PHIL 3105 RK Spring 2013
ENGINEERING ETHICS
THE BASICS
Course Instructor: Dr. Robert Kirkman. Please address me as either ‘Doctor Kirkman’ or ‘Professor Kirkman.’
Email: <> This is the most reliable way to contact me.
Web Site: I will be maintaining the course website through T-Square. You’ll use the site, among other things, to find class documents and additional readings, submit some assignments, and coordinate with group members.
Books: The one text you will need to purchase for the course is Weston, A Practical Companion to Ethics, fourth edition (Oxford University Press). Additional readings will be available through the Resources page of the T-Square workspace.
THE COURSE
Overview
This is a practical course in professional ethics for engineers. The real work of the course will be in grappling with concrete, practical problem situations, taking them as opportunities to acquire and practice skills in normative analysis and in the generation and evaluation of options; in short, we will be working to acquire and refine the tools of ethical inquiry.
Problem solving is normative when practical decisions hinge not only on matters of fact – or on technical specifications – but also on matters of character, value, and obligation: If we did this, would it have a good outcome? Will the outcome be fair? Are we giving due respect to others as we make our decision? What would doing this, rather than that, say about the kind of people we are? Is it something of which we could rightly be proud? In short, what ought we to do?
In the context of professional practice, normative problem solving begins with the simple recognition that engineering is never simply a matter of addressing technical problems by technical means. Engineers always work with and for other human beings, which raises always involves matters of value and obligation.
The course will follow a problem-based learning (PBL) approach, which means you yourselves, working together in groups, will explore an array of concrete problems that involve questions of character, value, and obligation; you will also work together to acquire and hone tools of ethical inquiry to assist you in addressing those problems.
Development and use of these tools will be supported by an array of reading assignments and in-class discussion and reflection.
NOTE: The focus of the course is on analyzing complex problem situations, generating plausible options for responding to such situations, and giving a well balanced and theoretically informed evaluation of each option. You will not be asked to solve a given problem, nor will you be asked to offer a defense of any one option over any other. For the purposes of this course, your opinion on any matter of ethics or policy is irrelevant; in all fairness, however, the instructor’s opinion is likewise irrelevant. You may come to your own conclusions on your own time.
Objectives
Many of you are taking this course to fulfill the ethics requirement of your degree program. You may get more out of your experience in the course if you know the background of that requirement and my interpretation of it.
Degree programs in engineering are evaluated and accredited by a non-profit organization known as ABET, the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology. In 2002, ABET revised the criteria by which it evaluates degree programs and, among other things, introduced the principle that students should come away from their studies with “an understanding of professional and ethical responsibility.” This understanding has four components: 1) students should be able to make informed ethical choices; 2) students should have knowledge of professional ethics; 3) students should be able to evaluate “the ethical dimensions of professional practice”; and 4) students should behave ethically. Particular emphasis is placed on “the ability to recognize potential ethical dilemmas,” and on “the relationship between cost and schedule pressures and increased risk.”[1]
This criterion was left vague by design, to give programs and individual instructors the freedom to develop more concrete objectives. By the time you finish a course fulfilling the ethics requirement, you should be able to:
· identify and analyze the ethical aspects of particular problem situations;
· describe and explain how each problem situation would look from various points of view, with a full and fair-minded understanding of how each point of view makes sense on its own terms;
· describe and explain how ethical frameworks have bearing on each problem situation including, at least, virtue ethics, consequentialism, and the ethics of respect for persons;
· effectively collaborate with others in analyzing problem situations and in generating several distinct options; and
· offer a thorough, balanced, and theoretically informed evaluation for each option you have identified for responding to a given problem situation.
SCHEDULE
The class meets Monday through Thursday, 1:00-2:30pm. The detailed schedule will be available online. Please check the Schedule and Assignments pages on T-Square regularly for further details of problems, resources, and assignments and for possible changes in the timing of things.
POLICIES AND PROCEDURES
Attendance: As with all courses offered on the Oxford Study Abroad Program, attendance is mandatory.
Problem-Based Learning: The approach we will be taking in this course is likely to be unfamiliar to most of you, so you may need to adjust your expectations of yourself, your classmates, and the instructor. Please be patient and open to possibilities.
The goal of the course is for each of you to acquire and learn to use a set of cognitive skills in normative problem solving. A series of lectures on moral theory is unlikely to help you actually acquire those skills, and a series of canned case studies is unlikely to help you learn to use them.
