Professional Ethics and Social Responsibility: Military Work and Peacebuilding

The paper considers a number of important questions related to the involvement of engineers in peacebuilding and military work, including the preference of many countries for high tech weapons based security over peacebuilding, whether and in what circumstances, if any, it is justified for engineers to be involved in military work; and how engineers can persuade their colleagues to apply their skills to support peacebuilding. It is introduced by an overview of what is meant by the term military work and the extent and consequences of the use of military technology worldwide. This is followed by the applications of different approaches and theories of ethics to discuss the questions presented in the introduction. The approaches and theories applied include considerations of micro-and macro-ethics, codes of ethics, virtue ethics, considerations of gender and paradigms and the ethical imperative. Initial insights include the importance of considering the associated context and the need to avoid othering, which can make different treatment of minority groups, including the use of high tech weapons against them, seem acceptable