The purpose of this paper is to diagnose and analyze the gap between philosophy of technology and engineering ethics and to suggest bridging them in a constructive way. In the first section, I will analyze why philosophy of technology and engineering ethics have taken separate paths so far. The following section will deal with the so-called macro-approach in engineering ethics. While appreciating the initiative, I will argue that there are still certain aspects in this approach that can be improved. In (...) the third, fourth, and fifth sections, I will point out three shortcomings of engineering ethics in terms of its macro-level discourse and argue that a number of certain insights taken from the study of philosophy of technology could be employed in overcoming those problems. In the concluding section, a final recommendation is made that topics of philosophy of technology be included in the curriculum of engineering ethics. (shrink)

Ethical aspects in engineering design have become increasingly important in recent years. A typical example is the recent rise of artificial intelligence ethics. This paper applies user studies of a design support tool to empirically verify that our ethical framework improves the creativity of an engineer’s design activity. The design support tool provides an environment for the promotion of ethical design perspectives and description. The experiments focus on two functionalities: semi-automatic generation and scenario path recommendation. These functions are designed around (...) the application of ethical design theory, which extends the hierarchical representation of artifacts. Doing this enables users to reconsider their themes at the highest level of the hierarchy and to apply a wider conceptual space of design solutions. For example, by reconsidering the positions of their research themes in the space of the representation field, users can semi-automatically edit them and identify focal areas. Using the scenario path recommendation, designers can update their research themes after considering the ethical impacts of those themes on stakeholders. Both functions are realized by exploiting a knowledge base of ethical and technological discourses. Finally, the ethical design theory is updated based on some unexpected results of our user studies with regards to the cyclic relationship among theory, tools, and observed data. For example, temporal dimensional aspects were confirmed as important. (shrink)

Many philosophers of science have argued that social and ethical values have a significant role to play in core parts of the scientific process. This naturally suggests the following question: when such value choices need to be made, which or whose values should be used? A common answer to this question turns to democratic values—the values of the public or its representatives. I argue that this imposes a morally significant burden on certain scientists, effectively requiring them to advocate for policy (...) positions they strongly disagree with. I conclude by discussing under what conditions this burden might be justified. (shrink)

We proposed the Standards of Conducts to provide a general framework that will serve as the basis for guiding each biostatistician and stem cell researcher to formulate their personal standards, rather than as rules with which they are required to comply. Given the responsibility and characteristics of their work, they are expected to maintain independence and work autonomously as professionals. Each of the Standards of Conducts comprises a preamble, mission and values to uphold, Standards of Conducts, and background. When one (...) internalizes “self-formulated” standards, to make excuses for oneself would be akin to a self-betrayal; responsible actions can be anticipated. If one begins and continues to consider “who I am and what do I work for,” this will become their inner energy, and a source of motivation and pride to inspire oneself. In addition, this aspirational style might help citizens to recognize the autonomous stance of the professional body and that they share the same values. (shrink)

In this paper I respond to van de Poel’s claim that new technologies should be conceived as ongoing social experiments, which is an idea originally introduced by Schinzinger and Martin in the 1970s. I discuss and criticize three possible motivations for thinking of new technologies as ongoing social experiments.

Contemporary engineering education recognises the need for engineering ethics content in undergraduate programmes to extend beyond concepts that form the basis of professional codes to consider relationality and context of engineering practice. Yet there is debate on how this might be done, and we argue that the design and pedagogy for engineering ethics has to consider what and to whom ethics is taught in a particular context. Our interest is in the possibilities and challenges of pursuing the dual imperatives of (...) socialization and critique. Socialization involves creating opportunities for all, in a diverse cohort of students, to access and engage with the dominant professional engineering ethics knowledge, while critique involves engaging with a range of ways of knowing, valuing, being and using language as relevant in contemporary engineering practice. We identify conceptual tools from engineering ethics and ethical pedagogy in education scholarship for our context. We illustrate how we use these tools systematically to strengthen our reflective practice in a first-year university engineering ethics module to a deeper form of reflexivity. Specifically, we explore the ways in which we attend to the dual imperatives and also highlight opportunities that we miss. We identify as key opportunities design choices such as how we formulated questions and prompts, and how we attended to content, context and language in selecting classroom texts. Other key opportunities were pedagogical choices of when and how to use student contributions in discussion, and what was made explicit in the classroom and assessment. We share our plans to take our learnings forward in our practice and consider the generative possibilities of these learnings and the concepts in other contexts. (shrink)

