| Abstract: | Engineering draws guidance from many disciplines for its teaching and practice. The evolution of engineering as a response to societal and personal needs has created, together with technical challenges, ethical dimensions akin to more service-oriented professions. Several frameworks of ethics have been suggested to incorporate and address these dimensions. In this paper, the ethic of care is singled out due to the natural analogy between engineering and care: they both respond to a need and are oriented towards action. The suitability of care to provide guiding principles is supported by highlighting the distinguishing features that make the ethic of care especially relevant to engineering. Finally, it is shown through examples that the benefits from applying principles of the ethic of care vary from helpful reminders to valuable insights and guidelines in teaching and practicing engineering. |