Instead, we will approach the course as a cognitive apprenticeship, somewhat along the lines of a design workshop. You will engage directly in the processes of analyzing and beginning to address messy, concrete problems, with structure and some guidance offered by someone who has some expertise in those processes.
The main work of the course, then, will be carried out by groups of students working together in a structured process of analysis, option generation and evaluation. Students are expected to take responsibility for their own learning, to contribute constructively and consistently to the ongoing work of the group, to manage their time and effort effectively, and to take time to reflect on the process of problem solving and the normative questions it raises.
The instructor may be expected to provide appropriate structure and resources for inquiry but otherwise to intervene only when necessary, and then mainly to suggest procedures or lines of inquiry rather than answers or solutions. In short, the instructor takes on the role of a facilitator, helping to keep groups on task and helping to guide reflection on skills and processes. You may also expect the instructor to be fair-minded and constructive in assessing work in progress, and fair and impartial in evaluating finished products.
Policy on Academic Integrity: Academic integrity is a precondition for intellectual maturity. The most basic requirement for integrity is that you make a clear distinction between your own work and that of others.
In general, unless you are explicitly instructed to collaborate with other students, any written work you as an individual hand in for a grade must be your own work, expressed in your own words, informed by your own judgment, and carefully documented if it includes any material quoted or paraphrased from other sources.
On take-home exams academic integrity means simply that, once the group preparation phase is complete, you must complete the exam entirely on your own, without assistance – voluntary or involuntary – from anyone else.
On all written assignments, whether working individual or as a group, you must avoid the form of academic dishonesty known as plagiarism. When you use other people’s ideas, words, or research findings to inform your own writing, whether in direct quotation or paraphrase, you must provide complete and accurate documentation. In addition, you must distinguish between direct quotation and paraphrase by the appropriate use of quotation marks.
Whatever form it takes, academic dishonesty hurts everyone: it is unfair to other students and it diminishes the reputation of the Institute and the value of the degrees it confers. As a consequence, academic dishonesty can result in serious disciplinary action, up to and including expulsion from the Institute. All suspected cases of academic dishonesty shall be reported to the Office of Student Integrity for investigation.
You should familiarize yourself with your rights and responsibilities under Institute regulations as expressed in the Academic Honor Code, and keep in mind that you have signed the Honor Agreement. See http://www.catalog.gatech.edu/rules/19a.php
Grades: All work for this course will be graded on a “criterion-referenced” or “absolute” grading system, which means individual and group work alike will be measured against an explicit and unvarying standard that is set out in the Evaluation Rubric provided as a supplement to this syllabus. In other words, grades will not be assigned on a curve (i.e. a “norm-referenced” system). It is theoretically possible for everyone to earn an ‘A’, as long as everyone’s work meets the performance standards for that grade.
Final grades will be determined by the following components:
Group Work – 40%· regular Group Progress Reports – 10% – evaluated on a 2-point scale (full credit/half credit/no credit); groups list only those members who contributed during the class session in question
· Final Group Reports, as specified in each problem unit – 30% – evaluated on a 4-point scale using a rubric, incorporating peer evaluation of individual collaboration skills
Individual Work – 60%
· Individual Inquiry Updates – 20% – as assigned, evaluated on a 4-point scale using a rubric
· Practical Exams (take-home, group-supported, individually written, essay-format exams) – 40% – two per term, evaluated on a 4-point scale using a rubric
The final grade will be calculated as a weighted average, rounded to two decimal places, using the 4-point scale of the rubric. Final numerical grades will correspond to letter grades according to the following scale:
3.50-4.00 / = A2.60-3.49 / = B
1.70-2.59 / = C
1.00-1.69 / = D
0-.99 / = F
Policy on Timeliness: All assignment due dates are firm. I will not accept assignments after their posted due date unless they are accompanied by written documentation of a legitimate excuse. Documentation should consist of a note or form signed by someone in authority (a physician, for example, or another Georgia Tech faculty member); a note written by yourself or a peer is not acceptable. Legitimate excuses include illness or injury, family or personal emergency, and academic or other Institute-related obligations beyond the ordinary work of your other courses.
If you know ahead of time that you are going to miss an important deadline for a legitimate reason, it’s usually a good idea to see me beforehand to arrange an extension.
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[1] Mary Besterfield-Sacre, et al., "Defining The Outcomes: A Framework for EC-2000," IEEE Transactions on Education 43.2 (2000): 104.