This article describes the development and teaching of a course on global engineering ethics in Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China. It outlines course objectives, methods, and contents, and instructor experience and plans for future development. This is done with the goal of helping educators to plan standalone courses and/or integrated modules on global engineering and technology ethics, which address challenges arising from the increasingly cross-cultural and international environments of contemporary technology and engineering practice. These efforts are motivated by the global (...) environments of engineering, as well as recent research in empirical moral psychology. Although this course was developed and taught in China, as a course on global engineering ethics taught to students from throughout the world, its approach could be beneficial elsewhere. (shrink)

To develop more effective ethics education for cross-cultural and international engineering, a study was conducted to determine what Chinese engineering students have learned and think about ethics. Recent research shows traditional approaches to ethics education are potentially ineffective, but also points towards ways of improving ethical behaviors. China is the world’s most populous country, graduating and employing the highest number of STEM majors, although little empirical research exists about the ethical knowledge and perspectives of Chinese engineering students. When compared to (...) engineering students in the US, Chinese engineering students received less ethics education; the form of the education they did receive stressed virtue ethics or the development of moral character; conceive of ethics in contradistinction to the law, where ethics deals with matters of right and wrong not covered by legality. Based on these findings and research in moral psychology and behavioral ethics, recommendations are made for improving engineering ethics education both in China and abroad. (shrink)

As is well known, ethics occupies a prominent role in Emmanuel Levinas’s philosophy. However, considerable controversy exists surrounding the nature of this prominence. Two main lines of thought exist in the secondary scholarship, one that attempts to develop in Levinas’s philosophy something resembling a traditional theory of ethics and another that treats Levinas’s concern with ethics as substantially different from traditional ethical theories.1 In what follows I argue that the centrality of ethics to Levinas’s philosophy is for phenomenological purposes, describing (...) the nature of ethical relations and teasing out their implications, for the sake of criticizing and reformulating traditional understandings of. (shrink)

A Publisher correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40889-020-00118-8.

Since cycling can contribute to sustainability, shared-bicycle schemes have been encouraged as a green technology. In Chinese cities, however, dockless app-based bicycle-sharing systems have become a blight, resulting in tremendous waste. Ironically, this stems from the success of DABS—their rapid development and adoption. As an “emergent” technology, DABS in China consist in the confluence of existing technologies and extra-technological factors, situations different from the sum of their parts, where negative consequences are more difficult to identify and address. Additionally, DABS in (...) China are a case of private, app-based technology providing a good traditionally regulated by municipal governments. For these reasons, it provides valuable lessons: The negative consequences associated with DABS in China result from a lack of policy formulation and implementation, failing to consider and address extra-technological dimensions. Private technology companies should not be left to ensure these goods, and municipalities must craft policies to ensure stakeholder interests. (shrink)

Engineering is more cross-cultural and international than ever before, presenting challenges and opportunities in the way engineering ethics is conceived and delivered. To assist in providing more effective ethics education to increasingly diverse groups, this paper shares three related projects implemented at the University of Michigan-Shanghai Jiao Tong University Joint Institute (China). These projects are united in their attempts to address challenges arising from the increasingly global nature of engineering. The first is a course on global engineering ethics, developed for (...) and attended by engineering students from diverse backgrounds. The second is a website hosting contents on global engineering ethics education and conducting research related to cross-cultural moral psychology. The third explores methods of assessing engineering ethics and moral development, using paradigms of ethical decision-making. Although these projects were developed in a Chinese-US collaboration with university students, these contexts could facilitate the adoption of similar programs elsewhere, with practicing engineers. (shrink)