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Title: Reflections on the History of Engineering in the United States : A Preface to Engineering Ethics
Creator: Davis, Michael
Date: 2005, 1992-11-19
Publisher: Center for the Study of Ethics in the Professions, IIT
Description: This paper traces the history of the profession of engineering in the United States as a way to gain a better understanding of the field of...
Show moreThis paper traces the history of the profession of engineering in the United States as a way to gain a better understanding of the field of engineering and of engineering ethics.
Lecture at the Center for Academic Ethics and College of Engineering, Wayne State University. Detroit, Michigan. 19 November 1992
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Title: What Engineering Societies Can Do About Ethics
Creator: Davis, Michael
Date: 2006, 1988-09-27
Publisher: Center for the Study of Ethics in the Professions, IIT
Description: This talk looks at how engineering societies can promote ethical practice and discussion about ethics among their members. After some remarks...
Show moreThis talk looks at how engineering societies can promote ethical practice and discussion about ethics among their members. After some remarks about how engineers commonly handle ethical issues that come up within organizations, especially in instances when raising ethical issues with managers such as the Challenger Shuttle Explosion, the author goes on to discuss how engineering societies can promote continuing education in ethics, hold roundtable discussions between engineers and managers, and promote open communication in workplaces.
Address given at the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. Chicago Area Combined Section Meeting, 27 September 1988.
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Title: Technology, Values, and Ethics : A Framework
Creator: Davis, Michael
Date: 2006, 1992-02-01
Publisher: Center for the Study of Ethics in the Professions, IIT
Description: Three words of my title--"technology", "values", and "ethics"--have this in common: they have all been used in enough different ways to be...
Show moreThree words of my title--"technology", "values", and "ethics"--have this in common: they have all been used in enough different ways to be dangerous. To provide the framework my title promises, I shall have to distinguish the most important of those uses, set them in context, and explain how they are (or are not) related. This conceptual housecleaning, rather boring in itself, will give me the opportunity to talk about engineering, both its history and practice. That will not be boring.
GTE Lecture University of Wisconsin Center/Fond du Lac October 13, 199
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Title: Ethics After the Crash
Creator: Davis, Michael
Date: 2005, 1987-12-10
Publisher: Center for the Study of Ethics in the Professions, IIT
Description: Though my title may suggest a concern with wrongdoing, my primary concern is good conduct, how to get people to do the right thing. I shall...
Show moreThough my title may suggest a concern with wrongdoing, my primary concern is good conduct, how to get people to do the right thing. I shall argue that you have a special role to play in the firms for which you work, a role that goes beyond financial analysis. Your training in ethics and your commitment to a standard higher than law, market, and morality, give you insight into certain hard choices that your employer or co-workers may lack. I also shall argue that you should go out of your way to make that insight available.
Paper presented at a meeting for the Society of Financial Analysts, Toronto, Canada, December 10, 1987.
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Title: Conflicts of Interest in Engineering
Creator: Davis, Michael, Wells, Paula, Jones, Hardy
Date: 2009, 1986
Publisher: Kendalll/Hunt Publishing Company
Description: This module begins by examining the Hydrolevel case, and uses this as a way to highlight relevant principles regarding conflict of interest in...
Show moreThis module begins by examining the Hydrolevel case, and uses this as a way to highlight relevant principles regarding conflict of interest in engineering, and to discuss the importance of these principles for engineers as professionals and moral agents. The module then considers four applications of these principles drawn from the “Opinions” of the Board of Ethical Review of the National Society of Professional Engineers. The module also includes ten short cases to be used in classroom discussion. It also includes professional codes from the National Society of Professional Engineers and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.
Sponsorship: Exxon Education Foundation
The Module Series in Applied Ethics was produced by the Center for the Study of Ethics in the Professions in under a grant from the Exxon Education Foundation. This series is intended for use in a wide range of undergraduate, graduate, and continuing education programs in such areas as science and/or technology public policy, and professional ethics courses in engineering, business, and computer science.
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Title: A Case of "Gray Plagiarism" from the History of the History of Computing
Creator: Davis, Michael
Date: 2006, 2006
Publisher: Plagiary : Cross-Disciplinary Studies in Plagiarism, Fabrication, and Falsfication
Description: Claiming as one's own what one knows to be the discovery of another is certainly plagiarism. But what about merely failing to acknowledge the...
Show moreClaiming as one's own what one knows to be the discovery of another is certainly plagiarism. But what about merely failing to acknowledge the work of another where one does not give the impression that the discovery is one's own? Does it matter how easy it was to make the discovery? This paper analyzes a case in this gray area in academic ethics. The focus is not on the failure to attribute itself but on the attempt of an independent scholar who, believing himself to be the victim of "gray plagiarism”, sought a forum in which to make his complaint. The story could be told from several perspectives. I shall tell it primarily from the perspective of the complainant, an outsider, because I believe that way of telling it best reveals the need to think more deeply about how we (acting for the universities to which we belong) assign credit, especially to scholars outside, and about how we respond when someone complains of a failure to assign credit. My purpose is not to indict individuals but to change a system. This paper updates a case I first described in 1993.
