HUM1021 Module3 Lecture2

HUM1021 Ethics and Values
B.Tech
Sivakumar, R
SMBS, VIT Chennai
Module-3
Professional Ethics
Profession and professionalism: Professional Responsibilities

and Issues – Code of Conduct- Core values at work place –
Work life balance.
Professional Responsibilities
Professional Ethics
 Professional ethics includes relationships
with and responsibilities toward customers,
clients, co-workers, employees, employers,
others who use one’s products and services,
and others whom they affect
 A professional has a responsibility to act
ethically
 Many professions have a code of ethics that
professionals are expected to abide by
What is the role of the engineer to society?
 Do society need engineers?
 Why not scientists?
 Are engineers professionals?
 Is there a relationship between the
society and the engineer?
 Is society better from engineering?
Ricardo A. Case PMP, P.E., SCADA/EMS Manager, JPSCo Ltd.

Relationship
“ Scientist discovers that which exists. An
engineer creates that which never has
been”
» Theodore von Karman (1881-1963)
6
Relationship
“Engineering is the application of
science to the common purpose of life”
» Count Rumford
7
Relationship
 The main focus of the scientist is to
develop knowledge and understanding
of the physical universe
 Science is the pursuit of knowledge in its
purest sense without any concern to the
needs of society, whereas engineering is
the combination of both
8
What then is Engineering
 The central focus of the
engineering profession is
the application of scientific
knowledge to meet societal
needs.
 Engineering connects pure
science to society
 Engineering therefore has a
social responsibility

Professional Responsibility
 Professional responsibility refers to engineers’
obligations to conduct themselves in accordance with
the technical, legal and ethical standards of the
profession, including the higher duty of care associated
with professional status.
 Whenever individuals act in their capacity as
professional engineers, they must be prepared to
answer for their conduct in discharging their
obligations to the profession and the public
 Accepting this responsibility is part of the commitment
made by each individual when accepting the exclusive
right to practice afforded by the professional engineer’s
license
 Good professional conduct includes practicing only
within one’s competence
 Practitioners must realize that for both legal and ethical
reasons, they should not undertake assignments unless
they honestly and reasonably believe that they are
competent to carry out the work, or that they can
become competent without undue delay, risk or
expense to the client or employer, or that they will
engage a competent professional engineer to carry out
work that is beyond their expertise
 Practitioners who proceed on any other basis are not
being honest with their client or employer
 Failure to meet these requirements leaves
engineers open to scrutiny by their peers
and their professional association,
pursuant to section
 It should be noted that incompetence can
mean not only a lack of knowledge, skill or
judgment, but also suffering from a
physical or mental condition that can
interfere with the exercise of one’s
professional judgment
Ethical responsibility...involves more than leading a
decent, honest, truthful life. . . . And it involves
something much more than making wise choices
when such choices suddenly, unexpectedly present
themselves. Our moral obligations must . . . include a
willingness to engage others in the difficult work of
defining the crucial choices that confront
technological society . . . .
Langdon Winner, 1990. “Engineering ethics and political imagination.” Pp. 53-64 in Broad and
Narrow Interpretations of Philosophy of Technology: Philosophy and Technology 7, edited by
P. Durbin. Boston: Kluwer. Cited in Joseph R. Herkert, “Continuing and Emerging Issues in
Engineering Ethics Education,” The Bridge, 32(3), 2002.

What does “having” social responsibilities
mean?
It means a commitment from the engineering
profession to place the public safety and interest
ahead of all other considerations
It means that engineers take into account and show
due regard for the consequences of their conduct
for the well-being of others as well as for the impact
of their work on society and the citizenry
14
What does “having” social responsibilities
mean?
This requires the engineer to make determined
efforts to discover all of the relevant facts
concerning the design, development, and
deployment and all of the possible outcomes of the
choices available that may positively and negatively
affect/impact society and the citizenry
15
Social Responsibilities of Engineers
 Ensure the safety and well-being of the public
 Ensure that society’s funds and resources concerning
technology are well used
 Refusing to work on a particular project or for a
particular company
 Speaking out publicly against a proposed project
 Blowing the whistle on illegality or wrong-doing
 Professional Societies’ obligation to provide protection
for whistleblowers
 Individual and organizational concern about the impact
of engineering projects on society
 Contributing one’s services to worthy, non-profit
groups and projects
 Engineering schools’ commitment to educating future
engineers about their social responsibilities
 Commitment of risk assessment experts to ethical
risk/safety assessments
 Voluntarily assume the task of educating the public
about important consequences of various technological
and scientific developments
 Commitment of engineers to design and develop
sustainable technologies

