ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how Confucian ethical values can provide a different approach to understanding contemporary engineering practice and professional education in an increasingly globalized context. More specifically, the author suggests that, compared to the Western “instrumentalist” approaches to engineering education that focus on teaching practical problem-solving knowledge and skills, the Confucian approach places more emphasis on the ontological aspect of professional education (or, the theory of being that concerns questions such as who the engineering students are becoming in the learning process). Accordingly, Confucian engineering ethics views professional education as a lifelong character-building and moral refinement process. In this chapter, he also introduces the Confucian approach to ethics education, i.e., “self-cultivation”, and its application in engineering practice, and then discusses how the Confucian model of moral development can be employed to characterize the professional formation of engineers.
