Examining Professional Ethics & Responsibilities in Engineering Field

This essay delves into the crucial aspects of professional ethics and responsibilities within the field of engineering, emphasizing the significant impact engineers have on society and the environment. It highlights the importance of adhering to professional codes of conduct, such as those provided by the American Council of Engineering Companies (ACEC) and the NPSE Code of Ethics for Engineers, which promote honesty, impartiality, and dedication to public welfare, health, and safety. The discussion covers various challenges and opportunities in engineering, including ethical dilemmas in the design process and the need to balance competing values like safety and sustainability. Furthermore, the essay identifies key areas for ethical opportunities in engineering, such as engineering for peace, health, and development, advocating for solutions that prioritize community well-being and environmental stewardship. The essay concludes by underscoring the necessity of adopting these ethical standards to ensure moral, sustainable, and responsible engineering practices.

PROFESSIONAL
ETHICS AND
RESPONSIBILITIES
(STUDENT DETAILS: )

INTRODUCTION
• Engineering is a practice which takes place in the domains of societal
interests.
• It has unavoidable and inherent impact over the society.
• Due to the relationship between engineering and the society, the engineers
are required to adhere to certain professionalism levels, and follow certain
ethics.
• The professional codes of conduct govern the conduct of the engineers
(Basart and Serra 179).
• This discussion is focused on presenting different aspects of professional
ethics and responsibilities, in context of engineering profession.

PROFESSIONAL ETHICS
• “Profess” refers to the public declaration where a vow is made for something.
• An occupation becomes a profession where certain individuals share the very
same occupation and organize to work in a manner which can be best
deemed as morally permissible, or for supporting a moral ideal.
• The professional standards are set, which go beyond the normal purview of
law, public opinion, marketplace and ordinary morality.
• Such standards become morally binding to the “professed” members of the
profession (Illinois Institute of Technology 2018).

PROFESSIONAL ETHICS
• Ethics are the values and the norms, which are followed by individuals, and which
guide the manner in which any act is done such people (Iphofen 3).
• In order to keep the professionals in check, and to ensure that they abide by the
true spirit of their profession, professional code of ethics are formed.
• A code of ethics depicts the manner in which the professionals are required to
pursue the common idea in order to do the best at the minimal costs to
themselves and to the ones they care about.
• Such codes protect the professionals from different pressures, for instance, the
pressure faced by professionals to cut corners in order to save money (Illinois
Institute of Technology 2018).

PROFESSIONAL ETHICS
• The obligations under the codes of ethics for the professionals is towards the
employer, customers, clients, other professionals, society, and even the profession.
• The professional obligations of a person are taken from the profession, the code,
the expectations of the society, tradition, laws, rules of ordinary morality, and
contracts.
• The professional ethics impart the responsibilities on the individuals in the sphere
of tasks during the daily responsibilities, the liability for actions or decision
undertaken, capacity for appreciating and controlling the behavior, and the moral
responsibility (Illinois Institute of Technology 2018).

SIGNIFICANCE
• It has been pointed out that in pursuit of knowledge, in terms of science,
there is no need to regard the needs of the society.
• However, when it comes to the application of this knowledge, there is a need
for the needs of the society to be considered, as this knowledge is applied for
the individuals from the society.
• Particularly in the engineering field, adherence of professional ethics
becomes very important and this has been recognized by the National
Research Council (Nichols and Weldon 2018).

ISSUES IN ENGINEERING PROFESSION
• It is important that the engineers initially approach the ethical, environmental, quality,
safety, liability and the communication issues in the very first step of designing
process, in place of allowing the design to go forward without paying heed to these
issues.
• This would allow the engineers to analyze and address each of the element of the
problem from problem statement, and would be able to release the product for the
consumer.
• This also allows the engineers to integrate considerations of ethical concerns directly in
designing process.
• The significance is also raised as the engineering professionals are criticized for a
number of occurrences due to their roles impacting different people and even the
environment, directly (Harris 110).

ISSUES IN ENGINEERING PROFESSION
• The issues which are faced in the engineering profession are focused on
issues of code of conduct, law and the regulations.
• The issue which is raised from the concept of professional responsibility
includes moral responsibility based upon education of engineers, along with
the leadership obligation they owe to the society.
• An example of a possible issue in engineering profession is not checking the
feasibility of the design of a project, in order to save the costs, thereby posing
a threat on the safety of the general public or the related stakeholders.

BEST PRACTICES AND STANDARDS
• The ACEC, which stands for American Council of Engineering Companies, presents
the best practices and standards for the engineers, particularly in context of
professional ethics.
• These are covered under the Professional and Ethical Conduct guidelines.
• This code is applicable on consulting engineers and the members of this profession
recognize their work to have a direct and significant impact over the quality of life
for the individuals.
• This requires services provided by the consulting engineers to be honest, impartial,
fair, and equal.
• Further, it has to be dedicated towards protecting the welfare, health and safety
(ACEC 2018).

BEST PRACTICES AND STANDARDS
• Another set of standards which have to be followed under the engineering field, and
which act as an important guide, are the ones given by the NPSE Code of Ethics for
Engineers.
• These standards are aligned with the ones given by the ACEC.
• These standards require the members of the profession to show the highest
standards of integrity and honesty.
• There is a need for the engineers to work based on standard of professional behavior
and to adhere to highest standards of ethical conduct (NPSE 2018).

BEST PRACTICES AND STANDARDS
• The best practices in engineering filed, particularly in context of clients,
includes being completely honest to the client, be it in terms of cost or the time
duration, regarding the completion of project or its delay.
• There is also a need to maintain high level of confidentiality, particularly when
faced with high level confidential information (Harris 122).
• There is a need for avoiding conflict of interest at all costs. Where the same
cannot be avoided, there is a need to disclose about the conflict to the client.
• For instance, Alice is involved as a designing engineer in company using valves.
While recommending product designs for the clients of the company, she specifies
the valves made by relatives, even when the valves made by a range of companies
are better alternatives. Such situations have to be avoided.

CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES
• There are ethical issues which can be raised in the design process.
• This can be explained better through an example.
• In a project, there was a challenge of designing a sustainable car which was
also a light weight one.
• The light weight aspect made the case less safe.
• This presented a challenge for the engineers.
• The nature of values of safety, as well as, sustainability had to be discussed, along
with the relative moral weight of these values.
• Even sustainability had moral obligations (Harris 110).