Over the past 50 years, Nelson algebras have been extensively studied by distinguished scholars as the algebraic counterpart of Nelson's constructive logic with strong negation. Despite these studies, a comprehensive survey of the topic is currently lacking, and the theory of Nelson algebras remains largely unknown to most logicians. This paper aims to fill this gap by focussing on the essential developments in the field over the past two decades. Additionally, we explore generalisations of Nelson algebras, such as N4-lattices which (...) correspond to the paraconsistent version of Nelson's logic, as well as their applications to other areas of interest to logicians, such as duality and rough set theory. A general representation theorem states that each Nelson algebra is isomorphic to a subalgebra of a rough set-based Nelson algebra induced by a quasiorder. Furthermore, a formula is a theorem of Nelson logic if and only if it is valid in every finite Nelson algebra induced by a quasiorder. (shrink)

Modern social and political thought has approached the questions of politics, law, and citizenship from the vantage point of a fundamental divide between the occidental and oriental, or archaic and modern, institutions. This article creates a concept, the gift of law, by staging two gift-giving practices as two historical moments: Greek euergetism and Ottoman waqf. While it is indebted to Mauss, our articulation of the gift of law also owes to the critical interventions of Jacques Derrida and Pierre Bourdieu, (...) who emphasized non-voluntaristic and non-calculative aspects of the gift. We argue that both euergetism and the waqf enabled and substantiated legal subjectivities that allocated rights and obligations. Those gift-giving practices establish relationships between various groups and legal authorities that were crucial in the formation of cities as spaces of government, for both citizens and non-citizens alike. With the concept ‘gift of law’, categories ‘oriental’ and ‘occidental’ become problematic. (shrink)

This institutional self-study investigated the use of text-matching software to prevent plagiarism by students in a Canadian university that did not have an institutional license for TMS at the time of the study. Assignments from a graduate-level engineering course were analyzed using iThenticate®. During the initial phase of the study, similarity scores from the first student assignments were collected to determine a baseline level of textual similarity. Students were then offered an educational intervention workshop on academic integrity. Another set (...) of similarity scores from consenting participants’ second assignments were then collected, and a statistically significant assignment effect was found between the similarity scores of the two assignments. The results of this study indicate that TMS, when used in conjunction with educational interventions about academic integrity, can be useful to students and educators to prevent and identify academic misconduct. This study adds to the growing body of empirical research about academic integrity in Canadian higher education and, in particular, in engineering fields. (shrink)

Climate engineering (CE), the intentional modification of the climate in order to reduce the effects of increasing greenhouse gas concentrations, is sometimes touted as a potential response to climate change. Increasing interest in the topic has led to proposals for empirical tests of hypothesized CE techniques, which raise serious ethical concerns. We propose three ethical guidelines for CE researchers, derived from the ethics literature on research with human and animal subjects, applicable in the event that CE research progresses beyond (...) computer modeling. The Principle of Respect requires that the scientific community secure the global public's consent, voiced through their governmental representatives, before beginning any empirical research. The Principle of Beneficence and Justice requires that researchers strive for a favorable risk–benefit ratio and a fair distribution of risks and anticipated benefits, all while protecting the basic rights of affected individuals. Finally, the Minimization Principle requires that researchers minimize the extent and intensity of each experiment by ensuring that no experiments last longer, cover a greater geographical extent, or have a greater impact on the climate, ecosystem, or human welfare than is necessary to test the specific hypotheses in question. Field experiments that might affect humans or ecosystems in significant ways should not proceed until a full discussion of the ethics of CE research occurs and appropriate institutions for regulating such experiments are established. (shrink)

This paper follows a paper by Mitcham and considers whether engineering is among a group of occupations he calls philosophically weak, in the sense that engineering does not aspire to good-in-themselves ideals as do medicine and law. The paper agrees that engineering is philosophically weak, but in the different sense that engineering is not as reflective upon its nature and place in the world as some other professions. The paper recovers Mitcham's distinction by consider the institutional (...) complexity of a given occupation, suggesting that engineering's practice in the context of complex institutional arrangements precludes the relative ethical simplicity of such occupations as medicine and law. (shrink)

Chemical engineering - as a recognised skill in the workplace, as an academic discipline, and as an acknowledged profession - is scarcely a century old. Yet from a contested existence before the First World War, chemical engineering had become one of the 'big four' engineering professions in Britain, and a major contributor to Western economies, by the end of the twentieth century. The subject had distinct national trajectories. In Britain - too long seen as shaped by American (...) experiences - the emergence of recognised chemical engineers was the result of professional aspirations and contingency, and shaped by a shifting ecology of institutions, firms and government. Drawing upon extensive archival research, this book examines the evolution of technical practice, working environment and social interactions of chemical engineering. It will be of considerable interest to historians, sociologists of the professions, and to practitioners themselves. (shrink)

