Understanding International Perspectives  in Science and Engineering Ethics

Thomas M. Powers

Download Paper | Permalink

Conference: 2016 ASEE International Forum
Location: New Orleans, Louisiana
Publication Date: June 25, 2016
Start Date: June 25, 2016
End Date: June 25, 2016
Conference Session: Concurrent Paper Tracks Session II Skills Development
Tagged Topic: International Forum
Page Count: 8
DOI: 10.18260/1-2--27271
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/27271
Download Count: 344

Request a correction

Paper Authors

biography

Thomas M. Powers University of Delaware

visit author page

Thomas M. Powers is the founding director of the Center for Science, Ethics, and Public Policy (CSEPP) at the University of Delaware. He holds appointments as Associate Professor in the Department of Philosophy and in the School of Public Policy and Administration, and resident faculty at the Delaware Biotechnology Institute. His research concerns ethics in science and engineering, the philosophy of technology, and environmental ethics, and his publications range from topics in artificial intelligence and robotic ethics to the ethical aspects of design. Powers received a B.A. in philosophy (College of William and Mary) and a Ph.D. in philosophy (University of Texas at Austin) for a dissertation Immanuel Kant. He has been a DAAD-Fulbright dissertation-year fellow at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Munich, a National Science Foundation postdoctoral fellow in the School of Engineering and Applied Science at the University of Virginia, and a visiting researcher at the Laboratoire d'Informatique (LIP6) at the Université Pierre et Marie Curie in Paris, France.

visit author page

Download Paper | Permalink

Abstract

In 2014 an interdisciplinary team of researchers from the University of Delaware began a 5-year project with the Online Ethics Center (OEC) to gather international perspectives on science and engineering ethics, broadly construed. We seek instructional and scholarly materials from international institutions and individual foreign scholars and teachers. This paper describes the rationale and outlines the theoretical foundation of this project. The central issue to be addressed here is: if there is indeed a benefit to the “internationalization” of science and engineering ethics, how can that benefit be understood from the more general standpoint of the purposes of science and engineering ethics per se?

It is now widely understood that contemporary science and engineering are increasingly international and collaborative. These complex practices are subject to difficulties introduced by differences in languages, cultures, social norms, education, religion, political systems, laws, resource and infrastructure availability, and other factors. Despite these variations, there is an important common factor in the production of scientific and engineering knowledge: it is not just descriptive, explanatory, and predictive, but also normative. This means that there are explicit and implicit rules and guidelines, regulations, and norms of practice and sanction regarding how one ought to behave as a scientist or engineer. This normative part concerns how to do research, but also how to orient one’s research to a world that expects to benefit from it.

Given this character of science and engineering as in part normative, a better appreciation of these norms worldwide will be necessary to understand actual practices, as well as to motivate critical appraisals of practice. I explain the rationale for collecting those views, and making them widely available for further study.

In the final part of the paper I discuss a “contractarian” theory of the good of publicizing differences in norms. This approach, which is inspired by the political philosophy of John Rawls, can be seen as an alternative to a “conventionalist” understanding of science and engineering ethics.

Citation
Format

Powers, T. M. (2016, June), Understanding International Perspectives in Science and Engineering Ethics Paper presented at 2016 ASEE International Forum, New Orleans, Louisiana. 10.18260/1-2--27271

TY - CPAPER
AB - In 2014 an interdisciplinary team of researchers from the University of Delaware began a 5-year project with the Online Ethics Center (OEC) to gather international perspectives on science and engineering ethics, broadly construed. We seek instructional and scholarly materials from international institutions and individual foreign scholars and teachers. This paper describes the rationale and outlines the theoretical foundation of this project. The central issue to be addressed here is: if there is indeed a benefit to the “internationalization” of science and engineering ethics, how can that benefit be understood from the more general standpoint of the purposes of science and engineering ethics per se?

It is now widely understood that contemporary science and engineering are increasingly international and collaborative. These complex practices are subject to difficulties introduced by differences in languages, cultures, social norms, education, religion, political systems, laws, resource and infrastructure availability, and other factors. Despite these variations, there is an important common factor in the production of scientific and engineering knowledge: it is not just descriptive, explanatory, and predictive, but also normative. This means that there are explicit and implicit rules and guidelines, regulations, and norms of practice and sanction regarding how one ought to behave as a scientist or engineer. This normative part concerns how to do research, but also how to orient one’s research to a world that expects to benefit from it.

Given this character of science and engineering as in part normative, a better appreciation of these norms worldwide will be necessary to understand actual practices, as well as to motivate critical appraisals of practice. I explain the rationale for collecting those views, and making them widely available for further study.

In the final part of the paper I discuss a “contractarian” theory of the good of publicizing differences in norms. This approach, which is inspired by the political philosophy of John Rawls, can be seen as an alternative to a “conventionalist” understanding of science and engineering ethics.

AU - Thomas M. Powers
CY - New Orleans, Louisiana
DA - 2016/06/25
PB - ASEE Conferences
TI - Understanding International Perspectives in Science and Engineering Ethics
UR - https://peer.asee.org/27271
DO - 10.18260/1-2--27271
ER -