Ethics in Engineering

What is engineering ethics?

Engineering ethics is a set of moral principles and professional standards that guide the behavior of
engineers in their practice. It involves making decisions that prioritize public safety, health, and welfare
while adhering to values like honesty, integrity, fairness, and accountability. Engineering ethics also
requires engineers to work within their areas of expertise, avoid conflicts of interest, respect confidentiality,
and promote sustainable development. These ethical guidelines ensure that engineers contribute to society
responsibly and uphold the profession's reputation.
How Ethics fits into Engineering?
Decisions made by engineers usually have serious consequences to people. Ethics and ethical reasoning
guide decision-making.
Engineers…

• Build products such as cell phones, home appliances, heart valves, bridges and cars. In general they
advance society by building new technology.
• Develop processes such as converting salt water into fresh water and recycling bottles. These
processes change how we live and what we can accomplish.
Products and processes have consequences for society:

• If the bridge has an inadequate support , it will fail.

• If the gas tank is positioned to close to the bumpers, there is a possibility of explosion.
• If the process for refining gas produces too much toxings it harms the local community.
• If the medical instruments isn’t accurate improper doses of medication can by given.
Reasoning:
The reasoning focuses on finding the best or at least the reasonably better means for obtaining certain goals,
such as health, safety and biodiversity.
This type of reasoning is often called:
1. Practical Reasoning: It uses different methods from maths and science
2. Ethical Reasoning: It is a type of practical reasoning that concerns certain societal or life form
goals: such as justice, equality, freedom, health and safety.
Typical, ethical issues that engineers encounter:

1. Safety 8. Conflict of interest(when their personal

2. Acceptable risk interests or relationships compromise their
3. Accounting for uncertainty ability to make objective and impartial
4. Compliance decisions in their professional work)
5. Confidentiality 9. Data integrity
6. Fairness 10. Honesty/ Dishonesty
7. Environmental health 11. Societal impact
Two dimensions of ethics in Engineering:
Ethics is a part of engineering for 2 main reasons:
1. Engineers need to be socially responsible when building products and processes for society
2. Social responsibility requires professional responsibility
Social Responsibility
1. One main connection between ethics and engineering comes form the impact that engineered
products and processes have on society
2. Engineers have to think about designing, building and marketing products that benefit society.
3. Social responsibility requires taking into consideration the needs of society.
Professional responsibility:
Engineers must only provide services in their areas of expertise; they must establish their professional
reputations via the quality of their work, and they must not engage in unfair competition with other
professionals.
1. Ethics has a second connection with engineering
2. It comes from the way in which being socially responsible puts duties and obligations on us
individually
3. Ethics fits into engineering through professional responsibility

Role responsibilities :
There should be a distinction between two ways in which ethics can be applied in one’s life.
The two ways ethical issues can apply to one’s life are based on role-responsibilities. Role-responsibilities
are responsibilities that attach to us in virtue of a role that we have. Each of us has different roles that we
play in our life..
-Engineering student
-Friend
-Citizen
-Employee
 The Engineering Code of Ethics
The National Society of Professional Engineers(NSPE) is the group of engineers all around the world
responsible for setting the standards of conduct that engineers are expected to follow. The organization
outlines six core principles in its code. The code of professional ethics and responsibilities for engineers
was reviewed to assess its benefits, drawbacks, and potential unintended consequences. One of the key
strengths of the code is the detailed guidance it provides, highlighting the importance of engineers’ services
and the behavior expected from them, given their critical role. The code emphasizes that an engineer’s work
is essential to society’s well-being and extends beyond typical job duties. Ethical engineering practices
should be adopted by all engineering organizations to ensure that failure is always avoided.
It has 3 components. They are
1. The Fundamental Canons: Which articulate the basic components of ethical engineers
2. The Rules of Practice: Which clarify and specify in detail the fundamental canons of ethics in
engineering.
3. Professional obligations: which elaborate the obligations that engineers have.

I. Fundamental Canons
Engineers, in the fulfillment of their professional duties, shall:
1. Hold paramount the safety, health, and welfare of the public.
2. Perform services only in areas of their competence.
3. Issue public statements only in an objective and truthful manner.
4. Act for each employer or client as faithful agents or trustees.
5. Avoid deceptive acts.
6. Conduct themselves honorably, responsibly, ethically, and lawfully so as to enhance the honor,
reputation and usefulness of the profession.

