Professional Virtue and Professional Self-Awareness: A Case Study in Engineering Ethics

Abstract

This paper articulates an Aristotelian theory of professional virtue and provides an application of that theory to the subject of engineering ethics. The leading idea is that Aristotle's analysis of the definitive function of human beings, and of the virtues humans require to fulfill that function, can serve as a model for an analysis of the definitive function or social role of a profession and thus of the virtues professionals must exhibit to fulfill that role. Special attention is given to a virtue of professional self-awareness, an analogue to Aristotle's phronesis or practical wisdom. In the course of laying out my account I argue that the virtuous professional is the successful professional, just as the virtuous life is the happy life for Aristotle. I close by suggesting that a virtue ethics approach toward professional ethics can enrich the pedagogy of professional ethics courses and help foster a sense of pride and responsibility in young professionals.

Generating Value within Learning Activity: Integrating Storytelling with Reflective Practice in Civics and Character Education Class at College of Education

“…When the students replicate their experiences in the form of stories, they also learn about the essence of "kindness" within human relationship. Self-awareness of benevolence functions is an important part for social maturity; the conscious citizens reproduce their attitudes and goals in life upon the kindness they are aware of [29]. Further, in this phase of storytelling, some audiences ask to clarify things.…”

How can neuroscience contribute to moral philosophy, psychology and education based on Aristotelian virtue ethics?

“…If we do not seriously consider how to employ realistic dilemmas that can be implemented in neuroimaging settings, we cannot properly investigate the neural correlates of moral virtue and character because the development of moral virtue and character can only be completely evaluated if we investigate all of moral reasoning, moral affection, moral motivation, and moral behaviour (Curren and Kotzee 2014;Fowers 2014). Particularly, the core concept of virtue ethics, phronesis, cannot be properly understood by considering only cognitive aspect of human morality; the exercise of phronesis is inevitably associated with emotion, motivation and behaviour on top of moral reasoning (Stovall 2011;Hursthouse 2012;Kristjánsson 2014). Thus, we should develop a measurement of moral virtue and character that employs realistic situations inducing activation of all aspects of human moral functioning on top of moral reasoning, which has been mainly examined by previous neuroimaging studies using hypothetical dilemmas.…”

Why philosophical ethics in school: implications for education in technology and in general

“…Many of these are related to technology and technological issues and problems, such as ethical aspects of using computers and information technology (Bynum 2011), engineering ethics (Stovall 2011), or a wide range of other technological topics (Frey and Wellman 2003), some of which will be indicated below. The rapid change in the ethical landscape of technology is reflected in the fact that fields of applied ethics such as nanoethics (Johnson 2009) and cyberethics (Fuchs, Bichler, and Raffl 2009) have only recently been identified and named.…”