Engineering is more cross-cultural and international than ever before, presenting challenges and opportunities in the way engineering ethics is conceived and delivered. To assist in providing more effective ethics education to increasingly diverse groups, this paper shares three related projects implemented at the University of Michigan-Shanghai Jiao Tong University Joint Institute (China). These projects are united in their attempts to address challenges arising from the increasingly global nature of engineering. The first is a course on global (...) class='Hi'>engineering ethics, developed for and attended by engineering students from diverse backgrounds. The second is a website hosting contents on global engineering ethics education and conducting research related to cross-cultural moral psychology. The third explores methods of assessing engineering ethics and moral development, using paradigms of ethical decision-making. Although these projects were developed in a Chinese-US collaboration with university students, these contexts could facilitate the adoption of similar programs elsewhere, with practicing engineers. (shrink)

Ludwig Wittgenstein was trained as a scientist and an engineer. He received a diploma in mechanical engineering from the Technische Hochschule in Charlottenburg, Berlin, in 1906, after which he did several years of research on aeronautics before turning to the full-time study of logic and philosophy. Hertz, Boltzmann, Mach, Weininger, and William James, all important influences on Wittgenstein, are authors whose work was both philosophical and scientific. The relationship between everyday life, science, and philosophy, is a central concern (...) throughout the course of his writing. He regarded philosophy, properly conducted, as an autonomous activity, a matter of clarifying our understanding of language, or investigating grammar. Wittgenstein thought philosophy should state the obvious as a way of disabusing us of the desire to formulate philosophical theories of meaning, knowledge, language, or science, and was deeply opposed to the naturalist view that philosophy is a form of science. In his later work, Wittgenstein rejected systematic approaches to understanding language and knowledge. Wittgenstein’s answer to the Socratic question about the nature of knowledge is that it has no nature, no essence, and so it is a mistake to think one can give a single systematic answer:If I was asked what knowledge is, I would list items of knowledge and add “and suchlike.” There is no common element to be found in all of them, because there isn’t one. (shrink)

This article argues that major cases of electoral reform across democracies in Asia in recent years can be explained as institutional measures aimed at curbing corruption and . More specifically, Japan, Taiwan, and Thailand rid themselves of their extreme candidate-centered electoral systems as a means to encourage politicians to invest in collective party labels, while Indonesia discarded its extremely party-centered electoral system to increase the accountability of individual politicians. The article thus disagrees with scholars who argue that recent electoral reform (...) should be understood as part of a wider project by Asian governments to engineer a majoritarian form of democracy. Instead, the comparative analysis shows that democracies across Asia, in line with global trends in institutional design, have been their electoral systems, moving them closer towards the ideal of electoral. (shrink)

This study aims to look at the role of the practice of excellence strategies in education in achieving sustainable competitive advantage for the Higher educational institutions of the faculty of Engineering and Information Technology at Al-Azhar University in Gaza, a model, and the study considered the competitive advantage of educational institutions stems from the impact on the level of each student, employee, and the institution. The study was based on the premise that the development of strategies for (...) excellence in education, and its implementation is a vital important prerequisite to achieve sustainable competitive advantage in higher educational institutions. The study followed a systematic exploratory descriptive methodology through review of the theoretical literature, and the adoption of the experience of the Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology at Al-Azhar University in Gaza as a model for its unique experience in the field of excellence in education. The study results showed that the most important are: There is a strong correlation between the level of exercising excellence strategies in education and the achievement of higher educational institutions to the sustainable competitive advantage. The results include a general required number of important sub results on the subject of the model - Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology at Al-Azhar University in Gaza as follows: - The student considered the academic focus of the operation in the development process of the workers’ skills, particularly academics at the university helps to distinguish students and increase the employment rate after graduation. - The existence of consistency in development efforts and quality improvement for all three levels (student, employee, and the university), and this contributes to the Faculty excellence. - The Faculty has been able to achieve competitive advantages by offering excellent services without harming the efficiency, and this alone is a great success because improving service properties requires great investments, which negatively affect the continued institutional development. The study also reached a set of recommendations as follows: - The need to exercise excellence strategies in education, excellence reward at the national level, and those higher educational institutions follow the criteria for measuring the competitive advantages of its institutions always. - There is a need to increase efforts to implement programs of excellence, the allocation of adequate time, reward outstanding efforts as well. There is a necessity for each faculty to achieve competitive advantage and sustainability, using the general philosophies of competitive advantage, but with a different strategically content from what is in the private commercial sector, it reflects the Faculties mission and objectives, depending on making improvements and excellence in processes that ensure the safety of its outputs. As well as the need to find a balance between the work of teaching and research work of the faculty members, this has important implications regarding the criteria used in the process of excellence evaluation. The study recommended the adoption of strategies for excellence in education on a national public policy level mainly in the processes of change in higher education institutions. The need to support the existence of a common understanding of the efforts of excellence to create a general culture that appreciates excellence in faculties and universities. This underlines the need for transparent, fair rewards systems, to encourage innovation in education. The need to conduct a comprehensive surveys on the graduates of faculties and universities including the areas of employment and skills, because that will give accurate indications of the graduates and will help to establish a link to a more precise about the relationship of excellence strategies with the competitive advantages. (shrink)

