What Do We Mean When We Write About Ethics, Equity, and Justice in Engineering Design?
Name
v006t06a036-detc2022-87373.pdf
Description
Published version
Size
1.43 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
283658c7440683dac3d13888981664f5
Author(s)
Das, Madhurima
Roeder, Gillian
Ostrowski, Anastasia K
Yang, Maria C
Verma, Aditi
Date Issued
August 14, 2022
Journal
Volume 6: 34th International Conference on Design Theory and Methodology (DTM)
Publisher
American Society of Mechanical Engineers
Citation
Das, Madhurima, Roeder, Gillian, Ostrowski, Anastasia K, Yang, Maria C and Verma, Aditi. 2022. "What Do We Mean When We Write About Ethics, Equity, and Justice in Engineering Design?." Volume 6: 34th International Conference on Design Theory and Methodology (DTM).
Version
Final published version
Abstract
Abstract
Engineering design often requires engaging with users, clients, and stakeholders of products and systems. It is therefore important for designers to reflect on the societal and environmental implications of their design work so that they can design equitably, ethically, and justly. We conduct a review of three leading scholarly engineering design venues to investigate how, when, and why these terms — “ethics,” “equity,” and “justice,” and variations — appear in the engineering design literature and what scholars mean when they use them. We find that these terms are minimally present within the field’s scholarship and posit that design researchers may be using other terms to refer to their work that is aligned with principles of ethics, equity, and justice. We find that the prevalence of these terms has increased over time and that the terms come up throughout various stages of the design process. There appear to be a variety of motivations for including these terms, notably, sustainability and education of the next generation of designers. Finally, we propose an expanded design justice framework that is specific to engineering design. We encourage designers in our field to adopt this framework to assist them in thinking through how their engineering design work can be used to advance justice.
Engineering design often requires engaging with users, clients, and stakeholders of products and systems. It is therefore important for designers to reflect on the societal and environmental implications of their design work so that they can design equitably, ethically, and justly. We conduct a review of three leading scholarly engineering design venues to investigate how, when, and why these terms — “ethics,” “equity,” and “justice,” and variations — appear in the engineering design literature and what scholars mean when they use them. We find that these terms are minimally present within the field’s scholarship and posit that design researchers may be using other terms to refer to their work that is aligned with principles of ethics, equity, and justice. We find that the prevalence of these terms has increased over time and that the terms come up throughout various stages of the design process. There appear to be a variety of motivations for including these terms, notably, sustainability and education of the next generation of designers. Finally, we propose an expanded design justice framework that is specific to engineering design. We encourage designers in our field to adopt this framework to assist them in thinking through how their engineering design work can be used to advance justice.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering
Terms of Use
Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use.
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1115/detc2022-87373
