Report on the Professional Ethics

Introduction of Professional Ethics

            Engineering is the method of establishing an efficient mechanism that provides ease in the work as well as increases the speed of the work by using limited resources. The technology is also used in engineering to make the work more effective. Engineering can handle the small or big projects which are completed by following some rules and regulations of engineering. It is a complete profession; some significant ethics also exist for this profession. The reports are all about the ethics of the engineering that is providing the brief as well as comprehensive information about what the engineers should do in their workplaces after getting jobs or starting their engineering practices. The main responsibilities of the engineers are to provide support to the public as well as to provide support to their values by performing their duties under the ethical laws and regulations. If the engineer will break or violate the rules or go against the engineering ethics, he will not be arrested but he can be expelled from the company, from his job or cab be expelled from the engineering society because he can cause of danger for several lives and their values. In this document, the brief information related to engineering ethics is provided, which is subdivided into two further groups. The main three levels of engineering ethics present but the professional ethics for the engineers is discussed in this document. To give support to this study, related researches are also discussed in this file. Some engineer’s responsibilities and fundamental canons are also provided. In the last of this file, some recommendations for the engineers are discussed.   

Engineering Ethics: Engineering ethics is very significant as well as a critical profession after a hard study and learning. The professional demand is to show integrity as well as the standards of engineering in the work. The engineering profession has a direct impact on every person’s life quality. The reason for the influence of engineers is that they provide the services to the people which requires equity, fairness, impartiality, and honesty, as well as their practices, should focus to protect the public health, welfare, as well as their personal safety. In the professional ethics of the engineers, they must perform their duties according to ethics and good behaviors or by showing professional behaviors that require the observance of the highest ethical conduct principles. Therefore, professional ethics in engineering is not an outside thing or concept but it is an essential component of the engineering practice and provides comprehensive foresight to solve the problem without any kind of damage. For example, the guarding and the safety against the preventable harm are established in the engineering which is the principles and included in the standards and the regulations of the engineering.  The ethics of engineering can be considered in three frames of references which are: individual, professional, and social. The ethics of engineering are subdivided into micro ethics and macro ethics. They are explained below.

Micro Ethics: The micro ethics have two further levels which are: individual ethics/personal ethics and professional ethics. In the individual ethics, honesty, fairness and other behaviors are included while in the processional ethics at the micro-level, assurance of project quality, adherence to the safety/heath protection as well as the competence. But the main things or components of professional ethics are to making sure the health safety, security, and sustainability included.

·         Individual ethics – the individual ethics are also covering the technical judgments and the technical decisions which are taken by engineers including the practitioners or the technological analysis at the microlevel.

·         Professional ethics – the engineers’ moral responsibility comes from the particular information controlled by an individual. Professional ethics is also dealing with the relationships among individuals and professional engineers. The individuals can be engineers, employees, colleagues, managers as well as clients.

Macro Ethics: The macro ethics is the second and bigger level of the engineering ethics that considers the bigger issues like social justice, poverty, and the sustainability that are needed to be stated by the profession of engineering or the engineering society. Furthermore, the professional codes of conduct generally capture Macro ethics. The macro ethics is dealing with professional ethics and social ethics too.

·         Professional ethics –professional ethics is concerning with the social responsibility and collective responsibility of the engineering profession and the international boundaries can be transcended by the collective action. On the other side, all the members are affected by macro ethical issues.

·         Social ethics – the social ethics of engineering deals with the technological policy for making new decisions at the level of an engineering society. It also participates in the technical analysis of the macro level.

