#59 from R&D Innovator Volume 2, Number 10          October 1993

Moral Creativity
by Mike W. Martin, Ph.D.

Dr. Martin is a professor of philosophy at Chapman University and also teaches in UCLA’s Engineering and Management Extension Program.  His five books include Ethics in Engineering, with Roland Schinzinger (McGraw-Hill, New York, 1989), for which he and his co-author received the 1992 IEEE Award for Literary Contributions Furthering Engineering Professionalism.

"I’ve just realized that some data we forwarded to another department several months ago is faulty.  Should I warn that department and take a lot of flack for my group’s error?  Or should I keep mum, since there’s just a slight chance we will be caught?"

Engineers and research scientists usually are concerned with the physical world—with numerical values, actions and reactions, and bonds and forces.  Typically, “creativity” means devising novel solutions to physical problems.

But there's another dimension to this work, one that is seldom addressed—creative responses to danger.  To emphasize the ubiquity of danger in engineering, I consider engineering projects social experiments—that is, “experiments” on the public.   To avoid harming people, engineering problems must be solved with imagination, foresight and careful monitoring.  The same observation can be made of R&D in the pharmaceutical, agricultural, and chemical industries.

Seen in this light, moral issues permeate science and engineering.  We are dealing not just with computed figures and physical constants but the human impact of our actions.  The moral questions start with project inception—does it makes sense in ethical, environmental, and health terms?  And they continue during implementation—does the chosen design actually increase the common good?

Scientists and engineers usually live by the familiar virtues of responsibility, honesty, fairness, collegiality, and personal integrity.  They also have a moral creativity—the ability to formulate rules of behavior that bridge the “gray areas” between accepted moral rules.

Rules and Ideals

To some ears, “ethics” has a dull sound; it lacks the excitement of “creativity” and “innovation.”  But ethics is only dull when approached with a child-like fixation on rules—a stress on “Thou-Shalt-Nots.”  Ethics comes alive as we shift focus from minimum duties to the higher aspirations embedded in ideals and virtues.  Take the first commandment,  “Thou shalt not kill.”  Transformed into positive terms, it becomes a monumental challenge:  “Thou shalt promote human health and happiness.”

To be sure, ethics in business does start with minimum standards, in the form of laws on conflict of interest, intellectual property, waste disposal, sexual harrassment, etc.  But the positive ideals—honesty, fair play, and respect for people, to name a few—on which these rules are based are highly significant and interesting. 

And even the simplest rules leave gray areas that call for judgment.  Many suppliers give out pens, and they’re not considered bribes.  But how would you deal with a situation in which a firm gave your researcher—who places large equipment orders—an expensive Mont Blanc fountain pen?

It’s relatively easy to obey the basic moral and corporate rules.  However, there are always “sticky” situations where the rules aren’t that helpful, and that’s when you need your creative skills.

Morally Creative Problem Solving

What exactly do I mean with the term “moral creativity?”  All creativity is significant innovation, or valuable newness.  Moral creativity is morally valuable newness.  That does not mean inventing virtues from scratch but rather developing fresh ideas based on fundamental moral values.  Moral creativity also means acting on those ideas and insights.  Fresh ideas and innovative actions are aspects of moral leadership, which all of us can show as we tackle difficult problems as members of groups.

Just as design problems have moral dimensions, most moral problems have design dimensions.  In trying to reach desired ends, both engineering design and “moral design” must observe multiple constraints.  Typically, alternative solutions—rather than one right answer—will meet the constraints.  The goal is to achieve the best solution in the circumstances. 

Imagine being responsible for introducing a pharmaceutical with blockbuster potential that has just attained regulatory approval.  You recently found out that some basic laboratory work indicates that the drug has potential for serious side-effects.  The clinical tests, so far, have been too short to reveal any such effects, so the problem remains hypothetical.  Your moral creativity will rest in the answers to questions like these:  Should you recommend delaying the introduction until the human tests have been in place long enough to answer the question?  Should you ignore the results of test-tube experiments, arguing that they are most likely irrelevant to the issue of human safety? 

Four Stages

Within the context of technological innovation, morally creative intelligence adapts moral ideals so they fit changing, vague, and ambiguous circumstances.  This application has four stages.

1.  Identify key moral issues (this is more complicated than it sounds).  The corporate setting typically overlooks moral issues, encouraging instead tunnel-vision and a desire to please supervisors and/or meet deadlines.  (Will the drug be safe and effective?  Will it cause more good than harm?  Will it be marketed honestly?)

2.  Identify relevant moral considerations.  Here again, compartmentalization tends to narrow our awareness of the full range of moral considerations.  The wider social impacts of technological projects are easily dismissed as being in someone else’s bailiwick.  (Why should the Safety Testing department be concerned with results from the Basic Research department?)

3.  Weigh all relevant moral reasons.  This calls for good moral judgment—there are no simple moral algorithms.  It also calls for listening sympathetically to different views.  Often it requires insight and fresh perspective.  (What do representatives of a patient’s organization have to say about this drug?)

4.  Make a decision and carry it out.  Often the decision is to articulate and defend a view on how one’s group should proceed.  Usually it calls for savvy and a willingness to compromise—that is, to reasonably accommodate one’s conduct to group demands, not betraying one’s integrity.  (For example, “The in-vitro work is too important to ignore.  We’ll design a study that gives us a better picture of the true risk here as quickly as possible, and notify management that it’s just too risky to go to market right away.”)

Crisis or Prevention?

What should we do after observing something we strongly feel is morally wrong?  For instance, if we suspect that one of our colleagues fudges data?  Do we talk to that person, perhaps just to get a denial?  Talk to his supervisor, and accept possible personal hostility from the researcher? 

Imagine having to handle the decision faced by Roger Boijoly, who, along with other engineers, believed the space shuttle Challenger should not be launched in conditions colder than the booster rockets’ O-rings had been tested at.  Should the engineers have pushed harder, perhaps even risking their jobs, for a delay?  Or was the failure entirely due to management’s loss of focus on launching? 

Crisis management calls for on-the-spot creativity by potential whistleblowers, managers, and colleagues who are looking for a responsible way to minimize harm.  These are examples of crisis ethics.  However, preventive ethics help avoid crises in the first place.  In the Challenger case, it would have meant anticipating the weather at the launching pad and making darn sure the seals and other components could function in any conceivable launch conditions.

Good management, smart organizational structures, collegial working relationships, open-door policies, and supportive attitudes all encourage the vigorous expression of viewpoints that creates an environment dominated by preventive ethics.

Good engineering, good business, and good ethics go together.  Moral creativity helps create that union and promote the public good.