Analysis Of Aristotle's The Nicomachean Ethics

Engineering and ethics; two things that go hand in hand and is the main focus of our course. For where would we be without ethics in engineering? Engineers do what they can to uphold the high reputation of being an engineer. They do this by acting in an ethical manner in accordance with certain regulations and what they believe the right thing to do is. But how is an engineer to know what is right and what is wrong? For that he or she can look to many resources, but in particular an engineer can look to Aristotle for guidance. Despite living back when the basics of engineering were still being discovered, the teachings of Aristotle are still very much applicable to this day. In Aristotle’s “The Nicomachean Ethics”, we get a good sense of how …show more content…
These two particular ones are great when talking about personal experience, but a little bit harder to apply to engineering in the Aristotelian sense. Yes, an engineer can be courageous, but not in the way Aristotle intended in his definition of it. According to “The Nicomachean Ethics”, courage deals with the sphere of fear and confidence. More specifically, it deals with fear and confidence in the face of mortal danger. A career in engineering comes with some onsite risks, however despite the amount of trepidation you have for your boss, you won’t be in any true danger. The same goes for temperance. A job as an engineer can have its enjoyable moments, but again not the kind of enjoyment that Aristotle had in mind. No, in order to apply Aristotle’s virtues to engineering we have be more introspective and look at a virtue that deals with …show more content…
There is such a thing as being too honest and we call those who exhibit this characteristic a blabbermouth. Telling the truth is a good thing, but it is only good to an extent. There are certain things that are best kept a secret and that do more harm than good by revealing those secrets. For an engineer, these secrets are usually the trade secrets of the company. Going back to the code, we see this in one of the sections where it expresses, “Engineers shall not disclose, without consent, confidential information concerning the business affairs or technical processes of any present or former client or employer, or public body on which they serve”. As it is shown here, trust is given to the engineer to not be entirely willing to disclose trade secrets. In other words, to not be a