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所在平台: Coursera |
课程主页: https://www.coursera.org/learn/ethics-technology-engineering
课程评论：没有评论
课程名称：伦理、技术与工程 概述：随着工程实践中伦理问题的日益受到关注，工程师不仅需要熟练地完成他们的工作，还应意识到工程的广泛伦理和社会影响，并能对这些问题进行反思。根据美国工程与技术认证委员会(ABET)的工程标准，工程师应具备“对专业和伦理责任的理解”，并“理解工程解决方案在全球和社会背景中的影响”。本课程旨在介绍工程和技术中的伦理，帮助工程师及工程专业学生获取ABET或其他国家类似标准中提到的能力。具体来说，课程帮助工程师培养以下道德能力： - 道德敏感性：识别工程中社会和伦理问题的能力； - 道德分析能力：从事实、价值、利益相关者及其利益的角度分析道德问题的能力； - 道德创造力：在面对（冲突的）道德价值和相关事实时，思考不同行动选项的能力； - 道德判断能力：基于不同的伦理理论或框架（包括职业伦理和常识道德）做出道德判断的能力； - 道德决策能力：反思不同的伦理理论和框架，并基于该反思做出决策的能力。 课程将重点关注工程师在其专业实践中遇到的具体道德问题，通过具体案例展示技术开发的决策过程以及设计和生产过程的固有道德性。学习者将被引导关注工程师面临的特定道德选择，发现这些选择的不同理由，并认识到这些理由可以进行讨论，从而提高与利益相关者（如政府、用户和商业部门）进行道德辩论的能力。 课程大纲： 1. 介绍：简要介绍课程内容，并通过视频展示伦理对工程师的重要性。 2. 工程师的责任：探讨责任的定义，包括被动责任和主动责任，以及工程师的专业责任及其后果。 3. 行为准则：讨论工程中行为准则的角色，重点关注专业和企业行为准则的结构和内容。 4. 规范伦理：介绍几种伦理理论，包括结果主义、义务伦理和美德伦理，帮助学习者建立道德判断的理论基础。 5. 伦理循环：描述一个有系统的方法来解决道德问题，帮助工程师在复杂情境中做出道德判断。 6. 技术设计中的伦理问题：探讨设计过程中的伦理问题，如风险评估和设计阶段的道德挑战。 7. 设计道德：讨论技术人造物的道德角色，以及技术中伦理的应用。 8. 技术风险的伦理方面：探讨技术固有风险所引发的道德问题与解决方案。 9. 责任的分配：分析在多方参与的情况下责任的分配及其道德公正性和有效性。 10. 期末考试：课程总结与评估。 本课程旨在帮助学习者深入了解工程与技术中的伦理问题，从而作出更为负责任的专业决策。
Name:Introduction
Description:This module offers a short introduction to the course. The lecture will show a video in which Micaela dos Ramos, executive director of KIVI (the largest professional association of engineers in the Netherlands), illustrates the relevance of ethics for engineers.
Name:The responsibility of engineers
Description:This module discusses the responsibility of engineers. We will investigate what exactly responsibility is, distinguishing between passive responsibility for things that happened in the past and active responsibility for things not yet attained. Furthermore, we will discuss the professional responsibility of engineers, examine the consequences for this responsibility, such as whistle-blowing and the application of the precautionary principle.
Name:Codes of conduct
Description:In this module, we discuss the role of codes of conduct in engineering. In particular, we focus on professional codes as they have been proposed by professional engineering societies and on corporate codes, as they have been formulated by companies. We discuss these two types of codes, their structure and their content, and a number of common objections that have been levelled against codes of conduct. This includes the problem that someone is acting according to the code, but that it may nevertheless lead to dismissal.
Name:Normative ethics
Description:In this module we will discuss some ethical theories that have been developed by various philosophers. Ethical theories help us to sort out our thinking and to develop a coherent and justifiable basis for dealing with moral questions. The role of ethical theories is to provide certain arguments or reasons for a moral judgment. They provide a normative framework for understanding and responding to moral problems, so improving ethical decision-making or, at least, avoiding certain shortcuts, such as neglecting certain relevant features of the problem or just stating an opinion without any justification. In this module we shall therefore introduce three of the most well-known ethical theories: consequentialism, duty ethics and virtue ethics. These theories each have their own criteria with which they determine whether an action is right or wrong. Before we go into these three theories we shall discuss what we mean by morality and ethics, and we shall look into the points of departure of ethics: values, norms, and virtues. These points of departure often recur in ethical theories.
