Engineering Good: How Engineering Metaphors Help us to Understand the Moral Life and Change Society

Coeckelbergh, Mark (2010) Engineering Good: How Engineering Metaphors Help us to Understand the Moral Life and Change Society. Science and Engineering Ethics, 16 (2). pp. 371-385. ISSN 1353-3452

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Abstract:	Engineering can learn from ethics, but ethics can also learn from engineering. In this paper, I discuss what engineering metaphors can teach us about practical philosophy. Using metaphors such as calculation, performance, and open source, I articulate two opposing views of morality and politics: one that relies on images related to engineering as science and one that draws on images of engineering practice. I argue that the latter view and its metaphors provide a more adequate way to understand and guide the moral life. Responding to two problems of alienation and taking into account developments such as Fab Lab I then further explore the implications of this view for engineering and society
Item Type:	Article
Copyright:	© The author
Faculty:	Behavioural Sciences (BS)
Research Group:	Philosophy (WIJSB)
Link to this item:	http://purl.utwente.nl/publications/76110
Official URL:	http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11948-009-9163-0
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