ETHICS          

     Engineering ethics is about solving problems and designing products in ways that provide the most benefit to society, i.e., arriving at the best solution (or at least a good one). This clearly involves being able to rationally and thoughtfully evaluate all of the considerations that define the "good" solution. Emphasis here is on the process of how one does this. It requires understanding ethical principles, methods to resolve dilemmas (where principles are in conflict), and practice at applying these methods and principles to real problems.

ETHICS: the positive guidelines we use to guide our behavior and the systematic study of those guidelines.

Carl Mitcham and R. Shannon Duvall,
Engineering Ethics, Prentice Hall, 1999

 

CASE STUDIES

    When teaching ethics to students, case studies are a valuable resource. Experts say that when using case studies to teach, it is most effective to use studies to which the students can relate. By doing this, you create a conflict within the students' minds. As a result of this, they will be prodded to resolve the conflict. This leads the students to identify the ethical problem at hand, and will send them on a journey to find a solution. By choosing a problem to which the students can relate, you create an active learning environment, which is also a successful one.

                          

ETHICAL THEORIES

  Although there are many ethical theories, they can be grouped according to the structure of human activity.  See Chapter 3 in the Engineering Ethics text by Mitcham and Duvall.  A person, the agent, performs an action, which leads to certain results, or consequences.  Virtue theory focuses on the agent and issues of character and integrity.  Deontological theory attempts to evaluate actions as right or wrong, and consequentialist theory focuses on the external results of an action.

Consequentialist Theory

Deontological Theory

Virtue Theory (Aristotle, 384-322 B.C.)

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