1. MORAL AUTONOMY
&
CONSENSUS AND CONTROVERSY
By
M.Dhilsath Fathima

2. MORAL AUTONOMY
(One who gives oneself one’s own
law)

3. Meaning-Autonomy
• Self-Governing
• Act Independently.
• Self-Determining.
• Skill/Habit of a person
• Rational Thinking
(Thinking Logically/Reasonable thinking/Good
Decision Making)

4. Definition
• It is a concept found in moral,political,ethical
philosophy.
• the ability to think critically and independently
about moral issues
• Apply this moral thinking to situations that
arise in professional engineering practice.
• It is concerned with independent attitude of a
person related to moral /ethical issues.
• It helps to improve self-determination among
the individuals.

5. Skills for improving moral
autonomy
A person becomes morally autonomous by improving various practical
skills:
• Proficiency is recognizing moral problems and issues in
engineering.
• Skill in comprehending, clarifying and critically assessing
arguments on opposing sides of moral issues.
• Awareness of alternate responses to issues and creative
solutions for practical difficulties.
• Increased precision in the use of a common ethical language
necessary to express and also defend one’s views adequately.
• They must have the ability to suggest the solutions to moral
issues, on the basis of facts. These suggestions must be
consistent and must include all the aspects of the problem.
• They must understand the importance of maintaining the
moral honesty.

6. CONSENSUS AND CONTROVERSY

7. MEANING
• CONSENSUS –AGREEMENT
general agreement.
Ex: The consensus of the universities is that
they should conduct university exam twice in a
year.
• CONTROVERSY-DISAGREEMENT /Argument
All individuals will not arrive at same verdict
during their exercising their moral autonomy.

8. Need of Consensus and
Controversy
• The consensus and the controversies are playing
the vital roles while considering the moral
autonomy.
• When an individual exercises the moral
autonomy, he cannot get the same results as
others get in applying moral autonomy. Surely
there must be some moral differences i.e. the
results or verdicts will be of controversy. This
kind of disagreements is unavoidable. These
disagreements require some tolerances among
individuals those who are autonomous,
reasonable and responsible.

9. Relationship between Consensus,
Authority
• One major goal of engineering ethics is to
promote authority while exercising consensus.
• Consensus concerning the role of authority.
• Ex: Teachers having authority over students and
managers having authority over engineers.
• So authority provides framework in which
learning ,tolerance , consensus take place.

10. Another Example-CONSENSUS AND
CONTROVERSY
• The conductor of a music orchestra has
authority over the musicians and his authority
is respected by them by consensus as
otherwise the music performance will suffer.
Hence the authority and autonomy and
consensus are compatible

11. Example 1- moral dilemma
• The hijacked plane with 200 people is
approaching a building with 50,000 people
• Vote! Will you shoot down the plane?
• You cannot subscribe to both principles in the
case.
• A true moral dilemma

12. Example 2-Moral Dilemma
• For example, suppose one gives a promise to his
friend that he will meet him on the evening of a
particular day, but unfortunately on the same
day his brother has met with an accident and he
has to take him to hospital. The dilemma here
consists of a conflict between the duty to keep
promise and obligations to his brother. In this
situation, to solve his moral problem, he can
make a phone call to his friend and make apology
for his inability to come. So, from the above it is
clear that the duty to keep promise always has
two different and conflicting applications.