Response To 'Integrating Ethics And Design'

“Integrating Ethics and Design” Response Paper In “Integrating Ethics and Design”, McLean discusses the three levels of ethics and the problems faced in attempting to educate students about ethics. The ideas presented in this chapter should be more implemented in the education that engineers receive from their university. A greater emphasis should be placed on “process knowledge” as opposed to just “material knowledge”, specifically on design, ethics, and problem solving and the similarities between these subjects. While students may feel alienated when learning about ethics, a different approach that combines it with design and problem solving may be the key to a more holistic understanding of all three. These three subjects are the most similar on the first, or technical, level of ethics. If professors show more focus on design education with specific, real-world examples, students will inevitably learn about ethics and problem solving in addition to the design process. The initial stage of gathering information should expose any ethical

The stereotype of the awkward engineer with poor social skills is outdated, and the inversion of that mindset begins with universities preparing students for professional interactions and ethics. While this again faces the potential problem of engineering students feeling alienated from the topic, this can be avoided by presenting these situations as yet another situation in which engineers need to use their problem-solving skills. Any project that students complete should be followed up with lectures and scenarios about how to behave in any of the formal relationships that the engineer would face for their specific project. This would teach students that problem-solving and ethics can be used concurrently to navigate the professional world to complete their design. Then, they are ready to face the next level of