Engineering Ethics

1405-405

CHAPTER ONE

Dr. Yehya Mesalam 1

 Main Ideas in This Chapter
• This book focuses on the ethical challenges of engineers as
professionals
• Ethical commitment is central to most accounts of
professionalism, including engineering.
• The codes of ethics of professional engineering societies are
important resources for studying engineering ethics, but they,
too, must be critically evaluated.
• Possible conflicts between professional ethics, personal ethics,
and common morality raise important moral questions.
• In addition to concern about preventing disasters and
professional misconduct, engineering ethics is also concerned
with promoting a better life through the development and use
of technology.
Dr. Yehya Mesalam 2
 Introduction
• Why should I study ethics?
• I am an ethical person
• “you are not being asked to study ethics in
general, but your profession's ethics."
• Professional life presents distinctive problems of its
own. It is the aim of this book to provide an
introduction to many of those problems in an
engineering context and to offer constructive
suggestions for how they can be thoughtfully
addressed.

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 Why Study Engineering Ethics
What is the point in studying engineering ethics?
• Students of engineering receive inputs in
 basic engineering sciences
 Design
 Manufacture
 Technical Problems Solving Abilities
 Software skills.

• A technically gifted engineer but ethically weak

engineer may cause harm & damage to the
society

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 Why Study Engineering Ethics
What can be gained from taking a course in
ethics?

 Increased awareness of importance due high profile

engineering failures.

 Engineering decisions can impact public health,

safety, business practices and politics. Engineers
should be aware of moral effects as they make
decisions in the workplace.

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 Engineering Ethics
Engineering Ethics is the activity and discipline
aimed at
 Understanding the moral values that ought to guide
engineering profession or practice,
 Resolving moral issues in engineering, and
 Justifying the moral judgments in engineering.
 It deals with set of moral problems and issues
connected with engineering.
 “An engineer has to be well qualified, well
informed & committed to his obligations to the
society”

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 Engineering Ethics
What is the need of studying engineering ethics?

 Engineers should have a clear concept on related

theories and standards involved in identifying
and enlisting the types of ethical issues that is
likely to occur

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 Ethics
• The study on ethics helps to know the people’s beliefs,
values, and morals, learn the good and bad of them,
and practice them to maximize their well-being and
happiness.
• It involves the inquiry on the existing situations, form
judgments and resolve the issues.
• tells us how to live, to respond to issues, through the
duties, rights, responsibilities, and obligations.

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 Definition of Ethics
• Ethics Refers to moral, values and beliefs of the
individuals, family or the society.
• Ethics is an activity and process of inquiry.
• Ethics is different from non moral problems, when
dealing with issues and controversies.
• Ethics Refers to a particular set of beliefs, attitudes,
and habits of individuals or family or groups concerned
with morals.

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 Definition of Morals
• Morals are the welfare principles enunciated by the
wise people, based on their experience and
wisdom.
• Morals are foundational concepts defined on both
an individual and societal level
• Morality is concerned with principles and practices
of morals such as:
(a) What ought or ought not to be done in a given situation?
(b) What is right or wrong about the handling of a situation?
(c) What is good or bad about the people, policies, and ideals
involved?

