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Problem specification involves exercising moral imagination to specify the socio-technical system (including the stakeholders) that will influence and will be influenced by the decision we are about to make. Stating the problem clearly and concisely is essential to design problems; getting the problem right helps structure and channel the process of designing and implementing the solution. There is no algorithm available to crank out effective problem specification. Instead, we offer a series of guidelines or rules of thumb to get you started in a process that is accomplished by the skillful exercise of moral imagination.
For a broader problem framing model see Harris, Pritchard, and Rabins, Engineering Ethics: Concepts and Cases, 2nd Edition, Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 2000, pp. 30-56. See also Cynthia Brincat and Victoria Wike, Morality and Professional Life: Values at Work, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1999.
Different Ways of Specifying the Problem
- Many problems can be specified as disagreements. For example, you disagree with your supervisor over the safety of the manufacturing environment. Disagreements over facts can be resolved by gathering more information. Disagreements over concepts (you and your supervisor have different ideas of what safety means) require working toward a common definition.
- Other problems involve conflicting values. You advocate installing pollution control technology because you value environmental quality and safety. Your supervisor resists this course of action because she values maintaining a solid profit margin. This is a conflict between a moral value (safety and environmental quality) and a nonmoral value (solid profits). Moral values can also conflict with one another in a given situation. Using John Doe lawsuits to force Internet Service Providers to reveal the real identities of defamers certainly protects the privacy and reputations of potential targets of defamation. But it also places restrictions on legitimate free speech by making it possible for powerful wrongdoers to intimidate those who would publicize their wrongdoing. Here the moral values of privacy and free speech are in conflict. Value conflicts can be addressed by harmonizing the conflicting values, compromising on conflicting values by partially realizing them, or setting one value aside while realizing the other (=value trade ofs).
- If you specify your problem as a disagreement, you need to describe the facts or concepts about which there is disagreement.
- If you specify your problem as a conflict, you need to describe the values that conflict in the situation.
- One useful way of specifying a problem is to carry out a stakeholder analysis. A stakeholder is any group or individual that has a vital interest at risk in the situation. Stakeholder interests frequently come into conflict and solving these conflicts requires developing strategies to reconcile and realize the conflicting stakes.
- Another way of identifying and specifying problems is to carry out a socio-technical analysis. Sociotechnical systems (STS) embody values. Problems can be anticipated and prevented by specifying possible value conflicts. Integrating a new technology, procedure, or policy into a socio-technical system can create three kinds of problem. (1) Conflict between values in the technology and those in the STS. For example, when an attempt is made to integrate an information system into the STS of a small business, the values present in an information system can conflict with those in the socio-technical system. (Workers may feel that the new information system invades their privacy.) (2) Amplification of existing value conflicts in the STS. The introduction of a new technology may magnify an existing value conflict. Digitalizing textbooks may undermine copyrights because digital media is easy to copy and disseminate on the Internet. (3) Harmful consequences. Introducing something new into a sociotechnical system may set in motion a chain of events that will eventually harm stakeholders in the socio-technical system. For example, giving laptop computers to public school students may produce long term environmental harm when careless disposal of spent laptops releases toxic materials into the environment.
- The following table helps summarize some of these problem categories and then outlines generic solutions.
| Problem Type | Sub-Type | Solution Outline | ||
| Disagreement | Factual | Type and mode of gathering information | ||
| Conceptual | Concept in dispute and method for agreeing on its definition | |||
| Conflict | Moral vs. Moral | Value Integrative | Partially Value Integrative | Trade Off |
| Non-moral vs. moral | ||||
| Non-moral vs. non-moral | ||||
| Framing | Corruption | Strategy for maintaining integrity | Strategy for restoring justice | Value integrative, design strategy |
| Social Justice | ||||
| Value Realization | ||||
| Intermediate Moral Value | Public Welfare, Faithful Agency, Professional Integrity, Peer | Realizing Value | Removing value conflicts | Prioritizing values for trade offs |
Instructions for Using Problem Classification Table
- Is your problem a conflict? Moral versus moral value? Moral versus non-moral values? Non-moral versus non-moral values? Identify the conflicting values as concisely as possible. Example: In Toysmart, the financial values of creditors come into conflict with the privacy of individuals in the data base: financial versus privacy values.
