What is the point of Ethics classes? Do they actually make people more ethical (and if so, is it ethical brain wash people?), or are they mostly used to pad out classes so that the philosophy department also gets some money?
I took an ethics class in college taught by the computer science department. It definitely wasn't an ethical indoctrination, as much of "here is what ethics is, here are the basic frameworks, and here's why it matters to programming."
It was more so that we all understood that the people who used the fruits of our labor were trusting our knowledge of engineering with their own lives, in the hopes of preventing tragedies such as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therac-25
but yes if you failed the class, you didn't get the degree
They teach and discuss what ethics are, to me it was an invaluable series of courses (psychology in general). As was Critical Thinking and Journalism. I highly recommend them all.