Code of Ethics: The codes of ethics may differ from the professional engineering society to another while they are effectively telling or recommended the engineers’ roles and responsibilities. Furthermore, the most significant role of the engineers is the protect the other and secure individuals which are then included in the rules or code of the ethics of the professionalism of engineers. The explanation of the codes of ethics is provided in this section. The ethical codes of engineering are discussing the duties of rights engineers. The codes of the ethics of professional engineering repeat the current defined the responsible engineering practice’s standards, establishing the environment into the profession where the ethical behavior is the norm, as well as the codes of ethics, are also saying that the engineers at the workplace cannot be arrested if he violates the ethical code but the company will have the right to expelled from the company or expelled from the engineering society (Basart & Serra, 2013).

Literature Review:  The ethic of engineering is usually focused on engineering ethics when engineers are acting as an individual. In this matter all these professionals play a major role, but inside the engineering, there are not only engineers, they just present as a portion of the complex network of the collaboration with many other peoples along with teams and organizations. When we talk about engineering and engineer’s ethics on the same board and the same for the paradigm of the ethical engineer which reveal as a heroic engineer, a combination of ideal engineer, someone who is strong enough to face all the moral and ethical challenges being an individual which will arise on the way. But there are arguments that this is not the best one of the approaches at least in this world that is interconnected. Technology allowed us to have a high level of independent behavior from nature along with the development of technology. Along with this advancement we are all also tied up with the complex systems to which we gave to face new challenges about the new tasks and powers. Now with the development in technology, the concern about the safety is also rising because now we all are much aware of the huge amount of the sensitive power that we all are deploying and consuming, thus we need to create new consensus and dialogues that can be incorporated at different levels, along with different forums and at various periods. There we don’t only need the interests and involvement and requirement to do so but also the sense of mutual commitment along with the responsibility of all the parties should be taken on the account. Technology allowed us to have a high level of independent behavior from nature along with the development of technology (Basart & Serra, pages179–187).

This paper is presenting the experiences of many authors, their experience of teaching a course in the ethics of engineering, which was given in 3 different universities for about 4 times in Spain and Chile. Based on the program of the university and number of students taking part in it, we can present the material context of the course especially the intellectual background of the students who are participating which can reveal their previous understandings of general philosophy and especially ethics. next, there is a clear description of the context and main topics related to it that will be addressed well along with teaching resources and the methodology so that the student could achieve a general approach toward philosophical reflection on the topic of ethics in their profession, that will initiate from their mindset of the engineers. Then based on the opinion survey there was a result, which gives more professional assessment by the professionals (Génova & González, 2015).

In the previous years we have seen how engineers have sought and implemented different methods to cope with the problem that is posed by other people and is not considered as an issue related to the ethics in the environment and social influence of resolving this issue. Professionalism has researched a lot on the ethics of the engineers and role in technical competence rather than environmental and social issues. In the previous years we have seen how engineers have sought and implemented different methods to cope with the problem that is posed by other people and is not considered as an issue related to the ethics in the environment and social influence of resolving this issue. This article is pointing toward the role of engineer toward environmental ethics. Finding out the criterion for other systems of environmental ethics and show others how best this profession of engineering could be so that others will be encouraged to adopt these environmental ethics (Hersh, 2000).

Challenger accidents gave us the ways to implement science and technology research on teaching the ethics of the engineering accreting to Diane Vaughan’s analysis. There is always an ongoing construction risk during the mundane practice of engineering, by sanitizing future engineers we can make them ready to address the issues of the public health safety and their benefits before they go forward to achieve the heroic interventions. There should be an understanding on the fallible judgment of engineering, incremental change, and precedents in the profession of engineering, it can help them presuming the potential threats to the safety of the public that could arise in the future in the routine aspects of the culture of the workplace. There should be a detailed modification of case studies of the disastrous in engineering and engineering hypothetical and ethical dilemmas that should be employed in the class of engineering ethics. If there is more research on the area of socio-ethical aspects of the profession of engineering that could improve the starting implementation of ethical problem-solving in this modern world settings and it will give an understanding approach on the responsibility of workplace organization and the culture in order to facilitate the remedial actions (Lynch, 2000).

