Engineering Ethics (PHIL 3109) - Prism Web Pages

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Engineering Ethics
Dr. Michael Hoffmann
Focus
In order to make sound ethical decisions, it is not enough for engineering professionals to know
what is right and what is wrong. They should be able to analyze complex decision situations and illstructured
problems in a way that all the involved stakeholders can be identified, their varying perspectives
and values be understood, positions be justified in reasoned dialogue, and possible alternative
courses of action or solutions must be imagined.
This class offers an opportunity to acquire the skills necessary for these objectives; primarily in
projects that will be performed in small groups of students. We will use the newly developed interactive
Web application “AGORA: Participate—Deliberate!” to identify, reconstruct, and visualize
the argumentations of stakeholders in graphical form. Additionally, this class provides an introduction
to ethical theories, codes, and concepts that are relevant for professional decision making.
Learning by doing
The focus of this class is on reading, writing, discussing, re-writing, collaboration on problems in
small groups, and group presentations in class.
Our class meetings on Tuesday will be reserved for discussions about theoretical and practical aspects
of engineering ethics. To prepare these discussions, you will find on T-Square (under “Assignments”)
a few questions for each week that allow us to focus on the readings’ central points.
Your job is to read the texts, to answer all these questions in about one page, and submit your answers
via T-Square. The idea is that we are best prepared for our discussions when we have
already grappled at home with the ideas we will focus on in class.
One interesting aspect of this will be to see how many different answers, interpretations, and arguments
are possible. Our discussions will reveal these differences, and they will give you an opportunity
to reflect critically on what you have done individually at home, and also an opportunity to
improve your own thinking by learning from others. That is what is most important for learning. I
am not interested in what you already know, but in how you improve your own thinking. To do this,
your second task in each week will be to revise the answers you formulated for the preparation of
the discussions. You will see that you are much better prepared for our discussions when you have
already written something in advance. And I hope that our discussions will motivate you to improve
these writings in a second round of reflections at home again.
On Thursday, we will mainly work in small groups. The goal is to learn how to analyze and clarify
ill-structured issues that are controversial and ethically important. We do so by identifying the positions
of those who have a stake in an issue or are involved by the consequences of decisions, and by
reconstructing their justifications for these positions in the form of argumentations. This will be
done by means of the interactive and web-based argument visualization software “AGORA-net:
Participate – Deliberate!”
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Over the entire semester, three phases can be distinguished for the group work. In the first phase,
you need to become familiar with the AGORA software and learn how to map the structure of an
argumentation or a simple debate. In the second phase, each group will apply and train their argument
mapping skills in the analysis of one stakeholder position on a controversial technology. In
this class, we will focus on the production of genetically modified (GM) plants and food. You have
to sign up in T-Square for one of seven stakeholder positions. By focusing on just one position,
your group should be able to acquire an in-depth understanding of this position, its justification, and
its limits and weaknesses. All groups will then present their argument maps in class so that a debate
about all the different perspectives becomes possible. If possible, bring a laptop to class on
Thursday.
In the third phase, finally, groups are confronted with the task to develop a clear and convincing position
to an open-ended decision problem. Whereas in Phase 2 stakeholder positions are given, the
challenge here is to imagine possible stakeholder perspectives and their respective justifications.
To prepare a constructive collaboration in your group, you have to read some material and submit
an assignment before you come to class. After the presentation of your group results in class, the
groups have to revise their argument map based on class feedback. The final argument map will be
submitted in T-Square.
Readings
Books to buy at the Engineers Bookstore or Barnes & Nobles:
Harris, C. E., Pritchard, M. S., & Rabins, M. J. (2009). Engineering Ethics: Concepts and Cases
(Paperback) (4. ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.
Additional readings:
(most of them can be downloaded from our course page at https://t-square.gatech.edu, folder “Resources.”
The rest is available on reserve in the library)
Collins, H. M., & Pinch, T. J. (1998). The Naked Launch: Assigning Blame for the Challenger Explosion.
In H. M. Collins & T. J. Pinch (Eds.), The golem at large : what you should know
about technology (pp. 30-56). Cambridge, UK New York: Cambridge University Press.
Dostoyevsky, F. (1917). Crime and punishment (C. Garnett, Trans.). New York,: P. F. Collier &
Son. Raskolnikov’s dream.
Economist. (2007). Pricking consciences. What is good for the individual is not always best for society.
The Economist, Mar 15th.
Harris, C. E. (2008). The good engineer: Giving virtue its due in engineering ethics. Science and
Engineering Ethics, 14(2), 153-164. doi: 10.1007/s11948-008-9068-3
Held, V. (1995). The Meshing of Care and Justice. Hypatia 10(2 Spring), 128-132.
