Ethical Evaluation of Gendered Engineering Identity: A Relational Dual-Character Perspective

Abstract In view of the persistent gender inequality in engineering and its relationship with engineering identity, I set out to advance the contemporary understanding of this relationship. To achieve this, I employ the analytical framework of the pragmatic view on Dual-Character Concepts to illustrate how engineers’ conceptualisation and actual use of engineering identity can give rise to a context-dependent concept ENGINEER that exhibits a descriptive and normative dimension of concept-membership. From a Relational Egalitarianism perspective, i.e., a perspective emphasising that social equality demands treating and regarding others as possessing equal moral status, this will allow me to demonstrate how decisive others’ belief in oppressive scripts is for this contextual inequality. It can be shown that such beliefs violate the moral demand for social equality in engineering by violating the moral obligation to respect others’ status as universal discourse participants with a fundamental right to physical and psychological integrity and an autonomous capacity to freely choose speech acts. As I will illustrate, this is due to the fact that they can either result in categorisations and classifications that conceptually exclude women and hinder their recognition as true engineers, or impede their autonomy by obstructing or deforming the effectiveness of their intentions.