Consistent Life Ethic, Nuance, and Mercy

An article by John Gehring, Catholic program director at Faith in Public Life and author of The Francis Effect: A Radical Pope's Challenge to the American Catholic Church, caught my eye recently as I pondered the problems, moral, political, and social that surround attempts to overturn Roe vs Wade in the Supreme Court of the United States. (SCOTUS).

 

Gehring quotes professors of theology and bioethics and a "pro-life ethicist," to present the point of view that Catholic moral tradition is more nuanced than anti-abortion slogans or extreme bills. M.T. Dávila, a visiting associate professor of practice at Merrimack College and a past president of the Academy of Catholic Hispanic Theologians of the United States, argues that something fundamental is often lost in Catholic discussions of abortion.

"Human dignity in Catholic social teaching often seems not to include respect for the autonomy and personhood of women," she said. "We have failed to build in the Catholic and pro-life tradition a robust understanding of the personhood of women. It's a failure of thought and imagination."... 'You can be pro-life and also highlight the way these measures are very clearly anti-woman.'... Dávila finds it telling that none of the most restrictive anti-abortion legislation includes social supports for women and children such as child care funding or prenatal and postnatal health care. (Gehring, 2022)

In the past few years I have curated articles in my Ponder Patterns blog that present opinions on the treatment of abortion in the context of a consistent ethic of life. The individual articles are listed below.

Discerning Benefits for all in Culture Wars

Some Common Ground for the Common Good

Abstract of Legal safe and rare

Legal safe and rare

Cooperation and Culture Wars

The gradualism of Pope Francis applied with the virtue of mercy is a process to encourage communication and co-operation to address the needs of women. Working together is a worthy goal that is made very difficult in the politically energized “culture war” that diverts our attention and efforts from supporting women in need now.

References

Gehring, J. (2022, March 31). Catholic moral tradition more nuanced than anti-abortion slogans or extreme bills. National Catholic Reporter. Retrieved May 3, 2022, from https://www.ncronline.org/news/opinion/catholic-moral-tradition-more-nuanced-anti-abortion-slogans-or-extreme-bills 

Conflict As Ends Justify Means

A recent segment of the Current on CBC radio included an interview with Jon Ronson who has produced a podcast that explores the history of the development of the culture wars in areas such as abortion and sex education.

PHOTO BY ROB GURDEBEKE/THE CANADIAN PRESS/FILE

 

Some scenarios he relates reveal how the fury of these debates may have evolved because of decisions and desires not related to the values currently driving heated conflicts.

In his new podcast Things Fell Apart: Strange Tales From The Culture Wars, Jon Ronson traces the history of culture wars over issues like religion, gender, and sexuality — and finds some very weird stories along the way.1

Steven Mintz, aka Ethics Sage, asks the related question “Do the Ends Justify the Means?” He cites Niccolo Machiavelli for an early explanation of the ends justifying the means, expressed in Chapter XVIII of The Prince. The statement that “the ends justify the means” can be traced back to Niccolo Machiavelli. The closest he came to it was when he expressed his view in Chapter XVIII of The Prince:

“There is nothing more necessary to appear to have than this last quality (appearing to be religious), inasmuch as men judge generally more by the eye than by the hand, because it belongs to everybody to see you, to few to come in touch withyou.”Machiavel_Offices_Florence2

Mintz explains that in this quote from Chapter 18 of The Prince about keeping faith, or being true to your word, Machiavelli is instructing a Prince on how to behave and how to keep up appearances. He says it’s very important to appear merciful, faithful, humane, upright, and religious. He also says that one must be prepared to act in a manner contrary to the appearance to keep up the appearance. This is because everyone can see what you appear to be, and only a few will get close enough to touch you and actually find out what happened. 

These people (each with slightly different reasons and motivations) are all about appearing as they wish people to see them. Even if it is nothing like what they really are, even if they are saying the exact opposite of what they will eventually do, they know that few will see through their appearances. So, for Machiavelli, to appear to be doing something is good enough even if the actor has no intention of doing so, or achieving an end result far outweighs how we got there; what road we took; and whether our behavior was ethical or not.2

Max Fawcett shares his opinion, in the National Observer, that the anti-vaxxer truck convoy signals an insidious spread of Trumpism in Canada where Conservatives are misrepresenting reality and promoting false information and fake controversies to their base.

Take former leader Andrew Scheer’s recent tweet, in which he declared his affinity for the convoy of truckers making their way to Ottawa to protest the government’s policy. “Trudeau is attacking personal liberty and threatening everyone's ability to get groceries because of his overreach on vaccine mandates,” Scheer wrote. “He is the biggest threat to freedom in Canada.”3

The fusion of hyperbole, hatred and fear-mongering is, to Fawcett, exactly the sort of thing the Republican Party has traded in ever since Donald Trump stepped onto that Trump Tower escalator in 2015. Since then, both he and the Republican Party he controls have routinely treated the truth and those who tried to defend it with open contempt.

