Professional Ethics and Responsibilities in Engineering

Codes of Ethics :

A professional association is a non-profit organization that offers membership to practitioners of a particular profession. It provides an organized platform for the professionals and helps them increase their skills. The members in such organizations are expected to meet certain criteria and also to adhere to rules and regulations, i.e. codes of ethics.

• Protection of public safety, health, and welfare
• Actively discouraging bribery and plagiarism
• Practicing no discrimination
• Dissemination of clear and correct information
• Protecting confidentiality of the employer
• Maintaining dignity

Engineering as Social ExperimentationEarlier the development of a society was analyzed by the education of the people, their financial welfare, etc. There are some similarities between engineering as experimentation and standard experimentation as given below.

• One cannot be sure about all the outcomes of both the cases
• Gaining knowledge by constant monitoring is crucial to both.

Differences between engineering as experimentation and standard experimentation

• In standard experiments, there will be a control group which serves as a reference and an experimental group on which the experiment is conducted. In engineering as experimentation, there is no such control group.
• In standard experiments, consent of the human subject is mandatory. But in engineering as experimentation, the people must be informed and no consent is required.

Engineers as Responsible Experimenters

• Conscientiousness – It is about being careful, thoughtful, and vigilant with a commitment to values and sensitivity to moral issues. Conscientious engineers think above the narrow self-interest and profit motive.
• Comprehensive Perspective – It is getting the big picture and fully understanding the moral context of one’s work. Getting complete information about anything is very important in this regard.
• Moral Autonomy – It is the capacity to reflect and self-impose the moral law rather than passively adopting the social, religious, and professional conventions. If an engineer goes by the moral views of his company even if his conscience is against them, he is deceiving his moral autonomy.
• Accountability – It is the moral obligation of the engineer to account for his actions, decisions, and responsibilities.

Collegiality and Loyalty:

Collegiality is the term that describes a work environment where responsibility and authority are shared among colleagues. It is an important virtue in the engineering profession. Loyalty is a dependent virtue. An engineer should be loyal in the sense that he/she should deliver what is expected from him/her by her employer and the society. Agency-loyalty: Agency loyalty is acting to fulfill one’s contractual duties to an employer. Attitude-loyalty: Attitude loyalty has a lot to do with attitudes, emotions, and a sense of personal identity as it does with actions.

Collective BargainingIt is the responsibility of an organization to look into the welfare of the section of people working in it. Conflicting situations which call for negotiation might occur on areas related to pay scales, working hours, training, health and safety, overtime, grievance mechanisms, rights in workplaces or company affairs, etc. The process of voluntary negotiations between the employers and a group of employees to resolve the conflicts is called Collective Bargaining.

• Distributive Bargaining − In this, one party’s gain is another party’s loss. Example– Wages
• Integrative bargaining − In this, both the parties may gain or none of the parties may face a loss. Example− Better training programs
• Attitudinal Structuring − When there is a backlog of bitterness between both the parties then attitudinal structuring is required to make smooth industrial relations.
• Intra-organizational Bargaining − There can be conflicting groups in both management and unions also. So, there is a need to achieve consensus in these groups.

IPR:- Intellectual Property Right (IPR) is a type of property right that allows the creators or owners of patents, trademarks, or copyrighted works to benefit from their own work or investment.

• Patents – A Patent is an exclusive right granted for an invention. It provides the patent owners with protection generally for a period of 20 years. With the patent rights, one can access any material reward for their marketable innovations.
• Trademarks – We often come across certain distinctive marks or signs that identify certain goods or services produced or provided by an individual or a company. These trademarks ensure the belongingness of products to the authorized owners.
• Industrial Designs – Ownership of an industrial design protects it from any duplication. Industrial designs are what make an article attractive and appealing and add commercial value to the product.
• Geographical Locations – Geographical location indications are helpful for the customers to identify the original and quality products, which are produced using raw materials of that geographical area.

Professional Rights The most fundamental right of an engineer is the right to be able to exercise professional judgment while on duty in an ethical manner. The rights that engineers have as professionals are called Professional Rights. These professional rights include

• The basic right of professional conscience.
• The right of conscientious refusal.
• The right of professional recognition.

Right of Professional Conscience This is a basic right which explains that the decisions taken while carrying on with the duty, where they are taken in a moral and ethical manner, cannot be opposed.

Right of Conscientious Refusal The right of conscientious refusal is the right to refuse to engage in unethical behavior.

Right to Recognition An engineer has the right to the recognition of one’s work and accomplishments. An engineer also has the right to speak about the work one does by maintaining confidentiality and can receive external recognition.