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Tim,

I am aware of what others are doing and I do not intend to trivialize ethics. I am only focused on whether a study in esthetics would do a better job, e.g: if people understood (experienced, studied, etc.) beauty (set aside the fact that such an issue could be subjective), they would be more inclined to act ethically (even though that coudl be subjective, too).

And please do not begin with "really." That sounds dismissive and sarcastic and makes me want to delte the post and go away. I want to understand how to improve the ethical training of engineers, beyond what I see currently done (which, to me, does not seem to be working)

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OK, now that is exactly the point and what I am trying to understand.

First, on one level: did Aristotle address this? (Yes, I am aware that some dismiss him, and there are others, but did he?)

Second, would it be better to just encourage engineers to appreciate beauty and, in the process, hope/expect, they would act in a good way?

Again, I am NOT a philosopher....

But your comment made the point: "Does beauty run alongside the good? Is the good the ethical? The bad unethical? By what criteria?"

I would love an elaboration on that, and maybe which philosopher to reference so that I can look it up, later. Right now, I just need grasp on the issue. Right now, I think we are failing to teach engineers, ethics. Or, to put it another way, the current classes amount to discussions at the level of "What would Jesus do?" And I don't think that is working.

(If you do respond, I am off the net. I live in Europe now and am going to bed. Later.)

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Hello I'm currently a senior mechanical engineering student. This thread interested me because I have my own gripes about the ethics courses. Maybe we can discuss particular topics from the perspective of the teacher and the student.

The short answer to your first question seems to be yes, based on this reading here:

MILLIKEN, J. Aristotle’s Aesthetic Ethics. Southern Journal of Philosophy, [s. l.], v. 44, n. 2, p. 319–339, 2006. DOI 10.1111/j.2041-6962.2006.tb00104.x. Disponível em: https://search-ebscohost-com.libaccess.sjlibrary.org/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=21698483&site=ehost-live&scope=site . Acesso em: 17 mar. 2021.

I haven't read the entire thing, but it seems that Aristotle believed that moral excellence has a sense of beauty much like beautiful music. Not exactly artistic beauty, but like how an athlete may inspire a sense of beauty through an excellent performance, a virtuous person doing the morally righteous can as well. Asking on r/philosophy on reddit might be more helpful for research inquires like this.

My kneejerk reaction to this proposal of ethics is that, I intuitively see it be accompanied by a realization of disgust for the ugly. I have concerns for it because I believe the reaction of people for disgust is eradication, as opposed to something like avoidance for fear. Hitler, as notorious a germaphobe can get, attempted to eradicate the people who drew about this sense of disgust. Note that I'm definitely not an expert on the life of Hitler. With that said, my understanding is that he believed, perhaps in with a similar aesthetic ethics approach, that genocide of the Jewish people, who he believed were inherently evil, was the righteous course of action.

Not to understate the importance of ethics, I believe ethics doesn't really have a place in Engineering or the sciences for that matter, at least without addressing its relation to the philosophy of science. To my knowledge, the philosophy of science primarily deals with how knowledge is gained and analyzed, and rarely concerns itself with ethics. If they do, it's usually in a collision between the two, for example about unethical behavior in order to further scientific knowledge. I see Engineering as the application of science to create, and so Engineering also has an innate problem when trying to incorporate ethics. If I were a teacher, I would consider separating the ethics from engineering, and just try to challenge all students to be able to critically think for themselves what might be "good or bad."

I am aware of what others are doing and I do not intend to trivialize ethics. I am only focused on whether a study in esthetics would do a better job, e.g: if people understood (experienced, studied, etc.) beauty (set aside the fact that such an issue could be subjective), they would be more inclined to act ethically (even though that coudl be subjective, too). — ThomasJ

It's a very interesting question. It could be argued that every profession would benefit from lessons in aesthetics and ethics. These are often seen as part of every well rounded education. The challenge from my perspective would be where to start and how to tailor it to engage students who are not necessarily interested in these matters to begin with. Someone at the faculty needs to identify what these subjects could add to the worldview of an engineer and how it could be made to relate to the subject more broadly. I think this requires a specialized assessment for cultural fit and development of an appropriate model of delivery.

Thank you, everyone, for your advice, thoughts, words, references, etc.

This has given me a lot of information, and I will now spend time reflecting on this.

This was exactly what I was looking for. I do not know how this will evolve into a proposal, but it will.

(And even though we got off on the wrong foot, Tim, you gave me valuable advice.)