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Ethics in Engineering Education, Research,

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Accreditation of educational programs required for granting degrees and ... Understanding of professional and ethical responsibility. NSPE Fundamental Canons ... – PowerPoint PPT presentation

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Title: Ethics in Engineering Education, Research,


1
Ethics in Engineering Education, Research,
Practice
  • Applications for Agricultural and Biological
    Engineering

2
Accountability ForStudent Learning
Outcomes(SLOs)
  • Accreditation of educational programs required
    for granting degrees and professional licensure
  • We collect data in courses and other student
    activities to document achievement in meeting SLOs

3
SLO 7 for Ph.D. and M.S. students in BAE
  • Understanding of professional and ethical
    responsibility.

4
NSPE Fundamental Canons
  • Engineers, in the fulfillment of their
    professional duties, shall
  • Hold paramount the safety, health, and welfare of
    the public. 
  • Perform services only in areas of their
    competence.
  • Issue public statements only in an objective and
    truthful manner.
  • Act for each employer or client as faithful
    agents or trustees.
  • Avoid deceptive acts.
  • Conduct themselves honorably, responsibly,
    ethically, and lawfully so as to enhance the
    honor, reputation, and usefulness of the
    profession.

5
Background
  • Participated Ethics Education in Science and
    Engineering (ESEE) Workshop
  • Main presenters
  • Dr. Richard DeGeorge KU Distinguished Professor
    of Philosophy
  • Dr. Douglas May KU Professor of Management
  • Dr. Dan Bernstein Director, KU Center for
    Teaching Excellence and Professor of Psychology
  • Materials based on their notes

6
Purpose
  • Discuss how ethics can fit into engineering
    instruction
  • Discuss alternative ethical decision-making
    frameworks
  • Apply theory to case studies

7
Definition
  • ethics noun 1. the study of moral standards and
    how they affect conduct.

8
Science/Engineering Ethics
  • Compliance
  • Legal Rules
  • Codes of Conduct
  • Ethics
  • Rules
  • Decision framework

9
Relation of Ethics Science
  • Ethics begins before science and research
  • Ethics informs and is informed by science and
    research
  • Ethics continues after research ends

10
Ethics Begins Before Science and Research
  • Researcher as human being with moral
    responsibilitygeneral moral rules apply
  • Human subjects as moral beings with rights
  • Moral limits on certain kinds of research
  • Moral evaluation of aims of research
  • Moral evaluation of research methods

11
Ethics Continues After Research Ends
  • Responsible for dissemination of results
  • Responsible for uses to which research is put
  • Responsible for commercialization of research
  • Responsibility of science and engineering as
    professions

12
Aims of Ethics Education Re Science Engineering
Students
  • Teach pertinent laws and rules
  • Sensitize students to ethical issues
  • Give students the tools necessary to think
    through ethical issues vocabulary techniques
  • Enable students to take part in ethical
    discussions about policy
  • Making philosophers is not an aim of ethics in
    engineering education.

13
Codes Rules (I)
  • Re Human and animal subjects
  • Institutional Review Boards
  • National Institutes of Health Policy
  • Nuremberg Code
  • World Medical Associations Declaration of
    Helsinki
  • Others

14
Codes Rules (II)
  • Re Academic Misconduct
  • Dept. of Health Human Services (Conflict of
    Interest)
  • Federal Policy on Research Misconduct
    (Fabrication, plagiarism)
  • Kansas State University Honor Code
  • Re Professions and Societies
  • National Society of Professional EngineersCode
    of Ethics for Engineers
  • The Chemists Code of Conduct

15
Codes Rules (III)
  • Necessary but not sufficientneeds interpretation
  • Necessarily incompletenew issues
  • Gives false impression that what is not covered
    is allowed or not required
  • Can be morally evaluated
  • Creates impression that ethics is imposed from
    without, and dependent on rule maker (why accept
    them?)

16
Ethics A Two-Edged Sword
  • Positive aspect reinforces rules and codes
  • Critical aspect questions rules and codes

17
Whose Ethics?
  • Start with
  • Personal ethical base
  • Conventional morality
  • Rules of scientific research
  • Move to
  • Inconsistencies
  • Uncovered areas
  • Open questions

18
Ethical Relativism
  • There are no universal ethical norms. All norms
    are relative to ones society.
  • There are no universal ethical norms. All norms
    are relative to the individual.
  • Any individuals or any societys norms are as
    valid as any other.

19
Difficulties With Ethical Relativism
  • It is inconsistent
  • It is not clear in a pluralistic society what the
    societys view is on many issues
  • If it is right
  • No one judges actions, simply report ones
    feelings or what ones society says
  • No two societies (or individuals) can disagree
  • No society (or individual) can be mistaken
  • One can change the morality of an action by
    changing ones feeling about it.

20
Ethical Relativism
  • Ethical relativism is often confused with
  • Reluctance to judge others
  • Uncertainty about the morality of an action
  • Tolerance of differences
  • Differences in social customs
  • Aversion to absolutism.

21
Key Ethical Terms
  • Good and bad consequences
  • Fairness and justice
  • Rights
  • Duties (obligations)
  • Ideals
  • Moral imagination
  • Responsibility, blame, shame, guilt

22
Sources of Ethics
  • Scientific method as a source of ethics in
    research
  • Ethical theories as a source of ethics in research

23
Scientific Method as a Source of Ethics in
Research
  • Moral traits demanded of the scientist/engineer
  • Honesty
  • Truthfulness
  • Accuracy
  • Intellectual integrity
  • Objectivity
  • Patience
  • Intellectual courage
  • For the scientist/engineer
  • Freedom to pursue research
  • Freedom to publish

24
Issues
  • External to Science
  • e.g. embryonic stem cell research
  • Issues of informed consent
  • Patients rights
  • Internal to science
  • e.g. truth in reporting results
  • Accuracy in record keeping
  • Plagiarism and proper citation

25
Ethical Theories as a Source of Ethics in Science
and Research
  • Aim
  • Make sense of moral experience by finding
    principles that explain (and/or correct)
    conventional morality on basis of reason and
    human psychology
  • Techniques
  • Evaluate consequences
  • Understand basis for duties
  • Develop a logic of rights
  • Consider demands of justice
  • Develop traits of character

26
Three Methods of Ethical Reasoning
  • Utilitarianism consequence based approach
  • Deontological Approachduties-, rights-,
    justice-based approach
  • Consequences not considered
  • Virtue character based approach

27
Ethics as Freedom
  • Free vs. slave mentality
  • Free to engage intelligently in debate, e.g.,
    embryonic stem cell research
  • Free to evaluate rules
  • Free to take part in creating rules

28
If We Have Those Aims, How Can We Achieve Them?
  • Teach pertinent laws, rules, codesthroughout the
    curriculum
  • Sensitize to ethical issuesthroughout the
    curriculum
  • Give students the tools necessary to think
    through ethical issuesstand-alone course
  • Enable students to take part in ethical
    discussions about policystand-alone course

29
Ethical Analysis of Policy Practice
  • Get all the pertinent facts
  • Whose rights, if anyones are affected?
  • Are issues of justice or fairness involved?
  • Who is affected by the policy and what are the
    costs benefits for each and all?
  • Weigh the various factors
  • Imaginatively consider alternatives
  • Consider and answer objections to the policy
  • Decide
  • Act
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