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Title: Doing the Minimum as an Alternative to Exercising Reasonable Care in a Professional Role
Creator: Davis, Michael
Date: 2008, 2000
Description: In the second edition of ENGINEERING ETHICS:CASES AND CONCEPTS (Wadsworth, 2000), Harris, Pritchard, and Rabins distinguish three conceptions...
Show moreIn the second edition of ENGINEERING ETHICS:CASES AND CONCEPTS (Wadsworth, 2000), Harris, Pritchard, and Rabins distinguish three conceptions of professional responsibility: the "minimalist," the "reasonable care" and the "good works". Of the minimalist conception, they say (among other things) that it "holds that engineers have a duty to conform to the standard operating procedures of their profession and to fulfill the basic duties of their job defied by the terms of their employment." (p.101). In contrast, the reasonable care conception "moves beyond the minimalist view's concern to 'stay out of trouble'. (p.103) I will argue that this distinction is incoherent, that the "minimalist conception" (so defined) necessarily includes not only reasonable care but at least some of what Harris, Pritchard, and Rabins classify as "good works". I conclude with a suggestion for what they might say instead about a certain "minimalist attitude" one finds in business (though it truth, it should be called "sub-minimalist".
Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Association for Professional and Practical Ethics (A.P.P.E.), Washington, DC, February 26, 2000.
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Title: Professionalism Means Putting Your Profession First
Creator: Davis, Michael
Date: 2007, 1988
Publisher: Georgetown School of Law
Description: Ask a lawyer what "professionalism" means and you are likely to hear that professionalism means putting your client first or acting as an...
Show moreAsk a lawyer what "professionalism" means and you are likely to hear that professionalism means putting your client first or acting as an officer of the court. Only rarely will a lawyer say that professionalism means putting justice first. Never, I think, will a lawyer even suggest that professionalism means putting your profession first. Yet this is the thesis of this paper. The paper has three parts. Section I makes certain distinctions necessary to prevent misunderstanding my thesis. Section II and III develop the thesis into a conception of professionalism. Sections IV and V use that conception to help with the most difficult of undertakings, justifying professional discipline to someone convicted of professional misconduct which harmed neither her client nor an identifiable third party.
Georgetown Journal of Legal Ethics. Vol. 2, Issue 1. Summer 1988. pp.341-357.
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Title: Some Paradoxes of Whistleblowing
Creator: Davis, Michael
Date: 2006, 1996
Publisher: Philosophy Documentation Center
Description: By "paradox" I mean an apparent- and in this case, real-inconsistency between theory (our systematic understanding of whistleblowing) and the...
Show moreBy "paradox" I mean an apparent- and in this case, real-inconsistency between theory (our systematic understanding of whistleblowing) and the facts (what we actually know, or think we know, about whistleblowing). What concerns me is not a few anomalies, the exceptions that test a rule, but a flood of exceptions that seem to swamp the rule. This paper has four parts. The first states the standard theory of whistleblowing. The second argues that the standard theory is paradoxical, that it is inconsistent with what we know about whistleblowers. The third part sketches what seems to me a less paradoxical theory of whistleblowing. The fourth tests this new theory against one classic case of whistleblowing, Roger Boisjoly's testimony before the presidential commission investigating the Challenger disaster (the "Rogers Commission"). I use that case because the chief facts are both uncontroversial enough and well-known enough to make detailed exposition unnecessary. For the same reasons, I also use that case to illustrate various claims about whistleblowing throughout the paper.
Business and Professional Ethics Journal, Vo. 15, No.1. pp.3-19.
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Title: Replacement as a Problem for Justification of Preventative Detention
Creator: Davis, Michael
Date: 2011, 2011-04
Publisher: John Jay College of Criminal Justice of The City University of New Yor
Description: What makes Don E. Scheid’s article on indefinite detention interesting is that he thinks through many of the moral...
