Ethical Research On Engineering Community's Collective Action

Engineering has a growing influence on human-nature-society system and we have entered the "Engineering Century" Contemporary engineering is "the crystallization of wisdom of engineering community's collective action". The subject of engineering activities is engineering community. However, many ethical problems occur to contemporary engineering, and engineering community's collective action is often confronted with a number of ethical dilemmas. Thus, engineering community's collective action has become a hotspot both in society and in the academic circles nowadays.This paper attempts to explore engineering community's collective action from the perspective of ethics,using the research methods such as concept discrimination,the unity of history and logic, and the interdisciplinary research method. The paper covers introduction, body and conclusion, including six chapters in the body part.Firstly, in order to clarify the ethical essence of engineering community's collective action,the connotations and ethical essence of engineering, engineering community,engineering community's collective action are analyzed and explained from the perspective of ethics. It is emphasized that in this paper "engineering community" mainly refers to "project engineering community". Thus,"engineering community's collective action" mainly refers to "project engineering community's collective action". On this basis,the engineering ethical spirit and the related ethical mechanisms of engineering community's collective action are elaborated.Secondly, the historical evolution of engineering community's collective action in China and the West are teased out from the perspective of ethics. After a review of the historical and cultural background of engineering community's collective action in China and the West, by analyzing the representative engineering examples, the ethical practices of collective action and their related ethical mechanisms are explored, and the ethical thought of engineering community's collective action in the related historical literature is interpreted. Then the historical transition of engineering community's collective action is investigated,and examples of modern engineering community's collective action are enumerated,analyzing the ethical spirit and ethical mechanisms of these engineering communities' collective action, which provides an empirical basis for the theoretical construction of contemporary engineering community's collective action.Thirdly, following the realistic logic of engineering community's collective action itself, the ethical predicaments of contemporary engineering community's collective action are revealed through the logical path of its motivation-process-consequence. The motivation of engineering community's collective action is often in the ethical situation of the conflict between moral and benefit, including the absence of ethics in the collective decision-making action, the conflict between moral and benefit in the interest game. There are multiple ethical anomie in design-implementation and operation through the process of engineering community's collective action,including the indifference of ethics and its risk awareness in design, and the ethical anomie in the implementation process. The consequences of engineering community's collective action lead to a series of ethical imbalance on the ethical relations, highlighting the ecological environment ethical dilemma, and aggravating the tense ethical relationship between people and people.Moreover,on the basis of analyzing the above ethical predicaments,the causes of these ethical dilemmas are revealed. The first is the decline of the ethical spirit on engineering community's collective action, including the prominence of utilitarian values and the ethical disorder of engineering community's collective action. The second is the lack of institutional ethics in the process of engineering community's collective action, including the absence of ethical responsibility in organizational system and structure design, and the weakness of accountability in the existing institutional ethics. The third is the decentralization and loss of ethical responsibility in engineering community's collective action,including the fracture and suspension of the ethical responsibility chain in collective action's various links,"the organized irresponsibility" and the weakness of sense of ethical responsibility. The above three causes are not isolated, but interrelated, influencing each other.In this connection, from the perspective of the theoretical construction of Engineering Ethics, the theory-practice strategy to transcend the ethical dilemmas of engineering community's collective action is proposed. One is to reshape the ethical spirit of engineering community's collective action on the fundamental purpose of bringing benefit to the human beings, to cherish life as the ethical bottom line, and for the pursuit of excellence, which governs the top-level design and motivation of engineering community's collective action. Another is to reestablish the ethical mechanisms of engineering community's collective action: the institutional ethical mechanism to regulate engineering community's collective action and the ethical responsibility mechanism to track engineering community's collective action. The above strategies will promote the integration of engineering and humanities, the fusion of engineering and ethics, which will make engineering community's collective action "a good act" and will bring happiness to mankind. Thus,we will march towards a happier and better future.