Charting significant growth in science production over the 20th century in four European Union member states, this neo-institutional analysis describes the development and current state of universities and research institutes that bolster Europe’s position as a key region in global science. On-going internationalization and Europeanization of higher education and science has been accompanied by increasing competition as well as collaboration. Despite the policy goals to foster innovation and further expand research capacity, in cross-national and historical comparison neither the level of (...) R&D investments nor country size accounts completely for the differential growth of scientific productivity. Based on a comprehensive historical database from 1900 to 2010, this analysis uncovers both stable and dynamic patterns of production and productivity in Germany, France, Belgium, and Luxembourg. Measured in peer-reviewed research articles collected in Thomson Reuters’ Science Citation Index Expanded, which includes journals in the fields of Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics, and Health, we show the varying contributions of different organizational forms, especially research universities and research institutes. Comparing the institutionalization pathways that created the conditions necessary for continuous and strong growth in scientific productivity in the European center of global science emphasizes that the research university is the key organizational form across countries. (shrink)

This book uses a mixed-method approach to address the topic of personal epistemology among Chinese engineering doctoral students from U.S. institutions. It presents a broad view of the epistemological development among Chinese engineering students from five U.S. Midwestern doctoral programs. At the same time it provides deep insights into the thinking styles and behavioral patterns for each particular epistemological developmental stage and offers practical examples from students' academic experiences in these programs. It allows readers to gain an (...) understanding of Chinese engineering students' academic lives in U.S. institutions through a solid cognitive theoretical lens. It also highlights a number of factors that can potentially facilitate adult students' cognitive development, and extends the discussion on the benefits of study-abroad and cross-cultural education for the epistemological domain. (shrink)

At Universitat Politècnica de València, Meridies, an internship programme that places engineering students in countries of Latin America, is one of the few opportunities the students have to explore the implications of being a professional in society in a different cultural and social context. This programme was analyzed using the capabilities approach as a frame of reference for examining the effects of the programme on eight student participants. The eight pro-public-good capabilities proposed by Melanie Walker were investigated through semi-structured (...) interviews. The internship is an environment in which students can put into practice the knowledge they have acquired in undergraduate studies and to find practical relevance in what they studied. Occasionally, this also entails a critical questioning of what they have learned, a greater awareness of the limits of the contents of their studies and of the way things were taught, and interest in less explored issues that are closely linked to social justice. However, tensions can arise between the pro-public-good oriented perspectives of this programme, and a more instrumental vision. One way to overcome these tensions is to foster consideration of reflexivity, that is, the dynamic relationship between technology and society. To do so, the programme must create space before and during the internship, and upon the return of the students, to discuss and collectively reflect upon their lived experience. Additionally, it ought to engage supervisors in this educational journey, both at the university and in the host institutions, and also involve socially committed organisations in this task. (shrink)

Knowing that technologies are inherently value-laden and systemically interwoven with society, the question is how individual engineers can take up the challenge of accepting the responsibility for their work? This paper will argue that engineers have no institutional structure at the level of society that allows them to recognize, reflect upon, and actively integrate the value-laden character of their designs. Instead, engineers have to tap on the different institutional realms of market, science, and state, making their work a ‘hybrid’ activity (...) combining elements from the different institutional realms. To deal with this institutional hybridity, engineers develop routines and heuristics in their professional network, which do not allow societal values to be expressed in a satisfactory manner. To allow forms of ‘active’ responsibility, there have to be so-called ‘accountability forums’ that guide moral reflections of individual actors. The paper will subsequently look at the methodologies of value-sensitive design and constructive technology assessment and explore whether and how these methodologies allow engineers to integrate societal values into the design technological artifacts and systems. As VSD and CTA are methodologies that look at the process of technological design, whereas the focus of this paper is on the designer, they can only be used indirectly, namely as frameworks which help to identify the contours of a framework for active responsibility of engineers. (shrink)

A joint effort by the University of California at Berkeley and Delft University of Technology to develop a graduate engineering ethics course for PhD students encountered two types of challenges: academic and institutional. Academically, long-term collaborative research efforts between engineering and philosophy faculty members might be needed before successful engineering ethics courses can be initiated; the teaching of ethics to engineering graduate students and collaborative research need to go hand-in-hand. Institutionally, both bottom-up approaches at the level (...) of the faculty and as a joint research and teaching effort, and top-down approaches that include recognition by a University’s administration and the top level of education management, are needed for successful and sustainable efforts to teach engineering ethics. (shrink)

