William J. Frey

Good computing: a pedagogically focused model of virtue in the practice of computing (part 1)

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present a four component model of ethical behavior (PRIMES) that integrates literature in moral psychology, computing ethics, and virtue ethics as informed by research on moral exemplars in computing. This is part 1 of a two‐part contribution.Design/methodology/approach – This psychologically based and philosophically informed model argues that moral action is: grounded in relatively stable PeRsonality characteristics (PR); guided by integration of morality into the self‐system; shaped by the context of the surrounding moral ecology; and facilitated by morally relevant skills and knowledge (S).Findings – The model seeks to explain the daily successful (and unsuccessful) performance of moral action by computing professionals and to provide groundwork for a pedagogy that emphasizes ethically effective performance.Practical implications – The model has significant implications for how ethical action might be taught to computer professionals and other design professio...

Teaching Virtue: Pedagogical Implications of Moral Psychology

Moral exemplar studies of computer and engineering professionals have led ethics teachers to expand their pedagogical aims beyond moral reasoning to include the skills of moral expertise. This paper frames this expanded moral curriculum in a psychologically informed virtue ethics. Moral psychology provides a description of character distributed across personality traits, integration of moral value into the self system, and moral skill sets. All of these elements play out on the stage of a social surround called a moral ecology. Expanding the practical and professional curriculum to cover the skills and competencies of moral expertise converts the classroom into a laboratory where students practice moral expertise under the guidance of their teachers. The good news is that this expanded pedagogical approach can be realized without revolutionizing existing methods of teaching ethics. What is required, instead, is a redeployment of existing pedagogical tools such as cases, professional codes, decision-making frameworks, and ethics tests. This essay begins with a summary of virtue ethics and informs this with recent research in moral psychology. After identifying pedagogical means for teaching ethics, it shows how these can be redeployed to meet a broader, skills based agenda. Finally, short module profiles offer concrete examples of the shape this redeployed pedagogical agenda would take in the practical and professional ethics classroom.

Engineering Ethics in Puerto Rico: Issues and Narratives

This essay discusses engineering ethics in Puerto Rico by examining the impact of the Colegio de Ingenieros y Agrimensores de Puerto Rico (CIAPR) and by outlining the constellation of problems and issues identified in workshops and retreats held with Puerto Rican engineers. Three cases developed and discussed in these workshops will help outline movements in engineering ethics beyond the compliance perspective of the CIAPR. These include the Town Z case, Copper Mining in Puerto Rico, and a hypothetical case researched by UPRM students on laptop disposal. The last section outlines four future challenges in engineering ethics pertinent to the Puerto Rican situation.

Social, Ethical and Global Issues in Engineering

The College of Engineering of the University of Puerto Rico-Mayaguez (UPRM) adopted an ethics across the curriculum (EAC) strategy in 2005. EAC is based on the combination of faculty development workshops, a stand-alone course in ethics, and ethics learning modules integrated at various levels of the engineering curriculum. In 2006 the EAC strategy was expanded to include social and global issues in engineering. A Coordinator for Social, Ethical and Global Issues (SEGI) in Engineering was appointed in the College of Engineering to coordinate and support activities related to these areas at all engineering departments. Such a position is valuable in demonstrating the commitment to educating integral engineers that are both technically capable and socially responsible. This SEGI work presents a more integrated curriculum to students through activities that link liberal arts courses and topics to engineering. The position also serves as a liaison with other Colleges in these matters, and supports the achievement of eight of the learning outcomes from ABETpsilas criterion 3. This paper describes the various activities of the coordination of the SEGI work, and its relationship to the general education component of engineering curricula.

