ENGG 434

ENGINEERING ETHICS
SCOPE OF ENGINEERING ETHICS
 perfect=mukemmellik
ahlaki degerler

ETHICS AND EXCELLENCE: MORAL

VALUES
Moral values are embedded in even the simplest
engineering projects including:
• The basic standards of safety and efficiency
• The structure of technological corporations as communities
of people engaged in shared activities.
engaded=busy mesgul
ETHICS AND EXCELLENCE: MORAL
VALUES
• In engineering, as in other professions, excellence and
ethics go together
• In general, ethics involves much more than problems and
punishment, duties and dilemmas. dilemmas=ikilemler
• Ethics involves the full range of moral values to which we
aspire in guiding our endeavors and in structuring our
relationships and communities.
aspire=istemek, talip olmak, can atmak
 Baglilik

PERSONAL COMMITMENT AND

MEANING
• All engineers are required to meet the responsibilities
stated in their code of ethics. These requirements set a
minimum, albeit a high standard of excellence.
• The personal commitments of individual engineers need to
be aimed at and integrated with these shared
responsibilities. Yet some responsibilities and sources of
meaning are highly personal, and cannot be incumbent
on every engineer. görevli
PERSONAL COMMITMENT AND
MEANING
• They include commitments concerning religion, the
environment, military work, family, and personal
ambitions.
• When we speak of `personal commitments` we have in
mind both commitments to shared responsibilities and to
these more individual commitments as they affect
professional endeavors.
çabalar
 tesvik etmek
conduct=davranis

PROMOTING RESPONSIBLE CONDUCT

AND PREVENTING WRONG DOING
onlemek

• Compliance issues are about making sure that individuals

comply to professional standards and avoid
wrongdoing.
• Procedures are needed in all corporations to deter fraud,
theft, bribery, incompetence, and host of other forms of
outright immorality. Dolandrcl, hrszl, rüveti, beceriksizlii ve apaçk ahlakszln
PROMOTING RESPONSIBLE CONDUCT
AND PREVENTING WRONG DOING
• Equally essential are reasonable laws and government
regulation, including penalties for reckless and
negligent conduct.
• We should examine the pressures that sometimes lead
engineers to cooperate in wrongdoing, rather than
reporting wrongdoing to proper authorities.
PROMOTING RESPONSIBLE CONDUCT
AND PREVENTING WRONG DOING
• An important part of engineering ethics is preventing
wrongdoing in the first place. There is a need for what
we have referred to as `preventive ethics`: ethical
reflection and action aimed at preventing moral harm
and unnecessary ethical problems.
• The main emphasis in ethics should be supporting
responsible conduct.
numerous, sayisiz

MYRIAD MORAL REASONS GENERATE

ETHICAL DILEMMAS ikilem

• Ethical dilemmas or moral dilemmas, are situations in

which moral reasons come into conflict, or in which the
applications of moral values are problematic, and it is not
immediately obvious what should be done.
• The moral reasons might be obligations, rights, goods,
ideals, or other moral considerations.
MYRIAD MORAL REASONS GENERATE
ETHICAL DILEMMAS
• In engineering as elsewhere, moral values are myriad
and they can come into conflict, requiring good judgment
about how to reconcile and integrate them.
MICRO AND MACRO ISSUES

• Micro issues concern the decisions made by individual and

companies
• Macro issues concern more global issues, such as the
directions in technological development, the laws that
should or should not be passed, and the collective
responsibilities of groups such as engineering
professioanal societies and consumer groups.
CAUTIOUS OPTIMISM ABOUT
TECHNOLOGY
• Pessimists view advanced technology as ominous and
often out of our control. They point to pollution, depletion
of natural resources, mass death on highways and in high-
tech wars, fears of biological and chemical weapons and
threat of nuclear war.
• Optimists highlight how technology profoundly improves
all our lives.
CAUTIOUS OPTIMISM ABOUT
TECHNOLOGY
Top 20 engineering achievements of the 20th century as
identified by the National Academy of Engineering:
➢ Electrification
➢Automobiles
➢Airplanes
➢Water supply and distribution
CAUTIOUS OPTIMISM ABOUT
TECHNOLOGY
➢Electronics
➢Radio and television
➢Computers, telephones
➢Air conditioning and refrigeration
➢Highways, spacecrafts
➢İnternet, imaging technologies, laser and fiber optics
➢High performance materials
WHAT IS ENGINEERING ETHICS?

