Ethical Theories and Teaching Engineering Ethics

Author(s):  
Michael S. Pritchard ◽  
Elaine E. Englehardt

As an area of academic study, engineering ethics focuses primarily on practical ethical issues. A primary aim of the study of practical ethics is to help students make good ethical decisions in whatever practical endeavors they may undertake, including in their chosen careers. The authors argue that reflection on the sorts of ethical problems that arise in engineering practice should be the starting point, with ethical theory coming into view primarily in this context. This is in contrast to a more “top-down” approach that tries to “apply” theory to practice only after laying out a spectrum of philosophically grounded theories, each of which attempts to give us a comprehensive picture of ethics, as such.

Author(s):  
Michael S. Pritchard ◽  
Elaine E. Englehardt

As an area of academic study, engineering ethics focuses primarily on practical ethical issues. A primary aim of the study of practical ethics is to help students make good ethical decisions in whatever practical endeavors they may undertake, including in their chosen careers. The authors argue that reflection on the sorts of ethical problems that arise in engineering practice should be the starting point, with ethical theory coming into view primarily in this context. This is in contrast to a more “top-down” approach that tries to “apply” theory to practice only after laying out a spectrum of philosophically grounded theories, each of which attempts to give us a comprehensive picture of ethics, as such.


2013 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 181-217 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alice Woolley

Legal ethics theories give competing and exclusive accounts of the ethical foundations of the lawyer’s role. They disagree about the relationship between morality and law, about the content of the lawyer’s central ethical duties and about how specific ethical problems should be resolved. Each theoretical account asserts that the others are mistaken in some fundamental way. Yet all legal ethics theories are theories of action; legal ethics theorists do not seek merely to enlighten, they also seek to influence how lawyers and the legal profession respond to ethical issues. This creates a problem of disagreement: the problem created by the divergent but exclusive claims made by different ethical theories at the point when those theories are to be translated into action. This paper considers how, given the problem of disagreement, legal ethics theories can have any impact on individual ethical decision-making or public policy. Specifically, it considers how theories can have any impact given a) that they fundamentally disagree; and b) what experimental psychology tells us about how people make ethical decisions in fact, and the nature of lawyer regulation.


Author(s):  
Julian C. Hughes ◽  
Richard Cheston

Old age brings challenges which affect the process and content of psychotherapy; not that older people should be thought of as being the same, for they are individual. There are particular cohort effects and contexts that might affect the ways in which older people react to stressors in old age. Cognitive impairment and dementia will sometimes be a consideration. Good psychotherapeutic approaches to older people tend to reflect good ethical approaches. These can be described by the main ethical theories: utilitarianism, deontology, and virtue ethics. But a better and more nuanced way is perhaps to use ethical approaches that stress narrative, communication, interpretation, and meaning, as well as care and relationships. These approaches seem more realistic: they accommodate the real situation for the person concerned, recognizing him or her as a situated and embodied agent. This chapter uses vignettes to highlight the usefulness of these nuanced approaches to ethical problems.


2010 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 501-510 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gila Yakov ◽  
Yehudit Shilo ◽  
Tzippy Shor

August 2006 marked the 10th anniversary of landmark legislation when Israel’s parliament passed the unique Patient’s Rights Law. This law underscores the importance of medical ethics in Israeli society. During a seminar at the Shaare Zedek School of Nursing, third-year students performed a qualitative research study investigating ethical issues arising in the field of nursing, and how nursing staff dealt with these issues in relation to the law. The research was conducted using semistructured questionnaires. The results showed that the staff participants knew the law, but did not differentiate between legal and ethical problems. The establishment of a framework for dealing with these issues would help to promote professional ethics, encourage broad-based agreements related to ethical decisions, reduce ethical conflict, and increase implementation of the law on patients’ rights.


