CHAPTER 2: ETHICS

INTRODUCTION

Ø  “Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws.”

Ø  Every day we make ethical decisions.

Ø  The more you practice analyzing day-to-day decisions from an ethical standpoint, the easier it will be for you to make good decisions when the results of a poor choice may be catastrophic.

Ø  There are two reasons people try to make ethical decisions

1.    They wish to make the world a better place for everyone.

2.    They wish to avoid unpleasant consequences, such as fines, incarceration, or loss of job.

Ø  Each major religion all have fairly brief codes summarizing how one should conduct their life.

1.    Judaism, Christianity, and derivatives thereof have the Decalogue, or Ten Commandments.

2.    Islam has the Five Pillars in addition to a slightly modified and reorganized form of the Decalogue.

3.    Buddhism has the Noble Eightfold Path.

4.    Baha’i has 12 social principles.

5.    In Hinduism, Grihastha dharma has four goals.

2.1  ETHICAL DECISION MAKING

Ø  Step 1: Determine what the issues are and who might be affected by the various alternative courses of action that might be implemented.

o   For example: Whether to allow cutting down acres of trees to build a new shopping mall.

¨      The issues

Ø  CO2 footprint

Ø  Quality of life

¨      The stakeholders

Ø  habitats that were formed in the forest

Ø  traffic

Ø  Step 2: Consider the effect of alternative courses of action from different perspectives. (Consequences, intent, and character).

o   For example: Should middle schools have a Sexual Education class? (consequences)

¨      Stakeholders:

Ø  Teachers

Ø  Students

Ø  Parents of the students

¨      Consequences:

Ø  Teach about abstinence

Ø  Could lower teen pregnancy statistics

Ø  Give useful life information and tips to the students.

o   For example: Should social media have an age limit? (intent)

a)    Should everyone be a certain age in order to have a social media account?

b)    Should there be a law so that anyone under the specified age and has a social media account be approached?

c)    If you were a parent to a 12 year old girl, would you feel comfortable giving her the freedom of social media?

o   For example: Walking down the street you see a homeless person without proper winter attire. Everyone else on the street is just passing by him. Do you: (character)

a)    Stop and give him a coat or blanket

b)    Ignore him, pretend you don’t see him and keep walking

Ø  Step 3: Correlate perspectives.

o   It is in good nature of ethical decision making that different people will often arrive at different results in good conscious.

Ø  Step 4: Act.

o   If you believe that working on a project poses no threat to your soul, then little courage is required to follow through, since your career may blossom.

o   If you believe that the project you are working on is unethical, you will need to change the minds of the management or refuse to work on it, both of which can risk your job.

2.2 PLAGIARISM

Ø  Claiming someone else’s work as your own.

Ø  Plagiarism is labeled as academic dishonesty.

Ø  We should not live in fear of being accused of plagiarism because our brain drug up something we read, saw, or heard of in the past.

2.3 ENGINEERING CREED

Ø  As a Professional Engineer, I dedicate my professional knowledge and skill to the advancement and betterment of human welfare, I pledge:

o   To give the utmost of performance.

o   To participate in none but honest enterprise.

o   To live and work according to the laws of man and the highest standards of professional conduct.

o   To place service before profit, the honor and standing of the profession before personal advantage, and the public welfare above all other considerations.

Ø  In humility and with need for Divine Guidance, I make this pledge.

2.4 SOCIAL RESPONSIBILTY

Ø  Is the ideology that an individual has an obligation to act to benefit society at large.

Ø  As a profession, we recognize the importance of this trust in the Engineering Canons and the engineering creed that define our standards for ethics, integrity, and regard for public welfare.

Ø  In your opinion how do an Engineer’s ethics affect public safety?

o   An engineer with no morals, or one who can’t make ethical decisions could harm not only the environment, but the people and animals as well. For example, an engineer wants his company to dump waste into a wastewater system. When it starts filling up, one of his workers says that it cannot overflow. The lead engineer tells him that when that problem happens, they’ll take care of it and not to worry now. He did not make an ethical decision in this case. When the time comes and the system starts to overflow, many lives and habitats are now at risk for radiation, poison and even worse. Engineers with no ethical standards affect public safety in every circumstance.