Advancing a Sustainable Energy Ethics Through Stakeholder Engagement

The Worlds dependence on fossil fuels and the need to move to more beneficial energy alternatives pose daunting challenges to humanity. Historically, economic and political rationality has driven the exploration, development and management of natural resources in the search for stable energy supplies. The insistence on continuing the unsustainable consumption patterns of developed countries has jeopardized human rights, political stability, environmental quality and sustainable improvement for vulnerable communities. This single-minded pursuit of economic rationality pushes to the side a more beneficial, holistic sustainability framework that integrates environmental, ethical and social value with economic and practical considerations. This paper will focus on responding to the challenge of energy sustainability by advancing a new energy ethics founded on the bedrock of solid environmental, social and ethical principles. It will also expand this baseline by presenting a new vision of ethical and practical excellence in energy, a vision that will translate readily into new and implementable energy policies.

Sustainable wellbeing education in engineering

Notions of human wellbeing can be used to evaluate and plan technological innovation and engineering design. However, current engineering practices and most engineering education curricula do not adequately deal with wellbeing. A set of interdisciplinary courses at the University of Puerto Rico, Mayagüez are proposed by the authors to fill this gap and to provide a transition to an engineering curriculum integrated with community wellbeing. These courses will enroll engineering students alongside non-engineering students. One of such courses was offered for the first time during the Spring 2012 and its preliminary assessment results are presented. This new course incorporates the framework of Appropriate Technology to link traditional goals of engineering-technology innovation with what should be their ultimate goal: to enhance human wellbeing and flourishing. The course involves faculty members from 8 different departments and integrates topics such as ethics, economics, technology innovation, social entrepreneurship, renewable energy, agriculture, philosophy of technology, and community participation. The course is structured as a sequence of weekly modules, each focusing on one area relevant to develop a holistic perspective of appropriate technology. To promote coherence around the central theme of wellbeing, a set of faculty planning meetings, including a day long retreat, were held. This process will enable the transition from multidisciplinary convergence to interdisciplinary coherence.

Training Engineers in Moral Imagination for Global Contexts

What challenges do students face in preparing to practice responsible engineering in a global world? How can students be brought to recognize and avoid pitfalls like paternalism? One answer to this question comes from an unlikely source. While satirizing telescopic philanthropy, Charles Dickens lays down the conditions that a curriculum in global engineering ethics must address. One must “adapt [one’s] mind to those very differently situated,” address other cultures “from suitable points of view,” cultivate a “delicate knowledge of the heart,” and realize that “good intentions alone” are not enough.

Bringing responsible research into engineering ethics: responsible research in appropriate technology

Graduate Research and Education for Appropriate Technology: Inspiring Direct Engagement and Agency (GREAT IDEA) promotes interdisciplinary graduate thesis research in Appropriate Technology (AT) and has initiated research to determine attitudes of BSE (business, science, and engineering) faculty and students toward AT. The new course, Responsible Research in Appropriate Technology, has been created through this grant to identify ethical and social issues that arise in AT research. This paper will outline briefly the AT movement, present key ethical and social issues in AT research and discuss how a new course, “Responsible Research in Appropriate Technology,” presents these issues to graduate students. The concluding section will summarize assessment results from the first course offering in the fall semester of 2013.

Value integration: From educational computer games to academic communities

How do ethics apply to computer programming, or to software development? Another question is “How can software design-specifically values-based design-advance the discipline of ethics?” The answer is that techniques used in realizing values in educational computer games can help faculty communities develop statements of values. This article explains how, and recounts the experience of the University of Puerto Ricos College of Business Administration in crafting, translating, implementing, and challenging a declaration of their common values.

Work in progress — The ethics across the curriculum toolkit: An online environment for ethics resources

Ethics across the curriculum (EAC) is an approach to ethics education that relies on ethics modules integrated directly into the mainstream curriculum. It empowers engineering instructors, to serve as ethics mentors to their students by providing them a supportive infrastructure of tools and resources that can be customized for specific classroom needs. Because of this, EAC must be built on an interdisciplinary community of collaborators; ethicists team up with engineers, university faculty with ethics officers from businesses. The authors of this work in progress have received a grant from the National Science Foundation (SES 0551779) to develop a prototype toolkit using an open courseware tool, Connexionsreg. In FIE 2005, they outlined the toolkit in its preliminary stages. This work in progress will update that earlier work.