Ethics in Engineering Students' Design Considerations: Case Studies of Electric Power Systems for the "Developing World"

Abstract

This work explores engineering ethics empirically in a "developing world" context through a framework of care ethics. Care ethics, a.k.a., the ethic(s) of care, is particularly suitable for the "developing world" context because it helps draw attention to imbalances of power (e.g., inequality, differential opportunity, and limitations on autonomy) that are often neglected by other ethical frameworks. In this work, we selected one element of care ethics (responsibility) and operationalized it in several ways: the language of responsibility; notions of paternalism; and awareness of key, influencing stakeholders. These lenses were developed and refined iteratively by employing them in case study analyses of two design project reports written by teams of senior undergraduate engineering students. Our interpretive analysis of this data outlined significant differences in care-ethical responsibility as viewed through each lens. For example, one group demonstrated little paternalism and considered several key, influencing stakeholders in their report, while the other group employed a more paternalistic approach and considered fewer key influencing stakeholders. In the interest of broadening ethical awareness in engineering, the findings and outcomes of this work can be used by educators to inform the design of course materials, exercises, and evaluation/grading criteria, such as by adapting these lenses for use in self-and/or peer-assessment. This work can also be used by researchers interested in care ethics and/or engineering student responses to issues of humanitarian or social justice nature to inform interview question and survey item design. Finally, this work contributes to the discourse of engineering ethics by developing and applying an ethical framework from the wider literature that has not received much attention in engineering ethics to date.

Engineers’ Responsibilities for Global Electronic Waste: Exploring Engineering Student Writing Through a Care Ethics Lens

“…One of the present authors (Campbell 2013) articulated how Tronto’s framework could be used to improve social justice outcomes in “humanitarian engineering” endeavors. In other work, we provided summaries of Tronto’s framework as a whole (see Campbell, Yasuhara, and Wilson 2012; 2015). …”

Instructional Strategies for Incorporating Empathy in Transdisciplinary Technology Education

“…Second, taking an ethical position requires engineers to consider their role in solving a societal issue; technical expertise is necessary, but not sufficient to meet many of these challenges. Rather than viewing the engineer as a "savior" to the developing world due to their technical expertise, a focus on ethical commitments of empathy require the engineer to contextualize technical innovations in context 7,24,25 . Viewing the developing world solely through the eyes of a technical challenge often ignores the societal framework and other considerations (e.g., climate, availability of resources) that may disallow Western advances in technology to be applied in a direct manner.…”

“…The work of Walther, Miller, and Kellam 11 also builds on a definition of empathy from Levensen and Reuf 28 , which consists of three ascending stages: knowing (primarily cognitive), feeling (primarily emotional, and consistent with care ethics), and responding, (primarily action-oriented). Campbell 7,24 has addressed the issue of empathy more indirectly, using the notion of "caring" based in care ethics to understand how engineers relate to end users through the solutions they produce-ultimately inculcating an understanding of designer responsibility into engineering students that grounds them ethically.…”

“…Students were provided with the "Reinvent the Toilet Challenge" 41 as a baseline for their design activity. This created an environment in which it was assumed that students would empathize with their target user population (as in Campbell, Yasuhara, and Wilson 7,24 ) in order to develop a solution that would be appropriate and beneficial to the end user.…”

“…This ethical shift is partially a result of an increased focus on the social impact of engineering 5,6 , and a growing awareness of the socio-technical complexity of designed solutions, particularly relating to the user and use context(s) [7][8][9][10][11] . However, as approaches such as design thinking become increasingly mainstream (e.g., Dym et al 12 )-both within and outside of engineering contexts-the call for ethicallycentered design practice has emerged as a primary concern for design educators, practitioners, and policy makers [13][14][15] .…”