (NSPE, ASCE

(2010), AIChE, ASME, and IEEE) codes reduce sustainability to its environmental

pillar by ‘‘[e]quating environment with sustainable development’’ (Michelfelder and

Jones 2011:5). Either they implicitly distinguish between sustainability and

allegedly superior, more genuinely ‘human’ concerns, such as health or welfare;

or they explicitly refer to nature or the environment. In both cases, the stipulated

commitment of the engineering community as expressed in the codes is never

prescriptive, but only advisory.

Thus, while current codes fail to account for a holistic three-pillar notion of

sustainability, several aspects of it are in fact already taken into account in

standard approaches to design processes. For example economic constraints, i.e.

financial costs, or restrictions on environmental pollution, directly inform

decision-making in engineering practice as design constraints. However, other

aspects of sustainability are neglected in the codes. This indicates that they fail to

grasp the interconnectedness and mutual reinforcement of the different pillars.

This is especially evident in their treatment of sustainability issues that happens at

an aggregated level that makes them blind to social justice 2

concerns. This is

especially true of intragenerational concerns because the differing effects of a

certain design, technology, human or industrial system on specific groups or sub-

populations are not taken into account. Michelfelder and Jones argue that some of

the standard engineering approaches to weighing the harms and benefits related to

‘sustainability needs’—namely benefit-cost analysis, life-cycle assessment, and

human health risk assessment—fall short of accounting for variation in the

distribution patterns. Both intergenerational and intragenerational social justice are

at stake. Intergenerational justice, traditionally being at the genealogical and

taxonomical heart of sustainability, cannot be guaranteed as long as sustainability

(especially environmental) issues are devalued against what the engineering codes

2 Michelfelder and Jones use a Rawlsian framework and define social justice as ‘‘the fair and equitable

distribution of social goods and harms, benefits and burdens, across a diversity of communities and

populations, including populations underrepresented by virtue of considerations such as economic status,

race, age, gender, nationality, or physical capability.’’(Michelfelder and Jones 2011:9).

878 C. S. Brauer

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seem to consider to be more genuinely human concerns. If the codes allow, for

example, for current economic preferences to override the needs of future genera-

tions, engineering conduct might create significant injustices. Given the current

consumption rate of raw materials and other non-renewable natural resources, it is

hard to doubt that we are already placing future generations at a disadvantage. Further,

the aggregation of impacts that dominates engineering assessment techniques

effectively precludes intragenerational justice concerns from being taken into

consideration.

Michelfelder and Jones argue accordingly that because adding sustainability to

the PC would rectify both types of code deficiency—the focus on some but neglect

of other aspects of sustainability and the treatment of the former on an aggregated

level only—appending sustainability would not be redundant. Furthermore, they

claim that sustainability’s inclusion in the PC is necessary because social justice,

understood as inter- and intragenerational equity, is an important but neglected

dimension of sustainability as ‘‘a necessary condition to ensure the safety, health

and welfare of the public.’’ (Michelfelder and Jones 2011:2). Therefore, ‘‘the

engineering disciplines as embodied by the codes of ethics need to reaffirm the

importance of sustainability and social justice as integral to both the practice of

engineering and the essence of what it means to be an engineer.’’ (Michelfelder and

Jones 2011:19). Correspondingly, Michelfelder and Jones propose the following

rewording of the PC to rectify its current shortcomings: 3

Engineers shall hold paramount the safety, health and welfare of the public

and the sustainable design of human and industrial systems in the performance

of their professional duties. (Michelfelder and Jones 2011: 20). 4

They furthermore rephrase the subsequent Guidelines to Practice Under the

Fundamental Canons of Ethics of the code to include references to ‘‘the distribution

of impacts’’, ‘‘sustainability’’, ‘‘sub-populations’’, ‘‘communities’’, and ‘‘the prin-

ciples of sustainable development and social justice’’. Note that the weaker phrase

‘‘compliance with the principle of sustainable development’’ has been replaced with

‘‘sustainable design of human and industrial systems’’ and that the appeal to

sustainability now falls under the ‘‘hold paramount’’ imperative.

