Professional Engineering Ethics and Christian Values: Overlapping Magisteria (original) (raw)

Christian Worldview and the Engineering Context

2012

Baylor University’s recent commitment to “Vision 2012” has created implied imperatives for the faculty to seek ways of using Christian perspectives to shape classroom instruction and encourage the expression of Christian faith in the intellectual life 1 . Teaching from a Christian worldview is part of the University’s charge and Engineering faculty members are investigating how Christian perspectives might interact with various elements of the engineering curriculum. For example, engineering faculty are exploring avenues that incorporate Christian perspectives into engineering design methodology in such a way as to produce uniquely Christian contributions to the engineering design process, especially in terms of responsible and sustainable design. Central to this incorporation is the development of a methodology that creates and exploits meaningful categories and paradigms that are capable of informing and illuminating engineering practice. One example is the “Creation, Fall, Redemp...

The Christian Foundations of an Engineering Education

Christian faith is to be like yeast in bread dough, permeating every part of a life. Therefore, it naturally also shapes the teaching, learning, and practice of engineering for Christian engineers. A Christian worldview will influence an engineer, whether or not it is acknowledged. Within a Christian engineering education, it is useful to explicitly delineate some of the ways that faith can and should influence engineering thought and practice. This paper presents some principles upon which a Christian engineering education should be based: 1. Engineers construct models in an attempt to study the mechanisms and systems under which God’s creation operates. 2. A Christian engineering education must shape the character as well as the mind. 3. In order to be effective kingdom servants, Christian engineers must learn professionalism. 4. Redemptive work is needed within the field of engineering. However, even if the ideals are agreed upon, it is not always obvious how to achieve these goals in education. Some practical methods for how to incorporate Christian faith into education, in a yeast-like manner, are presented. While these are developed with a Christian liberal arts college in mind, many of the concepts could be relevant to an educator at a secular school.

A Christ-centered Dominion Mandate -Reflections on Integration of Faith and Engineering

Proceedings of the 2019 Christian Engineering Conference, 2019

This is the 3rd paper documenting the author’s work on the integration of faith and engineering that began at Geneva College. The other two papers appeared in the proceedings of the CES conferences in 2013 and 2017 (Che, 2013, 2017). This paper starts with a brief review of the dominion mandate as it applies to engineering and analyzes its challenges after men’s fall. Some discussions on sin and its effect on engineering followed. The benefits of God’s common grace and special grace and how these could be applied to engineering are discussed. It was concluded that a Christian higher education is of value to both believers and non-believers. For believers, it is a discerning process of a calling from God that he/she should serve God in the engineering profession. A metaphor from the Old Testament is used to illustrate this calling. For non-believers, it is a gift from God according to His common grace so that men can continue to prosper and flourish in this world. The picture of a Spirit-filled engineer is painted to point to a role model of a Christian engineer. A Christ-centered dominion mandate is proposed that would provide a structure to unite the teachings from both the Old and New Testaments on the integration of faith and engineering.

Engineering Ethics: Looking Back, Looking Forward

Science and Engineering Ethics, 2013

The eight pieces constituting this Meeting Report are summaries of presentations made during a panel session at the 2011 Association for Practical and Professional Ethics (APPE) annual meeting held between March 3rd and 6th in Cincinnati. Lisa Newton organized the session and served as chair. The panel of eight consisted both of pioneers in the field and more recent arrivals. It covered a range of topics from how the field has developed to where it should be going, from

Engineering Ethics

Tony Majoram (Ed.), Engineering, Issues, Challenges and Opportunities for Development, pp. 185-187, 2010

Ce chapitre dresse un état des lieux du champ de recherche intitulé depuis les années 1980 "engineering ethics"en anglais. Il présente quelques enjeux éthiques que soulève le métier d'ingénieur.

New ethical challenges for today engineering and technology

Telematics and Informatics, 2015

This paper is about the intersection of three related areas: ethics, gender and the field of engineering. It is important to focus on the attitudes and values woven through this intersection because they become essential for the complete development of the moral life of the engineering profession and of the awareness of the fact that this is a profession made up of both male and female professionals. Thus, specific behaviour coming from the feminine part is necessary in order to contribute to enriching the features of the engineering profile. An approach particularly attached to feminine values, in comparison to the masculine perspective, is a sign of commitment rather than rights, a collective social group rather than the individual and of an ethic based on caring for others rather than the traditional rationalistic arguments. Because of this, the introduction of qualitative diversity within this professional field is an important fact to highlight when women contribute to the engineering community through the enrichment, expansion and transformation of the values and attitudes that are predominant in the people who work and/or study within the area of engineering and technology.

Engineering Ethics at the Catholic University of Lille (France): Research and Teaching in a European Context

2000

This paper relates to the development of non-technical education (and to ethics) in engineering curricula in Europe and particularly in France. Two projects being followed at the Centre de recherche en eacutethique de l'ingeacutenieur (CREI) at the Catholic University of Lille (France) are discussed: the first is an engineering ethics course which has been running for 6 years in a state engineering school, where there is a strong emphasis on analysing the ethical issues of the students' first work experience. The second has to do with the writing of a European handbook on engineering ethics which gives us good insight into how engineering ethics as a discipline is shaped by the cultural background of those who develop it (dominant philosophical tradition, religious background, the way the engineering profession is organized and education). Two main approaches seem to be prevalent in Europe today: the first relates to professional ethics as discussed in the USA since the 1950s, the second relates to a new discipline that is developing in Europe, that of the ethics of technology.

Overconsumption: An Ethical Dilemma for Christian Engineers

One of the most important and yet most difficult of the ethical challenges facing technological civilization is “excessive” consumption in the affluent nations. This includes dissipative use of raw materials and production of waste at rates higher than sources or sinks regenerate. Ethics-driven decisions about working on toxic products or in the defense industry are familiar to engineering students; but are engineers who design new products ethically compelled to resist “overconsumption”?

Changing the Paradigm for Engineering Ethics

Science and Engineering Ethics, 2014

Modern philosophy recognizes two major ethical theories: deontology, which encourages adherence to rules and fulfillment of duties or obligations; and consequentialism, which evaluates morally significant actions strictly on the basis of their actual or anticipated outcomes. Both involve the systematic application of universal abstract principles, reflecting the culturally dominant paradigm of technical rationality. Professional societies promulgate codes of ethics with which engineers are expected to comply (deontology), while courts and the public generally assign liability to engineers primarily in accordance with the results of their work, whether intended or unintended (consequentialism). A third option, prominent in ancient philosophy, has reemerged recently: virtue ethics, which recognizes that sensitivity to context and practical judgment are indispensable in particular concrete situations, and therefore rightly focuses on the person who acts, rather than the action itself. Beneficial character traits—i.e., virtues—are identified within a specific social practice in light of the internal goods that are unique to it. This paper proposes a comprehensive framework for implementing virtue ethics within engineering.

Broadening and deepening engineering students’ perspectives on morality and ethics

2017

With the primary tenant of the National Society of Professional Engineers (NSPE) articulating that engineers shall “hold paramount the safety, health, and welfare of the public,” and other professional engineering societies using the same or similar language, engineers need broader and deeper understanding of moral and ethical theories that can help them understand and make ethically informed decisions about their designs. Ethical understanding is necessary for engineers to determine the appropriateness of pursuing projects and to think through how these are likely to be used in current systems. From common devices to complex systems, the technology engineers design profoundly shape society and change our environment, which in turns affects society. As complex systems become more pervasive into our everyday lives, ethical decisions regarding technology and policy require engineers to consider multiple moral theories in more depth than “do the greatest good.” With this guiding though...