Ethics Within Engineering
eBook - PDF

Ethics Within Engineering

An Introduction

  1. 320 pages
  2. English
  3. PDF
  4. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - PDF

Ethics Within Engineering

An Introduction

Book details
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Table of contents
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About This Book

Engineering begins with a design problem: how to make occupants of vehicles safer, settle on an inter-face for an x-ray machine or create more legible road signs. In choosing any particular solution, engineers must make value choices. By focusing on the solving of these problems, Ethics Within Engineering shows how ethics is at the intellectual core of engineering. Built around a number of engaging case studies, Wade Robison presents real examples of engineering problems that everyone, engineer or not, will recognize, ranging from such simple artifacts as toasters and the layout of burners and knobs on a stove top to the software responsible for the Columbia airliner crash. The most dramatic examples center on error-provocative designs: designs that provoke mistakes for even the most intelligent, well-informed, and highly motivated. These examples all raise ethical issues, posing questions for the reader, forcing the give-and-take of discussion in classrooms and the consideration of alternative solutions that solve the original design problem without the unfortunate features of the original solution. This original, focused approach provides an ideal entry point for anyone looking to better understand professional ethical responsibilities within engineering.

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Information

Publisher
Bloomsbury Academic
Year
2016
ISBN
9781474286039
Edition
1
Topic
Philosophy
Subtopic
Ethics & Moral Philosophy
Morality 
permeates 
our 
lives 
in 
the 
artifacts 
we 
use, 
for 
they 
reflect 
our 
moral 
choices. 
e 
intellectual 
core 
of 
engineering 
is 
the 
solution 
to 
a 
design 
problem, 
and 
those 
problems 
always 
leave 
room 
for 
creativity. 
In 
choosing 
among 
possible 
options, 
engineers 
are 
also 
necessarily 
playing 
off 
one 
value 
against 
another, 
and 
the 
choice 
of 
what 
to 
create 
will 
necessarily, 
once 
realized 
in 
an 
artifact, 
have 
effects—some 
good, 
some 
bad. 
In 
addition, 
once 
the 
solution 
is 
clearly 
articulated, 
the 
artifact 
that 
is 
to 
realize 
it 
follows, 
and 
that 
artifact 
may 
incorporate, 
intentionally 
or 
not, 
new 
features 
that 
cause 
different 
effects—some 
good, 
some 
bad. 
It 
is 
a 
basic 
moral 
principle 
that 
we 
should 
cause 
no 
unnecessary 
harm, 
and 
so, 
in 
making 
a 
choice, 
an 
engineer 
has 
a 
moral 
obligation, 
at 
a 
minimum, 
to 
ensure 
that 
none 
of 
the 
harms 
likely 
to 
ensue 
from 
the 
artifact 
are 
gratuitous.
e 
most 
striking 
examples 
of 
how 
moral 
considerations 
enter 
into 
design 
solutions 
come 
in 
error-provocative 
designs. 
ese 
are 
design 
solutions 
which 
are 
going 
to 
provoke 
errors 
in 
even 
the 
most 
intelligent, 
well-trained, 
and 
highly 
motivated 
operator 
in 
the 
most 
pristine 
of 
conditions. 
Since 
neither 
the 
circumstances 
nor 
the operator 
can 
be 
at 
fault, 
the 
artifact 
must 
be, 
and 
we 
are 
all 
familiar with 
such 
objects—
1
Introduction

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Contents
  3. List of figures
  4. Preface
  5. Foreword
  6. 1 Introduction
  7. 2 Analyzing accidents
  8. 3 The Colombia airliner crash
  9. 4 How artifacts can provoke harm
  10. 5 Moral responsibility: How ethics is integral to engineering
  11. 6 Permitting, encouraging, and provoking errors
  12. 7 Harms and design solutions
  13. 8 Role morality
  14. 9 Engineering and ethics
  15. Notes
  16. Bibliography
  17. Index