Michael Davis

Davis asks, in effect, two basic questions: What is engineering? and, What ethical principles should guide engineers? In Part I he puts engineering in historical perspective, making clear both how new engineering is and in what that newness consists. He then offers an extended meditation on the Challenger space shuttle disaster. In Part II he considers aspects of the complex relationship between engineering ideals and practice today, looking at the place of a code of ethics in engineering practice, the origins of wrongdoing, and whistleblowing and its alternatives. Here, Davis details how social organization and technical requirements combine to define how engineers should (and presumably do) think. Part III explores the importance of protecting engineering judgment and identifies the chief means of doing so. In Part IV, Davis begins to test this philosophical construction empirically. He reports the results of a study of how engineers and managers work together in ten companies. He then illuminates the concept of professional autonomy in such a way that social scientists should be able to assess the degree of professional autonomy engineers have. The book's concluding chapter reviews the social science literature, identifying empirical questions whose answers would be of value to engineering ethics.

With wide public support in 1994, Congress established more than sixty new capital crimes. In Justice in the Shadow of Death, Davis argues that, if the United States is ever to join the majority of the world in abolishing capital punishment, opponents of the death penalty must make a stronger philosophical case against it. He systematically dissects the arguments in favor of capital punishment and demonstrates why they are philosophically superior to opposing arguments. Justice in the Shadow of Death is an important book for philosophers, political theorists, policy analysts, and criminal justice specialists.

While everyone may agree that the punishment should fit the crime, it is much harder to reach agreement on just what is called for in specific cases. Philosophical treatments of punishment, which tend to emphasize the nature or justification of punishment in general, are often of no help in dealing with practical questions of the appropriateness of specific punishments. In this collection of often controversial essays, Michael Davis examines many of the practical problems of punishment. Among the issues discussed are how recidivism should be punished, how unsuccessful attempts at crimes should be punished, and how courts should deal with crimes of strict liability. Davis, a long-time contributor to the literature on punishment, also discusses problems of sentencing, and he responds to his earlier critics, including Hyman Gross, Andrew von Hirsch, and R. A. Duff. To Make the Punishment Fit the Crime is written in the rigorous, accessible, and iconoclastic style Davis's readers have come to expect. It is an essential book for philosophers, lawyers, criminologists, and others concerned about the future of criminal justice.