4E cognition, moral imagination, and engineering ethics education: shaping affordances for diverse embodied perspectives
Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences May 27, 2024 Janna van Grunsven, Lavinia Marin, A. Gammon et al.
A 4E-inspired ethics exercise at a technical university used a tinkering workshop where engineering students redesigned a healthcare artifact to develop two types of moral imagination: world-directed (reimagining affordances through material choices) and person-directed (empathetically placing oneself in users' embodied perspectives). Student testimonies indicated both types were enlivened, but fostering robust person-directed imagination proved challenging. Engaging with a critique by Clavel Vázquez and Clavel-Vázquez (2023) that person-directed moral imagination is limited in contexts of embodied difference, and drawing on 4E insights and critical disability studies, the authors argue this critique goes too far. They conclude a 4E approach can incorporate such warnings while positively contributing to engineering ethics education.