3 Michelfelder and Jones have tailored their amendment to fit the American Society of Civil Engineers

(ASCE)’s code (based on, but substantially extended from, the Accreditation Board for Engineering and

Technology, Inc. (ABET)’s code). Compared to other codes, the ASCE code seems to be the one for

which the notion of sustainability comes closest to being in the PC. It reads: ‘‘Engineers shall hold

paramount the safety, health, and welfare of the public and shall strive to comply with the principle of

sustainable development in the performance of their professional duties.’’ (ASCE Code of Ethics,

Fundamental Canon 1). Note that although sustainability is in the same sentence with the PC and is

conjunctively connected, it does not fall under the ‘hold paramount’ imperative. The ASCE’s code does

not mention ‘justice’ anywhere. 4

It is noteworthy that in their 2010 presentation at the fPET meeting, the suggested reformulation of the

PC contained an explicit reference to justice. It read as follows: ‘‘Engineers shall hold paramount the

safety, health and welfare of the public and the [just] sustainable design of human and industrial systems

in the performance of their professional duties.’’ Michelfelder and Jones (2010:18); emphasis and

brackets in the original.

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In summary, Michelfelder and Jones have provided arguments as to why the

current formulation of engineering codes of ethics in general, and the PC in

particular, are deficient with respect to both intergenerational and intragenerational

social justice issues. They claim that this deficiency could be overcome by adding a

‘‘commitment to sustainability (and so to social justice)’’ (Michelfelder and Jones

2011:14). While I agree with their general analysis, I do not believe that the

suggested reformulation of the code is able to rectify the problem, as I will elaborate

in the following section.

Critique

As discussed above, Michelfelder’s and Jones’ suggested code amendment builds

on the importance of sustainability considerations for engineering, emphasising

sustainability’s social justice dimension. Furthermore, they seem to rank sustain-

ability taxonomically higher than social justice. 5

In addition, they do not let the

codes mirror the strong bond between the concepts. This point is surprising because

Michelfelder and Jones base their own arguments on this very bond. By referring to

sustainability as a ‘social justice concept’ and drawing primarily on justice theories

to support an inclusion of sustainability into the PC, they recognise the intricate

relationship between the two concepts. However, rather than formulating a coherent

framework that, for example, includes a commitment to justice in the main canon or

PC that later spells out how nature preservation and the reduction of social and

economic inequalities is an application of this framework, they leave the ideas

conceptually unrelated in the codes. This separation fosters the treatment of

sustainability and social justice as independent. The authors seem to negate that

sustainability has its justificatory basis in a concept of justice by ranking

sustainability taxonomically higher than social justice. 6

5 This hierarchy becomes evident when Michelfelder and Jones explain what their notion of

sustainability as concept of social justice means. Namely, ‘‘that social justice is a necessary condition

for the furtherance or development of sustainability, rather than the other way around (as in, for example,

Barry 1999).’’ (Michelfelder and Jones 2011:9). Barry argued that not acting sustainably deprives future

generations, thereby disadvantaging them in contrast to the present and creating (intergenerational) social

injustice. This issue makes sustainability a necessary condition of social justice. Sensu Barry,

sustainability (to maintain some 9 into the indefinite future) is a means of furthering social justice.

Michelfelder and Jones, in contrast, seem to turn this relationship upside down. 6

Most commonly, definitions of and approaches to sustainability build primarily or exclusively on a

notion of intergenerational social justice. In that sense, sustainability or (the principle of) sustainable

development refers to the equilibrium between the degree to which present generations (in a timeless

sense of present, cf. Barry 1999:107) irreversibly interfere with the entities of our natural environment,

and the degree to which similar actions remain possible for generations to come. However, justice is not

the only possible normative, justificatory basis for sustainability. Critique of such an approach comes

from very different directions and for a multitude of reasons. For example, the ‘deep ecology’ movement

criticizes justice-based lines of argumentation for being too anthropocentric and not taking account of the

(alleged) intrinsic value of nature (see section IV). Additionally, basically all of the predominant ethical

background theories can provide justification for sustainability according to their central values and

principles. A utilitarian approach might stress that the gain of utility (or happiness) of a present generation

taking more than its share from nature’s provisions is outweighed by the resulting loss of utility (or

happiness) in the future (e.g. due to population growth). A deontological approach could focus on the duty

880 C. S. Brauer

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Michelfelder and Jones point to almost all the important aspects of the

sustainability/social justice-nexus and its bearing on the engineering profession and

its professional codes of ethics. However, their proposed rewording is not justified

and should be rejected, as should any claim that ascribes a taxonomically higher

rank to sustainability than to social justice. This point holds true for a professional

code of ethics, or in any other practical context, where it is an asset not to commit to

too many specific, theory-dependent ballast, as well as any approaches that fail to

sufficiently recognise sustainability’s foundation in justice.