- Is your problem a disagreement? Is the disagreement over basic facts? Are these facts observable? Is it a disagreement over a basic concept? What is the concept? Is it a factual disagreement that, upon further reflection, changes into a conceptual disagreement?
- Does your problem arise from an impending harm? What is the harm? What is its magnitude? What is the probability that it will occur?
- If your problem is a value conflict then can these values be fully integrated in a value integrating solution? Or must they be partially realized in a compromise or traded off against one another?
- If your problem is a factual disagreement, what is the procedure for gathering the required information, if this is feasible?
- If your problem is a conceptual disagreement, how can this be overcome? By consulting a government policy or regulation? (OSHA on safety for example.) By consulting a theoretical account of the value in question? (Reading a philosophical analysis of privacy.) By collecting past cases that involve the same concept and drawing analogies and comparisons to the present case?
If you are having problems specifying your problem
- Try identifying the stakeholders. Stakeholders are any group or individual with a vital interest at stake in the situation at hand.
- Project yourself imaginatively into the perspectives of each stakeholders. How does the situation look from their standpoint? What are their interests? How do they feel about their interests?
- Compare the results of these different imaginative projections. Do any stakeholder interests conflict? Do the stakeholders themselves stand in conflict?
- If the answer to one or both of these questions is "yes" then this is your problem statement. How does one reconcile conflicting stakeholders or conflicting stakeholder interests in this situation?
Framing Your Problem
- We miss solutions to problems because we choose to frame them in only one way.
- For example, the Mountain Terrorist Dilemma is usually framed in only one way: as a dilemma, that is, a forced decision between two equally undesirable alternatives. (Gilbane Gold is also framed as a dilemma: blow the whistle on Z-Corp or go along with the excess pollution.)
- Framing a problem differently opens up new horizons of solution. Your requirement from this point on in the semester is to frame every problem you are assigned in at least two different ways.
- For examples of how to frame problems using socio-technical system analysis see module m14025.
- These different frames are summarized in the next box below.
Different Frames for Problems
- Technical Frame: Engineers frame problems technically, that is, they specify a problem as raising a technical issue and requiring a technical design for its resolution. For example, in the Hughes case, a technical frame would raise the problem of how to streamline the manufacturing and testing processes of the chips.
- Physical Frame: In the Laminating Press case, the physical frame would raise the problem of how the layout of the room could be changed to reduce the white powder. Would better ventilation eliminate or mitigate the white powder problem?
- Social Frame: In the "When in Aguadilla" case, the Japanese engineer is uncomfortable working with the Puerto Rican woman engineer because of social and cultural beliefs concerning women still widely held by men in Japan. Framing this as a social problem would involve asking whether there would be ways of getting the Japanese engineer to see things from the Puerto Rican point of view.
- Financial or Market-Based Frames: The DOE, in the Risk Assessment case below, accuses the laboratory and its engineers of trying to extend the contract to make more money. The supervisor of the head of the risk assessment team pressures the team leader to complete the risk assessment as quickly as possible so as not to lose the contract. These two framings highlight financial issues.
- Managerial Frame: As the leader of the Puerto Rican team in the "When in Aguadilla" case, you need to exercise leadership in your team. The refusal of the Japanese engineer to work with a member of your team creates a management problem. What would a good leader, a good manager, do in this situation? What does it mean to call this a management problem? What management strategies would help solve it?
- Legal Frame: OSHA may have clear regulations concerning the white powder produced by laminating presses. How can you find out about these regulations? What would be involved in complying with them? If they cost money, how would you get this money? These are questions that arise when you frame the Laminating Press case as a legal problem.
- Environmental Framing: Finally, viewing your problem from an environmental frame leads you to consider the impact of your decision on the environment. Does it harm the environment? Can this harm be avoided? Can it be mitigated? Can it be offset? (Could you replant elsewhere the trees you cut down to build your new plant?) Could you develop a short term environmental solution to "buy time" for designing and implementing a longer term solution? Framing your problem as an environmental problem requires that you ask whether this solution harms the environment and whether this harming can be avoided or remedied in some other way.
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