[npunt]

I agree that most ethics courses aren't well done and scream 'mandatory training' rather than 'interesting subject'. The required two week one I took at Stanford GSB was pretty weak, despite business ethics being extremely important. I think they've made it better since I took it; it was a sideshow when it should have been much more central to the business curriculum.

Pedagogically, going purely book- and reading-based like most courses is a bad idea, as that can't capture the paradoxes and nuances involved in ethical decision making. I think the field would benefit from more decision-oriented approaches including a review of past ethical dilemmas perhaps as case studies, more embodied/situated formats like simulations, and practical advice on how to identify and/or avoid getting into ethically compromised situations in the first place. But you do need to couple those with the foundational frameworks that you'd use in those situations, and ideally contextualization with much broader ideas like the social contract in society.

Ethics guidelines from professional engineering societies can help with some amount of ongoing ethical awareness, but I do think it has to start in the formal education system.