My first critique is small and formal and addresses their claim that the inclusion

of sustainability in the PC is necessary. My second critique addresses their notion of

social justice as a dimension of sustainability and the implicit value taxonomy that

underlies it.

Necessary Condition Critique

The first critique refers to Michelfelder’s and Jones’ claim that sustainability should

be included in the PC because it is a necessary condition for the safety, health and

welfare of the public. Being a necessary condition for values that already feature in

the PC does not constitute a compelling justification for a values’ inclusion in the

PC. If one would allow for such a justification, the PC would bloat unacceptably

because everything that stands in a similar ‘necessary condition’ relationship to the

newly included values would need to be included as well, including values that are

not paramount for the engineering profession. For example, physical and mental

health depends on myriad factors, such as access to medical care, having friends, a

partner, cleanliness, etc., which are not, in themselves, of paramount importance to

the engineering profession.

Considering that Michelfelder and Jones argue that social justice is a necessary

condition for sustainability—which, in turn, is a necessary condition for the safety,

health and welfare of the public—it seems odd that they do not claim that social

justice should also feature in the PC. Such a claim is structurally identical to the one

they make. Therefore, one could argue that they are forced to also include social

justice in the PC, which they decided not to do when transferring the 2010

presentation to the 2011 paper. Overall, it seems that being a necessary condition for

a value in the PC is, in itself, not enough to justify further inclusions in the PC.

Footnote 6 continued

of each successive generation towards the next (cf. e.g., Howarth 1995). Virtue ethics has been employed

to sustainability in different ways, e.g. by creating a genuine ‘environmental virtue ethics’ or extending

values traditionally found in virtue ethics to include nature in a substantial way (cf. e.g., Sandler 2007; for

an overview see van Wensveen 2000). However, Michelfelder and Jones explicitly approach sustain-

ability from a justice perspective, or more generally, a Rawlsian social contract theory. Their line of

argument builds on sustainability being ‘a justice’. The crucial point here is not that other approaches to

justify the normativity of sustainability might (and do) exist, but that Michelfelder and Jones explicitly

employ a justice-based approach on the one hand, while on the other hand, they distort the relationship

between them by reversing their roles as provider and receiver of normative justification for the respective

other. Therefore, the mere possibility of argumentative backup from other ethical background theories

does not present any concerns here.

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Social Justice as Dimension of Sustainability or Vice Versa?

Let us come back to Michelfelder’s and Jones’ central argument, which was, just a

reminder, a rather straightforward one. Sustainable development has three different

dimensions (environmental, social, and economic) that are interrelated, mutually

dependent, and all of high and potentially paramount importance. Engineers are

already accustomed to considering economic dimensions (traditionally as a design

constraint) and increasingly consider environmental concerns. However, there is a

lack of concern for, if not recognition of, the social dimension and the

interrelatedness of the different dimensions, which causes engineers to engage

only with the economic and environmental aspects of engineering practice and to do

so as if they were ‘freestanding.’ 7

The problematic disregard of the social dimension

and the presupposed interrelatedness could be resolved, so their argument goes, if

sustainability were included in the PC and engineering undergraduates were taught

in detail what sustainability entails to ‘‘[make] sure that students know how to

include social justice as part of a sustainability design constraint’’ (Michelfelder and

Jones 2011:19).

It is a worthwhile undertaking to teach engineers that ethical considerations

concerning the creation and maintenance of socio-technical systems and artefacts

also always entail distribution patterns of the resulting harms and benefits. But, the

approach that Michelfelder and Jones propose has at least two substantial

drawbacks, both related to the same problem. The approach would only increase

the observance of a certain set of relevant social justice issues, namely, those that

can be fully subsumed under the notion of sustainability. These issues include, for

example, social injustices stemming from unfair distribution patterns of the harms

and benefits resulting from measures taken to foster environmental sustainability,

such as the placing of wind parks or landfills in low-income or ethnic minority

districts or equal access to sites of unspoiled nature. Other social justice issues that

are not so blatantly related to sustainability would not receive increased attention.

The first resulting problem is not, strictly speaking, a philosophical one but rather

is a practical one. Not only would those social justice issues that cannot be

subsumed under sustainability not receive increased attention in engineering, the

inclusion of sustainability could become a hindrance to further efforts aiming at

establishing social justice as a value of paramount importance. Once sustainability,

and thus the correlating set of social justice issues, was included in the PC, social

justice allegedly would—through sustainability—already be ‘taken care of.’ Social

justice advocates would then be likely to have a harder time arguing for a full-

fledged notion of social justice in the PC. This practical problem has plenty of

historical analogues. Take, for example, the struggle for certain groups’ rights, e.g.,

women’s suffrage. When the British Parliament first considered granting women the

7 Certainly, it is not the case that engineers regularly fail to see all interrelations between the different

dimensions; that environmental benefits regularly entail economic costs (or rather, result in lower

economic benefits than would have been possible), for example, is rather trivial. At least some

interrelations are regularly being missed (e.g. between the environmental and social dimensions). This is a

problem in its own right and suggests a lack of understanding of the underlying structure, which is based

on the interrelatedness and mutual reinforcement of the dimensions.

