A Narrative Approach to Ethics for S&E Graduate Students

S 伦理的叙事方法

• 批准号: 0530068
• 负责人: Taft Broome
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Howard University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2005
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2005-10-01 至 2010-09-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0530068&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Narrative; Approach; Ethics; S& Graduate

This award is made under Ethics Education in Science and Engineering (NSF 05-532). This research project addresses cross-cultural and cross-disciplinary perspectives of faculty and graduate students on ethical issues relevant to the graduate education of scientists and engineers. The research team, composed of an engineer, a philosopher and a psychologist, is qualitatively assessing the delivery of the research in the classroom by focusing on several questions: Can cross-cultural and cross-disciplinary perspectives be readily discovered in individuals? If so, How? Can they be brought together with ethical theories into a coherent and justifiable whole? If so, How? Can that whole be applied to the ethical decision making of individuals seeking to function harmoniously in multi-cultural and multi-disciplinary communities? If so, How? These research questions are being examined with five objectives. First is the three-year research objective to produce study modules each consisting of an ethical topic in either science or engineering (S&E), cross-cultural and cross-disciplinary perspectives of individuals on that topic, and a systematic arrangement of each individual perspective and that topic into a prescription for behavior that can be accommodated in multi-cultural, multi-disciplinary, US communities. Second is the three-year research and education objective to conduct a seminar series bringing external experts to the project and culminating at the end of the third year in a major national symposium. Third is the educational objective to conduct workshops in the second year on modules for lecturers in ethics to graduate students. Fourth is the educational objective in the third year to observe as lecturers deliver modules to graduate students. Fifth is the publication of all modules in a textbook for the ethics instruction of S&E graduate students. The chief activity of this project is the development of a narrative approach to the first objective. This approach combines previous works published by the three principal participants of this project on (1) the uses by psychologists of auto-biographies to discover African American ethnic factors of self-identity, (2) the uses of mythic stories to discover heroes in one's own family or ancestry identified as African American engineers judged, by reference to African experiences, worthy of imitation in Western ethical situations, and (3) the comparison of African and Western ethics and the accommodation of African ethics to Western values. This project will extend these works to include Asian, Indian, Hispanic and other perspectives, and to adapt them to ethical problems in S&E. The intellectual merit of the proposed activity is in the development of a coherent arrangement of a narrative theory of personality, the mythic story, and comparative ethics, and in the application of that arrangement to practical problems in science and engineering. This is a novel activity promising to enhance the ethical decision making skills of individual scientists and engineers without requiring them to become specialist experts on ethical theory and argumentation. Rather, compensation for this specialty is made on the presumption that most of them are already generalist experts on believable stories. The broader impacts resulting from the proposed activity will be on the globalization process and the fitness of the US participatory democracy to govern its technological society. The cross-cultural empowerment promised by this project to scientists and engineers will ready them for the challenges of globalization, and the cross-disciplinary empowerment promised by it will ready them for effective leadership in academia, the professional, governmental, and business sectors of society, and in the decision making venues open to citizens, experts and non-experts in technological democracies.

本奖项由科学与工程伦理教育项目（NSF 05-532）资助。本研究项目从教师和研究生的跨文化和跨学科角度探讨与科学家和工程师研究生教育相关的伦理问题。该研究团队由一名工程师、一名哲学家和一名心理学家组成，他们通过关注以下几个问题，对课堂上的研究成果进行定性评估：跨文化和跨学科的观点能否在个人身上轻易发现？如果有，是怎么做到的？它们能与伦理理论结合成一个连贯的、合理的整体吗？如果有，是怎么做到的？这个整体能否适用于寻求在多文化和多学科社区中和谐运作的个人的道德决策？如果有，是怎么做到的？这些研究问题正在以五个目标进行审查。首先是为期三年的研究目标，每个研究模块由科学或工程（S&amp；E）的伦理主题组成，个人对该主题的跨文化和跨学科观点，以及每个个人观点和该主题的系统安排，以适应多文化，多学科，美国社区的行为处方。第二个是为期三年的研究和教育目标，即举办一系列研讨会，邀请外部专家参加项目，并在第三年年底举行一次主要的国家专题讨论会。第三是教育目标，在第二年为研究生举办伦理学讲师模块研讨会。第四是第三年的教育目标，观察讲师向研究生传授模块。五是出版一本标准与工程研究生伦理教育教材。这个项目的主要活动是发展一种叙事方法来实现第一个目标。这个方法结合了这个项目的三个主要参与者之前发表的作品(1)心理学家使用自传来发现非裔美国人自我认同的种族因素(2)使用神话故事来发现自己家庭或祖先中的英雄，被认为是非洲裔美国工程师，通过参考非洲经验，在西方伦理情境中值得模仿，(3)非洲和西方伦理的比较以及非洲伦理对西方价值观的适应。本项目将扩展这些作品，包括亚洲、印度、西班牙和其他视角的作品，并使其适应美国的伦理问题。该活动的智力价值在于发展了人格叙事理论、神话故事和比较伦理学的连贯安排，并将这种安排应用于科学和工程中的实际问题。这是一项新的活动，有望提高个别科学家和工程师的伦理决策技能，而不需要他们成为伦理理论和论证方面的专家。相反，对这种专长的补偿是基于这样一种假设，即他们中的大多数人已经是可信故事的通才。拟议的活动所产生的更广泛的影响将是全球化进程和美国参与式民主管理其技术社会的适用性。这个项目承诺给科学家和工程师的跨文化授权将使他们准备好迎接全球化的挑战，而它承诺给他们的跨学科授权将使他们准备好在学术界、专业人士、政府和社会的商业部门，以及在对公民、专家和非专家开放的决策场所发挥有效的领导作用。