In order to legitimize and identify the professional groups, deontological codes and some other professional self-regulatory mechanisms have been used. When we talk about engineering and engineer’s ethics on the same board and the same for the paradigm of the ethical engineer which reveal as a heroic engineer, a combination of ideal engineer, someone who is strong enough to face all the moral and ethical challenges being an individual which will arise on the way. But there are arguments that this is not the best one of the approaches at least in this world that is interconnected. Regulative functions should not be the only focus of the studies while understanding the ethical codes for the professionals, there should be a light on educative and ideological functions too. Any adaptive measure could be implemented in both contexts (value, ethics, norms) and then draft the process. This paper is explaining a process of developing ethical code for any professional of engineering initiated from the philosophical assumptions but then adapting to a critical level. In order to legitimize and identify the professional groups, deontological codes and some other professional self-regulatory mechanisms have been used. The objective is to get an effective ethical document that can base on ideological and regulative functions which also require the contribution of dialogical and reflective methodology. There should be a detailed modification on case studies of the disastrous in engineering and engineering hypothetical and ethical dilemmas that should be employed in the class of engineering ethics.

Theoretically we can say that code of ethics has a wide range of guidelines for professional conduct. These can help them to uphold the high level of ethical conduct. These guidelines are not limited to give public interest, or the elaboration of professional competence, attending the conflict of the interest and concerning social responsibility. Different companies and different professionals of engineering have different codes of ethics. But all of them have common knowledge on what is right and what is not and how they can apply the decision-making methods main causes of such variations are socio-political and cultural differences. But research has shown that the global professional code of ethics is conceivable and can be implemented with less conscientious efforts. In this paper, we examine the compatibility of the IEEE code of ethics with thirty-two 32 international codes of ethics of professional engineering societies in Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, and Latin America (Aguilar, 245–256).

Engineers Responsibilities: There are several responsibilities of the engineers who have to perform at the workplace by the engineers. It is recognized by engineers that the highest merit is the exercise and the work of their dedication to providing the engineering services to the society, joining the welfare as well as the majority progress. Their awareness of the world as the humanity adobe, knowledge of the reality as well as their interest in the universe as the guarantee of their spiritual overcoming, must be increased by the engineers through the transformation of nature to provide benefit to mankind and make the world happier. To the health, life, environment, or other rights of human beings, any paper that is intended to harm the general interest should be rejected by the engineer, although the condition for avoidance can be threatening or hazardous. Furthermore, it is an engineer’s inescapable role to support the professional prestige for making sure the discharge of the paper as well as to organize the demeanor that is placed or base of the honesty, modesty, magnanimity, temperance, fortitude, honesty, ability as well as justice with the consciousness of well being of every person subordinate to the betterment of society. The continuous improvement of their knowledge must be ensured by the engineers and their employers. Furthermore, the engineers should also disseminate their information, provide the opportunities for the training and the education of the workers, share their experiences, provide the material for support, morale, and determination to the schools where they have completed their studies and therefore, returning them benefits and the opportunities which are received by them and their employers. It is also the engineer’s responsibility to support the law made for the engineers as well as to carry out their work effectively. The compliance must be ensured by them particularly with the worker protection standards as provided by the law. It also expects the engineers to commit themselves to high standards for conduction as professionals (Smith, Gardoni, & Murphy, 2014).

 Fundamental Canons: In this section, the brief information related to the engineering professional duties is provided which can also be called the fundamental canons that tell every engineer throughout the world must have to fulfill their professional responsibilities. There are seven basic rules that are provided in this section which are described below.

