I welcome July Morning festival appropriately: my new book is published and I receive the copies today. It is small, but full of experience and new information on applied ethics in universities around the world.
Not easy in a conservative system such as education and university as the Technical University – Sofia to develop new courses in humanities. But it is not impossible! It’s a challenge to use the common cliché.
APPLIED ETHICS IN HIGHER EDUCATION
Lessons and Perspectives of 30 Years Teaching Experience in Bulgaria
The book summarizes the experience of introducing and teaching applied ethics in Bulgarian universities over the last three decades. The transformations, achievements and problems in the development of applied ethics are considered. The basis for sharing the experience is mainly what was done at the Technical University – Sofia. Precise details about the history and stages in the process of academic validation of ethical courses in Bulgarian University are proposed. The difficulties in establishing the applied ethical disciplines are analyzed. Emphasis is placed on some of them in detail, i.e. Administrative Ethics and Professional Ethics for Engineers, and Cross-cultural Business Ethics. The same is done with others, such as Management Ethics, Bioethics, and Business Ethics which are more widely known to the ethical community through other publications.
А critical reflection and ethical analysis of the new code of conduct for civil servants adopted in April 2020 is proposed in this book. The author defends applied ethics as an appropriate choice in a pragmatic and digital environment to maintain the general culture of students. It is a good decision for them still on the student bench to perceive ethics of the future profession as an essential component of it. The book provides new information and shares a unique experience – personal and institutional – of how it is possible to achieve this creatively. Finally, specific ideas for the development of applied ethics are proposed, including the introduction of a new course in Academic Ethics (Ethics of Science or Ethics of Scientific Publishing).