The notion of engineering as a profession emerged in France in the seventeenth

century, leading to the establishment of the first engineering curriculum in the country
throughout the eighteenth century. Following that, engineering emerged as a career in other
countries, most notably the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, and Russia. With its
focus on mathematics, physics, and chemistry, the French curriculum became the model for
engineering curricula in the United States and most other nations. Despite persistent disparities
in the prominence of professions and engineers across nations, the academic study of
engineering ethics has extended to a number of other countries. These engineering ethics
critically analyze the behavior of engineers and engineering organizations in light of the
profession's unique requirements as well as broader moral norms. The discipline investigates
engineers' acts, practices, and workplace, focusing philosophical analysis on norms and notions
such as accountability and loyalty to aid in the identification of ethical challenges and solutions.
There are two significant types of Engineering Ethics namely, preventive and aspirational ethics.
The similarity of the two kinds of ethics of civil engineering is that it serves as the rules and
regulations which professionals should strictly follow as this profession involves the overall
safety of human and other living organisms. Their major difference is that the preventive ethics
deals with the rules and regulations in the form of prohibitions and statements that are usually
stated in the code of ethics while aspirational ethics deals with the promotion of the welfare of
public, prevent violations of safety and health and greatly contributes in the improvement of
life.
To explain further, here are real life examples of the two kinds of ethics. An example of
preventive ethics is the Space Shuttle Challenger that normalized deviance or the neglect to
follow the society’s standard or norm. As the professionals continued to work and gradually
accepting certain anomalous, originally unexpected occurrences that portend serious harm, it
seemed to be normal due to nothing serious harm that happened. As the occurrences continue,
strategies to counter and prevent this relaxation of vigilance and neglection to responsibility
and regulations are research subjects. This preventive measure is and example of preventive
ethics as it catches problem early before they turn into disasters that causes harm to humans.
In aspirational ethics, we all knew that this deals with the promotion of improvement and
development of human life, as an example, the green engineering whereas it is about the
design, commercialization, and use of processes and products in a way that reduces pollution,
promotes sustainability, and minimizes risk to human health and the environment without
sacrificing economic viability and efficiency. Green engineering embraces the concept that
decisions to protect human health and the environment can have the greatest impact and cost-
effectiveness when applied early, in the design and development phase of a process or product.
This explains the aspirational ethics as it prioritized the impact of the projects to the human life
and environment. To conclude, even though preventive and aspirational ethics and different,
these are needed to be followed and abide in order to prevent serious harm and for the growth
and improvement of human life.