1.      The engineers have the duty to hold the dominant welfare, health as well as public safety in the working progress of their responsibilities.

a)      If it overrules the judgment of engineers under several conditions that compromise the property or life then their client or the employer would be notified by them as well as these different authorities.

b)      Only those engineering documents which are in the conventionality shall be approved by the engineers with the applicable standards.

c)      The unlawful practice of engineering shall not be aided by the engineers through the firm or the individual.

d)      It shall be reported by the engineers having any kind of the supposed code violation information to actual bodies of the professionals as well as to the public authorities too, as well as the cooperate with the authorities properly in making this kind of knowledge or the assistance that may be needed in the work.

e)      Engineers will not allow the utilization of their name or partner in undertakings with any individual or firm that they accept is occupied with the deceitful or deceptive venture.

f)       Engineers will not uncover realities, information, or data without the earlier assent of the customer or boss aside from as approved or legally necessary or this Code (Bucciarelli, 2008).

2.      Engineers shall perform services only in the areas of their competence.

a)      The assignments will be undertaken by the engineers only at the time of capable through the education plus experience into the particular technology involved areas

b)      Their signatures will not be affixed by engineers for any kind of documents or the plans which are dealing with the matter of subject in they have not enough competency nor to any kind of document or any kind of plan which is not created under their control and direction.

c)      The assignments may be accepted as well as the responsibility may be assumed by the engineers to coordinate with the entire sign and the project. Furthermore, the engineering documents may be sealed for the complete project and provided every technical segment. So, the qualified engineers who made the segment sign and seal only the technical segment.

3.      Engineers will also issue public statements only in a truthful and objective manner.

a)      The professional engineers will be truthful as well as more objective in the testimony, statements, and professional reports. All the relevant and pertinent information shall be included by them in these kinds of reports, testimony, or the statement that would also allow the date illustrating at the current time.

b)      The publicly technical opinions may be expressed by the engineers that are created on the information of the competence as well as the facts in the subject matter.

c)      No criticism, arguments on the technical matters, or the statements will be issued by the engineers that are inspired or paid the or those parties which are interested in. If their comments have been prefaced by them through the recognition of the interested parties explicitly on their behalf and on their style of speaking or communicating, as well as though uncovering the presence of the engineer’s interest can have in such type of matters (Moore & Voltmer, 2003).

4.      In the professional matters, it shall be acted by the engineers for every client or the employer as the trustees or the faithful agents and the must avoid the interest conflicts.

a)      All kinds of potential and unknown conflicts of interest shall be disclosed by the engineers that might influence the quality of their services or into their judgments.

b)      Engineers will not request or acknowledge money related or other important thought, legitimately or by implication, from outside specialists regarding the work for which they are selected.

c)      The compensation will not be accepted by the engineers in every form such as financial or any other type form, from several clients working on the same project. Only one person should be selected that will provide the compensations because of the circumstance and huge conflicts among the parties.

d)      According to the engineering board, the administration as individuals, counselors, or workers of a legislative or semi administrative body or office will pass on choices as for administrations requested or gave by them or their associations in private or open building practice.

e)      Form the governmental body on which the principal or their company’s officers will be served as a member, the contract will not be a solicitation or accepted by the engineers.

5.      The professional reputation of the engineers shall be built by the engineers on the merit of the service as well as it shall not have competed with others unfairly

a)      The engineers will not directly or indirectly pay or offer to pay, the contribution of the politics, any kind of commission, the gift, or different type of reflection in the sense of securing the salaries positions exclusively or work by using the agencies of employment.

b)      The contracts for the fairly professional services should be negotiated by the engineers as well as only on the demonstrated competence demand as well as the qualification for the professional service type is needed.

c)      A technique should be negotiated by the engineers as well as the compensation rate equal to the scope of the agreed service. To mutual confidence, the meeting of critical personalities having critical thinking skills of the parties to the contracts is compulsory for the confidence mutually. It is also required by the public interest that the cost of services of engineering may be reasonable or fail while may not control the consideration into the firm or individual selection for the provision of such kind of services (Vesilind, 1995).

