Directing engineering ethics training toward practical effectiveness

•The model of practical effectiveness includes three components: Interpretation, Operation and Dialogue.•“Interpretation” is to relate ethical principles to particular situations in engineering practice.•“Operation” is to connect moral norms with the particular operations in engineering practice.•Neither the “interpretation” nor the “operation” could be a “monologic” activity, and both of them are required to be conducted in the effective “dialogue”.•It is a vision-enlarging process from Interpretation through Operation to Dialogue.

Engineering ethics tends to conceive itself as a form of professional ethics. Recently it has been challenged to become broader and more practically effective. By analysing and reflecting on this challenge and drawing on resources from the fields of Western philosophy of technology and STS, this article proposes a model of practical effectiveness with interpretation, operation, and dialogue in engineering ethics education.