Engineers create airplanes, buildings, medical devices, and software, amongst many other things. Engineers abide by a professional code of ethics to uphold people’s safety and the reputation of the profession. Likewise, students abide by a code of academic integrity while learning the knowledge and necessary skills to prepare them for the engineering and computing professions. This paper reports on studies designed to improve the engineering student culture with respect to academic integrity and ethics. To understand the existing culture (...) at a university in the USA, a survey based on a national survey about cheating was administered to students. The incidences of self-reported cheating and incidences of not reporting others who cheat show the culture is similar to other institutions. Two interventions were designed and tested in an introduction to an engineering course: two case studies that students discussed in teams and the whole class, and a letter of recommendation assignment in which students wrote about themselves three years into the future. Students were surveyed after the two interventions. Results show that first-year engineering students appreciate having a code of academic integrity and they want to earn their degree without cheating, yet less than half of the students would report on another cheating student. The letter of recommendation assignment had some impact on getting students to think about ethics, their character, and their actions. Future work in changing the student culture will continue in both a top-down and bottom-up manner. (shrink)

Informal communication and interaction are integral components of the practice of science, including the doctoral process. This article argues that women are disadvantaged in the informal milieu of the higher education in science, and that this milieu is not uniform everywhere. It posits that to understand the position of women in science in South Asian countries like India, the inquiry has to be conceptualized in the specific social, historical, and institutional context. Through a questionnaire survey comparing male and female perceptions, (...) and qualitative interviews with women, an attempt has been made to understand the nature of Indian women's problems in the informal doctoral science environment. The findings indicate that though the nature of problems appears to be similar to those faced by the women in science in the West, the specific form of biases varies, and that the cultural context molds the specific forms of discrimination. This has implications for future research and policies. (shrink)

Genetic engineering in general, and human genetic editing in particular, is revolutionizing humankind’s self-understanding: an evolved organism taking ever greater control of its own evolution. This Anthropocenic phenomenon is deeply equivocal (Gregg B. Human genetic engineering: biotic justice in the anthropocene? In: DellaSala D, Goldstein M (eds) Encyclopedia of the Anthropocene, vol 4. Elsevier, Oxford, pp 351–359, 2018). While delivering humans from some risks, it renders them vulnerable to unintended consequences as well. Even in the face of seemingly (...) intractable differences of opinion about how best to understand genetic manipulation culturally, and how to evaluate it ethically, political communities and international organizations alike must address its possible future legal regulation. Governments and other elite institutions would do well to include the general public, to the extent possible, in deliberations about regulation, even as genetic engineering is based on highly specialized knowledge. (shrink)

Complex technology has become an essential aspect of everyday life. We rely on technology as part of basic infrastructure and repeatedly for tasks throughout the day. Yet, in many cases the relation surpasses mere reliance and evolves to trust in technology. A new, disruptive technology is blockchain. It claims to introduce trustless relationships among its users, aiming to eliminate the need for trust altogether—even being described as “the trust machine”. This paper presents a proposal to adjust the concept of trust (...) in blockchain applications with the tools provided by conceptual engineering. Its goal is to propose a concept of trust, that offers more than a halo term, devoid of the normative depth that the original, philosophical term actually carries. To evaluate possible concepts of trust in blockchain applications, five criteria are proposed: These criteria ensure that the conceptual relation indeed embodies trust, thereby being richer than mere reliance, and that the chosen concept highlights the active role of the trustor. While the concepts of trust in engineers and trust in algorithms have to be discarded, institutional trust emerges as a viable candidate, given some refinements. Ultimately, the concept of trust by normative expectations and attribution is suggested to capture the essence of trust in blockchain applications. (shrink)

Because wicked problems are beyond the scope of normal, industrial-age engineering science, sustainability problems will require reform of current engineering science and technology practices. We assert that, while pluralism concerning use of the term sustainability is likely to persist, universities should continue to cultivate research and education programs specifically devoted to sustainable engineering science, an enterprise that is formally demarcated from business-as-usual and systems optimization approaches. Advancing sustainable engineering science requires a shift in orientation away from (...) reductionism and intellectual specialization towards integrative approaches to science, education, and technology that: draw upon an ethical awareness that extends beyond the usual bounds of professional ethics or responsible conduct of research to include macroethics, adopt anticipatory and adaptive approaches to unintended consequences resulting from technological innovation that result in more resilient systems, and cultivate interactional expertise to facilitate cross-disciplinary exchange. Unfortunately, existing education and research training programs are ill-equipped to prepare scientists and engineers to operate effectively in a wicked problems milieu. Therefore, it is essential to create new programs of graduate education that will train scientists and engineers to become sustainable engineering science experts equipped to recognize and grapple with the macro-ethical, adaptive, and cross-disciplinary challenges embedded in their technical research and development programs. Content Type Journal Article Category Articles Pages 1-18 DOI 10.1007/s10806-011-9342-2 Authors Thomas Seager, School of Sustainability and The Built Environment, Arizona State University, Phoenix Metropolitan Area, AZ, USA Evan Selinger, Department of Philosophy, Rochester Institute of Technology, Henrietta, NY, USA Arnim Wiek, School of Sustainability, Arizona State University, Phoenix Metropolitan Area, AZ, USA Journal Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics Online ISSN 1573-322X Print ISSN 1187-7863. (shrink)

