Engineering Ethics for the Well-Being: Examining the Basic Principle of Engineering Ethics Based on the Scientific Findings of Well-Being

2016 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 25560088
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Exploratory Research
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Science education
• Research Institution: Tokyo Institute of Technology (2015-2016); Kanazawa Institute of Technology (2013-2014)
• Principal Investigator: Fudano Jun 東京工業大学, リベラルアーツ研究教育院, 教授 (90229089)
• Project Period (FY): 2013-04-01 – 2017-03-31
• Keywords: 技術者倫理 / 技術者倫理教育 / well-being / 予防倫理 / 志向倫理 / ポジティブ心理学

Outline of Final Research Achievements

While it is generally considered the basic principle of engineering ethics is to "hold paramount the safety, health, and welfare/well-being of the public in engineering practice," engineers and scholars of engineering ethics have not seriously examined what is well-being, and how and to what extent engineers have to take it into account in their practice. Meanwhile, scientific studies on well-being, including positive psychology, have recently been developed and evidence-based findings on various aspects of well-being have been reported.
In this study, the author showed, based on Martin Seligman's PERMA model, one of the widely accepted well-being theories, that ethical engineers who contribute to the well-being of the public can also maintain and raise the level of their own well-being. Educational materials and pedagogies for the new type of engineering ethics were developed and tested. The effectiveness of such education was also measured by the PERMA Profiler.

Free Research Field

科学技術倫理