Show moreWhat makes Don E. Scheid’s article on indefinite detention interesting is that he thinks through many of the moral issues inherent in attempting to prevent (or, rather, keep to a minimum) certain kinds of violent crime, an attempt we have come to call (however unwisely) ‘‘the war on terror.’’ Scheid takes ‘‘war’’ as literally as possible, while making the reasonable assumption that this war, unlike wars generally, is not a temporary expedient responding to a moral emergency but an institution that must operate at full power for a long time, decades at least. Scheid’s argument yields a long list of preconditions for justified indefinite preventive detention: a high standard of dangerousness (‘‘mega-terrorism’’), a reasonable standard of proof of dangerousness, as good an investigation as conditions will allow, adequate resources for the defense, a hearing before a fair and independent tribunal, detention under the most comfortable conditions practical, and periodic review of the detainee’s supposed dangerousness. To these preconditions one more should be added: that detaining the persons in question will reduce the danger posed. I take this additional precondition to follow from Scheid’s own defense of indefinite detention, not from an independent argument. Scheid limits his argument to megaterrorists because the scale of destruction they have already achieved (for example, destruction of the World Trade Center) shows them to be dangerous on a scale ordinary crime is not and so to invite measures of prevention beyond what seems necessary (or proper) for ordinary criminals. Scheid explicitly declines to consider the non-consequentialist argument that preventive detention is what a mega-terrorist deserves for his character or for what he has already done. Scheid’s argument for preventive detention is consequentialist throughout: we may, and should, detain to prevent (or at least substantially reduce the probability of) the large-scale destruction of life that mega-terrorists aim at. We may justifiably deny a few, including some innocent persons, their freedom because, and only because, it makes the rest of us, the great majority, considerably safer. My additional precondition can be defended in the same way: where there is no danger posed, any detention is (all else equal) a net loss in happiness, well being, or whatever reasonable measure of consequences we adopt. A precondition of preventative detention must be a net reduction in danger posed. Where what is proposed is an institution of preventative detention, the institution must have that effect overall. What I shall argue here is that preventive detention generally fails to satisfy this condition and Scheid’s indefinite preventive detention of mega-terrorists always does. An institution to prevent terrorism by detaining terrorists cannot, in practice, significantly reduce the danger terrorism poses.
Criminal Justice Ethics. Vol. 30, No. 1, April 2011, 90-97.
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Title: 'Ain't No One Here But Us Social Forces' : Constructing the Social Responsibility of Engineers.
Creator: Davis, Michael
Date: 2011-04, 2011-06
Publisher: Springer
Description: There are many ways to avoid responsibility, for example, explaining what happens as the work of the gods, fate,...
Show moreThere are many ways to avoid responsibility, for example, explaining what happens as the work of the gods, fate, society, or the system. For engineers, “technology” or “the organization” will serve this purpose quite well. We may distinguish at least nine (related) senses of “responsibility”, the most important of which are: (a) responsibility-as-causation (the storm is responsible for flooding), (b) responsibility-as-liability (he is the person responsible and will have to pay), (c) responsibility-as-competency (he’s a responsible person, that is, he’s rational), (d) responsibility-as-office (he’s the responsible person, that is, the person in charge), and (e) a responsibility-as-domain-of-tasks (these are her responsibilities, that is, the things she is supposed to do). For all but the causal sense of responsibility, responsibility may be taken (in a relatively straightforward sense)—and generally is. Why then would anyone want to claim that certain technologies make it impossible to attribute responsibility to engineers (or anyone else)? In this paper, I identify seven arguments for that claim and explain why each is fallacious. The most important are: (1) the argument from “many hands”, (2) the argument from individual ignorance, and (3) the argument from blind forces. Each of these arguments makes the same fundamental mistake, the assumption that a certain factual situation, being fixed, settles responsibility, that is, that individuals, either individually or by some group decision, cannot take responsibility. I conclude by pointing out the sort of decisions (and consequences) engineers have explicitly taken responsibility for and why taking responsibility for them is rational, all things considered. There is no technological bar to such responsibility.