The movements to teach the responsible conduct of research and engineering ethics at technological universities are often unacknowledged aspects of the ethics across the curriculum movement and could benefit from explicit alliances with it. Remarkably, however, not nearly as much scholarly attention has been devoted to EAC as to RCR or to engineering ethics, and RCR and engineering ethics educational efforts are not always presented as facets of EAC. The emergence of EAC efforts at two different (...) class='Hi'>institutions—the Illinois Institute of Technology and Utah Valley University —provide counter examples. The remarkably successful UVU initiative gave birth to EAC as a scholarly movement and to the associated Society for Ethics Across the Curriculum. EAC initiatives at the Colorado School of Mines, however, point up continuing institutional resistances to EAC. Finally, comparative reflection on successes and failures can draw some lessons for the future. One suggestion is that increasing demands for accountability and pedagogical research into what works in teaching and learning offers special opportunities. (shrink)

Many ameliorative projects aim at moral goods such as social equality. For example, the amelioration of the concept MARRIAGE forms part of efforts to achieve equal rights for the LGBT+ community. What does implementation of such an ameliorated concept consist in? In this paper, I argue that, for some ameliorated concepts, successful implementation requires that individuals eschew semantic deference, at least with respect to relevant dimensions of the concept. My argument appeals to consideration of the aims of conceptual engineers engaged (...) in this type of ameliorative project: they seek conceptual change in order to contribute to the dismantling of oppressive social structures, institutions, and systems of belief. I argue that, for such aims to be achieved, it must be the case that individuals who come to endorse the concept do so for the right reasons---because they have gained an understanding of why the ameliorated concept is morally preferable to its ancestor. Once they have acquired such reasons, however, they are no longer correctly described as semantically deferential; they will treat moral reasons to employ the concept as overriding of semantic considerations. (shrink)

This second companion volume on engineering studies considers engineering practice including contextual analyses of engineering identity, epistemologies and values. Key overlapping questions examine such issues as an engineering identity, engineering self-understandings enacted in the professional world, distinctive characters of engineering knowledge and how engineering science and engineering design interact in practice. -/- Authors bring with them perspectives from their institutional homes in Europe, North America, Australia\ and Asia. The volume includes 24 contributions (...) by more than 30 authors from engineering, the social sciences and the humanities. Additional issues the chapters scrutinize include prominent norms of engineering, how they interact with the values of efficiency or environmental sustainability. A concluding set of articles considers the meaning of context more generally by asking if engineers create their own contexts or are they created by contexts. -/- Taken as a whole, this collection of original scholarly work is unique in its broad, multidisciplinary consideration of the changing character of engineering practice. (shrink)

In this paper, we argue that the professional engineering institutions ought to develop a Declaration of Climate Action. Climate change is a serious global problem, and the majority of greenhouse gas emissions come from industries that are enabled by engineers and represented by the engineering professional institutions. If the professional institutions take seriously the claim that a profession should be self-regulating, with codes of ethics that go beyond mere obedience to the law, and if they (...) take their own ethical codes seriously, recognising their responsibility to the public and to future generations, the professional institutions ought to develop a declaration for engineers, addressing climate change. Our argument here is largely inspired by the history of the Declaration of Helsinki. The Declaration of Helsinki was created by the medical profession for the profession, and it held physicians to a higher standard of ethical conduct than was found in the legal framework of individual countries. Although it was not originally a legal document, the influence of the Declaration can be seen in the fact that it is now enshrined in law in a number of different countries. Thus, we argue that the engineering profession could, and should, play a significant role in the abatement of climate change by making changes within the profession. If the engineering profession sets strict standards for professional engineers, with sanctions for those who refuse to comply, this could have a significant impact in relation to our efforts to develop a coordinated response to climate change. (shrink)

