Speakers

Martin Peterson, PhD

Martin Peterson is the Sue G. and Harry E. Bovay, Jr. Professor of the History and Ethics of Professional Engineering at Texas A&M University. He has authored more than sixty peer-revied papers and six books, including The Ethics of Technology (Oxford University Press 2017), and Ethics for Engineers (Oxford University Press 2019).

Presentation Description

In this talk I will discuss the drinking water crisis in Flint, MI in 2014-2015. Residents of Flint raised concerns about elevated levels of lead in the drinking water after Flint switched its raw water source. Several officials insisted that the water was safe to drink; in their view, it merely looked and smelled bad. My goal is to offer some ethical reflections based on the NSPE Code of Ethics. Did the water engineers in Flint "hold paramount the safety, health, and welfare of the public"? And did the City officials, the EPA, and the MDEQ respect this principle? I will demonstrate that NSPE's interpretation of the paramountcy clause of the Code of Ethics has changed after Flint and now requires engineers to take actions that they were previously not required to take.

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