ENGR 302: Engineering Ethics Project Report - Spring 2019-20 - Q1

This project report for ENGR 302, submitted in Spring 2019-20, addresses the question of why engineering ethics is important. The report emphasizes the role of engineering ethics in outlining moral principles and professional responsibilities for engineers, impacting client relationships, societal well-being, and business practices. It highlights the significance of ethical considerations, referencing the Ford Pinto case to illustrate the complexities of ethical dilemmas. The report underscores the importance of moral autonomy and the ability to critically analyze ethical problems, equipping students with the necessary tools to navigate real-world scenarios. The study aims to sensitize students to ethical issues before they arise, providing them with the knowledge and skills to tackle ethical challenges effectively.

ENGR 302
ENGINEERING ETHICS
Spring Semester 2019-20
Deadline: = 15th April
Project Report
[CO1;PI_4_6;SO_4]
Submitted To
Dr. H. A
Q1: Why Study Engineering Ethics? (2 full pages)
Marks: 20
Submitted By
Name, Family Name, Student ID No.
Section No: 597

Engineering ethics
Engineering ethics plays an essential role to students and the professionals in the field because it outlines the moral principles to be adhered to
while practicing engineering. Importantly, it sets out the various obligations of the engineers when it comes to their clients, society together with
their profession (Fleddermann, 2012). Over the past years, a lot of notorious incidences have been witnessed in the engineering field,
consequently creating numerous attention in the media, and this has forced the engineers to embrace professional responsibilities. In most cases,
the duties in this field impact the health and safety of the public, which extends to business practices and politics (Eckelman et al., 2019).
Moreover, a lot of companies have even established offices dealing with ethics that ensures that every employee in the firm can openly
express their opinions in matters related to safety, together with corporate business practices. The approach focuses on ways of being productive
without affecting the employees negatively (Davis, 2017). Additionally, the offices try to incorporate ethical culture that will help in the
management and prevention of ethical problems in the establishments. Therefore, the efforts of various firms signify the importance of studying
engineering ethics.

Engineering ethics sensitizes an engineering student to the crucial ethical problems before facing the issues. Significantly, the students go
through various cases in the past to know the experiences of other engineers and how they tackled the issues. Consequently, an individual will
know how to handle the ethical problem in the future as a professional engineer (Fleddermann, 2012).
The student will also be equipped with the appropriate techniques to resolve and analyze arising ethical problems. A person has to know
more about moral autonomy to understand the goals of studying engineering ethics (Mitcham & Englehardt, 2019). Notably, moral autonomy is
simply an individual’s ability to think critically and independently regarding moral issues. Afterward, the person has to utilize this ability to
situations while practicing engineering. Therefore, engineering ethics engages students to embrace moral autonomy as future engineers.
An engineer faces several ethical problems. For instance, an engineer cannot knowingly equip a Pinto with wheel lugs that have a low quality
steel because it will probably break, a very unethical approach. There will be numerous accidents due to this action because there will be a loss
of wheel while driving the Pinto (Editors, n.d.). However, we can view this issue from a different perspective since the ethical issues are very
complex and, at times, conflict with the ethical principles. For example, the engineers tasked to work on the Pinto made difficult choices if there
were trade-offs to market the Pinto successfully at a reasonable value. Subsequently, the compromises which involved the placement of a gas
tank in a Pinto caused the accident in Indiana (Editors, n.d.). The ethical principles of the managers and the engineers were questioned.
Therefore, the above case further clarifies the importance of studying engineering ethics as a student.

Reference
Davis, M. (2017). Engineering ethics. Routledge.
Eckelman, M. J., Basl, J., Bosso, C., Isaacs, J. A., & Eggleson, K. (2019). Case Studies of Product Life Cycle Environmental Impacts for
Teaching Engineering Ethics. Next-Generation Ethics: Engineering a Better Society, 291.
Editors, H. com. (n.d.). Fatal Ford Pinto crash in Indiana. HISTORY. Retrieved April 12, 2020, from https://www.history.com/this-day-in-
history/fatal-ford-pinto-crash-in-indiana
Fleddermann, C. B. (2012). Engineering ethics (4th ed). Prentice Hall.
Mitcham, C., & Englehardt, E. E. (2019). Ethics across the curriculum: Prospects for broader (and deeper) teaching and learning in research and
engineering ethics. Science and Engineering Ethics, 25(6), 1735–1762.