The Empowerment Mechanism Of Engineering Practice

As an emerging modern issue,empowerment,which contains the dual meanings of"incentive" and "promotion",constitutes an aspirational description of the ethical nature of engineering practice.This is part of the turning of engineering ethics since the 21st century:on the one hand,as related research on ethical dilemmas has matured,many engineering ethicists are beginning to realize the importance of adding a positive dimension to the entire engineering ethics framework,and advocate shifting the focus from prohibitive and preventive ethics to an aspirational ethic;on the other hand,some scholars are not satisfied that engineering ethics research follows an empirical research paradigm or merely as a non-independent subject under the philosophy of technology,seeking a dialogue between engineering and philosophy.Empowerment involves both aspects,it is aspirational,and it also involves a philosophical analysis of engineering practice itself.In helping us understand engineering practices in a modern context in a new way,this issue has in particular the importance of other concepts that are hard to come by.The main purpose of this paper is to systematically analyze the empowerment under the theme of engineering,deconstruct the meaning,process and boundary of the empowerment mechanism,and construct a relatively complete representation.On the basis of relevant discourses,we will propose a definition of empowerment applicable to engineering practice:satisfy our comprehensive needs of capabilities in a series of human-technology-world relations,to motivate and promote our personal development(ie,our actions to improve our living conditions).Then,we will outline the overall framework of the empowerment mechanism,which is divided into four phases according to the order of action and relation change:design and creation,embedding and effect.transformation and integration,as well as the ultimate incentive and promotion.Then,we will explore the boundary of this empowerment mechanism and the possibility of its expansion.Finally,as a conclusion,we will point out that the empowerment mechanism of engineering practice is a kind of relational mechanism combining the empowerment by other with self-empowerment.It involves the reconstruction of a series of human-technology-world relations.It also involves the transformation and integration of relations in the course of our actions.