Ethics education for professionals has become popular in Japan over the last two decades. Many professional schools now require students to take an applied ethics or professional ethics course. In contrast, very few courses of professional ethics for teaching exist or have been taught in Japan. In order to obtain suggestions for teacher education, this paper reviews and examines practices of ethics education for engineers and nurses in Japan that have been successfully implemented. The paper concludes that difficulties in professional (...) ethics education in Japan are caused by the fact that both teachers and students lack experience in leading and participating in discussion-based classes and misunderstand the effectiveness of a case-based pedagogy. It also suggests that we need to offer teachers systematic opportunities to be trained to be proficient in enabling students to be active and critical in class. (shrink)

In this paper, we argue that the professional engineering institutions ought to develop a Declaration of Climate Action. Climate change is a serious global problem, and the majority of greenhouse gas emissions come from industries that are enabled by engineers and represented by the engineering professional institutions. If the professional institutions take seriously the claim that a profession should be self-regulating, with codes of ethics that go beyond mere obedience to the law, and if they take their own ethical codes (...) seriously, recognising their responsibility to the public and to future generations, the professional institutions ought to develop a declaration for engineers, addressing climate change. Our argument here is largely inspired by the history of the Declaration of Helsinki. The Declaration of Helsinki was created by the medical profession for the profession, and it held physicians to a higher standard of ethical conduct than was found in the legal framework of individual countries. Although it was not originally a legal document, the influence of the Declaration can be seen in the fact that it is now enshrined in law in a number of different countries. Thus, we argue that the engineering profession could, and should, play a significant role in the abatement of climate change by making changes within the profession. If the engineering profession sets strict standards for professional engineers, with sanctions for those who refuse to comply, this could have a significant impact in relation to our efforts to develop a coordinated response to climate change. (shrink)

Many blame politicians, governments, and markets for the technically-driven problems the world faces. But why is it that there are almost always engineers and corporations willing to design and build the technologies that cause those problems, many times in spite of knowing about the negative consequences of those technologies? I offer in this paper practical guidance on how to engage in activist engineering, the goal of which is to get engineers to step back from their work and be able to (...) ask and have a conversation about the question, “What is the real problem, and does this problem ‘require’ an engineering solution?” Building on research in the history and philosophy of engineering, and engineering ethics and education, as well as current events—all of which highlight important issues of debate within engineering practice—I provide a list of questions that engineers can start with for self-reflection to better understand their motivations for doing engineering work, and to better understand the implications of their work. The questions relate to considerations engineers must make regarding the social, environmental, economic, and peace implications of their work, and relate to alternative and non-technical interventions to the problem at hand. I believe that each engineer should, in the end, be able to answer the questions: Why am I an engineer? For whose benefit do I work? What is the full measure of my moral and social responsibility? (shrink)

Farmers all over the world perform experiments, and have done so since long before modern experimental science and its recognized forerunners. There is a rich anthropological literature on these experiments, but the philosophical issues that they give rise to have not received much attention. Based on the anthropological literature, this study investigates methodological and philosophical issues pertaining to farmers’ experiments, including the choice of interventions to be tested, the planning of experiments, and the use of control fields and other means (...) to deal with confounding factors. Farmers’ experiments have some advantages over the field trials of agricultural scientists, but also some comparative disadvantages. The two experimental traditions are complementary, and neither of them can replace the other. Several aspects of farmers’ experiments are shown to have a direct bearing on central topics in the philosophy of science. (shrink)

This paper outlines the development and implementation of a new course in Engineering Ethics at the University of Tennessee. This is a three-semester-hour course and is jointly taught by an engineering professor and a philosophy professor. While traditional pedagogical techniques such as case studies, position papers, and classroom discussions are used, additional activities such as developing a code of ethics and student-developed scenarios are employed to encourage critical thinking. Among the topics addressed in the course are engineering as a profession (...) and its role in society; ethical successes and failures; risk, safety, and the environment; professional responsibilities; credit and intellectual property; and international concerns. (shrink)

