Ethical and legal issues related to emerging technologies: reconsidering faculty roles and technical curricula in a new environment

Abstract

As emerging technologies are integrated into university courses and curricula, it is important for faculty to monitor and reflect upon the ethical and legal challenges that accompany these technologies and the new environments they help create. Contemporary epistemology has altered our conception of language, bringing about recognition of a moral imperative-that communication in technical and professional settings constitutes more than an instrumental act, that it carries with it an obligation to recognize and respond to ethical controversy. This paper examines how we shall become more morally engaged in communication instruction. Analysis reveals three barriers inherent to our academic identities that impinge upon our potential to become morally engaged as faculty. Furthermore, we can develop technical curricula to prepare out graduates to create and fill a wider spectrum of professional roles. While not unrealistically downplaying the importance of traditional technical skills, such a curricula should create technically competent communicators to act as "agents of improvement" who decrease the "insulation of expertise" from the public "lifeworld".