There’s no question supply chains are stretched right now due to a combination of factors (recent floods in B.C. and droughts on the Prairies, for example, not to mention the growing percentage of truck drivers and other key employees who are sick with the Omicron variant), and that this is showing up in the form of shortages of certain products in our grocery stores. But to pretend, as the Conservative Party of Canada has for days now, this is entirely because of the federal government’s vaccine mandate for cross-border truck drivers (a similar mandate already exists in the United States) is dishonest in the extreme.3

Fawcett finds that they have gone further than just garden variety dishonesty, too.

Reverse the mandate 🚛🚛
Sign the petition and SHARE 👇https://t.co/noPa1ZRX8e pic.twitter.com/iMF1Dhc5sX

— Melissa Lantsman (@MelissaLantsman) January 21, 2022

In a recent tweet, Thornhill MP Melissa Lantsman (who was once heralded as a bright, new moderate voice in the party) used a stock image of empty shelves in a British grocery store in a post that suggested “empty Canadian grocery store shevles [sic] could become a larger problem.” When people pointed out the obvious error — and deceit — she simply doubled down and directed people to her petition against the federal government’s vaccine mandate. These sorts of blatant lies and deliberate attempts to mislead Canadians are a threat to our democracy. But what makes the CPC’s recent conduct even more dangerous is the obvious desire on the part of its key members, including former leader Scheer and potential leadership front-runner Pierre Poilievre, to provoke a portion of the Canadian public that’s already inclined towards anti-social behaviour — and direct their fury towards the prime minister.3

The truckers, who are over 80% vaccinated, have gathered support for their freedom convoy. Unfortunately, it is likely that this demonstration has become the means for others to use misinformation, and populist demagoguery to promote ends that threaten the truth needed in a well functioning democracy.

 

References

1	(2022, January 25). The Current for Jan. 25, 2022 | CBC Radio. Retrieved January 27, 2022, from https://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/the-current-for-jan-25-2022-1.6326525
2	(2018, April 3). Do the Ends Justify the Means? - Ethics Sage. Retrieved January 27, 2022, from https://www.ethicssage.com/2018/04/do-the-ends-justify-the-means.html
3	(2022, January 27). Anti-vaxxer truck convoy signals insidious spread of Trumpism in .... Retrieved January 27, 2022, from https://www.nationalobserver.com/2022/01/27/opinion/anti-vaxxer-truck-convoy-signals-insidious-spread-trumpism-canada

 

Poor engineering design and ethics

The press frequently reports on incidents where it appears that disastrous outcomes may have been avoided if engineers had focused more on the common good or public safety.

GHG emission management

 

Danny Crichton, writing in TechCrunch,  suggests there is a fundamental thread that binds the disparate and heinous stories of the decline of engineering ethics together. The increasingly noxious alchemy of complexity and capitalism is a thread that binds the 737 MAX, FB data leaks, PG&E grid fires, and VW's emissions.

Ethics starts with leadership at the top, and specifically with better communication around safety and regulatory concerns to all stakeholders, but most definitely shareholders. Owners of stock in companies with complex technical products need to be told — again and again — that the companies they own will prioritize safety over immediate profits. The tone must always be to value long-term growth and sustainability… Yet, short-term traders aren’t the only investors available. The capital markets are diverse, and there are trillions of dollars of wealth handled by managers seeking to invest in long-term growth, without the downsides of inevitable disasters. One key part of investor relations is to acquire the investors that match the culture of the firm. If your investors don’t care about safety, no one else will either.1

 

The website of Engineers Nova Scotia states that Members of Engineers Nova Scotia must adhere to the Code of Ethics adopted by Council motion, effective September 30, 2012. This was adopted based on the Engineers Canada Code of Ethics as set out in the Engineers Canada publication “Guideline on the Code of Ethics”, dated April 2012.2

 

Facebook post from someone who takes the engineer's oath seriously 

Hyunjoo Jin reports, for Reuters, that the South Korean engineer Kim Gwang-ho flew 7,000 miles to Washington last year to do something he never dreamed he would: he reported alleged safety lapses at Hyundai Motor Co - his employer of 26 years - to U.S. regulators.

