Permalink : http://hdl.handle.net/2115/60903

JaLCDOI : 10.14943/ouyourin.6.15

A study on engineering ethics education for improving engineering education in Japan Engineering ethics has multi-meanings, and commentators and teachers of engineering ethics have different understandings and opinions. What is required for engineering education in Japan is the shift from the conventional education on engineering science to the new model that focuses on nurturing professional skills as responsible engineers. So what we are expected to do is to meet such a requirement, by developing desirable and effective educational contents. The conventional model of education for engineers in Japan are facing with three weak points: engineering ethics, engineering design（solution for problems that is not structured）and communication. These three are often considered to be separate issues and thus dealt with separately. However, these problems should not be understood as three mutually independent ones as they are mutually interrelated and interlocked in conventional Technological Program education. It presupposes knowledge as hierarchical and top-down, with “general principles”at the highest level and “concrete problem solving” at the lowest level. To overcome these problems and to provide a theoretical foundation for engineering design and communication, engineering ethics education will be expected to offer the following seven elements:（1）to clarify differences between practical life as an professional engineer and academic life as a student,（2）to understand characteristics of the non-uniformity of ethics and pluralistic nature of values that often make communications difficult,（3）to develop a trial-and-error method to transcend the limits of “correctness” in science and engineering knowledge,（4）to understand the relationship between the creation and rules,（5）to understand methodology of recognition to deal with reality, （6）to understand values and norms, and（7）to acquire a way of thinking on safety that is determined from both internal and external rationality of technology.
技術者倫理は多義的で、日本においても様々な主張が並存する。しかし、日本の工学教育に求められているのは技術者教育への転換であるから、この課題により適した技術者倫理の内容であることが望まれる。工学教育には、技術者倫理、エンジニアリング･デザイン（構造化されない問題の解決）、コミュニケーションの三つの弱点が指摘されており、それぞれ独立した課題として別々に取組まれる傾向にある。しかし、これらは従来の、一般原理を最上位に置き、具体的な問題解決を最下層に置く知識の階層性を前提とした、「技術プログラム」教育に起因する同一の問題の諸側面として把握すべきであり、それらは関連している。この弱点を克服した、コミュニケーションとエンジニアリング･デザインの基礎を培うような技術者倫理教育は、次のような内容を含むことが望まれるだろう。すなわち、技術者の実践生活と学生生活との違い、コミュニケーションの難しさの根源としての倫理や価値の非斉一性、科学・技術知識の正しさの限界とそれを超えていく方法としての試行錯誤、創造とルールの関係、現実に正しく向き合うための方法論、諸価値基準、そして技術の内的合理性と外的合理性の両方から決まる安全の考え方、である。