• Ethics is synonymous with morality

• It refers to moral values that are sound, actions that are
morally required or morally permisible, policies and laws
that are desirable.
WHAT IS ENGINEERING ETHICS?

• Engineering ethics consists of the responsibilities and rights

that ought to be endorsed by those engaged in
engineering, and also of desirable ideas and personal
commitments in engineering.
• Ethics is the study of morality
• It studies which actions, goals, principles, policies and laws
are morally justified.
WHAT IS ENGINEERING ETHICS?

• Engineering Ethics is the study of the decisions, policies,

and values that are morally desirable in engineering
practice and research.
WHY STUDY ENGINEERING ETHICS?

• It is important both in contributing to safe and useful

technological products and in giving meaning to
engineers’ endeavors.
• The study of engineering ethics strengths one’s ability to
reason clearly and carefully about moral questions.
WHY STUDY ENGINEERING ETHICS?

As related to engineering ethics, these skills include the

following:
• 1-Moral awareness: Proficiency in recognizing moral
problems and issues in engineering.
• 2-Cogent moral reasoning: Comprehending, clarifying,
and assessing arguments on opposing sides of moral
issues
WHY STUDY ENGINEERING ETHICS?
• 3- Moral coherence: forming consistent and
comprehensive viewpoints based upon a consideration of
relevant facts.
• 4- Moral imagination: Discerning alternative responses to
moral issues and receptivity to creative solutions for
practical difficulties.
• 5-Moral communication: precision in the use of common
ethical language, a skilled needed to express and
support one`s moral views adequately to others.
ACCEPTING AND SHARING
RESPONSIBILITY
• Wrongdoing takes two primary forms: voluntary
wrongdoing and negligence. Voluntary actions occur when
we knew what we were doing was wrong and we were
not coerced.
• Neglience occurs when we unintentionally fail to excercise
due care in meeting responsibilities.
ACCEPTING AND SHARING
RESPONSIBILITY
• Moral responsibility overlaps with, but is distinguishable
from, causal, job, and legal responsibility. Causal
responsibilıty consists simply in being a cause of some
event. (A young child playing with matches causes a
house to burn down, but the adult who left the child with
the matches is morally responsible.) Job responsibility
consists of one’s assigned tasks at the place of
employement.
ACCEPTING AND SHARING
RESPONSIBILITY
• Legal responsibility is whateever the law requires
including legal obligations and accountability for meeting
them.
• Responsibilities are obligations, types of actions that are
morally mandatory. Other obligations are role
responsibilities, acquired when we take on special roles
such as parents, employees, or professionals.
DIMENSIONS OF ENGINEERING