882 C. S. Brauer

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right to vote, only women of a certain social standing (householders or wives of

householders) were envisioned as the future holders of these rights. The question of

whether the women’s rights movement should settle for this concession and take it

as a first promising step in the right direction or whether it should reject the

concession as a tactic to take the momentum from an increasingly growing social

movement without risking real change (because upper class women were considered

to be likely to vote rather conservatively anyway) caused much disagreement within

the movement itself. 8

A general question of principle, here related to a basic right,

can only be ignored so long. There are obviously good arguments in favour of equal

rights to vote, whereas an amendment aiming to also include poor lower class

women in an already established group of right holders is an entirely different

matter. Should a group rights movement settle for being granted some important

rights and risk remaining disadvantaged in comparison to full rights holders and

having a harder time mobilising support for further amendments or should they

defend an all-or-nothing position? Similarly, in a generally contested field, such as

the role of justice for engineering, mere ‘petty adjustments’ are more difficult to

accomplish than a general debate about questions of principle. The latter certainly

requires stronger backup arguments but is also more likely to draw the necessary

attention. Analogically, to amend the PC of engineering codes to hold some, but not

all, social justice issues related to engineering practice as paramount (and to do so

only implicitly) would endanger the inclusion the rest of these issues. Considering

that Michelfelder and Jones base their arguments for sustainability’s inclusion in the

PC mainly on envisioned improvements in the social justice domain, their approach

of operationalising social justice as a mere part of sustainability might hurt their

cause rather than help it.

Independent of the question as to whether one buys into this practical argument,

one needs to ask whether the partial allowance for social justice’s paramountcy that

would result from Michelfelder’s and Jones’ approach is compatible with their own

premises. Given that Michelfelder’s and Jones’ main goal is to strengthen the

commitment of the engineering community to social justice and given that it is the

current neglect of social justice issues that leads them to argue for the inclusion of

sustainability in the PC, it seems odd that they argue for such an implicit and

indirect way of addressing social justice rather than arguing for an explicit and

direct commitment. They limit the scope of their concerns to special types of cases,

rather than all relevant cases where social justice is affected, and they make the very

same argument against others. For example, they refer to Catalano (2006a, b), who

proposes an amendment of the PC suggesting the substitution of ‘the public’ for ‘the

identified integral community’:

‘‘[…] we believe changing the codes directly by strengthening their explicit commitment to sustainability (and so to social justice) is pragmatically

preferable than strengthening this commitment indirectly through making the

8 On the history of the women’s suffrage movement in general, and particularly that internal politics and

controversies that caused it to sprout both parliamentary and more militant branches (suffragists and

suffragettes), cf. Crawford (1999), Fawcett (1920).

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substitution Catalano proposes.’’ (Michelfelder and Jones 2011:14, their

emphasis)

Michelfelder and Jones suppose, for their argument to work, that all aspects of

social justice that are relevant to engineering practice can and should be subsumed

under sustainability. Otherwise, they would be bound to argue for a direct, explicit

commitment to ‘sustainability and social justice’ in the PC rather than ‘sustain-

ability (and so to social justice)’. Of course, this does not have to be a problem per

se. It is not problematic if all social justice issues which are of paramount

importance to engineering are of the type that can be identified with sustainability,

while other social justice issues affected by engineering conduct either do not exist

or, if they do, they are not paramount. Therefore, one has to ask whether that is in

fact the case. If it can be shown, as I think it can, that engineering practice highly

affects important social justice issues in ways that go beyond considerations of

sustainability, then Michelfelder’s and Jones’ argument for including sustainability

in the PC cannot account for those issues.

