Welcome to Ethics for Engineers!
6 UNITS: 1.082 2.900 6.904 10.01 16.676 22.014
9 UNITS: 20.005 (BE Restricted Elective)
12 UNITS: 6.9041 (EECS Independent Inquiry)
At MIT you’re learning a lot about how to engineer things.
Have you thought enough about why, and when, it’s good to do so?
Ethics for Engineers gives you a chance to explore the ethical principles by which an engineer ought to be guided.
It’s a course for everyone who will go out and modify the environment, human society or the human body. And for everyone who wants to live a good life.
- Sections meet once per week, and feature vigorous discussion and debate
- Weekly readings include both foundational texts in ethics and contemporary engineering case studies
- We offer four different versions of the course: Regular, AI Focus, BE Focus, and CS Focus
- Topics include Justice, Utility, Rights, Safety, AI, CRISPR, Bias, the Environment, and Human Flourishing
- Can be taken for 6 units, or 9 units (20.005), or 12 units (6.9041)
- There are short weekly writing assignments, no exams or papers (except in the 9 and 12 unit versions)
The schedule for Fall 2021 is as follows:
| Mondays 3-5 | AI version | Prof. Trout |
| Mondays 3-5 | BE version | Dr. Peter Hansen, Prof. Lauffenburger |
| Tuesdays 3-5 | Regular version | Dr. Peter Hansen |
| Wednesdays 3-5 | Regular version | Dr. Kathryn Hansen |
| Wednesdays 7-9 | Regular version | Dr. Peter Hansen |
Pictured above: Nikola Tesla, Aristotle, Chien-Shiung Wu, Mary Jackson, Martin Luther King, Jr., Barbara McClintock.
“I absolutely loved the course. It is the perfect blend of theory and practice, and I still regularly think about the ethical frameworks we learned in regards to my own life. The structure and content of the course both encourage productive ethical thoughts that will surely stay with you.” – Ryan Hennessey, EECS
“Ethics for Engineers has been one of my favorite classes at MIT. It introduced many different philosophies and different ways of looking at ethics and ethical dilemmas. It also helped students apply these and our own philosophies to modern day problems.” – Temi Omitoogun, EECS
“Ethics for Engineers is the type of class that every engineering student should take during their time at MIT. It integrates the problem-solving nature of engineering with different ethical frameworks in order to understand the impact of technical innovation across a variety of engineering disciplines.” – Olivia Lucchese, BE
“Scientists take all those things that can be analyzed by observation, and thus the things called science are found out. But there are some things left out, for which the method does not work. This does not mean that those things are unimportant. They are, in fact, in many ways the most important.” – Richard Feynman
“Technology is changing radically and it’s changing us. And we may be a bit overwhelmed right now. We didn’t pause and ask questions with the introduction of computers, or cell phones, or the internet. We simply adopted their use and adapted to them. We’re keeping up in the marketplace, but there’s a sense that we can’t stop it…As soon as you say it is ‘inevitable’ that is when we need to ask: Do we still have choices? And what have we given up to get to where we are?” – Rosalyn Berne