• Ethical issues arise as a product develops from a mental

concept to physical completion. Engineers encounter both
moral and technical problems concerning variability in the
materials available to them, the quality of work by
coworkers at all levels, pressures imposed by time and the
whims of the marketplace, relationships of authority within
corporations.
ENGINEERING TASKS AND POSSIBLE
PROBLEMS
• Lack of vision, which inthe form of tunnel vision biased
toward traditional pursuits overlooks suitable alternatives
and in the form of groupthink.
• Incompetence among engineers carrying out technical
tasks
ENGINEERING TASKS AND POSSIBLE
PROBLEMS
• Lack of time or lack of proper materials, both ascribable
to poor management
• A silo mentality that keeps the information
compartmentalized rather than shared across different
departments.
• The notion that there are safety engineers somewhere
down the line to catch potential problems
ENGINEERING TASKS AND POSSIBLE
PROBLEMS
• Improper use or disposal of the product by an unwary
owner or user.
• Dishonesty in any activity and pressure by management
to take shortcuts.
• Inattention to how the product is performing after it is
sold and when in use.
RESPONSIBLE PROFESSIONALS AND
ETHICAL CORPORATIONS
What are professions?
❖ A profession is any occupation that provides a means by
which to earn a living. Professions are those forms of
work involving advanced expertise, self-regulation, and
concerted service to the public good.
RESPONSIBLE PROFESSIONALS AND
ETHICAL CORPORATIONS
• Advanced expertise: professions require sophisticated
skills and theoretical knowledge in exercising judgment
that is not entirely routine or susceptible to mechanization.
RESPONSIBLE PROFESSIONALS AND
ETHICAL CORPORATIONS
• Self-regulation: Well-established societies of
professionals are allowed by the public to play a major
role in setting standards for admission to the profession,
drafting codes of ethics enforcing standards of conduct,
and representing the profession before the public and the
government.
RESPONSIBLE PROFESSIONALS AND
ETHICAL CORPORATIONS
• Public good: The occupation serves some important public
good, or aspect of the public good, and it does so by
making a concerted effort to maintain high ethical
standards throughout the profession.
SENSES OF CORPORATE
RESPONSIBILITY
• Just as individuals have reponsibilities (obligations) so do
corporations. Corporations are communities of individuals,
structured within legal frameworks. Yet corporations have
internal structures consisting of policy manuals and
flowcharts assigning responsibilities to individuals. When
those individual act in accordance with their assigned
responsibilities, the corporation as a unity can be said to
act.
MORAL REASONING AND CODES OF
ETHICS
• Ethical(or moral) dilemmas are situations in which moral
reasons come into conflict, or in which the applications of
moral values are uncleari and it is not immediately
obvious what should be done.
RESOLVING ETHICAL DILEMMAS

Steps in Resolving Ethical Dilemmas

✓1- Moral clarity: Identify the relevant moral values:
Identifying the moral values and reasons applicable in
the situation, and bearing them in mind as further
investigations are made.
✓These values and reasons might be obligations, duties,
rights, goods, ideals or other moral considerations.
RESOLVING ETHICAL DILEMMAS

• Like most codes of ethics, the code of ethics of the

American Institute of Chemical Engineers indicates the
engineer has at least three responsibilities in the situation.
• a) to be honest: “Issue statements or present information
only in an objective and truthful manner”.
RESOLVING ETHICAL DILEMMAS

• b) responsibility the employer: “act in professional

matters for each employer or client as faithful agents or
trustees, avoiding conflicts of interest and never
breaching confidentiality”
RESOLVING ETHICAL DILEMMAS

• c) Responsibility to the public and also to protect the

environment: “Hold paramount the safety, health and
welfare of the public and protect the environment in
performance of their professional duties.
RESOLVING ETHICAL DILEMMAS

• 2- Conceptual clarity: clarify key concepts:

Professionalism requires being a faithful agent of one’s
employer, but does that mean doing what one’s
supervisor directs or doing what is good for the
corporation in the long run?
RESOLVING ETHICAL DILEMMAS

• 3-Informed about the facts: obtain relevant information

• This means gathering information that is relevant in light
of the applicable moral values.
• 4- Informed about the options: consider all options
• Initially, ethical dilemmas seem to force us into a two-way
choice: do this or do that.
RESOLVING ETHICAL DILEMMAS

• 5-Well-reasoned: make a reasonable decision

• Arrive at a carefully reasoned judgement by weighing all
the relevant moral reasons and facts.
• Often a code of ethics provides a straightforward
solution to dilemmas, but not always. The code does
assert one very important hierarchy: Hold paramount the
public safety, health, and welfare.
RESOLVING ETHICAL DILEMMAS

Right-Wrong or Better-Worse?
• We might divide ethical dilemmas into two broad
categories. On the one hand, many, perhaps, most,
dilemmas have solutions that are either right or wrong. “
RESOLVING ETHICAL DILEMMAS

• Right” means that one course of action is obligatory, and

failing to do that action is unethical (immoral). In most
instances a code of ethics specifies what is clearly
required: obey the law and heed engineering standards,
do not offer or accept bribes, speak and write truthfully,
maintain confidentiality.
RESOLVING ETHICAL DILEMMAS

• On the other hand, some dilemmas have two or more

solutions, no one of which is mandatory but one of which
should be chosen. These solutions might be better or
worse than others in some respects, but not necessarily in
all respects.
MAKING MORAL CHOICES

