Only about one-third of the nation's engineering schools require all students to take any courses in the ethics of engineering, according to Karl Stephan of the electrical and computer engineering department at the University of Massachusetts. Stephan's findings were published in a recent issue of The Journal of Engineering Education. We need to think about the extent to which engineers are taught about the ethical implications and ramifications about what they do.
Engineering does a great amount of good.
We have clean water instead of dirty water. We have a level of physical comfort that is a tremendous boon to humanity, and engineering is to thank for that. But engineering can also be used unethically, as in several recent Internet hacking cases. The focus on ethics in engineering has been on minimizing hazards, said Stephan. Considering how to minimize the hazards posed by technology is always going to be an issue.