PE201IU

Engineering Ethics and Professional

Skills (3 credits)

Content
1. Introduction to engineering professionalism and ethics
2. Engineers in societies
3. Moral choices and codes of ethics
4. Philosophical ethics
5. Ethical problem-solving techniques
6. Engineers at the workplaces
7. Truth in action and words
8. Academic and research ethics
9. Commitment to safety
10. Internet ethics, privacy issues and intellectual
property rights
11. Environmental ethics
2 12. Globalization and intern
Dr. Nguyen Hoaicultural
Nghia considerations
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 Chapter 1: Introduction to engineering
professionalism and ethics

1.1 What is ethics?

1.2 Why study Engineering Ethics?
1.3 Personal vs. professional ethics
1.4 Ethics and the law
1.5 Ethics problems

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Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary

Ethics: Moral principles that control or influence a

person’s behaviour.

Principles of right and wrong behaviour.

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 Macmillan dictionary

Ethics: A set of principles that people use to decide what

is right and what is wrong.

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Chapter 1: Introduction to engineering

professionalism and ethics

Case study 1:

You are a consultant engineer who are on behalf of

consultant and client. You are invited for a work
inspection and acceptance. You discover a defect/
mistake that is not the same as design and should be
corrected.
The contractor’s representative doesn’t want to
repair/redo because of many reasons. He requests you
to ignore the mistake and offers some benefit to you.

What should you do? Why?

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professionalism and ethics

Case study 2:

You are a structural designer. One day, there was a

problem happened to your design. One worker who was
installing a device on your design structure and fell from
15-meter height due to your design failure. That guy
was died immediately.
1. If the authorities confirm your fault, what should you
do? Why?

2. If the authorities know nothing about the case but your

company knows, what should you do? Why?
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Chapter 1: Introduction to engineering

professionalism and ethics

Case study 3:

You are a new manager. You recognized an old design

which is a bit of waste.
 You would like to modify the design to save company’s
money. What should you do? Why

 If your company is state-owned, what should you do?

Why?

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professionalism and ethics

Case study 4:

You are a designer. You are in charge with a design that

must follow norms. Your boss asked you to modify the
design to meet requirements of his boss. However, the
requirements may lead to suboptimal design and lead to
bad consequences later.

 What should you do? Why?

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Chapter 1: Introduction to engineering

professionalism and ethics

1.1 What is ethics?

Ford Pinto case study:

 August 10, 1978, a Ford Pinto was hit from behind on a
highway in Indiana fuel tank to rupture and burst into
flames, leading to the deaths of three teenage girls
 Ford was charged in a criminal court for the deaths
of the passengers
 The case against Ford hinged on charges that it was
known that the gas-tank design was flawed and was
not in line with accepted engineering standards.

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professionalism and ethics

1.1 What is ethics? (cont.)

Ford Pinto case study (cont.):

 During the trial, it was determined that Ford engineers
were aware of the dangers of this design, but
management, concerned with getting the Pinto to
market rapidly at a price competitive with subcompact
cars already introduced or planned by other
manufacturers, had constrained the engineers to use
this design.

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Chapter 1: Introduction to engineering

professionalism and ethics

1.1 What is ethics? (cont.)

Ford Pinto case study (cont.):

 They had to attempt to balance their duty to the public
against their duty to their employer.
 Ultimately, the attempt by Ford to save a few dollars
in manufacturing costs led to the expenditure of
millions of dollars in defending lawsuits and
payments to victims.
 Of course, there were also uncountable costs in lost
sales due to bad publicity and a public perception that
Ford did not engineer its products to be safe.
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1.1 What is ethics? (cont.)

 The Pinto case study is an example of the ethical

problems faced by engineers in the course of their
professional practice.

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Chapter 1: Introduction to engineering

professionalism and ethics

1.1 What is ethics? (cont.)

 Ethical cases can go far beyond issues of public safety

and may involve:
– bribery,
– fraud,
– environmental protection,
– fairness,
– honesty in research and testing,
– and conflicts of interest

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1.1 What is ethics? (cont.)

 Ethics is the study of the characteristics of morals.

Ethics also deals with the moral choices that are made
by each person in his or her relationships with other
persons.

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Chapter 1: Introduction to engineering

professionalism and ethics

1.1 What is ethics? (cont.)

What is engineering ethics?

 Engineering ethics is the rules and standards

governing the conduct of engineers in their role as
professionals. Engineering ethics encompasses the
more general definition of ethics but applies it more
specifically to situations involving engineers in their
professional lives.