II. Rules of Practice

1. Engineers shall hold paramount the safety, health, and welfare of the public.
2. Engineers shall perform services only in the areas of their competence.
3. Engineers shall issue public statements only in an objective and truthful manner.
4. Engineers shall act for each employer or client as faithful agents or trustees.
5. Engineers shall avoid deceptive acts.
III. Professional Obligations
1. Engineers shall be guided in all their relations by the highest standards of honesty and integrity.
2. Engineers shall at all times strive to serve the public interest
3. Engineers shall avoid all conduct or practice that deceives the public.
4. Engineers shall not disclose, without consent, confidential information concerning the business affairs
or technical processes of any present or former client or employer, or public body on which they serve.
5. Engineers shall not be influenced in their professional duties by conflicting interests.\
6. Engineers shall not attempt to obtain employment or advancement or professional engagements by
untruthfully criticizing other engineers, or by other improper or questionable methods.
7. Engineers shall not attempt to injure, maliciously or falsely, directly or indirectly, the professional
reputation, prospects, practice, or employment of other engineers. Engineers who believe others are
guilty of unethical or illegal practice shall present such information to the proper authority for action.
8. Engineers shall accept personal responsibility for their professional activities, provided, however, that
engineers may seek indemnification for services arising out of their practice for other than gross
negligence, where the engineer’s interests cannot otherwise be protected.
9. Engineers shall give credit for engineering work to those to whom credit is due, and will recognize the
proprietary interests of others.

Important notes about the code of ethics:

1. It is not a legally binding document
2. It is not something we want engineers to memorize
3. It is something we want engineers to understand and be able to live by as engineers.
4. However, knowing the code is a guide to understanding how to apply it.
Law vs Morality:

• Legal and Moral: Designing a system to be safe

• Legal and Immoral: Owning a slave pre-civil war in the US
• Illegal and Moral: Parking in a no parking zone to come to the aid of an injured person
• Illegal and immoral: killing an innocent person.
 Practicing ethics as an engineering student
Students should have a code of ethics too. Each student should:
1. Know the rules that preserve academic integrity and abide by them at all times. This includes
learning and ability by rules associated with specific classes, exams and course assignments
2. Know the consequences of violating the academic integrity policy
3. Know the rights and procedures to be followed in the event of an appeal
4. Foster academic integrity among peers (means encouraging and promoting honesty, ethical
behavior, and fairness in academic settings among fellow students or colleagues. It involves
supporting practices like proper citation, avoiding cheating or plagiarism, and ensuring that
everyone upholds high moral standards in their academic work. The goal is to create an
environment of trust and respect for intellectual efforts)

Cheating:
At university, cheating is the act of obtaining or attempting to obtain credit for academic work, through the
use of dishonest, deceptive an fraudulent means.

Why is cheating wrong?

1. Cheating undermines the work of fellow student who are hones:
• When anyone cheats, all other student who didn’t cheat are penalized
• They end-up getting lower grades. As a consequence, they loose out on scholarships and
recommendations.

2. Cheating undermines the credibility of the university and the degree it awards:
• If too many people cheat, then the degrees won’t certify that its students are competent
• So by cheating, one not only hurt themselves but also others.
Types of cheating:
1. Copying:
• Copying someone’s work on a homework assignment, exam or paper.
• Submitting someone's work as your own
2. Multiple submissions:
• Submitting your own work from one class to another class or
• Submitting one piece of work to two distinct classes
• A paper for one class is not a paper for another class
3. Unauthorized sources:
• Using sources that one is not allowed to use deemed by the instructor or the university as
a whole such as solution manuals.
• Text message from a fried with the answer to a question on the exam

4. Surrogate:
• When someone else either does your homework, take an exam for your or write your paper.
 • Doing someone’s work for them
5. Altering grades:
• Altering your grade in any way
• If you are given C on your homework, paper or exam and then you change it to a B+ by
some means, then you have cheated.

Cheating vs team work:

• Working on a team for an assignment project is not cheating.
• However failing to do your assigned task on a team project is a form of cheating. It is
called free riding. Which is benefiting from the work of others without doing any work of
your own.
• Teamwork is important in engineering but free-riding is wrong. Since, everyone is doing
the work and nothing is getting done by you.