Emotional engineers: toward morally responsible design

Animism and science in European perspective

The European tradition makes a sharp distinction between animism and science. On the basis of this distinction, either animism is reproved for failing to reach the heights of science, or science is reproved for failing to reach the heights of animism. In this essay, I draw on work in the history and philosophy and science, combined with a method from the sociology of scientific knowledge, to question the sharpness of this distinction. Along the way, I also take guidance from the research of North American Indigenous scholars. As it turns out, there is a rich, if largely overlooked, tradition of Aristotelian animism running through the history of modern European science, and this tradition sometimes resonates with Indigenous perspectives. By challenging the entrenched distinction between animism and science, I aim to help reconcile ongoing tensions between Indigenous and European scientific groups, and so strengthen prospects for their mutually beneficial cooperation.

Rethinking the Nature of Engineering: Attending to the Social Context of Engineering

As part of a growing emphasis on "STEM," engineering has gained prominence in precollege education. In response to that trend, an emerging area of educational research focuses on the "Nature of Engineering" (NOE), a collection of ideas about what engineering is, what engineers do, and how engineering is related to science and society. In recent years, multiple NOE frameworks have been developed, along with associated NOE instruments. Thus far, NOE research has often taken cues and utilized concepts from the extensive body of nature of science literature. While there is much to be gained from nature of science research, in this paper I raise concerns with using the nature of science as a template for the NOE. I examine several NOE frameworks and identify issues and gaps that arise from the application of nature of science-based approaches. That analysis indicates that extant NOE frameworks overlook the professional contexts in which engineering work occurs, and the ways that those contexts cause engineering practice to differ from that of science. Attending to and understanding the professional context of engineering is essential for describing the sociocultural dimensions of the NOE, which are of primary importance when it comes to engineering literacy. In addition to clarifying the NOE, I offer suggestions for how giving more attention to these NOE dimensions can move this field of research, and precollege engineering instruction, forward.

Educating Engineering Students to Address Bias and Discrimination Within Their Project Teams

What training should engineering students receive to enable them to contribute to reducing bias, discrimination and the persistent lack of diversity in engineering? Collaboration is central to professional engineering work and, consequently, teamwork and group projects are increasingly present in engineering curricula. However, the influence of unconscious bias on interactions within teams can negatively affect women and underrepresented groups and is now recognised as an important engineering ethics issue. This paper describes a workshop designed to enable engineering students to work equitably in diverse teams. Key features of the workshop include (1) the emotionally safe, empowering and warm environment created, (2) the creation of opportunities for students to discuss and apply the issues raised to their own engineering projects, and (3) the opportunities to practice the use of both proactive and reactive strategies to address bias and discrimination in teams. The evaluation of the workshop suggests that engineering students regarded both onsite and online formats as providing useful skills that they intended to apply in practice. Follow-up evaluations suggest that the workshop leads to behavioural change, especially the use of proactive teamwork strategies intended to reduce the impact of unconscious bias.

Fictional Film in Engineering Ethics Education: With Miyazaki's The Wind Rises as Exemplar

This paper aims to call attention to the potential of using film in engineering ethics education, which has not been thoroughly discussed as a pedagogical method in this field. A review of current approaches to teaching engineering ethics reveals that there are both learning outcomes that need more attention as well as additional pedagogical methods that could be adopted. Scholarship on teaching with film indicates that film can produce ethical experiences that go beyond those produced by both conventional methods of teaching engineering ethics and more arts-based methods such as fiction, as well as connect ethics learning outcomes and issues to the lifeworld of a person. The paper further illustrates the potential of using Miyazaki Hayao's film The Wind Rises for highlighting a range of ethical issues pertaining to engineering. It also discusses the important role educators play in how film can be used effectively in the classroom. Synthesizing a range of sources from film theory to the use of film in business and medical education, the paper makes the case for using film in engineering ethics education and calls for more research on the use of this method.