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 Moral vs Ethics
Moral
1. More general and prescriptive based on
customs and traditions.
2. More concerned with the results of
wrong action, when done.
3. Thrust is on judgment and punishment,
in the name of God or by laws.
4. In case of conflict between the two,
morality is given top priority, because the
damage is more. It is more common and
basic.
5. Example: Character flaw, corruption,
extortion, and crime.
Dr. Yehya Mesalam
Ethics
1. Specific and descriptive. It is a critical
reflection on morals.
2. More concerned with the results of a
right action, when not done.
3. Thrust is on influence, education,
training through codes, guidelines, and
correction.
4. Less serious, hence second priority only.
Less common. But relevant today, because
of complex interactions in the modern
society.
5. Example: Notions or beliefs about
manners, tastes, customs, and towards
laws.
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 Senses of Engineering Ethics
 Ethics is an activity and area of inquiry. It is the
activity of understanding moral values, resolving
moral issues and the area of study resulting from
that activity.
• When we speak of ethical problems, issues and
controversies, we mean to distinguish them from
non moral problems.
• Ethics is used to refer to the particular set of
beliefs, attitudes and habits that a person or group
displays concerning moralities.
• Ethics and its grammatical variants can be used as
synonyms for ‘morally correct’.
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 Senses of Engineering Ethics
 There are two different senses (meanings) of
engineering ethics, namely the Normative and the
Descriptive senses.
 The normative sense include:
(a)Knowing moral values, finding accurate solutions to moral
problems and justifying moral judgments in engineering
practices,
(b)Study of decisions, policies, and values that are morally
desirable in the engineering practice and research
(c)Using codes of ethics and standards and applying them in
their transactions by engineers.
 The descriptive sense refers to what specific
individual or group of engineers believe and act,
without justifying their beliefs or actions.

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 Examples for moral issues
• The Challenger Disaster

• Water Restoration In Sarajevo

• Hurricane Katrina

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 The Challenger Disaster
• Read from book
Analyze the details of the Challenger disaster and
then examine if and how principles actors in this
tragedy behaved as responsible experimenters
within the framework of the engineering as
experimentation model.

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 The Challenger Disaster


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 The Challenger Disaster


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 The Challenger Disaster
 On the night of January 27, 1986, the prelaunch
teleconference involving Morton Thiokol and the
Marshall Space Flight Center was filled with tension.
Morton Thiokol engineers conveyed their
recommendation against launching the Challenger
space shuttle the next morning.
This recommendation was based on their worries
about the ability of O-rings to seal at low
temperatures.

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 The Challenger Disaster
 Just 73 seconds into the launch, the Challenger
exploded, taking the lives of the six astronauts and
schoolteacher Christa McAuliffe.
In addition to the tragic loss of human life, tire
disaster destroyed millions of dollars' worth of
equipment and severely tarnished NASA's
reputation.
Roger Boisjoly had failed to prevent the disaster, but
he had exercised his professional responsibilities as
he saw them

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 Water Restoration In Sarajevo
• Read from book
In 1993, Frederick Cuny, led a team of associates
to Sarajevo, Bosnia, to try to help restore heat
and safe water for besieged residents of that
war-torn city.
When the team arrived, it found that the only
source of water for many citizens was a polluted
river.
Those who took their pails to the edge of the
river exposed themselves to sniper fire, which
had already killed hundreds of residents.
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 Water Restoration In Sarajevo
• Preliminary investigation of the scene led the
Cuny team to conclude that there must be an
inactivated water system somewhere in the
city's old town.
• Fortunately, they discovered a network of old
cisterns and channels that could be put back
into good working order if a new water
filtration system could be designed and
installed.
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 Hurricane Katrina
• Read from book

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 Codes of Ethics
• Engineering codes of ethics are products of the
deliberations of members of professional societies.
• The first thing that should be said is that the prescriptions
and guidelines typically found in engineering code of ethics
are grounded in concepts and principles of ordinary
morality that are not the creation of a select group of
professionals.
• The code provisions are the result of the deliberations of
engineers trying to articulate the ethical dimensions of
engineering practice of, say, civil, mechanical or electrical
engineers regardless of whether the practitioners are
members of the special societies in question.

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 Codes of Ethics
• So, for Example, the NSPE (National Society of
Professional Engineers) code holds that all engineers,
whether NSPE members or not, ought to hold public
health, safety, and welfare paramount not because
the code says so, but because of what engineers do,
regardless of whether they are members of NSPE.
• Of course codes of ethics do change through time.
• As already noted, the provision that there is an
paramount duty to protect public health, safety, and
welfare was introduced to most codes only in the
early 1970s.
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 Engineering as A Profession
• Engineers like doctors, lawyers, accountants, and
others whose competent work requires special
knowledge and expertise typically regard
themselves as professionals.
• Today, most professionals have at least a
bachelor's degree in an appropriate discipline
from a college or university, and many
professions require advanced degrees, which
are often conferred by a professional school.

