Science and Engineering Ethics最新文献

This study evaluates the formation of ethical responsibility among master's students enrolled in the "Applied Physics and Nanomaterials" program. Recognizing the pivotal role of ethics in the evolving field of nanoscience, the research implements a three-phase methodology that integrates an Initial Ethical Responsibility Assessment, a facilitator-led Group Discussion, and a Retest Ethical Responsibility Assessment. The assessments are based on realistic scenarios reflecting ethical dilemmas that students may encounter in professional practice. This dual approach - combining quantitative assessment with qualitative analysis - provides a comprehensive understanding of students' ethical reasoning and decision-making. Results indicate varying levels of ethical responsibility, underscoring the need for more integrated ethics education in nanoscience curricula. The study contributes to ongoing discussions on the importance of ethics in scientific training, especially in high-impact fields such as nanotechnology. It offers educators a structured framework for embedding ethics into technical education, ensuring that future nanomaterials specialists are not only proficient scientists but also ethically responsible professionals. The article concludes with recommendations for enhancing ethics education in nanoscience through interactive, scenario-based, and discussion-centered learning methods.

Authorship credit is essential for researchers' success in academia. For academics collaborating with others, differing perceptions of how to value different contributions, disciplinary differences in authorship conventions, and power differences among collaborators can make authorship decisions more difficult to navigate in ways that feel fair and transparent to all involved. Graduate students may feel particularly disadvantaged in authorship decisions due to their relative lack of publishing experience. Here we tested the effectiveness of an educational training intervention designed to promote ethical authorship practices by supporting graduate students' knowledge of authorship and authorship ethics and their ability to effectively navigate authorship conversations with collaborators. Students (n = 185) underwent an online training program and used an authorship agreement form to discuss authorship on a research project with their faculty mentor. We randomly assigned half of the students to undergo an additional small group workshop to test the level of institutional investments needed to see benefits for students. We found the online training and authorship agreement forms boosted students' perceptions of their authorship knowledge and confidence effectively navigating authorship conversations with collaborators. The additional workshop did not yield further benefits for students' outcomes, suggesting that institutions can help promote ethical authorship through low-cost, scalable educational resources.

Emotion is an increasingly important concept in ethics, education, and engineering. It is also important for the intersection of these three domains: engineering ethics education. Despite extensive research being conducted independently in each field, there has yet to be a synthesis across the fields which would identify key themes, concepts or theories in use, and which would identify conceptual spaces for development. That is the goal of this paper. Our extensive systematic review identified 30 publications relevant to engineering, technology, or computer science education that were substantively focused on emotions and ethics. We coded these abductively and analyzed them thematically to identify underlying theoretical frameworks and concepts. Most publications included theorizations of emotion, ethics, or moral reasoning, and the ways they are related. Three - primarily psychological - theoretical frameworks were widely used: (A) empathy and pro-social action, (B) moral emotions, and (C) emotional intelligence/ emotional regulation. Possible intersections and relationships between these three frameworks were, however, largely unexplored in the included publications. We conclude that (1) researchers can break down conceptual silos by engaging with the relationships between different theories of emotion and ethics, (2) exploring academic emotions - emotions in the process of learning engineering ethics - presents considerable opportunities for further development, and (3) there is a need to broaden the theoretical base to supplement the current individualistic focus with more social theories of emotion and ethics.

While social robots offer potential benefits like task assistance and companionship, their integration raises concerns about the erosion of human connection and the dehumanization of care. Through a qualitative study of older adults, family caregivers, and professional caregivers in Switzerland, we examined their perceptions of social robots and their understanding of the "human contact" in eldercare. Findings revealed the importance of emotional warmth, complex social interactions, and empathy. However, participants also acknowledged the potential benefits of such robots in specific tasks. We argue that the ethical assessment of care robots should focus on determining when robotic contact is desirable. By understanding the limitations of human connection and that humanness is a dual character concept (both descriptive and normative), we identify scenarios where social robots may offer advantages, such as providing care without judging and stimulate social engagement. Robotic "touch" can potentially complement human care in certain situations, preserving older persons' dignity and improving their quality of life.