That social justice as such (independent of the context of engineering and its

codes) can completely, and in all cases, be subsumed under the notion of

sustainability is implausible. But even the milder, more practical claim that is at

stake, namely, that this is the case at least with reference to the question of

paramountcy for engineering, is not convincing. Consider the social injustice of

internet censorship in some totalitarian countries, the (im)possibility of which

heavily depends on (IT-) engineering practices. This issue constitutes but one case

where engineers and the fruits of their labours have enormous impact where social

justice is concerned and is not covered by the notion of sustainability. The

justification of paramountcy in this specific case could, of course, be rejected. It

could even be argued that there are currently no cases of that type, although this

does not seem very plausible. However, such cases do exist, at least in principle.

Consideration of the above argument is reason enough to dispel the treatment of

social justice as a mere dimension of sustainability. Independent of the question of

whether there are such cases at the moment, the aggravation of subsequent code

amendments in favour of social justice, once sustainability is included in the PC,

remains. Implementing sustainability in the PC does not prove to be an adequate

way of ensuring that all relevant social justice issues are sufficiently taken into

account in engineering practice.

It appears that the engineering profession would be ill-advised to include

sustainability in the PC as a way to address social justice issues as suggested by

Michelfelder and Jones. It would even be ill-advised to do so if the motivation and

arguments to do so were different, as long as one acknowledges the option that there

are, or might be, cases of non-sustainability-related social justice concerns in

engineering of paramount importance.

How to Amend the PC to Address Social Justice?

There are two possible alternatives for amending the PC to sufficiently address

social justice. Engineers could either include both sustainability and social justice in

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the PC, or they could include social justice, but not sustainability. The first approach

would, given the partial overlap of the two concepts explicated above, result in

some redundancy. However, this drawback could be outweighed by the fact that no

potentially important cases that fall under one, but not the other concept, are lost.

The second alternative—the reversion of Michelfelder’s and Jones’ claim—would

avoid such redundancy, but face the same potential problems that have been

identified above: there might be aspects of sustainability that are not covered by

social justice, but that are nevertheless of paramount importance. If this is the case,

including both would be the only remaining option; if it is not the case, including

social justice (and thus sustainability) would be preferable, as it avoids redundancy.

It has been argued, for example by Barry (1999), that sustainability could be

subsumed under the notion of social justice because sustainability in the end

amounts to an emphasis of the intergenerational aspects of social justice. Proponents

of this position argue that the appeal of sustainability (not to deprive future

generations of the possibilities to enjoy the same resources as we do) can have its

normative grounding only in a concept of intergenerational social justice. In that

case, including social justice in the PC would account for all dimensions of

sustainability (if it is true for the environmental pillar, then it is even more true for

the man-made dimensions of society and economy) and accordingly sustainability

would not need to be mentioned in the PC separately. Instead, one would have to

teach engineers why this is the case and how to include sustainability as part of

social justice ‘design constraints’.

The only substantial objection to suggestions of completely reducing sustain-

ability to a mere notion of (intergenerational) social justice is that such an approach

could not account for the value of nature, which for some is the very foundation of

sustainability (and a mere illusion for others). To reduce sustainability to an instance

of social justice effectively limits the role of everything non-human (e.g., animals,

the ecosphere, etc.) to mere means because in any justice conception the concerns

are limited to the relevant moral community. All the rest is taken into account only

as objects or as means that by being fairly distributed, contribute to justice within

the moral community. The value of nature, as advocated by the deep ecology

movement, for example, is the one aspect of sustainability that is not covered by

justice concerns. Accordingly, to defend the position of subsuming sustainability

under social justice, one would have to show why the value of nature need not be

granted the status of paramountcy (see section ‘‘Objections’’).

To operationalise sustainability as an instantiation of justice does not seem to be

too great a stretch. Sustainability, though clearly a normative concept, is less clearly

defined in terms of axiological content than it is in procedural terms. 9

The values that

are included when we discuss sustainability are not uncontested. We seem to agree,

though, that it is about ensuring the continued existence of some valuable status quo.

A minimal definition of sustainability provided by Barry mirrors this perfectly, as

9 Approaches to and definitions of sustainability emphasize how we should treat certain goods, e.g.,

natural resources or scenery, especially with respect to (distribution over) time and what justifies formal

criteria (like equality) and distribution patterns (like leaving enough of the goods in question for

satisfaction of future generations’ needs), rather than spelling out in detail what those goods are, what

should be counted as ‘need’, etc.

