Importance Of Mechanical Engineering

Philosophers such as Aristotle have described the importance of virtue within human life and how it affects not only people’s morality but their quality of life and success within society. Within the field of engineering there are many virtues needed for professionals to be successful. For mechanical engineers, the needed virtues come in forms of both character and thought and distinguish excellent engineers above others. Aristotle’s formulation of virtue ethics is closely tied to his definition of the terms eudaimonia and arête. Simply put, these terms mean happiness and virtue respectively. However, Aristotle had a deeper understanding for these terms. Aristotle considered eudaimonia to be the flourishing of a human being, which he believed

The intellectual virtues needed for a mechanical engineer’s success include, intellectual diversity, creativity, and mechanical intuition. While some engineering disciplines are able to function successfully by staying within their specialized realm of thought, this is not the case for mechanical engineers. Mechanical engineers are constantly working with issues outside of their specific discipline, as they must consider things like how mechanical properties effect electronic readings and controls and vice versa, and what chemicals are involved in certain processes and what materials they come into contact with. For reasons such as these, intellectual diversity is of great importance to mechanical engineers. Creativity is a much-needed virtue in the roles of modern mechanical engineers due to the longevity of the profession. Mechanical engineering is arguably the first discipline of engineering to gain importance in human society and as such there a few simple mechanical engineering problems that need to be solved. In order for a mechanical engineer to successfully address the technical problems of today, or to improve upon current technology, a great deal of creativity is needed so that new and innovative ideas can be formed. Lastly, and possibly most importantly, mechanical intuition is needed for a mechanical engineer to flourish. While an education in mechanical engineering may provide the skills needed to address mechanical problems, to do so in a particularly successful manner requires a certain degree of innate understanding of how things interact physically. It is this mechanical intuition that sets excellent mechanical engineers above others, as it cannot simply be