Widening the industrial competence base: Integrating ethics into engineering education

Amidst the macroeconomic, social, and industrial trends altering the industrial operating environment, calls have been made to shift attention from specialized but narrow technical content of engineering education to a broader competence base that better accommodates societal demands. This chapter focuses on the micro-level ethical conduct that materializes in face-to-face interaction in engineering teams. The chapter serves three aims: first, it defines the key concepts employed in the discussion. Second, it offers an account of the worth and impacts of investments in emotive skills in the engineering world. Finally, it describes a pedagogic experiment in incorporating ethics into engineering degree studies at Aalto University, Finland. The ultimate objective is to propose a teaching practice that would turn the currently marginal attempts to include ethical topics in engineers' syllabi into a mainstream mindset and philosophy that dictates decisions and drives conduct in future engineering communities.