Science and Engineering Ethics.
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Title: Data Set from 2016 Survey of Chinese Engineers on Professional Ethics: Answers to question 25
Creator: Davis, Michael, Zhang, Hengli
Date: 2016-05, 2016-05
Description: Raw data of a survey of Chinese engineers looking at their conceptions of professionalism and professional ethics. Collaborative project by Dr...
Show moreRaw data of a survey of Chinese engineers looking at their conceptions of professionalism and professional ethics. Collaborative project by Dr. Michael Davis of the Center for the Study of Ethics in the Professions and Dr. Hengli Zhang of the Center for Engineering Ethics Studies, Beijing University of Technology
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Title: Professionalism Among Chinese Engineers: An Empirical Study
Creator: Wei, Lina, Davis, Michael
Date: 2019-03-18, 2019-03-18
Description: This is a copy of a dataset - in English and Chinese - completed in 2018 looking at concepts of professionalism. Following on the Davis, Zhang...
Show moreThis is a copy of a dataset - in English and Chinese - completed in 2018 looking at concepts of professionalism. Following on the Davis, Zhang survey of 2016, this study continues to evaluate the claim that China has a profession of engineering (as defined by Davis) with a larger, better educated, demographically different pool of two hundred and twenty-nine Chinese engineers, using more specific and deeper questions about “profession”, for example, by adding the investigation of competence (the discipline of engineering)—the perceived knowledge, skill, and judgment of the interviewees as evidence of one aspect of profession. The dataset includes a copy of the questionnaire in Chinese and English, as well as both the entire dataset of surveyed individuals as well as the data from individuals who were deemed to have enough experience in engineering to be included in the final data set analyzed.
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Title: Professionalism Among Chinese Engineers: An Empirical Study: Questionnaire (Chinese version)
Creator: Wei, Lina, Davis, Michael
Date: 2019-03-18, 2019-03-18
Description: This is a copy of a dataset - in English and Chinese - completed in 2018 looking at concepts of professionalism. Following on the Davis, Zhang...
Show moreThis is a copy of a dataset - in English and Chinese - completed in 2018 looking at concepts of professionalism. Following on the Davis, Zhang survey of 2016, this study continues to evaluate the claim that China has a profession of engineering (as defined by Davis) with a larger, better educated, demographically different pool of two hundred and twenty-nine Chinese engineers, using more specific and deeper questions about “profession”, for example, by adding the investigation of competence (the discipline of engineering)—the perceived knowledge, skill, and judgment of the interviewees as evidence of one aspect of profession. The dataset includes a copy of the questionnaire in Chinese and English, as well as both the entire dataset of surveyed individuals as well as the data from individuals who were deemed to have enough experience in engineering to be included in the final data set analyzed.
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Title: Data Set from 2016 Survey of Chinese Engineers on Professional Ethics: Questionnaire Survey on the Occupational Cognitive Status-20160419
Creator: Davis, Michael, Zhang, Hengli
Date: 2016-05, 2016-05
Description: Raw data of a survey of Chinese engineers looking at their conceptions of professionalism and professional ethics. Collaborative project by Dr...
Show moreRaw data of a survey of Chinese engineers looking at their conceptions of professionalism and professional ethics. Collaborative project by Dr. Michael Davis of the Center for the Study of Ethics in the Professions and Dr. Hengli Zhang of the Center for Engineering Ethics Studies, Beijing University of Technology
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Title: Data Set from 2016 Survey of Chinese Engineers on Professional Ethics: Questionnaire Survey on the Occupational Cognitive Status-20160428: Questionnaire Survey on the Occupational Cognitive Status-20160428
Creator: Davis, Michael, Zhang, Hengli
Date: 2016-05, 2016-05
Description: Raw data of a survey of Chinese engineers looking at their conceptions of professionalism and professional ethics. Collaborative project by Dr...
