Philosophers concerned with ethics have long been intrigued by the ways in which societies differ. More recently, these differences have raised insistent questions for teachers of applied ethics and for professionals practicing outside their own countries. It is therefore surprising that those of us working in applied ethics have focused largely on social practices in our own society, relying on reports of anthropologists and abstract analysis for dealing with the hard questions raised by evident differences between societies.

Events at the Center over the last year or two suggest we are beginning to realize the gains from more direct acquaintance. We have had a marked increase in visits from foreign specialists, including visitors from the Soviet Union, the Netherlands, France, Hungary, Yugoslavia, and Bulgaria. Interchange in discussion focuses not only on similarities and differences in our practices but on how to use our (and other US) publications and teaching materials in settings abroad. Upon his return home, our French visitor reported a lively response in his engineering school to the DC-10 case written by Fay Sawyier. That case was produced for our first engineering ethics course. Evidently it crossed cultures with no difficulty. This experience suggests that we stand to learn something about relativism from experience abroad using teaching materials generated in the US.

CSEP's Information Researcher Librarian, Dr. Sohair Elbaz, is collaborating with scholars in this country on projects with international dimensions and is collecting codes of ethics of organizations from around the world. She is eager to build an internationally comprehensive collection of codes of ethics.

Dr. Elbaz also recently completed a select bibliography for the National Society of Professional Engineers' National Institute on Engineering Ethics (NIEE). The bibliography, including a list of resources for teaching engineering ethics, will soon be made available by NIEE-in addition to NIEE's film for teaching, Gilbane Gold.

NIEE is itself now looking toward a project with international dimensions. The idea is to organize a conference to include engineers from professional societies outside the U.S. in order to begin discussion about norms of practice. It is becoming evident to many that perhaps the best response to relativist worries about fundamental cleavages in ethics across different societies is to open discussion that crosses the boundaries between societies.

If there is another trend at CSEP to report, it is the increasing involvement with science and technology studies, especially with the inauguration of IIT's own Science and Technology in Context (STX) undergraduate major. One product was a symposium at the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in February in New Orleans on "The Cold Fusion Case: Ethics and Politics of Scientific Competition:" Organized by CSEP's Director, Vivian Weil, and Steering Committee member, Ullica Segerstrale, the program also included Thomas Erber, IIT physicist, Ernan McMullin, a philosopher at the University of Notre Dame, and Thomas Gieryn, a sociologist at Indiana University. Spotlighting scientists' involvement with the press, with university patenting, and with appeals for government funding and providing background on earlier comparable controversies, the symposium attracted an overflow audience and coverage in several periodicals, including Britain's Nature.

The 1989-1990 GTE lecture series at IIT, arranged by CSEP Steering Committee member, Tom Miss, bridged ethics and science and technology studies and included an international dimension. The roster of lecturers was made up of Wiebe Bijker, Deborah Johnson, and Stewart Oakley, and talks were titled respectively, "Morals, Machines, and Medicine," "Computers and Ethics," and "Engineering in Latin America and the United States: The Issue of Appropriate Technology."

Issues about integrity and misconduct in science continued to receive attention from CSEP's Senior Research Associate Michael Davis, Steering Committee member Warren Schmaus, and Ullica Segerstrale. They made presentations in a symposium at the Society for the Social Studies of Science meeting in November at the University of California at Irvine, and articles by each of them stemming from these or other presentations are being published. These will be available through CSEP's Publication List.

Finally, literally at the Center now is a substantial addition to the holdings in the library as a result of two generous gifts. James D. Doheny of Brookfield, Illinois donated to the library his nearly complete collection of Technology and Culture. Missing are only a few of the earliest issues. William Crawford, a member of CSEP's Advisory Board and a generous supporter, made a gift to allow the building up of CSEP's library resources to support the teaching of ethics across the curriculum.

CSEP has also acquired a modest stock of monographs it produced known as EXXON Modules and published by Kendall/Hunt for CSEP The volumes in this stock are available at a 10% discount. The titles and prices appear below.

Whistleblowing: Ethical and Legal Issues in Expressing Dissent, James C. Petersen, Dan Farrell,
$5.25, ISBN 8403-3945-8

Risk-Benefit Analysis in Decisions Concerning Public Safety and Health, Mark Sagoff, $5.25, ISBN 0-8403-3600-4

Conflicts of Interest in Engineering, Paula Wells, Hardy Jones, Michael Davis, $5.95, ISBN 0-8403-3944-5

The Moral Status of Loyalty, Marcia Baron, $5.25, ISBN 0-8403-3423-2

Technology Assessment: A Historical Approach, Rondo Cameron, A.J. Millard, $5.25, ISBN 0-8403-3730-2

Professional Responsibility for Harmful Actions, Martin Curd, Larry May, $5.95, ISBN 0-8403-3335-8

Please note, deduct 10% from prices listed and add $1.00 for handling.

The Center for the Study of Ethics in the Professions at the Illinois Institute of Technology was established in 1976 for the purpose of promoting education and scholarship relating to ethical and policy issues of the professions.

Editor: Michael Davis
Staff: Jason Orloff
Editorial Board: Thomas Callero, Martin Malin, Ullica Segerstrale, Vivian Weil

Opinions expressed in Perspectives on the Professions are those of the authors, and not necesarily those of the Center for the Study of Ethics in the Professions or the Illinois Institute of Technology. Center for the Study of Ethics in the Professions, Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, IL 60616-3793, Phone: 312-567-3017.