In a culture which values corporate loyalty, Kim was moving against the tide when he handed the NHTSA 250 pages of internal documents on the alleged defect and nine other faults. South Korea has been buffeted by corporate scandals, many within its family-run conglomerates or chaebol, but has seen few whistleblowers. A high proportion are sacked or ostracized, despite legislation to protect them, according to advocacy groups. Kim, fired in November for allegedly leaking trade secrets about the company’s technology and sales to media, has since been reinstated by Hyundai after a ruling by a South Korean government body under whistleblower protection laws. Hyundai has filed a complaint disputing the decision. “I will be the first and last whistleblower in South Korea’s auto industry. There are just too many things to lose,” Kim said in an interview at a bakery cafe run by his eldest daughter. “I had a normal life and was better off, but now I’m fighting against a big conglomerate.”3 

The ambiguity between loyalty to employers and clients who support the engineering enterprise and the safety or common good of society in expressions of engineering ethics makes decisions about inadequate designs an exercise in tension for practicing engineers.

 

References

 

1(2019, April 28). The demise and rebirth of the ethical engineer | TechCrunch. Retrieved May 1, 2019, from https://techcrunch.com/2019/04/28/the-demise-and-rebirth-of-the-ethical-engineer/ 

2(n.d.). Welcome to Engineers Nova Scotia. Retrieved November 18, 2021, from https://engineersnovascotia.ca/ 

3(2017, May 14). Blowing the whistle in South Korea: Hyundai Man takes on chaebol .... Retrieved November 18, 2021, from https://www.reuters.com/article/us-hyundai-whistleblower/blowing-the-whistle-in-south-korea-hyundai-man-takes-on-chaebol-culture-idUSKCN18B0J5

 

Engineering the Green Transition

Recent articles in the engineering media point to the unique resources and responsibilities that engineering can bring to planning and building our infrastructure in a time of climate change.

Building for Climate Change

 

David Fork and Ross Koningstein, two Google engineers writing in the IEEE Spectrum claim that engineers can disrupt Climate Change and decarbonization, carbon capture, and solar-radiation management will provide work for decades to come.

Our opening battles in the war on climate change need engineers to work on the many existing technologies that can massively scale up. As already illustrated with wind, solar, and batteries, such scale-ups often bring dramatic drops in costs. Other industrial sectors require technological revolutions to reduce emissions. If you experiment with your own mix of climate-mitigation techniques using the En-ROADS interactive climate tool, you’ll see how many options you have to max out to change our current trajectory and achieve 350 ppm CO2 levels and a global temperature rise of no more than 1.5 °C.1 

The authors have compiled a set of engineering calculations that are important for engineering our response to climate change.

	Goals and initial calculations (more detail in the article)[1]
1	We need to remove about 2000 gigatonnes of CO2 from the atmosphere
2	Humans use about 1 zettajoule of energy per year
3	To supply 1 zettajoule (ZJ) of energy per year with photovoltaic solar panels, we’d need to cover 1.6 percent of the planet’s land surface
4	To supply 1 ZJ of energy per year with nuclear power, we’d have to build three 1-gigawatt plants per day for 30 years
5	A 50-pound bag of concrete mix will cost about 42 cents more if the emissions from cement manufacturing are captured and stored
6	Removing 2,000 gigatonnes (Gt) of CO2 would account for roughly 2.8 percent of global GDP for 80 years

 Table of Engineering Considerations

Engineers Canada asks why is climate change important for engineers? Climate change is a significant and lasting change in weather patterns over periods ranging from decades to millions of years. It includes changes to temperature, precipitation and other climate parameters and changes in the frequency and severity of extreme weather events such as hurricanes, tornadoes and flash storms. In northern Canada climate effects on permafrost, ice-cover and snow loads are already apparent.

Much of Canada’s infrastructure has been in place for many years with designs based on existing climate patterns. With the effects of a changing climate, these designs need to be revisited to improve safety and protection for Canadians. Engineers, under their professional code of ethics, need to be involved in addressing the impacts of changing climate on infrastructure design and operations because it affects public safety and public interest.2 

Engineers are held to a higher standard of reasonable care than the average layperson. By virtue of the professional’s training and experience, they are expected to apply a high level of expertise to issues that affect their professional practice.

Professionals are expected to be aware of the limitations of their professional scope and access other qualified professionals to augment those areas where they may not be fully qualified to express professional judgment. Through extensive media coverage, the average layperson is cognizant of the climate change issue and its potential for disruptive and serious impacts. Similarly, the average engineer must also be sensitive to the potential for changing climate conditions and appropriately apply these sensitivities to their professional practice. Given the level of public awareness of the climate change issue, a professional cannot make the argument that they were unaware that climate change could potentially affect their professional work. 3 

Darrel Danyluk is a past president of Engineers Canada and of the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of Alberta. He is also a previous chair of the World Federation of Engineering Organizations Committee on Engineering and the Environment. David Lapp is a member of the WFEO Committee on Engineering and the Environment. They ask what are the key priorities for climate action within engineering? Some priorities for engineering should be:

• Education of existing practitioners, students and educators;

• Updating of existing codes, standards and guidelines or the creation of new ones where there are gaps;

• Better evidence of costs and benefits of adaptation and building climate resilience, particularly for civil infrastructure and buildings; and

• Developing multi-stakeholder concurrence on the need for adaptive and mitigative actions.

