Ethics for Engineers (What Every Engineer Should Know)

Ethics for Engineers: Toward Ethical Behavior within Engineering Organizations offers a multilevel perspective on engineering ethics with considerable breadth and depth, making it a valuable resource for students, educators, and professionals alike.

This pragmatic book contains case studies of micro-level ethical violations, evaluating their moral implications and discussing moral self-licensing behind making unethical decisions. It also explores macro-level cases that have caused significant reputational and financial damage to major companies. In addition, the authors touch on topics whose overall impact is not yet fully understood, such as environmental ethics issues related to wind turbine blades and space debris management. By presenting examples from different levels and offering reflections from various perspectives, this text prompts readers to critically evaluate the ethical implications of their actions and understand what may drive a work community to behave unethically.

Key features:

• Covers both moral theoretical and behavioral ethics perspectives.
• Contains day-to-day micro-level cases from the lives of practicing engineers, supplemented with macro-level cases.
• Provides pragmatic guidance for individual engineers and their organizations to move toward value-based ethics.
• Features colloquial language to make the book an enjoyable and accessible read.
• Includes 29 demonstrative vignettes, 87 class exercises, and an insightful interview with an ethics ambassador.

This unique text serves as a pedagogically sound learning companion for courses in Engineering Ethics and related topics, striking a balance between research-based findings (with over 40 scholarly references) and real-world experiences (featuring an Appendix by an industry executive).

Dr. Seppo J. Ovaska received his D.Sc. degree from Tampere University of Technology in 1989. He served as a Professor at the Aalto University School of Electrical Engineering, and held a Visiting Professorship at Utah State University in 2006–2007. Dr. Ovaska retired in 2019 after 27 years in university faculty and 13 years in industrial R&D—in Finland and the United States. For four decades, embedded systems were at the heart of his engineering and teaching endeavors. His research expertise includes computational intelligence, green computing, and industrial electronics. Professor Ovaska delivered his farewell lecture, “Cybersecurity and Machine Learning,” at the University of Kassel in Germany. He has (co-)authored over 270 scholarly papers and is the (co-)inventor of six U.S. patents. This is his fourth book. Currently, Dr. Ovaska is interested in moral philosophy and moral self-licensing in the context of engineering ethics. He is a First Class Knight of the Order of the White Rose of Finland.

Dr. Andrew T. Brei earned Bachelor’s degrees in German and philosophy from the University of Wisconsin – Stevens Point in 1996 and a Doctorate in philosophy from Purdue University in 2009. Since 2010, he has been part of the Philosophy Department at St. Mary’s University. In his teaching and scholarship, Dr. Brei investigates a wide range of topics, including moral motivation, environmental philosophy, engineering ethics, human nature, the philosophy of food, the nature of reality and knowledge, the moral status of bullfighting, and the ethics of extra-terrestrial exploration. In 2019, Dr. Brei earned the Distinguished Faculty Award for Excellence in Teaching from the St. Mary’s University Alumni Association. He has delivered webinars and keynote addresses to various professional organizations by way of promoting and demystifying ethical reasoning. Currently, Dr. Brei is exploring the nature and implications of travel in an emerging branch of philosophy called, appropriately enough, the Philosophy of Travel.