Rather than delegating moral reflection to ‘moral experts’, engineers should cultivate their own moral expertise. They have a key moral responsibility in the design process of risky technologies, as they have the technical expertise and are at the cradle of new developments. Engineers can reduce the risks of a technological product by developing a different design. .. They should work to cultivate their moral emotions and sensitivity, in order to be engaged in morally responsible engineering.
Bachelor level: Basic competencies in ethics (and philosophy of science, scientific integrity and diversity) preferably through teaching lines, possibly by stand-alone course. Embedding ethics into standard curriculum, involving exemplary cases, connected to fitting, existing courses, cooperation with teachers of respective faculties, use online teaching material.
'Teaching the co-teachers’ will be provided by the Ethics and Philosophy of Technology Section.
Master's level: Specialized master course for students of all Faculties, not necessarily organized by program, but instead creating a palette of more thematic courses.
Technology and the Embodied Extended Mind (starting 2021-2022)
each master student at TU must have taken at least one such course during the master.
Programs can then choose whether students should take a specific course (possibly with partially tailor-made content), or they can let students choose themselves from all the courses (or from a subset of courses).
Requires some standardization (5 ECTS per course incl. essay, 3 ECTS without essay)
provides programs and students with more flexibility
gives teachers and students more room to study a topic in depth.
can stimulate students to work on a theme in an interdisciplinary setting
For students who have not had ethics training in the BSc (eg because they come from another university): they are required to acquire the necessary background knowledge prior to attending their MSc-ethics course (eg through online learning environment).
