Sustainability and the engineering worldview

This paper explores what is included in the worldview of the modern engineer and how this compares to the concept of sustainability. Worldviews are important to humanity because they are interwoven throughout civilizations. Societies do not contain but one homogenous worldview, however, they do essentially contain a dominant worldview characterized by the collection of values, beliefs, habits, and norms. This dominant worldview forms the frame of reference for a collectivity of people, such as a nation or culture. In this paper, we attempt to articulate modern worldviews, the contemporary engineering worldview, and the sustainability worldview. We use the concept of worldviews to address the compatibility of sustainability and engineering. Our synthesis suggests that the two ideologies are misaligned and incompatible in many respects. We suggest that for sustainability to gain prominence within an engineering context, engineers and engineering educators must first become conscious of these inconsistencies. Through the philosophical synthesis presented in this paper, it is our goal to begin rethinking how we educate engineering students about engineering and sustainability.

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