This article presents a framework for practitioners who may be interested in maintaining adaptive stability of sociotechnical networks. The framework is developed from assembling several concepts that are useful for assessing and for drawing on appropriate moral reasoning strategies as sociotechnical networks are designed, constructed, and adapted. One such strategy involves the ability to assess degrees of perspective sharing and trading relationships in networks using moral imagination. The article uses the case of the design of an environmentally sustainable fabric to (...) illustrate these strategic concepts. The framework also draws on other examples of cases in which sociotechnical networks have become destabilized to illustrate instances in which the framework may have been useful for decreasing a tendency for destabilization. (shrink)

Significant efforts have been made to define ethical responsibilities for professionals engaged in nanotechnology innovation. Rosalyn Berne delineated three ethical dimensions of nanotechnological innovation: non-negotiable concerns, negotiable socio-cultural claims, and tacitly ingrained norms. Braden Allenby demarcated three levels of responsibility: the individual, professional societies (e.g. engineering codes), and the macro-ethical. This article will explore how these definitions of responsibility map onto practitioners’ understanding of their responsibilities and the responsibilities of others using the nanotechnology innovation community of the greater Phoenix area, (...) which includes academic researchers, investors, entrepreneurs, manufacturers, insurers, attorneys, buyers, and media. To do this we develop a three-by-three matrix that combines Berne’s three dimensions and Allenby’s three levels. We then categorize the ethical responsibilities expressed by forty-five practitioners in semi-structured interviews using these published dimensions and levels. Two questions guide the research: (i) what responsibilities do actors express as theirs and/or assign to other actors and; (ii) can those responsibilities be mapped to the presented ethical frameworks? We found that most of the responsibilities outlined by our respondents concentrate at the professional society + non-negotiable and professional + negotiable intersections. The study moves from a philosophical exploration of ethics to an empirical analysis, exploring strengths, weaknesses, and gaps in the existing nanotechnology innovation network. This opens the door for new practitioners to be introduced in an effort to address responsibilities that are not currently recognized. (shrink)

This article describes the development and teaching of a course on global engineering ethics in Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China. It outlines course objectives, methods, and contents, and instructor experience and plans for future development. This is done with the goal of helping educators to plan standalone courses and/or integrated modules on global engineering and technology ethics, which address challenges arising from the increasingly cross-cultural and international environments of contemporary technology and engineering practice. These efforts are motivated by the global (...) environments of engineering, as well as recent research in empirical moral psychology. Although this course was developed and taught in China, as a course on global engineering ethics taught to students from throughout the world, its approach could be beneficial elsewhere. (shrink)

To develop more effective ethics education for cross-cultural and international engineering, a study was conducted to determine what Chinese engineering students have learned and think about ethics. Recent research shows traditional approaches to ethics education are potentially ineffective, but also points towards ways of improving ethical behaviors. China is the world’s most populous country, graduating and employing the highest number of STEM majors, although little empirical research exists about the ethical knowledge and perspectives of Chinese engineering students. When compared to (...) engineering students in the US, Chinese engineering students received less ethics education; the form of the education they did receive stressed virtue ethics or the development of moral character; conceive of ethics in contradistinction to the law, where ethics deals with matters of right and wrong not covered by legality. Based on these findings and research in moral psychology and behavioral ethics, recommendations are made for improving engineering ethics education both in China and abroad. (shrink)

A senior level capstone design experience has been developed and offered with a particular emphasis on many of the professional issues raised in Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) Engineering Criterion IV. The course has sought to develop student awareness of the ethical foundation of the engineering profession, the global and societal framework within which engineers practice, and the environmental impact on engineering. The capstone design course also focused upon improving the technical communications skills of the graduating senior class (...) with both extensive instruction in writing and multiple workshops dealing with the art of making an effective oral presentation. The effectiveness of the design course was assessed using Kirkpatrick’s model for evaluating training programs. (shrink)