Transparency in Responsible Design: Avoiding Engineering Overconfidence and Supporting Societal Acceptance

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Abstract

In this contribution it is argued that in responsible design engineers should be transparent towards stakeholders about the goals they intend to realise with their designs. The emergence of responsible design in, e.g., value-sensitive design, design for values, social design, nudging and positive design, is to be welcomed. It has however the weakness of overconfidence which may lead engineers to suspend earlier commitments to society as given in engineering codes of conduct and ethics, and practices of seeking informed consent and taking blame. It is argued that these earlier commitments lead to the requirement that engineers should be transparent about the goals in responsible designs. Providing this transparency support moreover the societal acceptance of responsible design since it positions engineers doing responsible design as subscribing to values such as respect, honesty and trust. I illustrate the argument with a case of social design and a case of nudging.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationProceedings of International conference on engineering design, ICED19
Pages3431-3440
Number of pages10
Volume2019-August
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2019
EventInternational Conference on Engineering Design - Delft, Netherlands
Duration: 5 Aug 20198 Aug 2019
Conference number: 22

Publication series

NameProceedings of the International Conference on Engineering Design, ICED
ISSN (Print)2220-4334

Conference

ConferenceInternational Conference on Engineering Design
Abbreviated titleICED2019
Country/TerritoryNetherlands
CityDelft
Period5/08/198/08/19

Keywords

  • Communication
  • Engineering codes of conduct
  • Ethics
  • Social responsibility
  • Transparancy

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