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‘‘that there is some X whose value should be maintained, in as far as it lies within our

power to do so, into the indefinite future.’’ 10

While materially empty, this minimal

definition makes clear that sustainability could be a rather structural, relational

concept, not a clear cut value, and is similar in this respect to justice. Of course, we

need to identify X at some point, but we can have a working definition of

sustainability without filling X with axiological content. This is because sustainability

does not focus on a value per se but rather focuses on how a certain empirical status

quo stands in relation to that value over time. As a relational value, sustainability

cannot be assessed or justified independently from its constituents. Avoiding the

depletion of resources, for example, or the irreversible damage of (non-vital) parts of

nature, thus maintaining something into the future, are strong normative claims and

need normative grounding. I see but two potential candidates for a justification of

such normative claims: nature should not be destroyed because either it would be

wrong in itself, or because it would be unjust for future generations. Any meaningful

notion of sustainability needs grounding in one of these two justifications.

I believe the normative claim is primarily based on a principal of formal equality:

all moral agents have in principle the same inalienable entitlement to common

goods. It does not really matter whether we think about distinctive values (X) or

more concrete goods that account for those values; any deviation from such an

equality principle needs convincing argumentative backup. While there certainly

can be good arguments in favour of unequal distributions, the burden of proof rests

with proponents of inequality, whereas equality serves as a default. I do not mean to

say that equality is valuable per se or bears any normative content. The equality

principle I refer to is merely formal (treat like things alike), rather than material (all

people should be equal / have the same), and all that follows from it is that all moral

agents have the same entitlement to a common good unless proven otherwise. As

universalism states, a mere position in space and time does not qualify as a

normatively distinctive feature (Barry 1999:100) unless proven otherwise; therefore,

the entitlement of a moral agent to enjoy her share of a common good is

independent from the question of at which point in time and space she lives. It is this

basic assumption that gives rise to the idea of sustainability. If our actions can

irreversibly affect a common good to which everyone, independent of space/time

position, has equal entitlement, then we face the danger of depriving future

generations of what they have a right to enjoy. It might also be wrong to destroy

nature per se, but this is a rather different claim. Independent of the wrongness of

destroying nature, there can be no doubt that it would be unjust. To allow for the

depletion of natural resources, one either has to reject the principle of formal

equality or convincingly show why such depletion is justifiable. 11

Justice, it seems,

10 Barry (1999:101). Barry further discusses and dismisses ‘want-satisfaction’ and ‘the chance to live a

good life as we perceive it’ as potential candidates for X, and instead suggests to understand X as some

form of ‘equal opportunity’ (ibid. 103–4). 11

A possible option for such a justification might be that resource depletion is a gambit that will lead to,

for example, reduced dependency on limited resources in future technology or to technology that is able

to restore the effects of prior resource depletion and environmental damage. One could also argue that we

cannot foresee future generation’s preferences and that they might value the artificial products and

economic (welfare) goods that we gain from depleting resources more highly than unspoiled nature.

886 C. S. Brauer

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tells a rather convincing story about the justification, normativity and clear

delineation of sustainability.

Objections

Theory: Practice Clash

The objection might be raised that although it is pertinent to perceive sustainability

as an explication of an underlying notion of justice that lends justificatory power to

sustainability as a normative concept, a professional code of ethics should not give

priority to stringent value taxonomy over matters of code implementation. In order

for a code of ethics to actually work, inclusiveness, which is the acceptability by the

largest possible number of engineers, is crucial. 12

As it is meant to be binding and

action-guiding for a vast group of people who differ in many respects (e.g., culture,

language, personal ethos, professional socialisation, etc.), a code of ethics that

explicitly builds on a specific ethical background theory is far less likely to be

widely accepted than one that is positively underdetermined in this respect. An

engineer that personally favours utilitarianism, for example, is unlikely to fully

commit herself to e.g., a deontological code setup, and vice versa. As noted by

Michelfelder and Jones early in their paper, while sustainability has gained a lot of

support over the recent decades, the suggestion to include social justice among the

most central engineering values is regularly attacked on both theoretical and

practical grounds, both within the engineering community and in other relevant

fields involving politics and public opinion. One could object that designing a code

setup that focuses on theoretical stringency rather than acceptability or inclusiveness

would strengthen the codes’ theoretical soundness but weaken its impact. Therefore,

theoretical stringency should concede to effectiveness. 13

In other words, as soon as

social justice is included in the PC, the code would become more theoretically

consistent but would receive less widespread support because opinions about what

social justice is and why it should matter differ largely among engineers. On such

grounds, Michelfelder’s and Jones’ suggested code amendment would have the

advantage of ensuring that the role social justice plays for engineering is

12 As Davis puts it, ‘‘Ideally, a code of professional ethics should consist of those standards everyone in

the profession, at her rational best, wants everyone else in the profession to follow even if that means

having to follow them too.’’ (Davis 2007:180, emphasis added). 13

If one were to emphasize theoretical stringency, it is also likely that at least some of the values that

already feature in the PC would be eliminated or substituted by others. The huge overlap of the concepts

of safety and health (that safety is paramount is owed, to a large degree, to the threat that unsafe designs

could pose to human health) would make it unlikely that both values end up still being in the PC.

