Engineering Ethics: Concepts and Cases, 6th Edition

Charles E. Harris, Jr., Michael S. Pritchard, Michael J. Rabins, Ray W. James, P.E., Elaine E. Englehardt

Copyright 2019
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Engineering Ethics: Concepts and Cases 6th Edition by Charles E. Harris, Jr./Michael S. Pritchard/Michael J. Rabins/Ray W. James, P.E./Elaine E. Englehardt

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Overview
Meet the Authors
What's New
Features
Table of Contents
Pricing

Overview

Packed with real-world cases and examples, ENGINEERING ETHICS helps future engineers understand the importance of their conduct as professionals and see how their actions can affect the health, safety and welfare of the public and environment. The sixth edition provides dozens of diverse and contemporary engineering cases and a proven and structured method for analyzing them; practical application of the Engineering Code of Ethics; focus on critical moral reasoning and effective organizational communication; emphasis on reliability and trustworthiness in the profession; and in-depth treatment of issues such as sustainability and economic development, risk management, ethical responsibilities and globalized standards for engineering. In addition, the text now includes boxed features in every chapter and an all-new chapter devoted to future challenges relating to evolving technology.

Meet the Authors

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Charles E. Harris, Jr.

Charles E. (Ed) Harris, Jr., received his Ph.D. in philosophy from Vanderbilt University, having had an undergraduate major in biology and minor in chemistry. He is Professor of Philosophy and Sue and Harry Bovay Professor of the History and Ethics of Professional Engineering. His publications are primarily in applied ethics and engineering ethics.

Michael S. Pritchard

Michael S. Pritchard is Willard A. Brown Professor of Philosophy and Co-Director of the Center for the Study of Ethics in Society at Western Michigan University. His areas of teaching include ethics (theoretical and practical); the philosophies of David Hume, Adam Smith, and Thomas Reid; and the philosophical thinking of children. His publications are in the areas of ethical theory, practical and professional ethics, communication ethics, and philosophy for children. He is co-editor (with Elaine Englehardt) of TEACHING ETHICS, the official journal of the Society for Ethics Across the Curriculum.

Michael J. Rabins

Michael J. Rabins was active in ASME and other volunteer organizations on engineering ethics issues. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin, and ended his teaching career at Texas A&M University. He helped establish a course in engineering ethics in 1989 that is now required of all engineering majors. Professor Rabins died in 2007.

Ray W. James, P.E.

Ray W. James, P.E., received his Ph.D. from The University of Texas and is a Civil Engineering faculty member at Texas A&M University and Assistant Dean of the Dwight Look College of Engineering. He coordinates the Engineering & Ethics course that A&M requires of all engineering majors.

Elaine E. Englehardt

Elaine E. Englehardt is Distinguished Professor of Ethics at Utah Valley University (UVU) with her Ph.D. from the University of Utah. She has taught ethics, philosophy, and communication classes at UVU for the past 35 years. As a professor of philosophy, she teaches courses such as Ethics and Values, Business Ethics, Communication Ethics, Bioethics, and Legal Ethics. She is a broadcast Philosophy Professor for Utah's channel 9 (KUED). For more than 20 years, she has written and directed seven multiyear, national grants. Four large grants are in ethics across the curriculum from the Department of Education, and three are from the National Endowment for the Humanities. She is the author of seven books.

What's New

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Making the text more reader friendly than ever, boxed features are now included in every chapter. Highlighting current--and sometimes controversial--issues, these intriguing features give students additional insight into key concepts and ethical challenges that engineers face in real-world practice.
Reflecting recent headlines, all-new case studies give students hands-on experience applying chapter concepts to real-world ethical dilemmas, including problems with Toyota's drive-by-wire software, the Tesla Model S "Autopilot" semi-autonomous driver assist system, Volkswagen's emissions cheating scandal and lead contamination in the municipal water supply in Flint, Michigan. In addition, numerous existing cases have been updated to reflect new facts or legal findings that have emerged since the publication of the Fifth Edition.
Chapter 1 "Engineers: Professionals for the Human Good" begins with a discussion of professional identity and continues with three accounts of the nature of professionalism. The authors place a stronger emphasis on the special concern of engineering for human welfare, well-being or quality of life and provide a thorough discussion of what this means.
Chapter 2 "A Practical Ethics Toolkit" contains expanded descriptions of utilitarianism and the analogy between the use of ethical theory in applied ethics and the use of models in engineering. An extensive discussion of virtue ethics illustrates how it can be useful in handling issues in applied ethics.
Chapter 3 "Responsibility in Engineering" offers thorough coverage of potential obstacles to responsibility as well as considerations of how virtues can assist engineers in dealing with these impediments.
Chapter 4 "Engineers in Organizations" explores the tensions between the responsibilities engineers have to their organizations and the responsibilities they have as members of a profession.
Chapter 5 "Trust and Reliability" places greater emphasis on the importance of virtues in grounding the trustworthiness of engineers regarding their relationships to the public, their employers, clients and the engineering profession itself.
Chapter 6 "The Engineer's Responsibility to Assess and Manage Risk" includes a more focused delineation of the engineer's responsibilities to assess and manage risks in two major tasks they commonly handle: design of products or engineered systems and operation of engineered systems.
Chapter 7 "Engineering and the Environment" now contains an account of the development of the environmental movement--including its international dimension--and more extended coverage of sustainability and the potential conflict between sustainability and economic development.
Chapter 8 "Engineering in the Global Context" features a new discussion of whether engineers outside Europe and North America think of themselves as professionals and whether they should be considered professionals as well as how international engineering organizations are given greater prominence.
Chapter 9 "New Horizons in Engineering" is a brief all-new chapter that spotlights some of the key challenges engineers will face in the future as well as areas where evolving technology offers promise.

Features

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Real-life case studies highlighting the latest engineering achievements and failures give your students plenty of opportunities to apply what they learn while analyzing some of the most recent events and current policies in engineering. The text presents a proven method for analyzing cases using ethical problem-solving techniques. Examples of cases that already have been analyzed clearly demonstrate this method, which has become a hallmark of the text.
Excellent for homework assignments, group projects or lively classroom debate, cases can be used to stimulate thought and questions as they are read and discussed.
Extremely student friendly, the text offers clear explanations of the Engineering Code of Ethics that apply to various cases.

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Preface.
1. Engineers: Professionals for the Human Good.
2. A Practical Ethics Toolkit.
3. Responsibility in Engineering.
4. Engineers in Organizations.
5. Trust and Reliability.
6. The Engineer's Responsibility to Assess and Manage Risk.
7. Engineering and the Environment.
8. Engineering in the Global Context.
9. New Horizons in Engineering.
Cases.
List of Cases.
Taxonomy of Cases.
Appendix.
Codes of Ethics.
Bibliography.
Index.