Schick, T., & Vaughn, L. (2009). Doing Philosophy: An Introduction Through Thought Experiments.
Boston: McGraw-Hill, pp.390-401.
Lyons, D. (2001). utilitarianism. In L. C. Becker & C. B. Becker (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Ethics
(Vol. 3, pp. 1737-1744). New York Routledge.
Vaughan, D. (1997). The Challenger Launch Decision: Risky Technology, Culture, and Deviance
at NASA: University Of Chicago Press. (Excerpt 1 and 2)
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Zimbardo, P. G. (2007). Revisiting the Stanford Prison Experiment: a Lesson in the Power of Situation.
The Chronicle Review, 53.
Readings for the projects
… are in the folder “Resources” in T-Square. For Phase 2, check the document “Stakeholder positions
on GM food” for a list of these positions and a short description for each.
Tools (links are in T-Square, folder “Resources”)
• “Tools for Philosophy.” A document that lists encyclopedias (books and online) that can help
if you have problems with philosophical terminology.
• “Internet Resources” available at http://philosophy.gatech.edu.
• AGORA-net: Participate – Deliberate! At http://agora.gatech.edu/. It would be nice if you
could help to improve the AGORA software by reporting bugs or making suggestions. Send e-
mails to agorabugreport@gmail.com.
Schedule
• “G” means: “group submission in T-Square after class. List the names of all group members
in the “Assignment” section in T-Square.” Everything else are individual assignments.
• “HPR” refers to Harris, C. E., Pritchard, M. S., & Rabins, M. J. (2009).
Week Date Ass.
due!
Theme
Readings
1 Aug 23
Aug 25
Introduction, planning
Group projects: Argument Mapping with
AGORA at http://agora.gatech.edu/.
Bring laptop!!
AGORA exercises
2 Aug 30 2.1.
Sept 1
3 Sept 6 3.1.
Sept 8 2.2.
4 Sept 13 4.1.
Sept 15 3.2.
Consequentialism: Maximizing Utility
Group projects, presentations and discussions
Deontological ethics: Kant and duty
Critical Thinking Assessment
Virtue ethics: The good engineer
Group projects, presentations and discussions
Lyons + Economist 2007
AGORA exercises
Schick & Vaughn
Harris
AGORA exercises
5 Sept 20 5.1.
Sept 22 4.2;
5.3
6 Sept 27 6.1.
Sept 29 5.2;
6.3.
Why professional ethics?
Prince Charles’ position on GM foods
Responsibility in Engineering
Group work about positions on GM plants
HPR ch. 1 + Case 7
Project reader
HPR ch. 2.1-7; Held
Project reader
7 Oct 4 7.1. Impediments to Responsibility Ch. 2.8-10; Dostoyevsky
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Week Date Ass.
due!
8 Oct 11
Theme
Oct 6 6.2. Group work about positions on GM plants
Oct 13 7.2.
9 Oct 18
Oct 20
10 Oct 25 10.1
Oct 27
11 Nov 1 11.1.
Nov 3 10.2;
G.11
12 Nov 8 12.1
Nov 10 11.2.
13 Nov 15 13.1.
Nov 17 12.2;
13.3.
14 Nov 22 14.1.
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16
Nov 24 13.2.
Nov 29 15.1.
Dec 1 14.2
Dec 6
Dec 8
Dec 10
15.2.
G.16
Movie: The experiment (2001)
Group work about positions on GM plants
GT Fall break
Group presentations and discussions
Assigning Blame for the Challenger Explosion
Group presentations and discussions
Framing the problem
Groups revise argument map
Resolving problems
Critical Thinking Assessment
The social and value dimensions of technology
Group work on cutting edge technology
Trust and reliability
GT School Holiday
Risk and liability and Engineering
Group work on cutting edge technology
Group presentations and discussions
Group presentations and discussions
Readings
Collins & Pinch
HPR ch. 3; Vaughan
HPR ch. 4; Zimbardo
HPR ch. 5
Project reader
HPR ch. 6
HPR ch. 7
Grading
The basis for your grade is your continuous reading and writing, and your participating in our class
discussions and group projects. You have to work hard to get the grades you wish to have, but this
work is equally distributed over the whole semester. There will be no final exam in this class.