Development and validation of the Moral Sensitivity Inventory for people with intellectual disabilities

This article presents the Moral Sensitivity Inventory, a unique reading-free tool for evaluating the moral sensitivity of people with intellectual disability. Moral sensitivity, one of the four components of Rest's Four Component Model of Morality (1994), is thought to influence moral behavior. The Moral Sensitivity Inventory is intended for people aged 16-30 years with mild or moderate intellectual disabilities. The Moral Sensitivity Inventory is comprised of 10 stories with pictures illustrating the aspects of morality, which are grouped into six categories: responsibility; respect for the common good and the property of other people; harming other people; seeking and seeing the good in others; conformance to principles and norms; understanding. The Moral Sensitivity Inventory identifies competences and gaps in moral sensitivity, which makes it a helpful tool for educating and social rehabilitation of people with intellectual disabilities. The overall reliability of the tool was .89 and the reliability of individual stories ranged from .87 to .90.

A Multi-level Review of Engineering Ethics Education: Towards a Socio-technical Orientation of Engineering Education for Ethics

This paper aims to review the empirical and theoretical research on engineering ethics education, by focusing on the challenges reported in the literature. The analysis is conducted at four levels of the engineering education system. First, the individual level is dedicated to findings about teaching practices reported by instructors. Second, the institutional level brings together findings about the implementation and presence of ethics within engineering programmes. Third, the level of policy situates findings about engineering ethics education in the context of accreditation. Finally, there is the level of the culture of engineering education. The multi-level analysis allows us to address some of the limitations of higher education research which tends to focus on individual actors such as instructors or remains focused on the levels of policy and practice without examining the deeper levels of paradigm and purpose guiding them. Our approach links some of the challenges of engineering ethics education with wider debates about its guiding paradigms. The main contribution of the paper is to situate the analysis of the theoretical and empirical findings reported in the literature on engineering ethics education in the context of broader discussions about the purpose of engineering education and the aims of reform programmes. We conclude by putting forward a series of recommendations for a socio-technical oriented reform of engineering education for ethics.

Social sensitivity: a manifesto for CSCL research

Technologies for computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) are playing an increasingly prominent role in educational contexts, especially as teachers and students strive to deal with pandemic-related constraints. However, the technologies being used for collaboration on a daily basis are not sufficiently equipped to promote collaborative learning as both a cognitive and a socio-emotional process. They may even run the risk of hindering the constructive exchange of ideas and provoking disputes and negative encounters. In this squib, we argue that the field of CSCL is failing to address this risk, because our research efforts are far too scattered and siloed. We introduce a manifesto of social sensitivity: increasing interdisciplinary efforts to enhance constructively critical, respectful, and cohesive collaborations in technology-supported environments. We call for concrete actions in CSCL research that ultimately contribute to more democratic and equitable collaborations.

Exploratory Investigation of Personal Influences on Educators' Engagement in Engineering Ethics and Societal Impacts Instruction

Cultivating an understanding of ethical responsibilities and the societal impacts of technology is increasingly recognized as an important component in undergraduate engineering curricula. There is growing research on how ethics-related topics are taught and outcomes are attained, especially in the context of accreditation criteria. However, there is a lack of theoretical and empirical understanding of the role that educators play in ethics and societal impacts (ESI) instruction and the factors that motivate and shape their inclusion of this subject in the courses they teach and co-curricular activities they mentor. The goal of this research was to explore the role of faculty's personal influences on their inclusion of ESI instruction in these settings. Personal influences are distinguished from external or environmental drivers such as teaching assignments, university policies, and department curriculum decisions. This research employed a grounded theory methodology and extracted data from interviews with 19 educators who teach ESI to engineering students to develop an emergent conceptualization of personal influences. Four categorie were identified: intrapersonal (drawing on self-interests and beliefs), interpersonal (drawing on relationships to engage in the intersectional field of ESI), academic (using their experiences as a student), and professional (leveraging non-academic work to understand the application of ESI and bring ESI into the classroom). The findings suggested a wide range of entry points (based on varying interests, beliefs, interactions, and backgrounds) into ESI instruction for faculty members who do not currently teach ESI and for those looking to expand the inclusion of ESI in their courses. Based on these findings, departments and administrators are encouraged to foster educators' agency, support access to professional development and engagement, facilitate interdisciplinary collaboration, and broaden hiring decisions to account for the impact of educators' holistic identity on their instruction.