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 Engineering as A Profession
Features that are important in the concept of a profession
1. A profession cannot be composed of only one person.
2. A profession involves a public element.
3. A profession is a way people earn a living and is usually something
that occupies them during their working hours.
4. A profession is something that people enter into voluntarily and
that they can leave voluntarily.
5. A profession commits itself to some morally desirable goal
although this goal may not be unique to a given profession.
6. Professionals are expected to pursue morally desirable goal by
morally permissible means.
7. Professional standards should obligate professionals to act in ways
that go beyond what law, market morality, and public opinion
would otherwise require.

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 Ethics: Prohibitive, Preventive, and Aspirational

• Much of ethics focuses on what one should not do,

rather than one should do.(Ethics of Prohibitions)
• 80 percent of the code of the National Society of
Professional Engineers (NSPE) consists of
Prohibitions that either explicitly or implicitly,
prohibitive in character.
• Engineers shall not reveal facts or information
without the prior consent of the client or
employer except as authorized by law or this
code

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 Ethics: Prohibitive, Preventive, and Aspirational

• One way to think of engineering ethics in

more positive terms is to regard it to be
concerned not only, with prohibiting
wrongdoing but also with preventing
undesirable things from happening.
Preventive ethics as we shall call it, includes
ethical prohibitions, but it can be compared
favorably with the notion of preventive
medicine.
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 Ethics: Prohibitive, Preventive, and Aspirational

• By attending carefully to our health needs before

we become seriously ill. we may prevent such
illness from occurring, or at least significantly
reduce their likelihood or their seriousness.
• Similarly by anticipating the sons of ethical
problems that could become quite serious if left
unanticipated or unattended, we may prevent
their occurrence or minimize their seriousness.

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 Ethics: Prohibitive, Preventive, and Aspirational

• Many of the provisions under "III. Professional

Obligations," actually do have a more positive
tone.
• This is especially true of III.2: "Engineers shall
at all times strive to serve the public interest."

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 Cases
• Through the study of cases that we learn to recognize the
presence of ethical problems, even in situations in which
we might have thought there are only technical issues.
• By studying cases that we can most easily develop the
abilities necessary to engage in constructive ethical
analysis.
• a study of cases is the most effective way to understand
that the codes cannot provide ready-made answers to
many moral questions that professional engineering
practice generates and that individual engineers must
become responsible agents in moral deliberation.
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 Cases
• They must both interpret the codes they have and,
when desirable, consider how the codes should be
revised.
• The study of cases shows us that there may be some
irresolvable uncertainties in ethical analysis and that
in some situations rational and responsible
professionals may disagree about what is right.

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 Chapter Summary
• The study of engineering ethics focuses on engineers
as professionals.
• It should be distinguished from personal and social
ethics outside the context of engineering practice.
• The codes of ethics of professional engineering
societies provide a useful framework for addressing
many of the ethical issues that arise in engineering.

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 Chapter Summary
• However, these codes can be expected to change
through time.
• Earlier codes emphasized engineers' primary duties
to their employers and clients.
• However, by the 1970s, most codes insisted that the
first duty of engineers is to protect public safety,
health, and welfare.
• More recently, many codes have begun emphasizing
the importance of sustainable technology and
protecting the environment.
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 Chapter Summary
• As a profession, engineering can be expected to
conmmit to morally desirable goals, pursued in
morally acceptable ways.
• The public, employers, and clients depend on the
responsible use of engineering expertise.
• Although the study of engineering ethics can be
expected to concentrate much of its attention on
wrongdoing and its prevention, it also should be
concerned with the positive promotion of good.
• That is, engineering's more aspirational side
should be emphasized as well.

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