2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 99-115
Author(s):  
Borislav Marušić ◽  
Sanda Katavić-Čaušić

Abstract The aim of this paper is to research the word class adjective in one sequence of the ESP: Business English, more precisely English business magazines online. It is an empirical study on the corpus taken from a variety of business magazines online. The empirical analysis allows a comprehensive insight into the word class adjective in this variety of Business English and makes its contribution to English syntax, semantics and word formation. The syntactic part analyses the adjective position in the sentence. The semantic part of the study identifies the most common adjectives that appear in English business magazines online. Most of the analysis is devoted to the word formation of the adjectives found in the corpus. The corpus is analysed in such a way that it enables its division into compounds, derivatives and conversions. The results obtained in this way will give a comprehensive picture of the word class adjective in this type of Business English and can act as a starting point for further research of the word class adjective.


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lauren Marie Ackerman

Until now, there has been little experimental work investigating the processing and formal properties of the singular they suite of pronouns. As scientific and popular attention to singular they increases, it will be critical for research to acknowledge theoretical and ethical issues regarding discussion of this phenomenon. This commentary uses the recent paper by Doherty & Conklin (2017) as a starting point to discuss issues surrounding work on the various forms of singular they. It concludes that there is sufficient theoretical and empirical evidence to claim they has a grammatically singular form (at least in colloquial English). It also recommends care be taken in academic discussions of the grammaticality and acceptability of terms which are associated with marginalised communities.


Author(s):  
Kenneth S. Pope

This chapter examines how ethical issues are approached differently by two prominent psychological associations, how they are encountered by psychologists, the formal complaints they give rise to, and how they can be approached systematically to avoid missteps. Included are basic assumptions about ethics; the unique approaches to developing a ethics code taken by the American Psychological Association (APA) and the Canadian Psychological Association (CPA), and what each of these two codes provides; empirical data about what ethical problems psychologists encounter and what formal complaints they face; four major sets of ethical issues that are particularly complex and challenging (confidentiality, informed consent, competence, and boundaries); an area of major controversy (clinical psychology and national security); steps in ethical decision-making; and four possible lines of future research.


2005 ◽  
Vol 61 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Jelsma ◽  
S. Clow

Qualitative research or naturalistic research has moved from the sidelines into the mainstream of health research and an increasing number of qualitative research proposals are being presented for ethical review Qualitative research presents ethical problems that which are unique to the intensive hands-on paradigm which characterises naturalistic research. This paper briefly outlines the most common methodologies used in this research. The four ethical principles of benevolence, non-maleficence, autonomy and justice will be used as a framework to explore specific ethical issues related to this form of inquiry. The need for scientific rigour will also be explored as research that is scientifically unsound can never be ethical.


2017 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. A1-A22 ◽  
Author(s):  
David C. Hay

SUMMARY Audit fees are related to important ethical issues for auditors. There has been increasing research on audit fees recently, including research on potential ethical risks regarding audit fees, which helps to illuminate some of these professional issues. The International Ethics Standards Board for Accountants (IESBA) is very interested in this area and asked me to prepare a paper reviewing the relevant research. This summary reviews research that became available from 2006 to 2016 on four issues related to audit fees—fee level, dependence, non-audit fees, and firms that have a significant non-audit services business. Examining the research shows consistent evidence about two issues, namely that audit fees for new engagements are lower and that non-audit services affect independence in appearance. There are two further issues about which there is some concern. First, there are occasional studies reporting evidence that non-audit services provided by an auditor are associated with a loss of independence indicated by lower audit quality, even though most research does not support this conclusion. Second, there has been recent concern about growth in non-audit services to non-audit clients and there is some preliminary evidence that audit quality is lower in firms that have more extensive non-audit businesses. In general, although audit fee research does not convey a message that there are widespread ethical problems, the body of research shows that there are some risk areas.


2021 ◽  
pp. 9-16
Author(s):  
Oleg Letov ◽  

The article is an analytical review of English-language articles on contemporary ethical issues related to the coronavirus epidemic. Such principles of biomedical ethics as respect for the freedom of the patient, non-harm are analyzed. A precautionary approach is formulated, the main norms of which are practicality, impartiality, proportionality and justification. It is emphasized that public health advice and action should be part of a broader effort to gain and maintain confidence in the action taken. Reasonable trust requires a serious attitude to the ethical problems associated with the implementation of the intended ethical principles.


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