Abstract: The problem of many hands occurs if a collective takes moral responsibility for something， whereas none of the individuals making up the collective is morally responsible for it. It is quite difficult to pinpoint the moral responsibility in engineering practices， which is sometimes referred to as “the problem of many hands”. Its causes mainly lie in the plight of the reduction of moral responsibility in the engineering community (collective) and the plight of claiming the responsibility of individual actors in the engineering community (individuals). “Responsibility as a virtue” reflects the transformation from the external perspective of responsibility claiming to the internal perspective of responsibility assuming. The initiatives taken by the individuals and the engineering community for responsibility as a virtue may avoid the problem of many hands to a certain extent， thus surpassing the plight of moral responsibility distribution in the engineering community.

Key words: engineering community, moral responsibility, problem of many hands, responsibility as a virtue