6.      The engineers will perform actions in the manner as to increase and hold the dignity, integrity, and honor of the position.

a)       The engineers will not significantly associate with nor the name of the firm nor permit use of their names into the ventures of business through any company or any person that they are in their knowledge. On the other side, they will also have the reason to believe as well as appealing to the professional practices or the business practices of the dishonest or the fraudulent nature.

b)      The association will not be used by the engineers with the corporations, nonengineers on-partnerships as cloaks for the unethical acts.

7.      The professional development of the engineers throughout their carrier will be continued by the engineers as well as the opportunities will be provided for the professional development of such engineers under supervision.

a)      Engineers shall encourage their engineering employees to further their education.

b)      To become registered at the earliest possible date, their engineering employees must be encouraged by engineers.

c)      To attend and present papers, employees should be encouraged by the engineers at the technical and professional society meetings.

Recommendations:   There are some recommendations and the suggestions are also essential for the engineers because they have a huge responsibility on their shoulders to provide the services without damaging any kind of thing. Every engineer must have proper guidance in all the relations and they must also be instructed by the highest standards of integrity and honesty standards. Furthermore, every engineer should avoid every kind of practice or conduct that betrays the public sector or cheat with the clients. To serve the public interest, it should be strived all the time by the engineers. The conflicting interests should influence the engineers into their professional duties.

Conclusion of Professional Ethics

            It is concluded that the engineering profession has a direct impact on every person’s life quality. The ethics of engineering can be considered in three frames of references which are: individual, professional, and social. The micro ethics have two further levels which are: individual ethics/personal ethics and professional ethics. Professional ethics is also dealing with the relationships among individuals and professional engineers. Furthermore, the professional codes of conduct generally capture Macro ethics. Professional ethics is concerning with the social responsibility and collective responsibility of the engineering profession and the international boundaries can be transcended by collective action. The most significant role of the engineers is the protect the other and secure individuals which are then included in the rules or code of the ethics of the professionalism of engineers. To the health, life, environment, or other rights of human beings, any paper that is intended to harm the general interest should be rejected by the engineer, although the condition for avoidance can be threatening or hazardous. It is also the engineer’s responsibility to support the law made for the engineers as well as to carry out their work effectively. The engineers have to hold the dominant welfare, health as well as public safety in the working progress of their responsibilities. Engineers will also issue public statements only truthfully and objectively. The association will not be used by the engineers with the corporations, nonengineers on partnerships as cloaks for the unethical acts. Engineers shall encourage their engineering employees to further their education and to become registered at the earliest possible date, their engineering employees must be encouraged by engineers. Every engineer must have proper guidance in all the relations and they must also be instructed by the highest standards of integrity and honesty standards.

References of Professional Ethics

Aguilar, J. F. (245–256). Developing an ethical code for engineers: The discursive approach. Science and Engineering Ethics volume.

Basart, J. M., & Serra, M. (2013). Engineering ethics beyond engineers’ ethics. Science and engineering ethics, 179-187.

Basart, J. M., & Serra, M. (pages179–187). Engineering Ethics Beyond Engineers’ Ethics. Ethics Beyond Engineers, pages179–187.

Bucciarelli, L. L. (2008). Ethics and engineering education. . European Journal of Engineering Education, 141-149.

Génova, G., & González, M. R. (2015). Teaching Ethics to Engineers: A Socratic Experience. Ethics to Engineers Journal , pages567–580.

Hersh, M. A. (2000). Engineering Ethics. Engineering Science & Education Journal, 13 – 19.

Lynch, W. T. (2000). Engineering Practice and Engineering Ethics. Engineering Practice and Engineering Ethics.

Moore, D. J., & Voltmer, D. R. (2003). Curriculum for an engineering renaissance. . IEEE Transactions on Education,, 452-455.

Smith, J., Gardoni, P., & Murphy, C. (2014). The responsibilities of engineers. . Science and engineering ethics, 519-538.

Vesilind, P. A. (1995). Evolution of the American Society of Civil Engineers code of ethics. . Journal of professional issues in engineering education and practice, 4-10.