Let us look at an hypothetical example in which several people are involved: the development of new fire-resistant material using new materials. There are four people involved:
- Person A is working in the laboratory and is doing fundamental research into the atomic properties of this new material;
- Person B is hired by the fire brigade to design a new outfit for the firemen with this promising new material;
- Person C is the director of the fire brigade who hired the designer and,
- Person D works at the fire brigade and he is responsible for cleaning the firemen’s outfit.
As it turns out, this promising new material happens to become carcinogenic if it is brought into contact with washing powder. One of the employees develops a lethal type of cancer and eventually dies. Can we say that one of the persons above is morally responsible for the death of the cleaner?
What we see is that the actions of the four people together lead to some dramatic outcome but none of the individual persons can be held responsible. This phenomenon is called the problem of "many hands". Because there are different people involved, it is impossible to identify one single person that is responsible. This problem is very urgent in engineering because there are often many people involved in the development of technology, even risky technologies with a substantial footprint were anything to go wrong.
Neelke Doorn will explain this in detail in the lecture (and the accompanying reading)
FOR STUDENTS
Discussion Prompts
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Describe an example from your own field in which the problem of many hands occurs or may occur. This example may be an example of professional work, an internship, or study situation.
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Respond to a post of one of your fellow students and discuss how the law, organization, or technological design may contribute to or prevent the problem of many hands in that particular example. If a particular post has already received two or more responses, select one that has not received any response yet.
