Ethical issues in engineering design - 3TU.Centre for Ethics and ...

Towards warranted trust in engineers
Third, it is important that engineers are able to reflect on different
operationalisations of requirements and the values underlying them particularly
in radical design. This means that engineers should be educated to know that for
example, safety is not an obvious and unambiguous concept, the term safety
refers to several conceptions of moral value and can be operationalised in
different ways (see sections 4.3 and 7.3). Engineers can learn this by using their
personal experience systematically during reflection on the design process.
Engineering education should include the stimulation of a student’s moral
imagination. Engineering students should reflect on the different
operationalisations and trade-offs made during a design process and use these
skills in practice when they carry out assignments.
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