In recent years, the notion of 'sustainable AI' has emerged as a new topic within the wider debate on artificial intelligence (AI). Although sustainability is usually understood as having three dimensions - the environment, society, and the economy - the debate on sustainable AI, so far, is characterized by a narrow focus on the environmental sustainability of AI. In this article, it is argued that the debate on sustainable AI should not only be about AI's environmental costs, but also incorporate social and economic concerns. More precisely, the article shows that AI's environmental impact is often connected to important social and economic issues. Through an analysis of existing literature on the sustainability of AI, it is demonstrated that ethical and philosophical arguments about the importance of considering the environmental costs of AI apply just as well to the social and economic dimensions of AI development. The aim of this article is thus to present a broader understanding of sustainable AI; one that includes all three pillars of sustainability and acknowledges the interdependence between AI's environmental, social and economic costs.

The ageing of the global population has prompted the development of many technologies to support older persons (AgeTech). Those developing AgeTech need to not only consider different end users, including older persons and their caregivers, but also be cognizant of the fact that these groups have a variety of, often conflicting, values. The frameworks of Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) and Value-Sensitive Design (VSD) both emphasize the integration of end users' values into the process of designing new technologies. Drawing from recent empirical and theoretical AgeTech literature, this article presents an argument for applying these frameworks to the field of AgeTech to successfully identify values and manage tensions among them. It aims to inform a more successful AgeTech innovation process in which new technologies represent and prioritize what their intended end users value.

As global water scarcity worsens, potable water reuse is increasingly considered a vital solution for augmenting water supplies. However, public acceptance remains a significant barrier, presumably because of a misalignment between the public values reflected by these systems and those that are held by the communities that these systems intend to serve. This study explores this potential misalignment by systematically identifying and analysing the most prevalent values inscribed in academic research on potable water reuse. We employ a mixed-methods approach, combining probabilistic topic modelling with thematic analysis of 2940 academic publications to identify and conceptualise latent values discussed in the literature. Our findings suggest that the values 'reliability', 'sustainability', 'health', and 'safety' are most prevalent but that their conceptualisation remains largely ambivalent. For example, sustainability exhibits an ambivalent relationship with safety, sometimes conflicting and sometimes supporting, depending on the research perspective. Crucially, this research demonstrates a predominantly technocentric understanding of these values. While this technical focus is undeniably important, it also risks overlooking broader societal concerns and other value interpretations. This research highlights the need for a more value-sensitive approach to ensure a more responsible potable water reuse, incorporating a wider range of public values to promote the system's social and ethical desirability.

Scientific values are considered to play a significant role in responsible conduct of research education, such as raising awareness, changing cognition, and altering behavior. However, there is still a lack of empirical evidence regarding the relationship between scientists' subscription of scientific values and research integrity behaviors. This paper presents a cross-national study that examines researchers' perceptions and practices regards research integrity. The results show correlations between value adherence, level of acceptance of research misbehaviors, and self-reported research misbehavior. The study also reveals significant variations in these variables among researchers from different countries, academic positions, age groups, and genders. This cross-national investigation offers valuable insights into researchers' attitudes and behaviors regarding research misconduct, contributing to the promotion of ethical research practices worldwide and enhancing the credibility and integrity of scientific endeavors. Further research involving larger samples and more countries would provide deeper insights into the developments in researchers' perceptions of research misbehavior.

This study presents an evidence-based argument for integrating participatory inquiry practices into AI education, using science fiction films as a primary tool for examining human-technology relationships. Through a media-enhanced co-inquiry approach, facilitators and students first explore the entanglements of human-technology interactions before engaging with AI nudges-productivity prompts introduced during time-constrained, interdependent assembly tasks in an experimental setting. A postphenomenological analysis of focus group interview data reveals that students' collective responses to AI nudges reflect the competitive pedagogical culture of engineering, often reinforcing rigid, task-driven adaptation. However, moments of attunement to material conditions suggest that speculative thinking can serve as a catalyst for renegotiating entrenched norms of engineering rationality. By facilitating the movement of concepts and generating productive friction, speculation disrupts dominant conceptualizations of AI that the engineering community often readily subscribes to. This study highlights the necessity of a cultural shift in engineering education-one that embraces speculative inquiry as a means of fostering sociotechnical reflection and reimagining human-technology relations.