• Moral dilemmas comprise the most difficult occasions for

moral reasoning. Most moral choices are routine and
straightforward.
• Moral values entered implicitly into the decision-making
process of engineers adn their managers-decisions that
probably appeared to be purely technical or purely
economic.
MAKING MORAL CHOICES

• This appearance is misleading, for the technical and economic

decisions: safety, environmental protection, consumer usefulness,
and economic benefits.
• First, human safety is obviosly a moral value, rooted directly in
the moral worth of human beings. Some aspects of safety
seem minor-slight cuts to lips and noses from poorly designed
openers and minor injuries to feet inrecreation areas like
beaches.
MAKING MORAL CHOICES

• But minor injures might cause infections, and even by

themselves they have some moral significance.
• Again, various kinds of poisoning might occur unless all
materials were tested under a range of conditions, and
there are potential industrial accidents during the
manufacturing process.
MAKING MORAL CHOICES

• A second set of moral values concern the environment.

Many of them overlap with the first set, safety.
• Third, some moral values are masked under terms like
‘useful’ and ‘convenient’ products.
• Finally, the economic benefits to stakeholders in the
corporation have moral implications. Money matters, and
it matters morally.
MAKING MORAL CHOICES

• Jobs provide the livelihood for workers and their families

that make possible the material goods that contribute
happiness-and survival.
CODES OF ETHICS

Importance of Codes
▪ Codes of ethics state the moral responsibilities of
engineers as seen by the profession, and as represented
by a professional society. Codes are enormously
important, not only in stressing engineers’ responsibilities
but also the freedom to exercise them.
CODES OF ETHICS

• Codes of ethics play at least eight essential roles: serving

and protecting the public, providing guidance, offering
inspiration, establishing shared standards, supporting
responsible professionals, contributing to education,
deterring wrong-doing, and strengthening a profession’s
image.
CODES OF ETHICS

1- Serving and protecting the public:

✓Engineers involves both advanced expertise that
professionals, but not the general public, have, and
considerable dangers to a vulnerable public. A code of
ethics functions as a commitment by profession as a whole
that engineers will serve the public health, safety, and
welfare.
CODES OF ETHICS

2- Guidance
▪ Codes provide helpful guidance concerning the main
obligations of engineers. Since codes should be brief to
be effective, they offer mostly general guidance. They
identify primary responsibilities.
CODES OF ETHICS

3-Inspiration:
➢Because codes express a profession’s collective
commitment to ethics, they provide a positive motivation
for ethical conduct.
➢They voice what it means to be a member of a
profession committed to responsible conduct in promoting
the safety, health, and welfare of the public.
CODES OF ETHICS

4-Shared Standards:
➢ The diversity of moral viewpoints among individual engineers
makes it essential that professions establish explicit standards,
in particular minimum (often high) standards. In this way, the
public is assured of a minimum standard of excellence on
which it can depend, and professionals are provided a fair
playing field in competing for clients.
CODES OF ETHICS

5- Support for responsible professionals:

✓Codes give positive support to professionals seeking to
act ethically.
✓Codes can potentially serve as legal support for
engineers criticized for living up to work-related
professional obligations.
CODES OF ETHICS

6- Education and mutual understanding

➢Codes can be used by professional societies and in the
classroom to prompt discussion and reflection on moral
issues.
➢Codes encourage a shared understanding among
professionals, the public and government organizations
about the moral responsibilities of engineers.
CODES OF ETHICS

7- Deterrence and discipline

Codes can also serve as the formal basis for investigating
unethical conduct. Where such investigation is possible, a
deterrent for immoral behavior is thereby provided.
CODES OF ETHICS

• Some professional societies do suspend or expel members

whose professional conduct has been proven unethical,
and this alone can be a powerful sanction when combined
with the loss of respect from colleagues and the local
community that such action is bound to produce.
CODES OF ETHICS

8- Contributing to the professional image:

Codes can present a positive image to the public of an
ethically committed profession. Where the image şs
warranted, it can help engineers more effectively serve the
public. It can also win greater powers of self-regulation for
the profession itself, while lessening the demand for more
government regulation.