I spent October juggling projects (many not my own), and found that I was returning to some fundamental questions that I left unanswered (or didn’t answer satisfactorily) at the start of the semester:

  • what difference do professional codes of ethics make if people don’t follow them
  • if people wanted to follow their professional codes, would they be free to do so?
  • (and, a classic) is ethical engineering even possible under a corrupt capitalist system?
Below is a list of books and articles I read this month.
Basart, J., & Serra, M. (2013). Engineering Ethics Beyond Engineers’ Ethics. Science and Engineering Ethics, 19(1), 179–187.
Brookfield, S. D. (2014). Foundations of Critical Theory. Advances in Developing Human Resources, 16(4), 417–428.
Callon, M. (1984). Some Elements of a Sociology of Translation: Domestication of the Scallops and the Fishermen of St Brieuc Bay. The Sociological Review, 32(1_suppl), 196–233.
Campbell, N. D. (2009). Reconstructing science and technology studies: Views from feminist standpoint theory. Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies, 30(1), 1–29.
Campbell, N. D., & Fonow, M. M. (2009). Introduction: Introducing Knowledge That Matters. Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies, 30(1), xi–xix.
Cohn, C. (1987). Sex and Death in the Rational World of Defense Intellectuals. Signs, 12(4), 687–718.
Cowan, R. S. (1976). The “Industrial Revolution” in the Home: Household Technology and Social Change in the 20th Century. Technology and Culture, 17(1), 20. https://doi.org/10.2307/3103251
Cussins, Charis Thompson. (1999). Confessions of a Bioterrorist: Subject Position and Reproductive Technologies. In Playing Dolly: Technocultural Formations, Fantasies, and Fictions (p. 30). Rutgers.
Jasanoff, S. (1990). American Exceptionalism and the Political Acknowledgment of Risk. Daedalus, 119(4), 61–81.
Jasanoff, S. (1998). The eye of everyman: Witnessing DNA in the Simpson trial. Social Studies of Science, 28(5–6), 713–740.
Johnson, D. G. (1989). The social/professional responsibility of engineers. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 577(1), 106–114.
Levins, R. (2000). Is Capitalism a Disease? The Crisis in U.S. Public Health. (cover story). Monthly Review: An Independent Socialist Magazine, 52(4), 8.
Levins, R., & Lewonton, R. (1985). The Commoditization of Science. In The dialectical biologist (pp. 100–116). Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Mahmod, M., Yusof, S. A. M., & Dahalin, Z. M. (2010). Women contributions to open source software innovation: A social constructivist perspective. In 2010 International Symposium on Information Technology (Vol. 3, pp. 1433–1438). https://doi.org/10.1109/ITSIM.2010.5561496
Martin, M. (2006). Moral creativity in science and engineering. Science and Engineering Ethics, 12(3), 421–433.
Ottinger, G. (2013). Refining expertise how responsible engineers subvert environmental justice challenges. New York: New York University Press.
Pecujlija, M., Cosic, I., Nesic-Grubic, L., & Drobnjak, S. (2015). Corruption: Engineers are Victims, Perpetrators or Both? Science and Engineering Ethics, 21(4), 907–923. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-014-9569-1
Pesch, U. (2015). Engineers and Active Responsibility. Science and Engineering Ethics, 21(4), 925–939. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-014-9571-7
Porter, T. (1996). U.S. Army Engineers and the Rise of Cost-Benefit Analysis. In Trust in Numbers: The Pursuit of Objectivity in Science and Public Life. PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY: Princeton University Press.
Software engineering code of ethics and professional practice. (2001). Science and Engineering Ethics, 7(2), 231–238. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-001-0044-4

One of the things I love most about working hard is tracking how hard I'm working. Total number of pages (including only the content above that contained page number data) read this month: 210.