Early practitioners of the social studies of science turned their attention away from questions of institutionalisation, which had tended to emphasize macrolevel explanations, and attended instead to microstudies of laboratory practice. The author is interested in re-investigating certain aspects of institution formation, notably the formation of scientific, medical, and engineering disciplines. He emphasises the manner in which science as cultural practice is imbricated with other forms of social, political, and even aesthetic practices. The author considers the following topics: the (...) organic physics of 1847; the innovative research program of Carl Ludwig as a model for institutionalising science-based medicine, optics, painting, and ideology in Germany, 1845-95; the Haber-Bosch synthesis of ammonia; and the introduction of nuclear magnetic resonance instrumentation into the practice of organic chemistry. (shrink)

This paper aims to review the empirical and theoretical research on engineering ethics education, by focusing on the challenges reported in the literature. The analysis is conducted at four levels of the engineering education system. First, the individual level is dedicated to findings about teaching practices reported by instructors. Second, the institutional level brings together findings about the implementation and presence of ethics within engineering programmes. Third, the level of policy situates findings about engineering ethics education (...) in the context of accreditation. Finally, there is the level of the culture of engineering education. The multi-level analysis allows us to address some of the limitations of higher education research which tends to focus on individual actors such as instructors or remains focused on the levels of policy and practice without examining the deeper levels of paradigm and purpose guiding them. Our approach links some of the challenges of engineering ethics education with wider debates about its guiding paradigms. The main contribution of the paper is to situate the analysis of the theoretical and empirical findings reported in the literature on engineering ethics education in the context of broader discussions about the purpose of engineering education and the aims of reform programmes. We conclude by putting forward a series of recommendations for a socio-technical oriented reform of engineering education for ethics. (shrink)

In France, some institutions seem to call for the engineer’s sense of social responsibility. However, this call is scarcely heard. Still, engineering students have been given the opportunity to gain a general education through courses in literature, law, economics, since the nineteenth century. But, such courses have long been offered only in the top ranked engineering schools. In this paper, we intend to show that the wish to increase engineering students’ social responsibility is an old concern. (...) We also aim at highlighting some macro social factors which shaped the answer to the call for social responsibility in the French engineering “Grandes Ecoles”. In the first part, we provide an overview of the scarce attention given to the engineering curriculum in the scholarly literature in France. In the second part, we analyse one century of discourses about the definition of the “complete engineer” and the consequent role of non technical education. In the third part, we focus on the characteristics of the corpus which has been institutionalized. Our main finding is that despite the many changes which occurred in engineering education during one century, the “other formation” remains grounded on a non academic “way of knowing”, and aims at increasing the reputation of the schools, more than enhancing engineering students’ social awareness. (shrink)

The paper surveys the origins of chemical engineering in England in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It deals particularly with the recognition of the field as an independent discipline, its relations with chemistry and mechanical engineering, and the influence on its growth of industrial ‘demand’. The position of chemical engineering in public discourse, in the City and Guilds Central Institution, and at Imperial College of Science and Technology and University College London are discussed, together with (...) the creation of the Institution of Chemical Engineers in 1922. The idea that the discipline grew merely in response to the demands of industrial capitalists is rejected, and a variety of other interest groups is shown to have participated. (shrink)

This study explores the institutional logics and socialization experiences of STEM doctoral students in the context of the current American economic narrative that is specific to science and technology. Data from qualitative interviews with 36 students at three research universities first reveals a disconnect between a well-established national science and technology policy narrative that is market-oriented and the training, experiences, and perspectives of science and engineering doctoral students. Findings also indicate science and engineering doctoral students mostly understand entrepreneurship (...) and innovation in the contexts of funding research activities and creating social impact, which parallel rather than oppose dominant academic values and norms. Based on the findings, we contend that it is both possible and prudent for universities and graduate programs to pursue strategies that align science and engineering doctoral education with the current national economic agenda and support the personal, professional values and perspectives of students without coming in conflict with the scientific core of the academy. (shrink)

At the 1983 Summer Conference on the Institute on Religion in an Age of Science, working groups chaired by the coauthors outlined some of the prospects for the use of somatic and germ line genetic engineering and related biological technologies to alleviate disease and to modify human behavior. They then offered a series of recommendations concerning the application of genetic engineering to persons and the monitoring of medical research and therapy.

This paper focuses on the question of What kind of engineering ethics (EE) is needed to develop holistic engineers who can practice and promote the principles of sustainable development? -/- It is argued that, given the existence of other models, an approach to EE, as argued for at EESD 2016, centred on “training engineers for handling ethical dilemmas in sustainability contexts” (Lundqvist and Svanstrom 2016) is inadequate to address the sustainability challenge facing engineers.. We contend that while EE is (...) now a diverse and fragmented field sociological tools can be used to understand this diversity. A framework is offered for understanding different approaches. This is used as the basis for arguing for a more extended and broad approach which allows us to focus on the relationship between social structure and human action and the need for “adequate social institutions and structures” (Becker 2012: 28) to enable ethical action. Thus engineers not should only understand the constraints and enablers emanating from the environments in which they work but can also strive for change in these environments. (shrink)