 Provide expert advice to non-experts
 Explicit care and concern about technology’s impact on
Nature and the Environment
 Abiding by the principles of sustainable development
when thinking about engineering designs
 Abiding by the “precautionary principle” when thinking
about engineering designs
 In engineering design, engineers have practiced social
responsibility by applying factors of safety to their
designs and by building in redundancy

Engineering is not a stationary profession
 The 21st century will be defined by some of the huge
challenges now facing humanity
 These are energy and food security, competition and
scarcity of natural resources, and climate change
 This year’s engineering graduates will face these issues
throughout their working careers
 The demand for engineering skills is likely to be higher
than ever before in order to deliver sustainable
engineering systems, low-carbon energy technologies,
and robust physical infrastructure to protect against
geophysical hazards such as sea-level rise and extreme
meteorological events
Engineering social responsibility
 Why do engineers have the responsibility to think
about the interaction of technology and society?
Answer:
 Because engineers are the ones who
create all of the technology and
responsible moral beings are supposed to
think about the effects of their own
actions and creations especially if they
impact others

Responsibilities of Computing
Professionals
Responsibilities of Computing professionals
 Responsibilities to Clients and Users
 Responsibilities to Employers
 Responsibilities to Other Professionals
 Responsibilities to Public
 Specific Professional Responsibilities
Wiley Encyclopedia of Computer Science and Engineering, edited by Benjamin Wah.

Copyright # 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Inc
Responsibilities to Clients and Users
 Whether a computing professional works as a
consultant to an individual or as an employee in
a large organization, the professional is
obligated to perform assigned tasks
competently, according to professional
standards
 These professional standards include not only
attention to technical excellence but also
concern for the social effects of computers on
operators, users, and the public
 When assessing the capabilities and risks of
computer systems, the professional must be
candid: The professional must report all relevant
findings honestly and accurately
 When designing a new computer system, the
professional must consider not only the
specifications of the client but also how the
system might affect the quality of life of users
and others
Example
 A computing professional who designs an
information system for a hospital and should
allow speedy access by physicians and nurses
and yet protect patients’ medical records from
unauthorized access;
 The technical requirement to provide fast access
may conflict with the social obligation to ensure
patients’ privacy
Responsibilities to Employers
 Most computing professionals work for
employers
 The employment relationship is contractual: The
professional promises to work for the employer
in return for a salary and benefits
 Professionals often have access to the
employer’s proprietary information such as
trade secrets, and the professional must keep
this information confidential
 Besides trade secrets, the professional must also
honor other forms of intellectual property
owned by the employer: The professional does
not have the right to profit from independent
sale or use of this intellectual property, including
software developed with the employer’s
resources
 Every employee is expected to work loyally on
behalf of the employer
 In particular, professionals should be aware of
potential conflicts of interest, in which loyalty
might be owed to other parties besides the
employer.
 A conflict of interest occurs when a professional
is asked to render a judgment, but the
professional has personal or financial interests
that may interfere with the exercise of that
judgment
 For instance, a computing professional may be
responsible for ordering computing equipment,
and an equipment vendor owned by the
professional’s spouse might submit a bid
 In this case, others would perceive that the
marriage relationship might bias the
professional’s judgment
 Even if the spouse’s equipment would be the
best choice, the professional’s judgment would
not be trustworthy Wiley Encyclopedia of Computer Science and Engineering, edited by Benjamin Wah.
 In a typical conflict of interest situation, the
professional should recuse herself: that is, the
professional should remove herself and ask
another qualified person to make the decision
 Managerial roles complicate the responsibilities
of computing professionals because managers
have administrative responsibilities and
interests within their organizations in addition
to their professional responsibilities to clients
and the public
Responsibilities to Other Professionals
 Although everyone deserves respect from everyone
else, when professionals interact with each other,
they should demonstrate a kind of respect called
collegiality
 For example, when one professional uses the ideas of
a second professional, the first should credit the
second
 In a research article, an author gives credit by
properly citing the sources of ideas from other
authors in previously published articles. Using these
ideas without attribution constitutes plagiarism
 Academics consider plagiarism unethical because it
represents the theft of ideas and the misrepresentation
of those ideas as the plagiarist’s own
 Because clients cannot adequately evaluate the quality
of professional service, individual professionals know
that their work must be evaluated by other members of
the same profession
 This evaluation, called peer review occurs in both
practice and research
 Research in computing is presented at conferences and
is published in scholarly journals
 Senior professionals have an obligation to
mentor junior professionals in the same field
 Although professionals are highly educated,
junior members of a profession require
additional learning and experience to develop
professional judgment
 This learning is best accomplished under the
tutelage of a senior professional