Show moreRaw data of a survey of Chinese engineers looking at their conceptions of professionalism and professional ethics. Collaborative project by Dr. Michael Davis of the Center for the Study of Ethics in the Professions and Dr. Hengli Zhang of the Center for Engineering Ethics Studies, Beijing University of Technology
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Title: Data Set from 2016 Survey of Chinese Engineers on Professional Ethics: Q24 Do you know the technical standards and code of conducts of your engineering society-2016-5-19
Creator: Davis, Michael, Zhang, Hengli
Date: 2016-05, 2016-05
Description: Raw data of a survey of Chinese engineers looking at their conceptions of professionalism and professional ethics. Collaborative project by Dr...
Show moreRaw data of a survey of Chinese engineers looking at their conceptions of professionalism and professional ethics. Collaborative project by Dr. Michael Davis of the Center for the Study of Ethics in the Professions and Dr. Hengli Zhang of the Center for Engineering Ethics Studies, Beijing University of Technology
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Title: Data Set from 2016 Survey of Chinese Engineers on Professional Ethics: Copy of data set
Creator: Davis, Michael, Zhang, Hengli
Date: 2016-05, 2016-05
Description: Raw data of a survey of Chinese engineers looking at their conceptions of professionalism and professional ethics. Collaborative project by Dr...
Show moreRaw data of a survey of Chinese engineers looking at their conceptions of professionalism and professional ethics. Collaborative project by Dr. Michael Davis of the Center for the Study of Ethics in the Professions and Dr. Hengli Zhang of the Center for Engineering Ethics Studies, Beijing University of Technology
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Title: Data Set from 2016 Survey of Chinese Engineers on Professional Ethics: Q22 What do you think about engineers-- promotion opportunity--- And what concerns do you have about your career development-2016-5-19
Creator: Davis, Michael, Zhang, Hengli
Date: 2016-05, 2016-05
Description: Raw data of a survey of Chinese engineers looking at their conceptions of professionalism and professional ethics. Collaborative project by Dr...
Show moreRaw data of a survey of Chinese engineers looking at their conceptions of professionalism and professional ethics. Collaborative project by Dr. Michael Davis of the Center for the Study of Ethics in the Professions and Dr. Hengli Zhang of the Center for Engineering Ethics Studies, Beijing University of Technology
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Title: Data Set from 2016 Survey of Chinese Engineers on Professional Ethics: Q23 How do you think that engineers can get their success and self-identity-2016-5-19
Creator: Davis, Michael, Zhang, Hengli
Date: 2016-05, 2016-05
Description: Raw data of a survey of Chinese engineers looking at their conceptions of professionalism and professional ethics. Collaborative project by Dr...
Show moreRaw data of a survey of Chinese engineers looking at their conceptions of professionalism and professional ethics. Collaborative project by Dr. Michael Davis of the Center for the Study of Ethics in the Professions and Dr. Hengli Zhang of the Center for Engineering Ethics Studies, Beijing University of Technology
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Title: Data Set from 2016 Survey of Chinese Engineers on Professional Ethics
Creator: Davis, Michael, Zhang, Hengli
Date: 2016-05, 2016-05
Description: Raw data of a survey of Chinese engineers looking at their conceptions of professionalism and professional ethics. Collaborative project by Dr...
Show moreRaw data of a survey of Chinese engineers looking at their conceptions of professionalism and professional ethics. Collaborative project by Dr. Michael Davis of the Center for the Study of Ethics in the Professions and Dr. Hengli Zhang of the Center for Engineering Ethics Studies, Beijing University of Technology
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Title: Professionalism Among Chinese Engineers: An Empirical Study
Creator: Wei, Lina, Davis, Michael
Date: 2019-03-18, 2019-03-18
Description: This is a copy of a dataset - in English and Chinese - completed in 2018 looking at concepts of professionalism. Following on the Davis, Zhang...
