About Teaching Values in Engineering Ethics
Type: Conference Paper
Tags: Christian Engineering
Abstract
The opportunity to teach ethics in an engineering curriculum offers an exceptional opportunity for Christian professors to introduce students to a Christian world view, providing them with a solid philosophical/theological foundation to their personal ethical system. In contrast to this, academia has addressed this concern is by teaching values. Especially in K-12 curriculum, "values clarification" has been widely practiced. However, values may be content-less ideas that do not promote virtue, character, or ethical behavior. All engineering ethics texts are "code centered" with little or no emphasis on motivational strategies to promote ethical behavior. Preliminary data show that knowledge is not the primary cause of code violations because many, if not most violations are willful. A Christian professor can bring religion into classes on ethics in an appropriate way. Such a strategy not only can increase cognitive dissonance which, in turn, will encourage ethical behavior, but can encourage students to examine the basis of their faith, making a Christian foundation a viable option.