Name:The ethical cycle
Description:Engineers will encounter in their professional life some difficult moral situations. Such situations call for moral judgment, using the tools we have introduced in the preceding modules. However, moral judgment is not a straightforward or linear process in which you simply apply ethical theories to find out what to do. Instead it is a process in which the formulation of the moral problem, the formulation of possible ‘solutions’, and the ethical judging of these solutions go hand in hand. This messy character of moral problems, however, does not rule out a systematic approach. In this module we describe a systematic approach to problem solving that does justice to the complex nature of moral problems and moral judgment: the ethical cycle. Our goal is to provide a structured method of addressing moral problems which helps to guide a sound analysis of these problems.
Name:Ethical questions in the design of technology
Description:Disasters like the Challenger illustrates the importance of design to engineering. In this case, as in other cases, the design phase was crucial for the proper working of a technology and possible risks and other side effects. The example also shows the importance of activities that are closely related to design like testing, certification and inspection. Second, the example shows that most design involves trade-offs. In wheel design for trains, e.g., a trade-off is faced between energy (and cost) efficiency and comfort. We start with a description of what designing is and what type of ethical issues may arise in the various stages of the design process. Next, we shall take a closer look at one aspect of the design: the choice between different conceptual designs in the light of design requirements and trade-offs.
Name:Designing morality
Description:Technological artefacts can be politically or morally charged. This means that ethics is not just a matter of people but also of things. To better understand, the moral role of technological artefacts, we will elaborate this notion of ‘technological mediation’. After this, the implications of this mediation approach for ethics will be investigated, especially to what extent we can moralize technology.
Name:Ethical aspects of technological risks
Description:To a certain extent hazards are inherent to technology. In this module, we shall discuss the moral issues that are raised by the risks and hazards of technologies, and how engineers can deal with those issues. We will discuss the current methods for assessing risks, and the moral acceptability of technological risks.
Name:Distribution of responsibility
Description:It is often very difficult to pinpoint responsibility and blame in cases in which many people are involved in an activity and in which many causes contributed to a disaster. Dealing with the problem of many hands requires attention for the distribution of responsibility in engineering. In this module we will discuss how responsibilities are actually distributed in engineering, and how the resulting responsibility distribution can be evaluated in terms of moral fairness (are the appropriate persons held responsible?) and in terms of effectiveness (does the responsibility distribution contribute to avoiding harm and in achieving beneficial results?)
Name:Exam
Description:
There is an increasing attention to ethics in engineering practice. Engineers are supposed not only to carry out their work competently and skilfully, but also to be aware of the broader ethical and social implications of engineering and to be able to reflect on these. According to the Engineering Criteria 2000 of the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) in the US, engineers must have “an understanding of professional and ethical responsibility” and should "understand the impact of engineering solutions in a global and societal context.” This course provides an introduction to ethics in engineering and technology. It helps engineers and students in engineering to acquire the competences mentioned in the ABET criteria or comparable criteria formulated in other countries. More specifically, this course helps engineers to acquire the following moral competencies: - Moral sensibility: the ability to recognize social and ethical issues in engineering; - Moral analysis skills: the ability to analyse moral problems in terms of facts, values, stakeholders and their interests; - Moral creativity: the ability to think out different options for action in the light of (conflicting) moral values and the relevant facts; - Moral judgement skills: the ability to give a moral judgement on the basis of different ethical theories or frameworks including professional ethics and common sense morality; - Moral decision-making skills: the ability to reflect on different ethical theories and frameworks and to make a decision based on that reflection. With respect to these competencies, our focus is on the concrete moral problems that engineers encounter in their professional practice. With the help of concrete cases is shown how the decision to develop a technology, as well as the process of design and production, is inherently moral. The attention of the learners is drawn towards the specific moral choices that engineers face. In relation to these concrete choices learners will encounter different reasons for and against certain actions, and they will discover that these reasons can be discussed. In this way, learners become aware of the moral dimensions of technology and acquire the argumentative capacities that are needed in moral debates with stakeholders (e.g. governments, users, and commercial business departments).
