CONSENSUS & CONTROVERSY

Exercise of Moral Autonomy – No assurance of arriving

at same verdict of truths.

Tolerance is needed for disagreement among autonomous,

reasonable and responsible men

Need for authority – to form a uniform order

Need for some consensus concerning the role of authority

is to be clearly understood.
CONSENSUS & CONTROVERSY

Moral autonomy and respect for authority are not incompatible –

they are compatible.

Moral autonomy works on :
 Moral concern for other people
 Recognition of good moral reasons
 Faith in most people’s capacity
 Moral reasonableness

Authority provides Frame-work in which learning can take place.

CONSENSUS & CONTROVERSY

Authority should not compel the professionals

Without consensus there are no orderly ways

Controversy results in damage of Trust & Respect

Rules of the job to be openly discussed

Conflicts between authority and autonomy arise when

authority is abused.
 COLLEGIALITY

It is a relationship between colleagues.

It is shared power and authority vested among colleagues

It is a form of social organization based on shared and equal

participation of all its members.

It is a kind of connectedness rooted in respect for professional

expertise and in a commitment to the goals and values of the

profession.
It is a disposition to support and co-operate with time and with

one’s colleagues.
CORE ELEMENTS OF COLLEGIALITY

RESPECT

COMMITMENT

CONNECTEDNESS

CO-OPERATION
 LOYALTY

 A quality of being loyal

 Feeling / attitude of devoted attachment and affection

 Loyalty :

A person’s devotion or attachment to a particular idea,

duty or cause
• Codes of ethics assert that engineers ought to be loyal to their

employers.
 TWO MEANINGS OF LOYALTY

Agency Loyalty:
 Agency loyalty is acting to fulfill one’s contractual duties to an
employer.
 Agency loyalty is a matter of actions, whatever may be the motives.

Identification Loyalty:

 Identification loyalty is based on personal identification with a group.

 Carrying out one’s moral duties – feeling of personal attachment to
the group
 RESPECT FOR AUTHORITY

• Engineers have obligation to respect their employer’s

legitimate authority.
• Authority identifies the areas of personal responsibility

and accountability.
RESPECT FOR AUTHORITY

Three Types of Authority

INSTITUTITONAL AUTHORITY

EXPERT AUTHORITY

POWER AUTHORITY
 INSTITUTIONAL AUTHORITY

• It is rights given to a person to exercise the power based

on the resources of the institution.

• It is given to individuals to carryout their functions

assigned to them
Example: Accounts Manager is authorized to sanction
financial commitments.
 EXPERT AUTHORITY

“Authority for Leadership”

The authority given to the best qualified to serve the

institution’s goals in a given capacity.

The possession of special knowledge, skill or

competence to perform the tasks and to give sound

advice.

Example: doctors, civil engineers, lawyers.

 POWER AUTHORITY

Professionals who are effective and influence even

beyond their positions they hold, motivate and

encourage employees under their control.
Ineffective persons cannot command power.

Charismatic leaders often have influence outside their

domains of authority.
 COLLECTIVE BARGAINING

Bargaining between employees and employers of an

organization to fulfill their legitimate rights and to reach

a compromising solution acceptable to both sides.
Negotiation between organized workers and their

employers to determine wages, hours, rules, and

working conditions.
 COLLECTIVE BARGAINING

Unions act as collective bargaining agents.

They give high priority to economic interests.

They often misuse their power and act in an

irresponsible manner.
“ Engineers shall not actively participate in strikes,
picket lines or other collective coercive action.”
 COLLECTIVE BARGAINING

Engineers are not supposed to use collective bargaining

as a strategy to put forth their demands

Professionalism and unionism are incompatible.

Professionalism: to uphold the interests of the society

and employer.
Unionism: to uphold the economic interests of the

members of the union.

 COLLECTIVE BARGAINING

There are two arguments for justifying engineers not to

participate in collective bargaining activities.
 Faithful agent argument

 Public service argument

 CONFIDENTIALITY

The legally required process of keeping the clients

information secret.
Examples: doctors, lawyers and engineers about their
companies.
A guarantee that private or secret information is not
shared with unauthorized entities.
Restrictions on accessibility and dissemination of
information
 INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

An idea, a design, a manuscript, an invention, or a

concept which will give rise to a useful

product/application.
 TRADE SECRET

An individual or an organization owns an intellectual

property, does not disclose the property to anyone and

keeps it as a secret to safegaurd his business interest.
 PATENT

The right granted by government to an inventer to

prevent others from immitating, manufacturing, using or
selling his invention for commercial use during a
specified period.
 OCCUPATIONAL CRIME

The illegal activities in one’s organisation through

opportunities created in course of occupation.

Ex: Theft of company property, vandalism, misuse of

information, etc.
Leaking out certain trade secrets to other companies.
TYPES OF OCCUPATIONAL CRIMES

Employee Theft
Industrial Espionage
Price Fixing
Endangering Lives
 INDUSTRIAL ESPIONAGE

Spying on one’s competitors to gain a competitive

advantage.
Betraying one’s own company to other companies for

individual benefits or gains

Ex: Giving latest design details of a product, imitating to

give alternate product at a cheaper cost

 PRICE FIXING

Law prevents companies from fixing the prices of products

that will prevent free competition and trade. But this sort
of habit is violated by the many industries.
Examples: Fixing the price by the contractors before

bidding.
 ENDANGERING LIVES

Employers who expose their employees to safety hazards

escape criminal penalties.

Example: Employees working in a chemical industries,

cement industries and asbestos industries etc.

 PROFESSIONAL RIGHTS

Right to express

Right to refuse to carry out illegal and un ethical activities

Right to talk publicly about one’s work within bounds.

Right to involve in the activities of professional bodies.

Right to protect and the public from the dangers of one’s

work
Right to professional reorganization for one’s service.
 WHISTLE BLOWING

An employee or former employee conveying an

information about a moral problem to the authority to

take action on the problem
Alerting the authority or cautioning the authority about

a moral problem to take action on the problem in the

interest of the company.
 EMPLOYEE’S RIGHTS.

Right of criticising and the right to disobey unethical directives and to

express discent about company policies.

Right to engage in outside activities of his/her choices

Right to enjoy a reasonable privacy in his /her place of work.

Right to violate if illegally penalised without fair enquiry

Right to speak free.

 DISCRIMINATION IN AN ORGANIZATION

Discrimination means morally unjustified treatment of

people on an arbitrary or irrelevalent ground.
Example: discrimination because of one’s sex, race, skin
colour, age or religious outlook.
THANK YOU