Zachary DeMaris

CPRE 394

CPRE394 Ethics Essay

Ethics can be a very controversial topic. What one person might consider ethical, may not be ethical for
another person. It doesn’t mean one person is necessarily right or wrong. What someone considers
ethical is a product of their past experiences. Given a large group of people, there is bound to be some
very diverse backgrounds. It’s only natural that people will have different opinions on what is ethical.
This is where having a code of ethics helps. A code of ethics is a written set of rules that establishes a
universal definition of what is considered “ethical”. For engineers, a code of ethics is very important.
Engineers are responsible for creating amazing technology, but with this role comes the responsibility of
making sure they work ethically. An engineer that does not follow a code of ethics can a cost a company
time, money, and even impact the safety of others.

Making ethical decisions is not always as easy as just looking up what to do in your code of
ethics. The world is a complex place, where complex decisions arise, which leads to lots of grey area
when it comes to ethics. Some ethical decisions are very easy, for example, if presented with the
opportunity to look at the answers for an exam, I could safely say the ethical decision would be to not
look at the answers. Consider the situation where an instructor assigns a homework assignment but
does not specify whether you can or can not work with a partner. This is an ethical grey area. When I am
faced with a decision such as this, I typically consult outside resources such as a documented code of
ethics, company policies, laws, or someone that would be able to tell me the correct action to take. In
this scenario it is a professor, but for other situations it could be your boss, colleague, classmate, or
many other types of people.

The ethical issue my group brought up was using online resources for homework. The main topic
that was discussed was whether it is okay to use resources such as Chegg and Course Hero when
working on assignments. The professor brought up the example where many students copied directly
from an online resource, everyone agreed that that is clearly not the way to use an online resource. I
think by the end of the discussion everyone had agreed on the point that it is okay to use online
resources as a guide or a way to check your work, but simply copying the resource is unethical. This was
my position from the beginning, so my decision and the groups consensus were identical.

The case study my group discussed was Volkswagen cheating emission tests. Volkswagen
installed sophisticated software into many of its vehicles to cheat emission tests. The EPA wants to fine
VW almost $40,000 per vehicle. Many of the executives are claiming that this was the action of a few
“rogue” employees and was not something the company as a whole was aware of. The ethical dilemma
is whether VW as a whole is responsible or are these “rogue” employees responsible. The three virtues
that best apply to this situation are integrity, fidelity, and responsibility. If the engineers would’ve acted
with integrity this issue could have stopped with them. A key point about integrity is having the ability to
exercise good ethical judgement. Someone along the line knew that installing this software was not
ethical and if they acted with integrity all of this could have been avoided. In addition, VW had a duty to
its customers to deliver what they were promising. Fidelity talks about acting with faithfulness to your
clients. VW was clearly not faithful to their clients, who were expecting something they weren’t
delivered. Lastly, lack of responsibility was a big part of this issue also. Once VW was caught, the
executives couldn’t even take responsibility that their policies and culture allowed it to happen. The
other 3 virtues could be applicable to this dilemma also, especially honesty and self-discipline. However,
integrity, fidelity and responsibility best encompass this issue because of the reasons described earlier. I
think another good virtue that applies to this situation is quality. Someone that ensures a certain level
 Zachary DeMaris
CPRE 394

quality in everything they do would not have allowed this to happen. Someone that incorporates quality
into everything they do would have too much pride in their work to let this happen.

As you can see, making ethical decisions is more complex than simply following a code of ethics.
There are so many different situations that can arise in the real world, there is just no way to capture all
of that in a single set of rules. However, that does not mean a code of ethics is useless. A code of ethics
should be the baseline for making ethical decisions. It should be used a reference rather than a
document that is end all for making ethical decisions.