Special session - Engineering ethics: Toward a definition

This special session addresses a challenge posed by engineering ethics: What does it mean? Review of the literature shows many competing definitions, each with their own understandings of the term ethics and the role it plays in engineering. Our aim is to review the different uses of the term ―engineering ethics,‖ along with several other common terms, such as ―professional ethics‖ and ―professional responsibility,‖ and consider what might constitute clearer and more meaningful ways of understanding engineering ethics. As an interdisciplinary field, engineering ethics must represent both of its major parts: engineering and ethics. Examples of engineering ethics in the literature do not always make clear what aspects of ethics—a very large and complex field of philosophy—is being employed in an engineering context. Group activity and discussion will instigate a debate on how we should understand these terms and how we can be better about clarifying the key features of engineering ethics and its role in engineering education. Index Terms – engineering ethics, professional responsibility, professional ethics, assessment GOALS OF THE SESSION The primary goal of this special session is to challenge the way engineering educators understand what we mean by the term “ethics” and its role in engineering education. The session aims to be practical as well as theoretical and stimulate a conversation about how best to develop and assess ethics in engineering curricula. Participants will have a chance to contribute ideas and feedback to the discussion which will provide useful information to the facilitators as well as the participants for how we all, as educators and professionals, can improve our teaching and assessing in engineering ethics. DESCRIPTION OF SESSION CONTENT “Engineering ethics” is a term often used and seldom fully understood. The confusion is likely due to the common reference made by engineers to the engineering “codes of ethics” to which each of the many disciplines subscribe. Codes of ethics, despite their names, often say very little, if anything at all, about what the term “ethics” means in this context. Many codes appear as abstracted descriptions of the ideal engineer, a fictional character who is rarely seen in the real world. The codes are useful guides for behavior for an engineer who never gets into a complicated situation where specific help is required or a situation where the codes might conflict with each other or otherwise fail to offer practical advice at the time. Many codes of ethics, then, are less ethical frameworks than they are descriptions of the “rules of practice” that all engineers must follow if they want to be part of the profession in good standing. Were an engineer to follow these codes precisely, there would still be much room for ethical uncertainty in the course of practicing engineering, meaning there would still be a need for proper philosophical ethical reasoning skills. In these situations students must be active moral agents who are able to analyze complex social phenomena, reduce the glut of information to only the pertinent items, recognize that there are ethical issues in the situation, and engage in a process of ethical reasoning that produces a justifiable course of action. The ability to employ such skills represents a higher level of moral development versus simply following the rules as described in the codes of ethics. The session will engage participants in discussion on the role of ethics in undergraduate engineering education and practice, with special consideration for how ethics is currently taught and assessed. The facilitators will focus on recent and common examples. For example, the film and accompanying material titled Henry’s Daughters[1] is often presented as if it presents multiple ethical violations when its transgressions, when present, often present only potential ethical wrongdoing or present only the most benign form of wrongdoing: rule-breaking. Other common examples include post-mortem analyses of engineering “disasters” such as the Challenger explosion and the Kansas City Hyatt walkway collapse. However, these analyses often focus on the technical mistakes, miscalculations, and other nonethical causes. Participants in the session will have the chance to discuss what we mean when we use the term “ethics” in an engineering context and how that might differ from other uses of the term. We will address some of the common confusions and misunderstandings of the meaning of ethics in engineering, drawing particular distinction through the use of our examples between the notions of philosophical ethics and the professional responsibilities of practicing engineers. The session will involve participants directly, asking them to honestly confront what we see as problematic issues in the teaching of engineering ethics, while also providing participants with useful tools, skills, ideas, and knowledge that can be transferred and applied in their own classrooms and learning environments.