女性主义视野下的艾滋病与技术乐观论——科技发展不能代替社会责任

自从1981年发现世界第一个艾滋病人以来,艾滋病对人类的危害越来越严重。产生这种情况的原因除了一般的社会因素之外,还有一个重要的因素就是人类所持的技术乐观主义的观点,使得人们认为艾滋病在很短的时期内就可以得到有效的解决。这种对于技术的过于乐观对有效控制艾滋病产生的影响并不好,人类需要重新审视自己应对艾滋病的态度。女性主义视野的介入给我们提供了一种新的认识艾滋病的角度,更有利于在解决问题中的正确定位。     

Responsible engineering: Gilbane Gold revisited

This paper addresses several concerns in teaching engineering ethics. First, there is the problem of finding space within already crowded engineering curricula for meaningful discussions of ethical dimensions in engineering. Some engineering programs may offer entire courses on engineering ethics; however, most do not at present and may not in the foreseeable future. A promising possibility is to weave ethics into already existing courses using case studies, but most current case studies are not well integrated with engineering technical analysis. There is a danger that case studies will be viewed by both instructors and students as departures from “business as usual”—interesting perhaps, but not essentially connected with “real” engineering. We offer a case study, inspired by the National Society of Professional Engineer’s popular video Gilbane Gold, that can be used to make the connection. It requires students to engage in technical analysis, but in a context that makes apparent the ethical responsibility of engineers. Further, the case we present marks a significant departure from more typical cases that primarily focus on wrongdoing and its prevention. We concentrate more positively on what responsible engineering requires. There is a need for more such cases, regardless of whether they are to be used in standard engineering courses or in separate courses in engineering ethics. This article is the product of the NSF/Bovay Endowment “Workshop to Develop Numerical Problems Associated With Ethics Cases for use in Required Undergraduate Engineering Courses” (NSF Grant DUE-9455141) held at Texas A&M University in August 1995. For further information about this project, contact Michael J. Rabins, Director of the Ethics and Professionalism Program in the Look College of Engineering at Texas A&M University. Additional case studies from this workshop are available on the Internet site http://ethics.tamu.edu. The writing of this article was supported in part by “Engineering Ethics: Good Works” (NSF/EVS Grant SBR-930257). Michael Pritchard teaches ethics and is co-author of Engineering Ethics: Concepts and Cases (1995) with C.E. Harris and Michael Rabins (Wadsworth, Belmont CA). Mark Holtzapple teaches chemical engineering and is author of Foundations of Engineering (McGraw-Hill) which includes an ethics chapter suitable for freshman engineering students.     

The end of theoretical orientations?

Theoretical orientation is the most pervasive organizing device in psychology. Ideas, books, people, therapies, and other salient matters are frequently classified into psychodynamic, behavioral, humanistic, cognitive, or other orientation categories. The continued prominence of theoretical-orientation classification belies a breakdown in its applicability to contemporary psychology. Psychotherapy remains a stronghold. However, with internal and external forces endorsing particular approaches, theoretically-based practices will be forced to yield to evidence-based ones. The final dismantling of traditional theoretical categories by evidence-based practice standards paradoxically provides a hopeful impetus to otherwise arrested theoretical development. Manifest avowed theoretical orientation is distinguished from a latent theoretical-orientation construct, and the ways a new kind of meta-theory of therapy will reduce the naivete and increase the applicability of clinical research is discussed.