The Professional Autonomy of Engineers

9320166戴维斯工程师有时声称，他们作为雇员的身份剥夺了他们成为真正专业人士所必需的自主权。这项研究的目的是提供一个框架，以回答工程师是否以及何时在工作场所拥有足够的自主权来充当专业人员的问题。为了提供这一框架，这项研究将把最近对道德自主性的哲学分析引入到职业自主性的问题上，将从早期关于工作场所工程师自主性的工作中提取相关材料来检查那里的职业自主性的条件，并将根据这些结果拟定实证研究方案，以回答关于工程师实际职业自主性的问题。这项研究旨在建立一个关于职业和自主性的立场，该立场可以通过三个测试：它必须与在大型组织中的工作保持一致；它必须具有经验性；它必须有助于评估不同类型的工作组织是否会阻碍或增强职业自主性。这项研究涉及工程社会学、职业哲学和工程伦理学三个领域。更好地发展职业自主性的概念可能有助于解决工程和科学伦理中的其他实际问题。目前适用于工作场所的道德自主概念既不能帮助我们理解职业限制的道德含义，也不能帮助我们理解公司组织和职业责任的总体一致性。由于拟议的项目将帮助我们在上下文中了解工程师，它也应该有助于全面了解工程师所做的工作。结果将通过演示文稿和文章传播。***

9320166 Davis Engineers sometimes claim that their status as employees denies them the autonomy necessary to be true professionals. The purpose of this research is to provide a framework for answering the question whether and when engineers have enough autonomy in the workplace to act as professionals. To provide this framework, the research will bring recent philosophical analysis of moral autonomy to bear on the question of professional autonomy, will draw relevant material from earlier work on the autonomy of engineers in the workplace to examine the conditions for professional autonomy there, and will sketch programs of empirical research that might build on these results to answer questions about the actual professional autonomy of engineers. The research aims to develop a position on professions and autonomy that can pass three tests: It must be consistent with working in a large organization; it must be empirically testable: and it must be useful in evaluating whether different kinds of work organization will impede or enhance professional autonomy. This research contributes to three fields, the sociology of engineering, the philosophy of professions, and engineering ethics. A better developed conception of professional autonomy may help with other practical questions in the ethics of engineering and science. Current conceptions of moral autonomy applied to the workplace do not help us to understand either the moral implications of professional constraints or the general consistency of corporate organization and professional responsibility. Because the proposed project would help us to understand engineers in context, it should contribute as well to overall understanding of what engineers do. Results will be disseminated through presentations and articles. ***