The Ethics of Digital Well-Being: A Thematic Review

This article presents the first thematic review of the literature on the ethical issues concerning digital well-being. The term 'digital well-being' is used to refer to the impact of digital technologies on what it means to live a life that is good for a human being. The review explores the existing literature on the ethics of digital well-being, with the goal of mapping the current debate and identifying open questions for future research. The review identifies major issues related to several key social domains: healthcare, education, governance and social development, and media and entertainment. It also highlights three broader themes: positive computing, personalised human-computer interaction, and autonomy and self-determination. The review argues that three themes will be central to ongoing discussions and research by showing how they can be used to identify open questions related to the ethics of digital well-being.

Connecting to the Heart: Teaching Value-Based Professional Ethics

Engineering programs in the United States have been experimenting with diverse pedagogical approaches to educate future professional engineers. However, a crucial dimension of ethics education that focuses on the values, personal commitments, and meaning of engineers has been missing in many of these pedagogical approaches. We argue that a value-based approach to professional ethics education is critically needed in engineering education, because such an approach is indispensable for cultivating self-reflective and socially engaged engineers. This paper starts by briefly comparing two prevalent approaches to ethics education in science and engineering: professional (teaching professional ethical standards, including codes of ethics) and philosophical (teaching ethical theories and their applications in professional settings). While we acknowledge that both approaches help meet certain ethics education objectives, we also argue that neither of these is sufficient to personally engage students in authentic moral learning. We make the case that it is important to connect ethics education to the heart, which is extensively driven by values, and present a value-based approach to professional ethics education. We provide some classroom practices that cultivate a safe, diverse, and engaging learning environment. Finally, we discuss the implications of a value-based approach to professional ethics education for curriculum design and pedagogical practice, including opportunities and challenges for engineering faculty eager to incorporate value-based inquiry into their classrooms.

Using Student Engagement to Relocate Ethics to the Core of the Engineering Curriculum

One of the core problems with engineering ethics education is perceptual. Although ethics is meant to be a central component of today's engineering curriculum, it is often perceived as a marginal requirement that must be fulfilled. In addition, there is a mismatch between faculty and student perceptions of ethics. While faculty aim to communicate the nuances and complexity of engineering ethics, students perceive ethics as laws, rules, and codes that must be memorized. This paper provides some historical context to better understand these perceptual differences, and suggests that curriculum constraints are important contributing factors. Drawing on the growing scholarship of student engagement approaches to pedagogy, the paper explores how students can be empowered to effect change in the broader engineering curriculum through engineering ethics. The paper describes a student engagement approach to pedagogy that includes students as active participants in curriculum design-a role that enables them to critically reflect about why ethics is a requirement. Including students in the process of curriculum design leads students to reframe ethics as an integrative tool with the capacity to bring together different engineering departments and build bridges to non-engineering fields. This paper argues that students can and should play an active and important role in relocating ethics from the periphery to the core of the engineering curriculum.

Privacy Engineering for Domestic IoT: Enabling Due Diligence

The EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) has recently come into effect and insofar as Internet of Things (IoT) applications touch EU citizens or their data, developers are obliged to exercise due diligence and ensure they undertake Data Protection by Design and Default (DPbD). GDPR mandates the use of Data Protection Impact Assessments (DPIAs) as a key heuristic enabling DPbD. However, research has shown that developers generally lack the competence needed to deal effectively with legal aspects of privacy management and that the difficulties of complying with regulation are likely to grow considerably. Privacy engineering seeks to shift the focus from interpreting texts and guidelines or consulting legal experts to embedding data protection within the development process itself. There are, however, few examples in practice. We present a privacy-oriented, flow-based integrated development environment (IDE) for building domestic IoT applications. The IDE enables due diligence in (a) helping developers reason about personal data during the actual in vivo construction of IoT applications; (b) advising developers as to whether or not the design choices they are making occasion the need for a DPIA; and (c) attaching and making available to others (including data processors, data controllers, data protection officers, users and supervisory authorities) specific privacy-related information that has arisen during an application’s development.

