Engineering Ethics: Concepts and Cases
Extend your analytical skills to moral deliberation with this best-selling engineering ethics text. ENGINEERING ETHICS: CONCEPTS AND CASES, 4E bridges the gap between theory and practice with more than 100 current case studies available in the text and on the companion website, including current and controversial topics, such as Hurricane Katrina and global warming. This edition introduces you to a proven, structured methodology for analyzing cases, as well as examples of cases that already have been analyzed, to ensure you can practice ethical engineering yourself. The text also discusses Engineering Codes of Ethics. You’ll learn the importance of critical moral reasoning as the book demonstrates how many apparent moral disagreements are actually disagreements about the facts or the definitions of crucial terms. Significant topics, such as the ethical theory and the consequences of whistle-blowing, are now covered in greater depth. A handy, alphabetized list of cases allows you to quickly find specific cases, while a convenient bibliography provides sources for completing papers or additional reading. With this edition’s comprehensive coverage, you quickly see, first-hand, the importance of your conduct as a professional and how your actions can affect the health, safety, and welfare of the public.
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This is a poor textbook.,
I used this textbook to teach an introductory engineering ethics course. I am about to teach the course again, and I will not make the mistake of using this book for it.
The main problems with this book are the poor writing and its poor organization. The chapters seem like they were cobbled together from the lecture notes of several different people. The topic changes without any clear reason (and sometimes without warning). Ideas are introduced then forgotten. Theories are mentioned but then not given any systematic treatment. I certainly would have expected the exposition to be more refined by the fourth edition.
Here are some of the many general problems with this book:
- Some of the chapters are not thematically unified.
- Often remarks and even definitions are stated in imprecise terms.
- Some parts of the book read like a draft of a review of the scholarly literature, sometimes mentioning obscure (at least from the standpoint of an introductory text) articles and books.
- Sections lack clear focus and direction — starting off on one topic, meandering to other topics, and never returning to the original topic.
- The index is poor and unreliable.
Here are some more specific problems:
The case studies at the end of book are not presented in any uniform manner. Sometimes they are short blurbs. Sometimes they provide in-depth analysis. Sometimes they are sketches of hypothetical scenarios. And in two cases the “case studies” are just brief descriptions of videos about engineering ethics. It’s not really clear what the authors intend the battery of case studies to provide.
One particularly bad “case study” — purportedly about the Hyatt Regency walkway disaster — begins “Approximately 4 years after its occurrence, the tragic 1981 Kansas City Hyatt Regency walkway collapse was in the news again.” And it goes on to describe a court ruling about the disaster. So, one might think that the original disaster was discussed somewhere else in the book. The index points you to page 28 where there is one short paragraph and a footnote. The footnote points you to a discussion that appears in the 3rd edition of this very same book (now in its 4th edition). No kidding.
Their section on the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster is just as frustrating. The authors begin their analysis of the case without first clearly laying out the relationships between the parties involved. For instance, they do not provide a clear description of the relationship between Morton Thiokol and NASA; so the reader has to figure it out as she goes along. And they don’t say which party employed the whistle-blower Roger Boisjoly. That’s pretty inexcusable in the context of a chapter called “Engineers in Organizations.”
Finally, even their treatment of basic normative ethical theory is poor. In chapter 1, in the section called “Three types of Ethics or Morality” they break down moral evaluation into three categories: “common morality”, “personal morality”, and “professional ethics”. None of these includes what is typically the main strand of normative ethics: Substantive moral claims taken to have objective standing. Granted this main strand is not the only way to understand the nature of thinking about moral matters, but it is far too central, common, and traditional to ignore.
This textbook is frustrating both for students and for their teachers. Not recommended.
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|Great ethics book – for more than engineers,
This book is designed for engineers, but the book can apply to more than an engineer. I have taken an ethics course from two of the authors of this book. The cases presented in this book apply to real world situations(some altered slightly), not just some clearly fictional situations. There are many fundamental tools that help you determine the type of situation you are dealing with — ex. moral, factual, conceptual. Afer the problem is determined there are tools to help you make decisions, such as creative middle ways. The author does not make you adhere to their ethics, but a general ethical standard. Overall, this book provides very good ways to determine and solve issues; case studies are also provided to give you an opportunity to “test” yourself.
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