Continued failure to limit emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that are causing global climate change has brought increased attention to climate engineering technologies, which actively modify the global environment to counteract heating and climate disruptions caused by elevated greenhouse gases. Some proposed forms of CE, particularly spraying reflective particles in the upper atmosphere to reduce incoming sunlight, can cool the average temperature of the Earth rapidly and cheaply, thereby substantially reducing climate-related risks. Yet CE interventions provide (...) only imperfect corrections for the climatic and other environmental effects of elevated greenhouse gases, and carry their own environmental risks. Moreover, they may also increase other risks, by weakening political support for essential emissions reductions or providing new triggers for international conflict. These technologies thus require international governance, but also pose novel and severe challenges to current international laws and institutions. Effective governance of CE will require a capacity to make decisions regarding the conditions, if any, under which specific interventions are authorized, plus realtime operational oversight of any interventions that are conducted. Decision processes must be effectively linked with scientific research and assessment, and with institutions to manage and respond to threats of CE-related conflict. We advance preliminary suggestions to address two priority areas for early investigation: how international cooperation on early CE research can help develop shared norms that can grow robust enough to support future decision needs; and how early research and development on CE can be made to complement and encourage, rather than undermine, parallel efforts to reduce climate risks by cutting emissions. (shrink)

Indications that corruption mitigation in infrastructure systems delivery can be effective are found in the literature. However, there is an untapped opportunity to further enhance the efficacy of existing corruption mitigation strategies by placing them explicitly within the larger context of engineering ethics, and relevant policy statements, guidelines, codes and manuals published by international organizations. An effective matching of these formal statements on ethics to infrastructure systems delivery facilitates the identification of potential corruption hotspots and thus help establish or (...) strengthen institutional mechanisms that address corruption. This paper reviews professional codes of ethics, and relevant literature on corruption mitigation in the context of civil engineering infrastructure development, as a platform for building a structure that connects ethical tenets and the mitigation strategies. The paper assesses corruption mitigation strategies against the background of the fundamental canons of practice in civil engineering ethical codes. As such, the paper’s assessment is grounded in the civil engineer’s ethical responsibilities (to society, the profession, and peers) and principles (such as safety, health, welfare, respect, and honesty) that are common to professional codes of ethics in engineering practice. Addressing corruption in infrastructure development continues to be imperative for national economic and social development, and such exigency is underscored by the sheer scale of investments in infrastructure development in any country and the billions of dollars lost annually through corruption and fraud. (shrink)

The tenure system exists in most public and private universities and 4-year public colleges in the United States. The American Association of University Professors has argued that tenure provides the most reliable means of assuring academic freedom, faculty quality, and educational excellence. However, budgetary constraints and the end of mandatory retirement in the ’90s have resulted in questioning the merits of the tenure system. It is argued that tenure entrenches a lazy professoriate, encourages the creation of temporary faculty positions, and (...) supports research over teaching. This article examines the tenure system as practiced in engineering institutions in the United States because engineering faculty serve as an interesting case study of 21st-century technology and 19th-century values. It illuminates issues underlying the tenure system beyond the traditional justification of academic freedom. (shrink)

The struggle over genetically-engineered (GE) maize in Mexico reveals a deep conflict over the criteria used in the governance of agri-food systems. Policy debate on the topic of GE maize has become “scientized,” granting experts a high level of political authority, and narrowing the regulatory domain to matters that can be adjudicated on the basis of scientific information or “managed” by environmental experts. While scientization would seem to narrow opportunities for public participation, this study finds that Mexican activists acting “in (...) defense of maize” engage science in multiple ways, using and producing scientific knowledge as well as treating scientific discussions as a stage for launching complex social critiques. Drawing from research in science and technology studies, this article assesses the impacts and pitfalls of three tactics used by maize activists that respond to the scientization of biotechnology politics: (1) using scientific information as a resource; (2) participating in scientific research; and (3) reframing policy problems as broadly social, rather than as solely scientific or technical. The obstacles that maize activists have faced in carrying out each of these efforts indicate that despite diverse and sophisticated engagements between social movements and the scientific field, scientization remains a significant institutional barrier to democratizing agricultural governance. (shrink)

Polanyi insisted that scientific knowledge was intensely personal in nature, though held with universal intent. His insights regarding the personal values of beauty and morality in science are first enunciated. These are then explored for their relevance to engineering. It is shown that the practice of engineering is also governed by aesthetics and ethics. For example, Polanyi’s three spheres of morality in science—that of the individual scientist, the scientific community and the wider society—has parallel entities in engineering. (...) The existence of shared values in engineering is also demonstrated, in aesthetics through an example that shows convergence of practitioner opinion to solutions that represent accepted models of aesthetics; and in ethics through the recognition that many professional engineering institutions hold that the safety of the public supersedes the interests of the client. Such professional consensus can be seen as justification for studying engineering aesthetics and ethics as inter-subjective disciplines. (shrink)

PDF version As a scientific productive activity, engineering is closely associated with natural science on the one hand and industry on the other. The emergence of chemical engineering was influenced by the America’s industrial structures and academic institutions. The science-oriented characteristic of chemical engineering in turn impacted the development of industrial structures, especially the rapid rise of a competitive petrochemical industry.

