2021 Faculty Courses School of Engineering Department of Mechanical Engineering Graduate major in Nuclear Engineering

Nuclear Safety and Engineering Ethics

Academic unit or major: Graduate major in Nuclear Engineering
Instructor(s): Yukitaka Kato / Hiroshi Sagara / Kyoko Ooba / Atsufumi Yoshizawa / Ryota Matsui
Class Format: Lecture
Media-enhanced courses: -
Day of week/Period (Classrooms): 1-2 Tue
Class: -
Course Code: NCL.F401
Number of credits: 100
Course offered: 2021
Offered quarter: 2Q
Syllabus updated: Jul 10, 2025
Language: Japanese

Syllabus

Course overview and goals

This course is not limited to just the course component, but also focuses on why we learn and acquire ethics, which contributes to later improvements. Students learn about ethics necessary for research, development, and operations involved with nuclear power. By lecturing on ethical decision making, and what is needed for taking actions based on this decision making, and offering hypothetical and real examples in the research, development, and operations phases, students gain an understanding of the relationship nuclear power technology has with society, and learn how best to fulfill their responsibility as an actor in the nuclear power technology field.
Because this course promotes ethical behavior of scientists and engineers, we place important on offering not just an analog lecture format, but also group discussions among classmates and class discussions between instructor and students, providing students with the greatest possible time for thinking on their own.

Course description and aims

Students will acquire the following knowledge and skills from taking this course.
1) Understand from what values (ideas) nuclear power technology developed and expanded.
2) Understand ethical decision making methods and be able to implement them in real instances.
3) Understand the necessity and importance of having ethical values for oneself, and express in one's own words how to fulfill one's responsibility.

Keywords

Scientists ethics, Engineer ethics, Case studies, Risk-communication, out-reach activity, resilience engineering, safety culture

Competencies

Specialist skills
Intercultural skills
Communication skills
Critical thinking skills
Practical and/or problem-solving skills

Class flow

Held in a mix of lecture format and discussion format. Depending on the content, lecture format may dominate in one class, or discussion format in another, but overall 60% lecture format is planned.

Course schedule/Objectives

	Course schedule	Objectives
Class 1	Target of this class : Ethics in research development and safety culture	Understand the need for ethics view in R&D, safety culture, and security culture.
Class 2	Ethical decision for nuclear development: Society Code of Ethics, Seven-steps-guide Researches for nuclear bomb development and Ethics	Has strong ethical values and ethical decision making regarding nuclear power development. Understanding the difficulty of ethics from the case of atomic bomb development.
Class 3	Basics and theories of behavioral ethics	Understand the difference between traditional ethics (normative ethics) and behavioral ones.
Class 4	Nuclear power plant accidents / troubles and ethics	Can explain accidents and troubles at NPPs from an ethical point of view.
Class 5	Positive ethics and resilience engineering	Understand the basic ideas of positive ethics and resilience engineering.
Class 6	Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Accident and Resilience Engineering -Learning from the accident	Can explain what was learned from the accident at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant.
Class 7	Importance of outreach activities in nuclear technology Ethics as an improvement goal	Can explain importance of outreach activities in nuclear technology. Have the intention to improve the ethics.

Study advice (preparation and review)

To enhance effective learning, students are encouraged to spend approximately 100 minutes preparing for class and another 100 minutes reviewing class content afterwards (including assignments) for each class.
They should do so by referring to textbooks and other course material.

Textbook(s)

No. However, it is recommended to read related books published from academic societies.

Reference books, course materials, etc.

Hand out would be passed occasionally.

Evaluation methods and criteria

Evaluated based on short report (70%) in each lecture and the final report (30%).