The Roles of Implicit Understanding of Engineering Ethics in Student Teams' Discussion

Following previous work that shows engineering students possess different levels of understanding of ethics-implicit and explicit-this study focuses on how students' implicit understanding of engineering ethics influences their team discussion process, in cases where there is significant divergence between their explicit and implicit understanding. We observed student teams during group discussions of the ethical issues involved in their engineering design projects. Through the micro-scale discourse analysis based on cognitive ethnography, we found two possible ways in which implicit understanding influenced the discussion. In one case, implicit understanding played the role of intuitive ethics-an intuitive judgment followed by reasoning. In the other case, implicit understanding played the role of ethical insight, emotionally guiding the direction of the discussion. In either case, however, implicit understanding did not have a strong influence, and the conclusion of the discussion reflected students' explicit understanding. Because students' implicit understanding represented broader social implication of engineering design in both cases, we suggest to take account of students' relevant implicit understanding in engineering education, to help students become more socially responsible engineers.

Proactive Ethical Design for Neuroengineering, Assistive and Rehabilitation Technologies: the Cybathlon Lesson

Background

Rapid advancements in rehabilitation science and the widespread application of engineering techniques are opening the prospect of a new phase of clinical and commercial maturity for Neuroengineering, Assistive and Rehabilitation Technologies (NARTs). As the field enters this new phase, there is an urgent need to address and anticipate the ethical implications associated with novel technological opportunities, clinical solutions, and social applications.

Main idea

In this paper we review possible approaches to the ethics of NART, and propose a framework for ethical design and development, which we call the Proactive Ethical Design (PED) framework.

Conclusion

A viable ethical framework for neuroengineering, assistive and rehabilitation technology should be characterized by the convergence of user-centered and value-sensitive approaches to product design through a proactive mode of ethical evaluation. We propose four basic normative requirements for the realization of this framework: minimization of power imbalances, compliance with biomedical ethics, translationality and social awareness. The aims and values of the CYBATHLON competition provide an operative model of this ethical framework and could drive an ethical shift in neuroengineering and rehabilitation.

Realism and Impartiality: Making Sustainability Effective in Decision-Making

There is both individual and collective widespread concern in society about the impact of human activity and the effects of our decisions on the physical and social environment. This concern is included within the idea of sustainability. The meaning of the concept is still ambiguous and its practical effectiveness disputed. Like many other authors, this article uses as a starting point the definition proposed by the World Commission on Environment and Development (Our common future, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1987), considering it to be a proposal for changing the assessment of the effects of decisions, from at least two perspectives: (1) what effects we should consider and (2) how we should assess them. Based on this double perspective, sustainability is explored as a method for decision-making which both expands the assessment of the consequences, and also provides an objective criterion for such assessment. It will be argued that the idea of sustainability, seen from this perspective, brings to decision-making two qualities which had been partially lost: realism and impartiality. In turn, the criteria for realism and impartiality in decision-making can be used to identify the limitations of some partial approaches to sustainability, which suffer from insufficient realism (emotional altruism), insufficient impartiality (tactical altruism) or both phenomena at once (egoism). The article concludes by demonstrating how realism and impartiality provide the basis for a new form of sustainable decision-making (ethical sustainability), which is dependent on the development of two moral virtues, prudence and benevolence, and which brings practical effectiveness and ethical sense to the concept of sustainability.

Ethical Risk Management Education in Engineering: A Systematic Review

Risk management is certainly one of the most important professional responsibilities of an engineer. As such, this activity needs to be combined with complex ethical reflections, and this requirement should therefore be explicitly integrated in engineering education. In this article, we analyse how this nexus between ethics and risk management is expressed in the engineering education research literature. It was done by reviewing 135 articles published between 1980 and March 1, 2016. These articles have been selected from 21 major journals that specialize in engineering education, engineering ethics and ethics education. Our review suggests that risk management is mostly used as an anecdote or an example when addressing ethics issues in engineering education. Further, it is perceived as an ethical duty or requirement, achieved through rational and technical methods. However, a small number of publications do offer some critical analyses of ethics education in engineering and their implications for ethical risk and safety management. Therefore, we argue in this article that the link between risk management and ethics should be further developed in engineering education in order to promote the progressive change toward more socially and environmentally responsible engineering practices. Several research trends and issues are also identified and discussed in order to support the engineering education community in this project.

