Ethics Essay

Ibro Tutic
December 2018

1 Introduction
Ethics are an extremely important aspect for a professional engineer to con-
sider. Technologies developed by engineers a ect the quality of life of people
all over and are used throughout the world. Because of this, all engineers
have a personal obligation to ensure that their work is carried out ethically.
Because the technologies that we make ares used all over the world, we as
engineers to need hold the safety, welfare, and health of the public above all
else. Following a code of ethics will ensure that engineers are adhering to
their ethical obligations to the public, the environment, and themselves.

The IEEE Code of Ethics is an example code of ethics that outlines the
various ethical considerations one must consider in the engineering eld.
Without this code of ethics, engineers may not consider the various ethical
considerations present in the IEEE Code of Ethics. There are many ethical
considerations that one might encounter in their career or personal life and it
is our duty to ensure that our behaviours align with not only the IEEE Code of
Ethics, but with our own morals as well.

2 Ethical Responsibility
2.1 Factors in Ethical Situations
Everyone is faced with various ethical decision in their lives and how they handle
them is a good indicator of their own morals and ethics. When I am faced with an
ethical situation, I make sure to analyze the situation from all possible angles to
determine the best possible response. Doing this analysis helps me make the
most ethical solution possible because it ensures that I have all my bases
covered and that another ethical situation won't arise as a result of my solution to
the situation. This same thought process can be applied to any scenario to
ensure that all logical possibilities are considered and evaluated to create the
best solution possible to the situation. This is the primary factor in which I make
my decision regarding ethical or other situations. In the case of an ethical
situation a few extra factors that I might consider are:

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 1. Are people negatively a ected?
2. Does this solution do the greatest amount of good vs other solutions?
3. Is everyone being treated fairly and honestly?
4. Does this solution appeal to the welfare of everyone?
5. What kind of person would I be if I chose this solution?

Of all the ethical obligations that professional engineers have, I believe the
most important is re ected by the very rst entry in the IEEE Code of Ethics: "to
hold paramount the safety, health, and welfare of the public...". As mentioned
above, the technology created by engineers is used all over the world and it is
our duty to ensure that the public is not harmed because of something we
created. At the very least the impact on the public should be neutral or
positive. As soon as something an engineer created a ects the public in a
negative way, the design should be instantly re-evaluated and xed to ensure
that it does not happen again.

2.2 Discussed Ethical Issues

In class we read about four case studies dealing with the VW emissions
scandal, using Alexa transcripts in a murder investigation, the design aws of
the Ford Pinto and a computer scientist who was given data with personally
identifying information. The issue that we primarily discussed was the VW
emissions scan-dal in which Volkswagen out tted their diesel cars with
software that would detect when they were being tested for emissions and
would change their emis-sion rate to ensure that they fell within legal
standards. In actuality, the cars were producing nearly forty times the legally
allowed emissions. Clearly this a breach of the ethics that all engineers
should strive to follow, however, a big question arises: who is to blame?

3 VW Case Study
Clearly there is an ethical issue with how VW cheated emissions tests and a
few ethical considerations arise, like :

1. Who is to blame?
2. How did this a ect the general public?
3. Are they taking action to x their problem?

The primary question that we discussed was who is to blame. A majority of

my group agreed that the higher-ups/executives were to blame because in
the end it is up to them to ensure that the company acts ethically. However, I
o ered a di erent point of view that divides the blame among the engineers

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responsible for implementing the cheating software and the executives.
Clearly the executives didn't write the code for the cheat or implement any of
the hardware involved, but they did ask for it to be done and signed o on the
nal, emissions cheating, product. When writing the software the engineers in
question should have analyzed what they were being asked to do and asked
themselves some of the questions that I outlined in Section 2.1. The very rst
entry in the IEEE Code of Ethics is also extremely applicable to this situation:

"to hold paramount the safety, health, and welfare of the public, to
strive to comply with ethical design and sustainable development
practices, and to disclose promptly factors that might endanger
the public or the public"

Blindly following their managers requests without any regard for ethics clearly
resulted in a massive scandal that negatively a ected everyone on Earth due
to the extra damage caused to the environment, which is clearly in violation of
the above mentioned entry in the IEEE Code of Ethics. The last entry is also
applicable:

"to assist colleagues and co-workers in their professional develop-

ment and to support them in following this code of ethics"

Any engineers involved in this scandal should have spoken up about the
poten-tial impact that it would have on the world at a minimum, and by not
reporting anything regarding this scandal, they are not only letting themselves
down, they are letting down their co-workers and fellow citizens who had
nothing to do with the work involved in cheating the emissions test.

My group did agree on a few things regarding the penalty issued to VW. In
the end VW was ned billions of dollars and began buying-back/ xing cars with
the emissions cheating software, but this doesn't really solve the damage
done to the environment by the scandal. In this case, the most ethical
decision by VW should have been to not cheat the emissions standards in the
rst place, they however chose to write emission cheating software and waited
until they were caught to do anything about it.

One thing that I noticed in the case study was how willing VW was willing to
cooperate with prosecutors AFTER they got caught in an attempt to save
face. Had they never been caught, nothing would have ever been done about
the cars in questions and the emissions would be having an even greater e
ect on the already changing environment. In the end this is the best course of
ac-tion, as VW will have to x all of their mistakes and invest serious money
into making things right. Had they not gotten caught then the cheating would
have been justi ed and who knows what else they or other corporations would
try in an attempt to increase their bottom line at the cost of hurting people and
the environment.

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4 Virtues of Ethics
The people involved in this scandal violated three main virtues of ethics:
1. Integrity
2. Honesty
3. Responsibility

The reasoning behind these three is because VW clearly tried to cheat a

system put in place to protect the environment from further damage. The
cheating software they created violated the honesty and responsibilities of the
engineers and executives involved. Furthermore, the engineers themselves
violated their own integrity by being willing and complacent in the
development and produc-tion of the cheating system.

The other three virtue's are still applicable to the above study, but a little less so
then the three virtue's referenced above. Fidelity, charity, and self-discipline deal
primarily with faithfulness, compassion, and not indulging in your own behaviors,
respectively. They could de nitley be applied here, but the virtue's dealing with
honesty, integrity, and responsibility seem more applicable.

5 Conclusion
Ethics are an extremely part of being an engineer that helps create
technologies that may be used all over the world. In the case study examined
above, the clear lack of ethics caused damage to both the environment and
people all over the world due to the increased emissions. Had engineers who
were tasked with creating the cheating software following a code of ethics like
the IEEE Code of Ethics this whole scandal could have been avoided,
ensuring that changes to the environment weren't accelerated due to
increased emissions. The people involved in the scandal also violated all of
the Virtue's of Ethics in some way or another as well. VW hopefully learned
something about ethics through this scandal and this scandal should
prevent/discourage similar practices from other car manufactures.