Show moreThis is a copy of a dataset - in English and Chinese - completed in 2018 looking at concepts of professionalism. Following on the Davis, Zhang survey of 2016, this study continues to evaluate the claim that China has a profession of engineering (as defined by Davis) with a larger, better educated, demographically different pool of two hundred and twenty-nine Chinese engineers, using more specific and deeper questions about “profession”, for example, by adding the investigation of competence (the discipline of engineering)—the perceived knowledge, skill, and judgment of the interviewees as evidence of one aspect of profession. The dataset includes a copy of the questionnaire in Chinese and English, as well as both the entire dataset of surveyed individuals as well as the data from individuals who were deemed to have enough experience in engineering to be included in the final data set analyzed.
Show less

Title: Data Set from 2016 Survey of Chinese Engineers on Professional Ethics: Questionnaire Survey on the Occupational Cognitive Status-20160428: Questionnaire Survey on the Occupational Cognitive Status-20160428
Creator: Davis, Michael, Zhang, Hengli
Date: 2016-05, 2016-05
Description: Raw data of a survey of Chinese engineers looking at their conceptions of professionalism and professional ethics. Collaborative project by Dr...
Show moreRaw data of a survey of Chinese engineers looking at their conceptions of professionalism and professional ethics. Collaborative project by Dr. Michael Davis of the Center for the Study of Ethics in the Professions and Dr. Hengli Zhang of the Center for Engineering Ethics Studies, Beijing University of Technology
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Title: Data Set from 2016 Survey of Chinese Engineers on Professional Ethics: Analysis on Subjective Questions of Engineering professional questionnaire(engineering degree personnel)-2016-4-22
Creator: Davis, Michael, Zhang, Hengli
Date: 2016-05, 2016-05
Description: Raw data of a survey of Chinese engineers looking at their conceptions of professionalism and professional ethics. Collaborative project by Dr...
Show moreRaw data of a survey of Chinese engineers looking at their conceptions of professionalism and professional ethics. Collaborative project by Dr. Michael Davis of the Center for the Study of Ethics in the Professions and Dr. Hengli Zhang of the Center for Engineering Ethics Studies, Beijing University of Technology
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Title: Data Set from 2016 Survey of Chinese Engineers on Professional Ethics: Q24 Do you know the technical standards and code of conducts of your engineering society-2016-5-24
Creator: Davis, Michael, Zhang, Hengli
Date: 2016-05, 2016-05
Description: Raw data of a survey of Chinese engineers looking at their conceptions of professionalism and professional ethics. Collaborative project by Dr...
Show moreRaw data of a survey of Chinese engineers looking at their conceptions of professionalism and professional ethics. Collaborative project by Dr. Michael Davis of the Center for the Study of Ethics in the Professions and Dr. Hengli Zhang of the Center for Engineering Ethics Studies, Beijing University of Technology
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Title: Professionalism Among Chinese Engineers: An Empirical Study: Effective raw data(229)
Creator: Wei, Lina, Davis, Michael
Date: 2019-03-18, 2019-03-18
Description: This is a copy of a dataset - in English and Chinese - completed in 2018 looking at concepts of professionalism. Following on the Davis, Zhang...
Show moreThis is a copy of a dataset - in English and Chinese - completed in 2018 looking at concepts of professionalism. Following on the Davis, Zhang survey of 2016, this study continues to evaluate the claim that China has a profession of engineering (as defined by Davis) with a larger, better educated, demographically different pool of two hundred and twenty-nine Chinese engineers, using more specific and deeper questions about “profession”, for example, by adding the investigation of competence (the discipline of engineering)—the perceived knowledge, skill, and judgment of the interviewees as evidence of one aspect of profession. The dataset includes a copy of the questionnaire in Chinese and English, as well as both the entire dataset of surveyed individuals as well as the data from individuals who were deemed to have enough experience in engineering to be included in the final data set analyzed.
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