Teaching the Art of Act-Utilitarianism: Ethical Decision Making in the Design Stage

摘要

Students in an engineering design and ethics class started with the testing of a Student's "cynicism quotient" of engineering business practice. Then they were tested with an Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) instrument for their perceptual validation. After examining some design failures and ethical dilemma cases in the semester, the students felt that they have learned something of importance-economics, morality, virtue ethics, Kantian theory, Deontological theory and Teleological theory. They, then, evaluated their own professional competence using theories of "ethics and the individual," "ethics and the technical manager," "ethics and the organization," and ethics of the global business. Then they tested different theories of "ethical displacements" as it worked in different levels: individual, department, organization, and industry levels. In this paper we are going to show significant improvement in student attitudes and ethical understanding through philosophical examination of a business case study. We will take formal measures of student attitudes before and after modular interventions.