Engineering, Business and Professional Ethics
With practical case studies and examples throughout, this book highlights the ethical dimension of engineering while showing how values and responsibility relate to everyday practice.
TABLE OF CONTENTS Engineering, Business and Professional Ethics
Chapter 2: The Foundations of Ethics
Introduction
For millennia we have had countless people standing in the marketplace of ethics telling us what they think should be the ethical foundation of our life journey doctrines, metaphysical theories (theories about the underlying nature of reality), ethical theories and the like.
In this chapter we will:
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Trace the developments of ethics from its early association with religion to autonomous ethics.
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Outline the postmodern era, when ethics seems to have become relativized.
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Trace alongside this the historical development of the engineer.
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Critically examine ethical theories.
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Note developments in ethics, not least the ethical systems based on virtues.
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Develop the virtues in relation to engineering and the professional skills.
Ethics
Exercise
Discuss with a fellow student:
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What do you see as the foundation of your ethical practice?
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What informs your understanding of right and wrong, good or bad behaviour?
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Where does that understanding come from? Your family, your culture, your community, your religion, your school, your place of work, your university?
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What difference do your different foundations make to each other?
For the engineer in the Middle Ages the foundation of ethics was not a problem. As we saw in the Chapter 2 the engineer developed his or her role in relation to the major contemporary power structures. The kings and princes in turn developed their role in relation to their key belief systems. Constantine (325) had realized that a shared belief system, in his case Christianity, would provide the best means of underpinning the unity of his Western empire.
Copyright Simon Robinson, Ross Dixon, Christopher Preece and Krisen Moodley 2007 under license agreement with Books24x7