Davis, M. (2006). “Gray Plagiarism”: A Case from the History of the History of Computing. Plagiary: Cross‐Disciplinary Studies in Plagiarism, Fabrication, and Falsification, 1 (7): 1‐18.
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Title: Do the Professional Ethics of Chemists and Engineers Differ ?
Creator: Davis, Michael
Date: 2011, 2002
Publisher: HYLE - International Journal for Philosophy of Chemistry
Description: This paper provides a sketch of my general way of understanding professions and then applies that sketch to a specific question, how to...
Show moreThis paper provides a sketch of my general way of understanding professions and then applies that sketch to a specific question, how to distinguish between two very similar professions, chemistry and engineering. I argue that the professional ethics of chemists do differ from the professional ethics of engineers and that the differences are important. The argument requires definition of both ‘ethics’ and ‘profession’ – as well delving into the details of chemistry and engineering.
HYLE – International Journal for Philosophy of Chemistry Vol. 8, No . 1 (2002) http://www.hyle.org/journal/issues/8-1/davis.htm
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Title: IIT's Workshops for Integrating Ethics into Technical Courses : Some Lessons Learned
Creator: Davis, Michael
Date: 2006, 2006
Publisher: Philosophy Documentation Center
Description: In 1990, IIT's Center for the Study of Ethics in the Professions received a grant of more than $210,000 from the National Science Foundation...
Show moreIn 1990, IIT's Center for the Study of Ethics in the Professions received a grant of more than $210,000 from the National Science Foundation to try a campus-wide approach to integrating professional ethics into its technical curriculum; in 1996, the Center received another $100,000 to continue the project, with the emphasis on passing along to other institutions what was learned at IIT; and, in 2000, the Center received a third grant for three years, with the same emphasis, for $244,000. Between 1990 and 2004, more than 160 faculty “graduated” from the workshop and another dozen or so attended as unofficial volunteers. I was the principal investigator under all three grants, but shared the work with three co-PIs, the “we” in what follows. Though I generally prefer to emphasize what we did right, emphasizing what I now think we should have done differently should be more helpful here. There are at least three reasons why that should be so. First, I have already made many presentations, including several in Japan, arguing the (very real) merits of what we did. While repetition can help to make a point, sooner or later, though usually sooner, the effect of repetition ceases to repay the effort. I fear I may have reached that point. Second, I have nowhere before said much about what now seem mistakes —or, at least, lost opportunities. Discussing them here should add to what is known about ethics workshops. Adding to that knowledge seems worthy in itself. Third, you are already committed to ethics across the curriculum. The question before you now is how to carry out that commitment. I believe there is much to learn from our mistakes. We certainly learned much from the mistakes of those whose workshops we studied before undertaking our own. Running that workshop included the following activities: recruiting, scheduling, content, and research. For each activity, I will first briefly explain what we did and then what I now think we should have done.
Teaching Ethics, Vol. 7, Issue 2, 1-14
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Title: Doing the Minimum as an Alternative to Exercising Reasonable Care in a Professional Role
Creator: Davis, Michael
Date: 2008, 2000
Description: In the second edition of ENGINEERING ETHICS:CASES AND CONCEPTS (Wadsworth, 2000), Harris, Pritchard, and Rabins distinguish three conceptions...
Show moreIn the second edition of ENGINEERING ETHICS:CASES AND CONCEPTS (Wadsworth, 2000), Harris, Pritchard, and Rabins distinguish three conceptions of professional responsibility: the "minimalist," the "reasonable care" and the "good works". Of the minimalist conception, they say (among other things) that it "holds that engineers have a duty to conform to the standard operating procedures of their profession and to fulfill the basic duties of their job defied by the terms of their employment." (p.101). In contrast, the reasonable care conception "moves beyond the minimalist view's concern to 'stay out of trouble'. (p.103) I will argue that this distinction is incoherent, that the "minimalist conception" (so defined) necessarily includes not only reasonable care but at least some of what Harris, Pritchard, and Rabins classify as "good works". I conclude with a suggestion for what they might say instead about a certain "minimalist attitude" one finds in business (though it truth, it should be called "sub-minimalist".
Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Association for Professional and Practical Ethics (A.P.P.E.), Washington, DC, February 26, 2000.
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Title: Professionalism Means Putting Your Profession First
Creator: Davis, Michael
Date: 2007, 1988
Publisher: Georgetown School of Law
Description: Ask a lawyer what "professionalism" means and you are likely to hear that professionalism means putting your client first or acting as an...
Show moreAsk a lawyer what "professionalism" means and you are likely to hear that professionalism means putting your client first or acting as an officer of the court. Only rarely will a lawyer say that professionalism means putting justice first. Never, I think, will a lawyer even suggest that professionalism means putting your profession first. Yet this is the thesis of this paper. The paper has three parts. Section I makes certain distinctions necessary to prevent misunderstanding my thesis. Section II and III develop the thesis into a conception of professionalism. Sections IV and V use that conception to help with the most difficult of undertakings, justifying professional discipline to someone convicted of professional misconduct which harmed neither her client nor an identifiable third party.
Georgetown Journal of Legal Ethics. Vol. 2, Issue 1. Summer 1988. pp.341-357.
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