Responsibilities to Public
 According to engineering codes of ethics, the
engineer’s most important obligation is to ensure the
safety, health, and welfare of the public
 Although everyone must avoid endangering others,
engineers have a special obligation to ensure the safety
of the objects that they produce
 Computing professionals share this special obligation to
guarantee the safety of the public and to improve the
quality of life of those who use computers and
information systems

 When a technical professional’s obligation of loyalty to
the employer conflicts with the obligation to ensure the
safety of the public, the professional may consider
whistle blowing, that is, alerting people outside the
employer’s organization to a serious, imminent threat
to public safety.
 Computer engineers blew the whistle during the
development of the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART)
system near San Francisco

 In the early 1970s, three BART engineers became
alarmed by deficiencies in the design of the electronics
and software for the automatic train control system,
deficiencies that could have endangered passengers on
BART trains.
 The engineers raised their concerns within the BART
organization without success.
 Finally, they contacted a member of the BART board of
directors, who passed their concerns to Bay Area
newspapers.
 The three engineers were immediately fired for
disloyalty. Wiley Encyclopedia of Computer Science and Engineering, edited by Benjamin Wah.
 When the engineers sued the BART managers, the IEEE
filed an amicus curiae brief on the engineers’ behalf,
stating that engineering codes of ethics required the
three engineers to act to protect the safety of the
public.

Specific Professional Responsibilities
 Strive to achieve the highest quality, effectiveness and
dignity in both the process and products of
professional work
 Acquire and maintain professional competence
 Know and respect existing laws pertaining to
professional work
 Accept and provide appropriate professional review
 Give comprehensive and thorough evaluations of
computer systems and their impacts, including analysis
of possible risks
Specific Professional Responsibilities
 Honor contracts, agreements, and assigned
responsibilities
 Improve public understanding of computing and
its consequences
 Access computing and communication resources
only when authorized to do so

Issues of Professional
Responsibilities
Issues of Professional Responsibilities
Confidentiality
 Engineers should normally respect the confidentiality
of their employers or clients irrespective of whether or
not a formal confidentiality agreement has been signed
Competence
 Engineers should not misrepresent their level of
competence
 They should not knowingly accept work which is outwit
their competence
Software engineering, Ian Sommerville, Addison Wesley

Issues of Professional Responsibilities
Intellectual property rights
 Engineers should be aware of local laws governing the
use of intellectual property such as patents, copyright,
etc.,
 They should be careful to ensure that the intellectual
property of employers and clients is protected
Computer misuse
 Software engineers should not use their technical skills
to misuse other people’s computers
 Computer misuse ranges from relatively trivial (game
playing on an employer’s machine, say) to extremely
serious (dissemination of viruses)
Software engineering, Ian Sommerville, Addison Wesley

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HUM1021 Ethics and Values

Profession and professionalism: Professional Responsibilities

Ricardo A. Case PMP, P.E., SCADA/EMS Manager, JPSCo Ltd.

Ricardo A. Case PMP, P.E., SCADA/EMS Manager, JPSCo Ltd.

Ricardo A. Case PMP, P.E., SCADA/EMS Manager, JPSCo Ltd.

Ricardo A. Case PMP, P.E., SCADA/EMS Manager, JPSCo Ltd.

Ricardo A. Case PMP, P.E., SCADA/EMS Manager, JPSCo Ltd.

Ricardo A. Case PMP, P.E., SCADA/EMS Manager, JPSCo Ltd.

Wiley Encyclopedia of Computer Science and Engineering, edited by Benjamin Wah.

Wiley Encyclopedia of Computer Science and Engineering, edited by Benjamin Wah.

Wiley Encyclopedia of Computer Science and Engineering, edited by Benjamin Wah.

Wiley Encyclopedia of Computer Science and Engineering, edited by Benjamin Wah.

Wiley Encyclopedia of Computer Science and Engineering, edited by Benjamin Wah.

Wiley Encyclopedia of Computer Science and Engineering, edited by Benjamin Wah.

Software engineering, Ian Sommerville, Addison Wesley

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