Ethics Across Campus Program, Division of Liberal Arts and International Studies, Colorado School of Mines, 322 Stratton Hall, 1005 14th Street, Golden, CO, 80401, USA.
School of Engineering Education, Purdue University, 1313 Armstrong Hall, 701 West Stadium Avenue, West Lafayette, IN, 47907-2045, USA.
Sci Eng Ethics. 2017 Jun;23(3):663-679. doi: 10.1007/s11948-016-9826-6. Epub 2016 Oct 10.
This paper begins by reviewing dominant themes in current teaching of professional ethics in engineering education. In contrast to more traditional approaches that simulate ethical practice by using ethical theories to reason through micro-level ethical dilemmas, this paper proposes a pragmatic approach to ethics that places more emphasis on the practical plausibility of ethical decision-making. In addition to the quality of ethical justification, the value of a moral action also depends on its effectiveness in solving an ethical dilemma, cultivating healthy working relationships, negotiating existing organizational cultures, and achieving contextual plausibility in everyday professional practice. This paper uses a cross-cultural ethics scenario to further elaborate how a pragmatic approach can help us rethink ethical reasoning, as well as ethics instruction and assessment. This paper is expected to be of interest to educators eager to improve the ability of engineers and other professional students to effectively and appropriately deal with the kinds of everyday ethical issues they will likely face in their careers.
本文首先回顾了当前工程教育中职业道德教学的主流主题。与更传统的方法不同，这些方法通过使用伦理理论来推理微观层面的伦理困境来模拟伦理实践，本文提出了一种注重伦理决策实际可行性的实用主义方法。除了伦理论证的质量外，道德行为的价值还取决于其解决伦理困境、培养健康工作关系、协商现有组织文化以及在日常专业实践中实现语境合理性的有效性。本文使用跨文化伦理情景进一步阐述了实用主义方法如何帮助我们重新思考伦理推理以及伦理指导和评估。本文有望引起渴望提高工程师和其他专业学生有效和恰当地处理他们在职业生涯中可能面临的日常伦理问题的能力的教育工作者的兴趣。
