A virtue ethics approach to engineering ethics

Abstract

Engineering educators have a responsibility to promote the ethical practice of engineering by our graduates. For current students this includes how honest is their academic work. This paper deals with how to motivate the students to be ethical in their academic work as well as in their future careers. Professors need to develop a way to motivate students to behave in an ethical manner. Simply reciting what the codes of conduct say does not appear to be sufficient. A significant approach to do this has been done by Seebauer and Barry 1. They have integrated a virtue ethics approach into teaching about engineering ethics. Using their book as an inspiration, this paper attempts to develop a virtue based engineering ethic that will be seen by students as useful. To do this a virtue ethics approach will be applied to codes of conduct as well as a few case studies. Someone who has adopted a virtue ethics approach will have an internal motivation to make good choices in most situations. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2006.