Instructor

Professor Philip Hillmer
Office: 461 Grainger Engineering Library
Office Telephone: 217.333.2505
E-mail: hillmer@illinois.edu

Description

“Ethics and Engineering” is a broad-ranging course in moral theory and practice, open to all disciplines and all majors. The principles studied throughout the semester are applicable to all career paths, and all who are interested are welcome to be members of the class. The course will be structured in three interrelated parts — (1) an introduction to the central themes of the course, (2) a focused study of normative ethics, and (3) an exploration of ethical issues in the practice of a profession, applied in the vocational context of the discipline of engineering (including safety and liability, professional responsibility to clients and employers, legal obligations, codes of ethics, and career choice). As a course in philosophy, one of the primary objectives of our journey together will be to explore the fundamental structure of human personhood, the grounding of moral action, and the development of moral character as a precondition of integral work in a profession — and the essential foundation necessary for our life together in society.

The course fulfills credit as an upper-division class in advanced composition, for which the University of Illinois requires twenty to thirty pages of revised writing as a minimum standard. In order to fulfill this requirement, each member of the class will write and revise a personal mission statement reflecting on your life work and career path (three pages), followed by two position papers — an initial article analysis (three pages) and a substantive paper on normative ethical theories (five pages) — plus a final research paper of your own choosing (nine pages or more in length). All members of the course will also give a five-minute presentation on their research project at the end of the semester, followed by questions from the class. The research paper and class presentation function together as the final examination for the course.