The availability of and demand for water in China is an extreme case of uneven distribution in time and space. In response, the South to North Water Diversion (SNWD) project, the largest inter-basin water transfer scheme in the world, channels large amounts of fresh water from the Yangtze River in southern China to the more arid and industrialised north. In order to keep the SNWD project running smoothly, a comprehensive governance system has been implemented and innovative institutional arrangements have been (...) created to facilitate the transfer of water itself. By taking the SNWD project’s Middle Route as one case study and drawing on primary and secondary data, this article examines the project’s emerging institutional arrangements. The article outlines the establishment of new institutions for the SNWD project with high administrative rankings at both central and local levels, the encouragement of inter-department cooperation, the adoption of a market mechanism and the integration of market functions into administrative functions. We argue that these institutional arrangements have to some extent overcome common challenges in water governance in China, including an engineering-heavy approach and what Chinese commentators have traditionally called the problem of water being managed by multiple government ministries and municipal authorities as the common metaphor of ‘nine dragons managing the water’. Our findings have significant implications for understanding the continuing evolution of water governance in China. (shrink)

Cheating in the undergraduate classroom is not a new problem, and it is recognized as one that is endemic to the education system. This paper examines the highly normative behavior of using unauthorized assistance (e.g., a solutions manual or a friend) on an individual assignment within the context of an upper division undergraduate course in engineering mechanics. The findings indicate that there are varying levels of accepting responsibility among the students (from denial to tempered to full) and that acceptance (...) of responsibility can lead to identification of learning and necessary behavioral changes. The findings have implications for institutions and engineering faculty, in particular the need for consistent academic integrity education and the teaching of professional integrity and ethics. (shrink)

This paper examines what managers ought to do when confronted with apparent moral conflicts between their managerial responsibilities and the general requirements of morality, specifically when those conflicts are driven by the institutional environment. I examine Google’s decision to enter the Chinese search engine market as an example of such a conflict. I consider the view that Google’s managers engaged in justifiable moral compromise in making the choice to engage in self-censorship and show how this view depends on the idea (...) of genuine moral dilemmas or irresolvable moral conflicts. I argue that there are serious reasons to doubt the existence of genuine moral dilemmas both in the abstract, as well as in the context of managerial responsibility. I propose an alternative account for what Google’s managers ought to do, as well as others who face relevantly similar situations. The account contains two conditions for permissibly contributing to another party’s failure to live up to their moral responsibilities. The first condition is that the manager must intend and act in such a way as to minimize the firm’s complicity in the other entity or actor’s failure, which in most cases will imply a duty for the manager to take actions that aim towards changing the institutional context. Under the second condition, managers ought to communicate to the firm’s constituents that they take seriously the importance of the interests at stake. (shrink)

A recent initiative at Muffakham Jah College of Engineering and Technology, Hyderabad, India, has resulted in setting up a program called Centre for Environment Studies and Socioresponsive Engineering which seeks to involve undergraduate students in studying and solving environmental problems in and around the city of Hyderabad, India. Two pilot projects have been undertaken — one focusing on design and construction of an eco-friendly house, The Natural House, and another directed at improving environmental and general living conditions in (...) a slum area. The paper describes our attempts and experience of motivating our students to take interest in such projects. In an interesting development we invited a member of a student-faculty team at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.) that is doing a project in Nepal on safe drinking water. We report in our paper how the presentation by the guest from M.I.T. served as a catalyst for generating interest among civil and mechanical engineering students in our own projects. The paper includes contributions from one of our students and the M.I.T. staff member, reporting on their experiences related to the slum development project. (shrink)

Genetic engineering is a rapidly evolving field of research with potentially powerful therapeutic applications. The technology CRISPR-Cas9 not only has improved the accuracy and overall feasbility of genome editing but also has increased access to users by lowering cost and increasing usability and speed. The potential benefits of genetic engineering may come with an increased risk of off-target events or carcinogenic growth. Germ-line cell therapy may also pose risks to potential progeny and thus have an additional burden of (...) proof for safety. Persons responsible for evaluating the ethics of genetic-engineering research programs or clinical trials should do so in light of the nature, integrity, and totality of the human person. Recent news of the implantation and birth of genetically engineered human embryos is just one example of increased rogue science. Health care institutions should consider what steps can be taken to prevent or slow this trend. (shrink)