The Engineer, Ethics, and Professional Responsibility

This course has three goals.

The first goal is to provide an environment of scholarly and intellectual engagement and co-responsibility to support the writing of your STS research paper. We will do this by working in groups with weekly objectives. Your group members are essential to your success as you are to theirs. Your group is the place for discussion, idea development, critical feedback and peer mentoring. The objective is a stress free thesis experience for all concerned.

The second goal of the course to participate in a good discussion on the title of this course – The Engineer, Ethics, and Professional Responsibility. We will collectively think about and reflect on our roles and responsibilities in the world as ethical professional engineers. What does it mean to be an ethical agent in a technologically mediated world? What further, or specific ethical responsibilities do engineers have? What is ethics and how can we imagine and consider ethical action and behavior? What are professions? What does it mean to be a professional, and what kinds of responsibility accrue?

The third goal of the course is a simple and active one. This course is an avenue for you to model professionalism and professional responsibility (please see attached document).