| What is engineering with the addition of what is the meaning and value of engineering constitute two basic philosophical questions of engineering.The question of what engineering is is an inquiry into the essence of engineering and the fundamental view of it.It urges people to see the essence of engineering through it’s phenomenon.This is so called the concept of engineering.The concept of engineering affects people’s attitude towards engineering,cognitive assessment of engineering risk and allocation of engineering responsibility.in order to highlight the unpredictability of the engineering process,the uncertainty of the final result and the learning in engineering,American philosopher Mike W.Martin proposed the view that "engineering is a social experiment".This paper tries to interpret it from three aspects: the experimental nature of engineering,the sociality and the nature of engineering experiment.The uncertainty of engineering,the incompleteness and innovation of knowledge all contain subtly the engineering risk.The existence of engineering risk means that engineering is a social experiment.The place of engineering experiment is society,and the object of experiment involves the whole human society and the natural world.The subject of the engineering experiment is a highly socialized person.The whole process of the experiment requires participation and influence of human beings.The outcomes of this experiment greatly impact the survival and development of human society.Due to engineering,as a social experiment,is different from the traditional standard laboratory experiment.So there might emerge some problems with respect to power issues concerning the impact of the engineering on the power and interests of the public,social equity problem of how to distribute the engineering benefits and risks,who should assume the responsibility for the among engineering activities and environmental ethics of the impact of engineering on the environment.In order to deal with these ethical issues,it is necessary to have certain ethical principles and norms.The responsibility ethics is a kind of future-oriented overall ethics.Based on the principles of responsibility for the future of human beings and responsibility for nature,it puts forward four ethical norms of responsibility: informed consent,shared responsibility,justice and equity,sustainable development. |
