IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2015 - 57

ethical engineer. This instructional approach, which has
been pilot tested in the engineering classroom, could offer
an alternative for 21st century ethics education that would
emotionally engage our engineering students with ethics.

Aristotle and the Nature of Knowledge:
Engineering vs. Ethics
Traditional engineering ethics pedagogy embodies a
debate concerning the nature of knowledge that goes back
to the ancient Greeks. In the Nichomachean Ethics VI,
Aristotle sets up a taxonomy of knowledge that includes
epistêmê, which is theoretical or scientific knowledge such
as mathematics and physics, knowledge that is universal and unchanging; technê, which is productive or craft
knowledge characterized by the application of reason and
used by people to design or do things - this includes a
range of professions from artists to doctors to engineers;
and phronesis, which is intelligence or practical wisdom,
including ethics, with application to action taken in politics or the affairs of state [3]. Importantly, Aristotle distinguishes phronesis, from both epistêmê and technê. That
is, he distinguishes ethical knowledge from both scientific
and engineering knowledge, and he creates a dichotomy
- objective, verifiable, and unchanging truth that stands
at the top of the knowledge taxonomy, versus knowledge
and understanding as reflective, dialectic, and interpretivist
- that has persisted through the millennia. This dichotomy
has a direct impact on how we teach engineering ethics.
Much of traditional undergraduate engineering ethics
education is premised on the assumption that, because
scientific and engineering knowledge are different from
and privileged over ethics knowledge, the only way to
make ethics understandable to engineering students
is to teach it same way that engineering courses are
taught. This method would be with a linear, objective,
positivistic, problem-solving approach that assumes
pure reason will yield correct, and often quantitatively
determined, answers to ethical questions.
This article contends that we first have to challenge
the assumptions underlying this dominant educational
paradigm. Bunge, who is both a theoretical physicist
and a philosopher of science, argues that technology
itself is not ethically neutral. He writes that "technology
is involved with ethics and wavers between good and
evil" [4]. Second, he argues that we do a disservice
to both the profession and to society when we train
engineers and other technologists to be no more than
"skillful barbarian[s] who must be kept in [their] modest
place as the provider[s] of material comfort" and who
are expected only "to carry on their task without being
distracted by any ethical or aesthetic scruples" which are
exclusively in the domain of management [4].
In this article, I review the theories commonly used
in engineering ethics instruction and then introduce a
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phenomenology-based inquiry approach, its theoretical
foundations, how it is used in the classroom, and my
research on student learning outcomes. The phenomenological methods are intended to supplement and not
supplant ethical theory.

Three Traditional Theories of
(Engineering) Ethics
The three most taught ethics theories are deontological
or rules-based ethics, consequentialist (utilitarian) ethics, and Aristotelian virtue ethics. Kant gave us the paradigm of rules-based ethics, the Categorical Imperative:
to act only according to that maxim by which you can
at the same time will that it should become a universal
law [5]. The rules that govern "right" behavior are derived
through reason, they are universal, they are inviolable,
and they apply without exception. Benjamin Constant
posed the challenge of the "inquiring murderer:" should
a person lie to a murderer who asks the location of his
intended victim? Kant's stunning reply was that lying
about the would-be victim's location would violate the
maxim of truth-telling and would be wrong [6].
The National Society of Professional Engineers (NSPE)
has given us rules for engineers - the NSPE Code of Ethics. The rules are prescriptive, telling engineers how
they "shall" conduct themselves professionally. All my
engineering students can recite Canon 1 of the NSPE
Code of Ethics: "Engineers, in the fulfillment of their
professional duties, shall hold paramount the health,
safety, and welfare of the public" [7]. Some students
understand this rule as clear-cut, absolute, and inviolable. In their view, nearly every professional engineering ethics decision can be unambiguously decided by
reference to this Canon. But Davis [8] argues that professional ethics codes cannot be applied effectively without
interpretation.
Act utilitarian ethics or consequentialism requires
that we act in ways that will result in "the greatest good
for the greatest number" [9], [10]. Consequentialism
appears to be a pragmatic theory for ethical decisionmaking - we weigh the consequences of options and we
pick the action that will do the most good or, in some
cases, the least harm. Consequentialism is deceptively
simple and is, in reality, a very complex and demanding
way to live. Consider, for example, Peter Singer's contemporary utilitarian argument that people living in affluent
countries have a moral obligation to commit all their
income in excess of what they need to provide for their
own essentials to the cause of global famine relief [11].
In engineering, "utility" often relies on a variety of
decision-models such as risk analysis and cost-benefit
analysis to help engineering students quantify factors
to calculate the "right" decision. Although multiple factors may go into the calculation, students don't see this

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