Fundamentals of Ethics for Scientists and Engineers

Sound approach

Too often, Engineering Ethics is treated as merely a way to stay out of jail / trouble, or described as "something people disagree about". Neither approach is acceptable. Sometimes doing the right thing ethically means putting your job at risk, so ethics needs to have some real authority -- social convention alone is not enough to demand that kind of sacrifice. At the same time, ethics derived from any particular creed would not be persuasive to those with different beliefs. By basing the presentation on classical virtue theory, Seebauer and Barry provide arguments that Cicero, Marcus Aurelius, and St. Thomas Aquinas would all find compelling. Read more