Similarly, welfare is, philosophically speaking, rather a means to promote wellbeing (or ensure a minimal

degree of wellbeing, or a precondition to lead a good life/to exercise self-determined agency) than an

intrinsic value in its own right. The criterion of theoretical stringency would likely substitute welfare with

wellbeing, quality of life, or the like. A strictly philosophical code setup would not lend itself easily to

engineers, their professional language, and their take on what it means to be an engineer, and therefore

would be less inclusive, less action-guiding, and less binding. To suggest such a fundamental change in

the PC’s values would most likely not result in a positive impact on the engineering discourse. .

Sustainability and Social Justice 887

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strengthened by bringing it in by the ‘back door’ as only a dimension of

sustainability. Thus, it would achieve the goal of partly reducing social injustice

stemming from engineering practices, as opposed to taking a more holistic approach

to such injustice that stands no realistic chance of delivering long-lasting effects.

This objection is valid but should not be overemphasised. The clash of theory and

practice that comes into play here simply is inherent to what professional codes of

ethics are. As formal documents that are meant to guide professional behaviour and

‘translate’ values into concrete action-guiding professional principles and duties,

these guides are positioned directly at the intersection of abstract (value) theory and

professional practice. 14

This inherent tension in codes of ethics cannot be simply

overcome and might even result in a question of conscience as to whether one

favours theoretical soundness or applicability. In any case, the respective other

cannot be easily overlooked. A code that is too theoretical should be criticised (and

amended) on the grounds of being too theoretical, and the same holds true for very

‘applied’ codes. But neither code of ethics constitutes a knockdown argument.

Rather, this balance between theoretical and applied approaches represents an on-

going struggle to craft and maintain a professional code of ethics in a state of

equilibrium within this field of tension.

Value of Nature

Another important objection to framing sustainability as a justice, or locating its

justificatory basis exclusively in a concept of justice, is the inability of such an

approach to account for the intrinsic value of nature that some defend and place at

the taxonomical heart of sustainability. As the concept of justice is both

anthropocentric and anthropogenic, it includes entities into the category of

normatively relevant social goods only if, and insofar as, they are normatively

relevant for humankind. While this is not problematic concerning social and

economic inequalities because both society and economy are exclusively human

constructs, it might be a cause for critique that a justice approach to sustainability

reduces nature to the role it plays for humankind. If there is non-anthropogenic,

intrinsic value in nature, this value could not be captured in terms of justice. 15

If

nature has intrinsic value, there can be a real and substantial value conflict beyond

14 This argument is certainly a vast oversimplification of what professional codes of ethics are. Much

work has been dedicated to define professional codes more clearly (e.g., as soft laws, quasi-contracts

between professions and society, intra-professional agreement meant to protect its members, and so on) or

to clarify the roles of codes of ethics in detail. For example, by dividing their functions along the lines of

aspirational functions, advisory or educational functions, and regulatory or disciplinary functions

(Frankel 1989; van de Poel and Royakkers 2010). Still, it can hardly be doubted that they are situated at

the transition point between (value) theory and practice. It might be true, as Davis boldly put it, that ‘‘a

code of professional ethics, whatever it is, is not philosophy’’ (Davis 2003:10). But, neither can a code of

ethics do without philosophy. Without philosophical grounding, the values in the codes would likely

become arbitrary or, even worse, distorted and misappropriated. 15

Since nature would have intrinsic value, but still not be part of our moral community. Injustice can

only appear among members of a moral community; therefore, it is not possible to treat nature unjustly or

unfairly (or be treated by nature in such a way)—there is no addressee for justice claims. But it would still

be possible for actions that have an impact on nature to be wrong, if they conflict with nature’s intrinsic

value. Cf. Barry (1999:94).

