-Self Awareness

- Stress Management
-Morals Values & Ethics
• Today’s discussion

– Meaning of engineering ethics and moral

issues
– Types of enquiry
SENSE OF ENGINEERING ETHICS
• Different senses or meaning of engineering
ethics
– Morality in engineering (normative)
– Enquiry in desirable engineering practices
(normative)
– Ethics followed by specific individuals or
groups without recommending right action
(descriptive)
Morality in Engineering
• Responsibilities and rights that should be
followed by engineers
Enquiry into ethical practices
• Examine specific moral problems as well as
morally correct decisions and policies in
engineering context.
Ethics followed by individuals or organisations

• Empirical research into what specific

individuals or groups believe as moral.
• An investigation into what engineers and
engineering firms consider ethical practice.
Moral Issues
• Micro Issues
• Macro Issues
Micro Issues
• Moral implications of decisions and practices
by individual engineers and engineering
organisations

• Ex: Harmful radiation emission of a particular

model of cell phone.
Macro Issues
• Global in scale and tend to affect humanity as
a whole
• Concerned with the direction in which
technology grows and effect on society.

• Ex: Ozone layer depletion and consequent

global warming
Moral Issues in Engineering
• Problems concerning safety
– Reasons may be not adhering to standards,
erroneous analysis, use of cheap
components, insufficient testing, lack of
maintenance, incompetence, corruption
• Problems concerning environment
– Not adhering to standards, lack of
awareness, inadequate or weakly enforced
laws, lack of proper disposal methods,
corruption
• Problems concerning product safety
– Profit motive without morals, unreliable
suppliers, insufficient testing, bad design,
corruption
• Problems concerning transparency about
possible hazards
– Profit motive without morals, not
adhering to standards, need to protect
public image, miscommunication, fear of
taking responsibility
• Problems concerning exploitation of scarce
resources
– Careless to needs of community, profit
motive, inadequate or laxly enforced laws
Types of enquiry
• Normative
• Conceptual
• Factual
Normative Enquiry
• Identifies the values and practices that are
morally right and are meant to guide decision
making.

• Examples of normative questions

– What are the values that should guide a
person working in genetic engineering?
– At what point should management be
alerted about hazardous practices?
Conceptual enquiry
• Tries bring clarity on the meaning of concepts,
values, principles and issues encountered in
engineering ethics

• Examples
– How do you define risk?
– What do you mean by welfare of the public?
– What differentiates a bribe from an
acceptable gift?
Factual enquiry
• Provides information regarding moral practices
of individuals or organisations without judging
whether they are right or not.

• Examples
– How much does a household refrigerator
contribute to the carbon footprint?
– What caused the first Tesla Model S to crash?