 

The main barrier is in implementation, which is often caused by a lack of financial commitment by decision-makers. Costs to mitigate and adapt to climate change are still uncertain and it’s difficult to obtain effective cost-shared agreements and division of responsibilities among stakeholders. In Canada, it’s sometimes difficult to coordinate and agree on actions between all three levels of government as there are jurisdictional and institutional limits to action. Some infrastructure owners aren’t prepared to invest in climate action measures, especially for designs that are outside of existing codes and standards that are becoming increasingly outdated as the climate changes. There’s also a reluctance to implement measures outside of existing guidelines and practices that often haven’t taken climate change into account.4

Calculating the material, workforce, and economic requirements to adapt and build resilience in our infrastructure is the traditional role of engineers. Now the costs and benefits of mitigative and adaptive measures need to be confirmed and included in building codes and construction practice.

References

1	(2021, June 28). Energy Engineers: You Can Disrupt Climate Change - IEEE Spectrum. Retrieved July 25, 2021, from https://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/renewables/engineers-you-can-disrupt-climate-change
2	(n.d.). Climate Change and Engineering | Engineers Canada. Retrieved July 25, 2021, from https://engineerscanada.ca/public-policy/climate-change-and-engineering
3	(n.d.). Principles of Climate Change Adaptation for Engineers. Retrieved July 25, 2021, from https://engineerscanada.ca/sites/default/files/01_national_guideline_climate_change_adaptation.pdf
4	(2021, March 25). WFEO climate stories: Canada - International Coalition for .... Retrieved July 25, 2021, from https://sustainability-coalition.org/wfeo-climate-stories-canada/

Need to Regulate Artificial Intelligence

The “Talks at Google” channel on YouTube interviews Yuval Noah Harari, macro-historian, Professor, best-selling author of "Sapiens" and "Homo Deus," and one of the world's most innovative and exciting thinkers. Harari discusses his newest work, "21 Lessons for the 21st Century."1

Described as a “truly mind-expanding” journey through today’s most pressing issues, "21 Lessons for the 21st Century" reminds us to maintain our collective focus in the midst of dizzying and disorienting change.

A quote from McKibben’s book points to the boundary that he considers for regulation.

To be clear, we already have achieved what the writer Tim Urban calls artificial narrow intelligence, sometimes referred to as “weak AI.”... You’ll be able to drink IPA’s for hours at your local tavern and the self-driving car will take you home - and it may well be able to recommend precisely which IPA’s you’d like the best. But it won’t be able to carry on an interesting discussion about whether this is the best course for your life. (McKibben p137) That next step up is artificial general intelligence, sometimes referred to as “strong AI “ That’s a computer “as smart as a human across the board, a machine that can perform any intellectual task a human can,” in Urban’s description.2

Yuval Noah Harari has contributed to the exploration of AI ethics through participation in “Talks at Google” This interview is also available as a podcast.3

Helen Lewis, writing a review for the Guardian, provides a summary of Harari’s style as a contrast to that of Jordan Peterson.

 It’s an unkind comparison, but I am compelled to return to Jordan Peterson. The two men are almost mirror-images: Harari is a vegan, while Peterson says that a beef-only diet is the best treatment for his depression. Both can sound like prophets. Harari advises that if you want to “know the truth about the universe ... the best place to start is by observing suffering and exploring what it is”, while Peterson tells readers: “Suffering is real, and the artful infliction of suffering on another, for its own sake, is wrong. That became the cornerstone of my belief.” And both men are treated as general all-purpose Clever People, rather than as academics with a particular specialism. They inhabit the high-altitude world of speaking tours and TED talks, repackaging their books into bite-sized chunks.4

McKibben’s concern about inequality resulting from the application of “strong AI” or Harari’s warning about the interface between biosensors and AI are flags that encourage us to discuss the ethical deployment of this technology to serve humanity rather than have humanity serve those who control the technology.

References

1	(2018, October 11). Yuval Noah Harari: "21 Lessons for the 21st Century" | Talks at .... Retrieved April 29, 2020, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bw9P_ZXWDJU
2	McKibben, B. (2020). Falter: has the human game begun to play itself out? New York: Henry Holt and Company.
3	(n.d.). Talks at Google - Ep14 - Yuval Noah Harari: "21 Lessons for .... Retrieved April 29, 2020, from https://www.stitcher.com/s/?eid=57208899
4	(2018, August 15). 21 Lessons for the 21st Century by Yuval Noah Harari review .... Retrieved April 2, 2020, from https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/aug/15/21-lessons-for-the-21st-century-by-yuval-noah-harari-review