An Ethical Framework for Engineering Faculty: Motivation, Examples & Discussion

Engineering faculty address the topic of ethics from two different perspectives. The first is as required content related to the ABET outcome that engineering graduates will have an understanding of professional and ethical responsibility. The second is as practitioners who face a range of ethical dilemmas and challenges, from plagiarism to “passenger” team members to professional relationships with colleagues to responsible conduct of their own research. As citizens, engineering professors and students alike face issues beyond the scale of personal practice. Ladd1 subdivided engineering ethics into microethics and macroethics. Microethics considers individuals and internal relations of the engineering profession valuing individual liberty. Macroethics pays sufficient attention to larger societal problems and value the collective social responsibility of the profession to make societal decisions about technology.2 This paper provides an overview of background information that can support faculty in teaching and practicing ethics. This is followed by a framework that can be used to address personal and professional (micro) ethical issues, and examples of using the framework in classes. Suggestions for incorporating discussions about societal-level (macro) ethical issues within the context of engineering courses are described. Links to online resources are also provided.