Lessons from Engineering Ethics for Genetic Engineering and Society

Joe Herkert, D.Sc., Associate Professor Emeritus of Science, Technology and Society, NC State

Abstract There is a long tradition of ethics in engineering practice with the first engineering codes of ethics appearing early in the 20th century, but as an academic sub-field engineering ethics only began to emerge in the 1970s. In most treatments, engineering ethics is grounded in the concept of engineering as a profession. Following a brief introduction of engineering ethics and professionalism, this presentation will focus on some key concepts of engineering ethics scholarship and teaching that might be useful in thinking about ethics in the context of genetic engineering and society. Among these are codes of professional ethics; the use of case studies; microethics and macroethics; engineering as social experimentation; and ethics as design.

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Speaker Bio

Joseph “Joe” Herkert, D.Sc., is Associate Professor Emeritus of Science, Technology and Society, North Carolina State University. He has also been a Visiting Scholar at NC State’s Genetic Engineering and Society Center and was a Co-PI on the NSF Grant “Comparing Cultures of Responsible Innovation across Bioengineering Communities.” Herkert has been teaching engineering ethics and science, technology & society courses for more than thirty-five years. He is editor of Social, Ethical and Policy Implications of Engineering: Selected Readings (Wiley/IEEE Press, 2000) and co-editor of The Growing Gap Between Emerging Technologies and Legal-Ethical Oversight: The Pacing Problem (Springer, 2011), and has published numerous articles on engineering ethics and societal implications of technology in engineering, law, social science, and applied ethics journals and books. [Read more]

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