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Chapter 1: Introduction to engineering

professionalism and ethics

1.2 Why study Engineering Ethics?

1. The notorious cases that have received a great deal of

media attention  increased sense of their
professional responsibilities.
2. These cases have led to an awareness of the
importance of ethics within the engineering
profession as engineers realize how their technical
work has far-reaching impacts on society, including:
– public health and safety and
– business practices and

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1.2 Why study Engineering Ethics? (cont.)

3. The engineering ethics is to sensitize you to important

ethical issues before you have to confront them.
4. There are some cases from the past that other
engineers have faced and what to do when similar
situations arise in your professional career.
5. You will learn techniques for analyzing and resolving
ethical problems when they arise.
6. The goal is to train you to analyze complex problems
and learn to resolve these problems in the most ethical
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manner.
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Chapter 1: Introduction to engineering

professionalism and ethics

1.2 Why study Engineering Ethics? (cont.)

 Engineering Ethics: is about

– how we have to act and live as an engineer,
– what we have to consider when making decisions,
– according to what standards are these actions right
or wrong.

In short, engineering ethics is how engineers

morally act as an Engineer. This is professional
ethics NOT personal ethics.
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professionalism and ethics

Honesty is the best policy

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Chapter 1: Introduction to engineering

professionalism and ethics

1.3 Personal vs. professional ethics

 Personal ethics deals with how we treat others in our

day-to-day lives.
 However, professional ethics often involves choices
on an organizational level rather than a personal
level. Many of the problems will seem different
because they involve relationships
– between two corporations,
– between a corporation and the government,
– or between corporations and groups of individuals.
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1.3 Personal vs. professional ethics (cont.)

 Engineering design is about creating new devices and
products.
 How well does it work?
 How will it affect people?
 What changes will this lead to in society?
 How well will this work under all of the conditions
that it will be exposed to?
 Is it safe?
 If there are some safety concerns, how bad are
they?
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 What are the effects of doing nothing?
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Chapter 1: Introduction to engineering

professionalism and ethics

1.3 Personal vs. professional ethics (cont.)

 In fact, as an engineer you can never be absolutely

certain that your design will never harm anyone or
cause detrimental changes to society.

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1.3 Personal vs. professional ethics (cont.)

 But you must test your design as thoroughly as time

and resources permit to ensure that it operates safely
and as planned.
 Also, you must use your creativity to attempt to foresee
the possible consequences of your work.

WHAT IF????

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Chapter 1: Introduction to engineering

professionalism and ethics

Attitude is more important than

aptitude

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professionalism and ethics

1.4 Ethics and the law

 The practice of engineering is governed by many laws

on the international, federal, state, and local levels.
 Many of these laws are based on ethical principles,
although many are purely of a practical, rather than a
philosophy or nature.

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Chapter 1: Introduction to engineering

professionalism and ethics

1.4 Ethics and the law (cont.)

 What is legal and what is ethical?

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1.4 Ethics and the law (cont.)

 Many things that are legal could be considered

unethical  Nobel’s invention!!!!
 However, something is illegal doesn’t mean that it is
unethical  euthanasia (cái chết êm ái)

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Chapter 1: Introduction to engineering

professionalism and ethics

1.4 Ethics and the law (cont.)

 As an engineer, you are always minimally safe if you

follow the requirements of the applicable laws.
 But in engineering ethics, we seek to go beyond the
dictates of the law.
 Here, the interest is in areas where ethical principles
conflict and there is no legal guidance for how to
resolve the conflict.

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1.5 Ethics problems

 The essence of engineering practice is the design of

products, structures, and processes.
 The design problem is stated in terms of
specifications: A device must be designed that meets
criteria for performance, aesthetics, and price.

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Chapter 1: Introduction to engineering

professionalism and ethics

1.5 Ethics problems (cont.)

 In engineering design, there is no unique correct

answer!  Ethical problem solving shares these
attributes with engineering design.
 Although there will be no unique correct solution to
most of the problems we will examine, there will be a
range of solutions that are clearly right, some of
which are better than others.

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1.5 Ethics problems (cont.)

 The problems are more open ended

 Ethics problems rarely have a correct answer that
will be arrived at by everyone in the class.

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Chapter 1: Introduction to engineering

professionalism and ethics

1.5 Ethics problems (cont.)

 Engineering economics

 contradictions among engineering and

economics

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