The changing of the guard: Should the engineering ethics code be changed to environmental ethics?

Abstract

Engineers of the 21st Century must include environmental considerations in their designs. Such additions to design thinking as sustainability and consideration of environmental impacts are worthwhile; however, to place the emphasis on such considerations may override the main focus of the basic ethics statement. A series of recent publications has urged a move to broad environmental thinking as the foundation for engineering ethics. Environmentally-based ethics arises out of "deep ecology" or "morally deep ethics" in which oneness with nature, rather than our stewardship of nature, underlies our thinking. The authors warn that such an environmentally- based ethic proves detrimental to the meaning of engineering, provides an inadequate base for an ethical system, requires a major shift in worldview, and could produce a situation which is actually harmful to human lives. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2009.