Engineers' Responsibilities for Global Electronic Waste: Exploring Engineering Student Writing Through a Care Ethics Lens

This paper provides an empirically informed perspective on the notion of responsibility using an ethical framework that has received little attention in the engineering-related literature to date: ethics of care. In this work, we ground conceptual explorations of engineering responsibility in empirical findings from engineering student's writing on the human health and environmental impacts of "backyard" electronic waste recycling/disposal. Our findings, from a purposefully diverse sample of engineering students in an introductory electrical engineering course, indicate that most of these engineers of tomorrow associated engineers with responsibility for the electronic waste (e-waste) problem in some way. However, a number of responses suggested attempts to deflect responsibility away from engineers towards, for example, the government or the companies for whom engineers work. Still other students associated both engineers and non-engineers with responsibility, demonstrating the distributed/collective nature of responsibility that will be required to achieve a solution to the global problem of excessive e-waste. Building upon one element of a framework for care ethics adopted from the wider literature, these empirical findings are used to facilitate a preliminary, conceptual exploration of care-ethical responsibility within the context of engineering and e-waste recycling/disposal. The objective of this exploration is to provide a first step toward understanding how care-ethical responsibility applies to engineering. We also hope to seed dialogue within the engineering community about its ethical responsibilities on the issue. We conclude the paper with a discussion of its implications for engineering education and engineering ethics that suggests changes for educational policy and the practice of engineering.

Changing the paradigm for engineering ethics

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.

Taking emotion seriously: meeting students where they are

Emotions are often portrayed as subjective judgments that pose a threat to rationality and morality, but there is a growing literature across many disciplines that emphasizes the centrality of emotion to moral reasoning. For engineers, however, being rational usually means sequestering emotions that might bias analyses-good reasoning is tied to quantitative data, math, and science. This paper brings a new pedagogical perspective that strengthens the case for incorporating emotions into engineering ethics. Building on the widely established success of active and collaborative learning environments, in particular the problem-based learning (PBL) philosophy and methodology, the paper articulates new strategies for incorporating emotion into engineering ethics education. An ethics education pilot study is analyzed to explore how PBL can engage students' emotions. Evidence suggests that PBL empowers students to cultivate value for engineering ethics and social responsibility, and in doing so, redefine the societal role of the engineer. Taking students' emotions seriously in engineering ethics offers an effective strategy to meaningfully engage students in ethical learning.

Virtues in participatory design: cooperation, curiosity, creativity, empowerment and reflexivity

In this essay several virtues are discussed that are needed in people who work in participatory design (PD). The term PD is used here to refer specifically to an approach in designing information systems with its roots in Scandinavia in the 1970s and 1980s. Through the lens of virtue ethics and based on key texts in PD, the virtues of cooperation, curiosity, creativity, empowerment and reflexivity are discussed. Cooperation helps people in PD projects to engage in cooperative curiosity and cooperative creativity. Curiosity helps them to empathize with others and their experiences, and to engage in joint learning. Creativity helps them to envision, try out and materialize ideas, and to jointly create new products and services. Empowerment helps them to share power and to enable other people to flourish. Moreover, reflexivity helps them to perceive and to modify their own thoughts, feelings and actions. In the spirit of virtue ethics-which focuses on specific people in concrete situations-several examples from one PD project are provided. Virtue ethics is likely to appeal to people in PD projects because it is practice-oriented, provides room for exploration and experimentation, and promotes professional and personal development. In closing, some ideas for practical application, for education and for further research are discussed.

Risk communication, public engagement, and climate change: a role for emotions

This article discusses the potential role that emotions might play in enticing a lifestyle that diminishes climate change. Climate change is an important challenge for society. There is a growing consensus that climate change is due to our behavior, but few people are willing to significantly adapt their lifestyle. Empirical studies show that people lack a sense of urgency: they experience climate change as a problem that affects people in distant places and in a far future. Several scholars have claimed that emotions might be a necessary tool in communication about climate change. This article sketches a theoretical framework that supports this hypothesis, drawing on insights from the ethics of risk and the philosophy of emotions. It has been shown by various scholars that emotions are important determinants in risk perception. However, emotions are generally considered to be irrational states and are hence excluded from communication and political decision making about risky technologies and climate change, or they are used instrumentally to create support for a position. However, the literature on the ethics of risk shows that the dominant, technocratic approach to risk misses the normative-ethical dimension that is inherent to decisions about acceptable risk. Emotion research shows that emotions are necessary for practical and moral decision making. These insights can be applied to communication about climate change. Emotions are necessary for understanding the moral impact of the risks of climate change, and they also paradigmatically provide for motivation. Emotions might be the missing link in effective communication about climate change.