888 C. S. Brauer

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the realms of justice, e.g., if one argues that a fair distribution of ecosystem services,

while being just is still wrong because it still allows actions that irreversibly damage

nature. This issue seems to be a serious obstacle to treating both sustainability and

social justice within a shared justice framework. However, ultimately, it is not an

issue, at least not in terms of any practical considerations. As Norton (1991), (1984)

noted, ‘anthropocentrism and non-anthropocentrism sustain the same policies’. 16

One does not really have to engage with the intricate complexities within the

different positions of environmental ethics, ranging from economic theories that

ascribe value to nature only according to the degree in which it contributes to utility

(e.g., as human preference satisfaction) over different middle ground theories, such

as Albert Schweitzer’s reverence for life (cf. Singer 1993:278) or Norton’s (1984)

weak anthropocentrism to notions of stewardship (Leopold 1949) and deep ecology

(Naess 1973), from a pragmatic stance. In a practical sense, all claims made by

proponents of intrinsic value in nature about how we should treat nature are

mirrored in anthropocentric arguments. The value placed on avoiding irreversible

damage, the extinction of a species, or the clearing of all natural forests, already

prevails because, for example, future generations must not be denied the possibility

of enjoying them. The mere fact that some people happen to appreciate nature and

that in all likelihood future generations will as well provides sufficient action

guidance for anthropocentrists and non-anthropocentrists to agree upon.

These feelings [i.e., appreciation of nature, C.B.] are essential starting points

for a pragmatic defence of environmental values. They are not ‘second best,’

‘weak’ anthropocentric substitutes for the intrinsic values philosophers want

but cannot find. They do not need a philosophical ‘grounding.’ (Weston

2003:314)

While it might be laudable in principle that professional engineering bodies adopt

the quite demanding position of intrinsic value of nature (and whenever PCE

contain commitments towards nature but not social justice, they have automatically

embraced a deep ecology position), it also causes a lot of additional unnecessary

tension and problems. They are unnecessary because taking a stand concerning

anthropogenic, anthropocentric, or intrinsic sources of value of nature gains nothing

in terms of action guidance. But, being additional presuppositions, they are likely to

cause disagreement. For any concept of sustainability to work for the purpose of

codification (for engineers, as well as politicians, economists, etc.), inclusiveness is

of crucial importance. Approaches that make demanding presuppositions, such as

that the ecosphere is valuable in its own right or that conformance to eternal duties

or the maximisation of happiness, defined as a certain type of human mental state,

should govern all behaviour, will always appeal to people who happen to have the

same convictions concerning ethical or value theory but be dismissed by and cause

rejection in other groups. While the question of the intrinsic value of nature is

16 Norton (1991:237-43) labels this practical synchronization the ‘convergence hypothesis’. Even

McShane (2007:170), in addressing the differences between anthropocentrism and non-anthropocentrism,

grants, ‘‘they will both recommend the same environmentally responsible behaviours and policies […and] that anthropocentric and nonan-thropocentric ethics will converge when it comes to the policies and

behaviours they recommend.’’.

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relevant, it does not directly concern policy-making and action-guidance

approaches. The minimal consensus between all the many different camps in

environmental ethics is sufficient to regulate how we should act towards nature.

Thus, applying a justice framework to address both sustainability and social justice

issues is not deficient in practice as long as its structural anthropocentricity is not

taken to be a rejection of non-anthropocentric positions.

Conclusion

In this paper, I have discussed Michelfelder and Jones (2011) suggestion to include

sustainability in the PC of engineering codes of ethics as a way to reduce social

injustice resulting from engineering practices. I have argued that regardless of how

sympathetic one is to the controversial importance of sustainability and social

justice issues for engineering, Michelfelder’s and Jones’ code amendment would not

achieve its primary goal. Reformulating the codes in the way they propose might (if

complemented with adjustments in undergraduate engineering education) cause

certain social justice issues to be addressed more extensively, namely, those directly

linked to sustainability considerations. At the same time, such an amendment would

be a roadblock to further code amendments that aim for a complete consideration of

social justice issues. If the engineering community perceives social injustices

resulting from their actions as something of paramount importance, this should be

explicitly mirrored in the codes by including justice rather than sustainability in the

PC. Basing sustainability on a justice framework has some drawbacks with respect

to anthropocentrism and, accordingly, could not account for the intrinsic value of

nature. Further, it is only one way of providing a normative foundation for

sustainability. However, it appears pertinent to provide such a foundation because

the theoretical commitments one would have to accept are fewer compared to

competitive approaches, e.g., grounding sustainability more firmly in classical

ethical background theories such as utilitarianism or deontology. While subscribing

to a justice framework does necessitate a commitment in favour of justice theories,

this approach remains more inclusive because of the widespread desirability of

social justice and acceptance of its importance. In addition, anthropocentrism is not

that strong a counterargument because anthropocentric and non-anthropocentric

approaches to sustainability yield similar action-guiding principles.

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