ABSTRACT
A grant from an anonymous donor to Illinois Institute of Technology to establish a Center for the Study of Ethics in the Professions made it possible to offer a course called Moral Issues in Engineering. The course, given during the second semester of 1976–1977, was a joint undertaking by professors of philosophy and engineering. The course opened with an exploration of images and the history of the profession. Students discovered that the image of a relatively autonomous, inventive practitioner, which persists also among engineers, is perhaps based more on wish than actuality. The economic constraints on engineers are admittedly severe, the more so when they are not understood. However, people regarded the economic factor as a more or less malleable system of human powers and activities rather than as a fixed principle of nature. Philosophers have a long tradition of systematically examining justifications for moral decisions.
