Anticipatory engineering ethics

Abstract

When teaching applied ethics, instructing students through the use of cases is an important avenue that can be employed to introduce students to ethical issues concerning the specific fields under study. The use of cases can also introduce students to the history of the technical and ethical issues in the field being studied and can help develop in students a sensitivity to social and ethical issues related to the cases selected for discussion. Students are often required to take applied ethics courses for 3 reasons as a part of program accreditation and as preparation for the time when students will enter the professional world and for when they may have to deal with ethical issues arising in that world. The study of real world cases is an important venue for accomplishing all of these tasks.When teaching applied ethics, instructing students through the use of cases is an important avenue that can be employed to introduce students to ethical issues concerning the specific fields under study. The use of cases can also introduce students to the history of the technical and ethical issues in the field being studied and can help develop in students a sensitivity to social and ethical issues related to the cases selected for discussion. Students are often required to take applied ethics courses for 3 reasons as a part of program accreditation and as preparation for the time when students will enter the professional world and for when they may have to deal with ethical issues arising in that world. The study of real world cases is an important venue for accomplishing all of these tasks.The method introduced here focuses on Engineering cases but combines Engineering and Information Computer Technology (ICT) Ethics. and is committed to remaining true to the technical principles of engineering practice and ICT while simultaneously introducing students to the importance of ethics. ICTE is included in the analysis because much of the work done in medicine depends upon computers and information computer technology and this technology plays an important mediational role between Engineering professionals and the development of Engineering products. A method that is committed to the researching of engineering ethics issues through the study of real world cases, allows students to perform research on technical issues in conjunction with introducing students to the importance of ethics. Introducing technical distinctions from the engineering field, ICT, and ethics can be accomplished when the study of ethics is supplemented with the introduction of social and historical issues through the extensive use of layers of cases. Layers of cases can be introduced by beginning with the study of individual cases. The study of individual cases including historical cases can be followed by the study of current cases. This presents a foundation for a comparison of cases. The comparison of historical and present cases can then serve as the foundation for comparing historical and present cases to emerging cases, which are cases that are capable of developing in the present moment. A current example is the emergence of ethical issues related to covid -19. The comparison of historical, present, and emerging cases provides a foundation for a further type of analysis, anticipatory ethical analysis. Anticipatory ethics is concerned with studying technology at the R & D stage of development as it is introduced, and then as it enters into the power stage of development. This study can then be employed to project technological developments into the future. Anticipatory ethics can then analyze anticipated technological developments and cases related to these developments. Anticipatory ethics is concerned with studying ethical issues arising with the development of technologies and with anticipating future developments and possible ethical problems that may emerge as the result of these developments. The method presented in this discussion introduces students in applied ethics classes to the analysis of technical and ethical issues emerging from historical and present cases and then this background can be used to project trajectories for anticipated technological development and the ethical issues related to cases that may potentially arise in the future. The need for the introduction of an anticipatory analysis is based upon the idea that the exponential growth of technology gives rise to unique cases with ethical issues that need to be addressed as they arise and as far as possible before they arise.