Socially Responsible Engineering

Abstract

This chapter proposes a new framework for understanding socially responsible engineering. We provide a historical overview that traces how, in the United States, codes of ethics became the focal point for notions of and debates about social responsibility in the profession, including how social responsibility would be taught in undergraduate engineering education. These codes of ethics, however, covertly align concepts of social responsibility with business interests while preventing engineers from being responsible for other interests. We then draw on scholarship in science and technology studies to propose a new framework for social responsibility in engineering that can serve to enhance and critically assess the norms that shape engineering education and practice (e.g., codes of ethics, ISO standards, corporate policies), and we propose strategies to make those pillars actionable through five criteria, which we illustrate through the corporate career of an engineer. We conclude by proposing a critical take on corporate social responsibility as a crucial arena of practice for socially responsible engineers.

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