Attendance
Since you will learn mainly by our class discussions, attendance is mandatory. There will be 28
class meetings over the whole semester. Independently of the points you can get in the other areas,
you will get an “F” if you attend less than 18 meetings, and nothing better than a “C” if less than
22. Please sign the attendance list that will be available during the first 5 to 10 minutes.
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Task Description Max.
points
Participation
Homework,
first
version
Homework,
second
version
Homework
on projects
Group
work
10% of your final grade will depend on the amount and quality of your contributions
to our class discussions over the whole semester. Your contributions
are essential for this seminar-style class. In order to make quality contributions,
you need to come to class well-prepared, that is, you have to do all
the readings that are listed in the Schedule before you come to class.
You will find in T-Square under “Assignments” 12 homework assignments
that are due 10 minutes before class starts at the day that is specified in the
schedule by a number-combination indicating week and version number. Only
T-Square submissions are accepted, but you should save copies on your own
computer. You can “save” your work in T-Square (do that when you leave
your computer for a while because otherwise you might lose what your
wrote), but you have to click “submit” before the deadline. Multiple submissions
are possible before the deadline. The system will not accept late submissions!
The purpose of these homework assignments is to intensify your
preparation for our class discussions. I will not evaluate your first version.
But you have to write at least half a page of reasonable text. You will get for
each of these first versions 3 points (if complete and reasonable). At the end,
I will count only 10 out of 12 possible first versions. This gives you some
flexibility.
What I will evaluate, however, is the quality of your revision of your first
version, especially the progress between first and second version (max. 5
points each). You should do these revisions immediately after class, but you
can submit these second versions within 9 days after the class discussion.
Only T-Square submissions are accepted.
Only excellent submissions will get the maximum of 5 points. Evaluation criteria
are clarity; precision; structure; improvements in comparison with the
first version regarding clarity, structure, and new arguments; explicit references
to our class discussion and to the readings. Please note that an improvement
is not necessarily longer than the original version, rather the opposite.
Clarifying the structure of your argument and focusing on the essential
points is mostly better than making things more complex. You are
supposed to re-write your answers, not simply adding stuff. At the end, I will
count only 6 out of 12 possible second versions.
In order to prepare the 3 group projects, you have to submit individually a
homework in T-Square 10 minutes before class starts at the day that is specified
in the schedule in the form “x.3.” No evaluation, but it must be complete
and reasonable. You will find what to do for each project in T-Square
under “Assignments.” 4 points for each. All 3 need to be submitted.
You will work in small groups on 2 larger projects. Bring your laptop to
class for all project work. In each project, you have to visualize the structure
of an argument (or a more complex argumentation) by means of the argument
mapping software AGORA. After presenting and discussing your map in
10
30
30
12
14
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Critical
Thinking
Assessment
class, you have to revise it. I will grade your final map on the AGORA server,
but one member of your group has to indicate in T-Square under the respective
“Assignment” the exact name of the map. Otherwise I cannot find
it. Also, the names of all group members need to be listed in the assignment
box. For each of the 2 projects you can get maximum of 7 points. Evaluation
criteria: clarity of the structure and strength of your argumentation.
This class is part of a research project that studies whether working with the
AGORA software in small groups of students improves ethical and critical
thinking over the course of a semester. Participation is voluntary. If you
choose not to participate, you can write a short research paper. This class
component will be managed by Prof. Biddle so that I will not know whether
you participated or not.
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Check your points regularly on T-Square and let me know if there are any problems.
Grading system
At the end, all your points will be transformed in letter grades according to the usual scheme: 90-
100 = A; 80-89 = B; 70-79 = C; 60-69 = D; 0-59 = F.
Academic Honor Code
Based on GT’s Honor Advisory Council recommendation I would like to clarify the following
points: You are allowed (and encouraged) to work together with other students on homework, as
long as you write up and turn in your own solutions. Submitting any work other than your own is a
violation of the Academic Honor Code. Quoting other authors, of course, is common scientific
practice. However, you have to make absolutely clear what are your own formulations, and what
those of others. You can quote the texts of our seminar in short form (e.g. “Vaughan, p. 52”). Other
sources have to be listed under “References.” Plagiarism will be dealt with according to the GT
Academic Honor Code. Note that plagiarizing is defined by Webster’s as “to steal and pass off (the
ideas or words of another) as one's own : use (another's production) without crediting the source.”
For any questions involving these or any other Academic Honor Code issues, please consult me or
www.honor.gatech.edu.
Contact
Feel free to contact me if there are any problems you would like to discuss. My office hours are
Thursday 3:00-4:00 pm or by appointment. The office is located in the basement of the DM Smith
Building, room 004. My phone number is 404-385-6083. The easiest way to contact me is by e-
mail: m.hoffmann@gatech.edu. Enjoy the class, and let me know if there any problems!
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