Ethics and Engineering
An Introduction

This book focuses on the ethical issues in engineering that have to do with assessment, design, sustainability and globalization.

Behnam Taebi (Author)

9781316628409, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 27 May 2021

250 pages
17 x 24 x 1.5 cm, 0.41 kg

'This book is a good source for current trends in engineering ethics analysis and ethics-influenced design, and will be useful to anyone interested in how recent thinking is trending in these matters … Recommended.' K. D. Stephan, Choice Magazine

The world population is growing, yet we continue to pursue higher levels of well-being, and as a result, increasing energy demands and the destructive effects of climate change are just two of many major threats that we face. Engineers play an indispensable role in addressing these challenges, and whether they recognize it or not, in doing so they will inevitably encounter a whole range of ethical choices and dilemmas. This book examines and explains the ethical issues in engineering, showing how they affect assessment, design, sustainability, and globalization, and explores many recent examples including the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, Dieselgate, 'naked scanners' at airports, and biofuel production. Detailed but accessible, the book will enable advanced engineering students and professional engineers to better identify and address the ethical problems in their practice.

1. Ethics and engineering: an ethics up-front approach
Part I. Assessment and Evaluation in Engineering: 2. Risk analysis and the ethics of technological risk
3. Balancing costs, risks, benefits, and environmental impacts
Part II. Ethics and Engineering Design: 4. Values in design and responsible innovation
5. Morality and the machine
Part III. Engineering Ethics, Sustainability, and Globalization: 6. Sustainability and energy ethics
7. Engineering ethics in the international context: globalize or diversify?.

Subject Areas: Engineering: general [TBC], Technology, engineering, agriculture [T], Ethical issues: scientific & technological developments [JFMG], Ethical issues & debates [JFM], Social & political philosophy [HPS], Ethics & moral philosophy [HPQ], Philosophy [HP]