The Engineer as an Educator: Goods, Virtues, and Secondary Practices

Abstract How should ethical standards be maintained within engineering and engineering education? The present paper addresses this question with relation to the dominant models of engineering ethics (EE) to show that their limits might be overcome by incorporating the vocabulary of neo-Aristotelian virtue ethics. On the basis of the MacIntyrean concept of practice, the secondary role of engineering is highlighted which echoes similar debates concerning education. This similarity is picked up to argue that the role of the engineer in relation to the end-users of their projects should be understood as on a par with the teacher-student relationship. This enables us not only to redefine the internal good of engineering and the ground for EE, but also to indicate the key virtues and educational models for engineering that they should be key parts of.