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Lecture #1 - Engineering Ethics

The document outlines a course on Engineering Ethics for first-year students at the University of Warith Al-Anbiyaa, covering topics such as the profession of engineering, ethical problem-solving, and the rights and responsibilities of engineers. It emphasizes the importance of understanding ethics in engineering practice, particularly in light of public health and safety implications. The course aims to enhance students' critical thinking and moral autonomy in addressing ethical issues in engineering.

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13 views15 pages

Lecture #1 - Engineering Ethics

The document outlines a course on Engineering Ethics for first-year students at the University of Warith Al-Anbiyaa, covering topics such as the profession of engineering, ethical problem-solving, and the rights and responsibilities of engineers. It emphasizes the importance of understanding ethics in engineering practice, particularly in light of public health and safety implications. The course aims to enhance students' critical thinking and moral autonomy in addressing ethical issues in engineering.

Uploaded by

hsna50186
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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University of Warith Al-Anbiyaa

College of Engineering
Oil and Gas Engineering Department

Engineering Ethics
First Year Class
Lecture #1

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Course Outline:

• Introduction to Course Materials.

• The Profession of Engineering.

• Professionalism and Codes of Ethics.

• Understanding Ethical Problems.

• Ethical Problem-Solving Techniques.

• Risk, Safety, and Accidents.

• The Rights and Responsibilities of Engineers.

• Ethics in Research and Experimentation.

• Global Issues.
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1.Introduction
1.1. What's meant by Ethics?
Ethics: is the study of the characteristics of morals. Ethics also deals
with the moral choices that are made by each person in his or her
relationship with other persons.

➢ As engineers, we are concerned with ethics because these definitions


apply to all of the choices an individual makes in life, including those
made while practicing engineering.

Engineering ethics: Are the rules and standards governing the conduct
of engineers in their role as professionals.

Engineering ethics encompasses the more general definition of ethics,


but applies it more specifically to situations involving engineers in their
professional lives. Thus, engineering ethics is a body of philosophy
indicating the ways that engineers should conduct themselves in their
professional capacity. 3
1.2.What's meant by Morals?
Morals are the welfare principles enunciated by wise people, based on
their experience and wisdom. They were edited, changed or modified or
evolved to suit the geography of the region, rulers (dynasty), and in
accordance with the development of knowledge in science and
technology and with time.

Morality is concerned with principles and practices of morals such as:

❖ What ought or ought not to be done in a given situation?

❖ What is right or wrong about the handling of a situation?

❖ What is good or bad about the people, policies, and ideas involved?

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1.3.What are the differences between morality and
ethics?

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1.4. Why studying engineering ethics?
➢ Increased awareness of importance due to publicity surrounding
high profile engineering failures.
➢ Engineering decisions can impact public health, safety, business
practices and politics.
➢ Engineers should be aware of moral implications as they make
decisions in the workplace.
➢ Helps engineers develop a moral autonomy.

Moral autonomy: is the ability to think critically and independently


about moral issues and to apply this moral thinking to situations that
arise in the course of professional engineering practice.
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1.5. Why should a future engineer bother studying ethics at
all?

There are already either a good person or a


bad person.
❖ Good people already know the right thing
to do.
❖ Bad people aren't going to do the right
thing no matter how much ethical
training they receive.

The answer to this question lies in the nature of the ethical problems
that are often encountered by an engineer.

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1.6. Engineering is managing the unknown.
Engineering design is about creating new devices and products. When

something is new, many questions need to be answered.

➢ How well does it work?

➢ How will it affect people?

➢ What changes will this lead to in society?

➢ How well will this work under all of the conditions that it will be

exposed to?

➢ Is it safe? If there are some safety concerns, how bad are they?
The answers to these questions are often only partly
known.
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How does an engineer accomplish this?

Really, as an engineer you can never be absolutely certain that your

design will never harm anyone or cause detrimental changes to society.

✓ You must test your design as thoroughly as time and resources permit

to ensure that it operates safely and as planned.

✓ You must use your creativity to attempt to foresee the possible

consequences of your work.

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1.6. Personal Vs. Professional ethics.

➢ Personal ethics deals with how we treat others in our day-to-day


lives.
✓ Many of these principles are applicable to ethical situations that
occur in business and engineering.

➢ Professional ethics often involves choices on an organizational level


rather than a personal level.

✓ Many of the problems will seem different because they involve

relationships between two corporations, between a corporation


and the government, or between corporations and groups of
individuals.
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1.7. Ethics and the Law.
o The practice of engineering is governed by many laws on the international,
federal, state, and local levels.
o Many of these laws are based on ethical principles, although many are pure of
a practical, rather than a philosophical, nature.
➢ A distinction between what is legal and what is ethical.
✓ Many things that are legal could be considered unethical. For example,
designing a process that releases a known toxic, but unregulated, substance
into the environment is probably unethical, although it is legal.
✓ Something is illegal doesn’t mean that it is unethical. For example, there might
be substances that were once thought to be harmful but have now been shown
to be safe, that you wish to incorporate into a product. If the law has not
caught up with the latest scientific findings, it might be illegal to release these
substances into the environment, even though there is no ethical problem in
doing so.
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Try it your self
❖ You are supervising a product with specifications that only Iraq-made

parts may be used.

❖ Late in the project, you discover a sub-contractor has supplied a part with
foreign-made bolts.

❖ They are not very noticeable and would function identically to Iraq-made
bolts.

❖ Your customer urgently needs the finished product.

What should you do?


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Should you:

A. Say nothing and deliver the product with the foreign bolts because the

customer won’t notice.

B. Find some roughly equivalent violation of the contract/specs for which

the customer is responsible and tell them you will ignore their violation if

they ignore yours.

C. Tell the customer about the problem, and let them decide what you

should do next.

D. Find loopholes in the original specifications so that your company hasn’t

legally violated the specs.

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1.8. Ethical problems

Very obvious Very complex and involve


conflicting ethical principles

1.8.Goal of this course :


✓ Improve the ability of students to think analytically, critically, and
creatively about ethical issues in engineering.
✓ Identify some of the classic cases in engineering ethics and some of
the typical ethical and professional issues which arise in engineering.
✓ Train students to analyze complex problems and learn to resolve
these problems in the most ethical manner.
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References
1- Charles B. Fleddermann, “Engineering Ethics”, Fourth
Edition,2012, Pearson Education, Inc., publishing as
Prentice Hall, 1 Lake Street, Upper Saddle River, NJ
07458,USA.

2 Charles B. Fleddermann, “Engineering Ethics”,Thired Edition,


2008 , Pearson Education, Inc., publishing as Prentice Hall, 1 Lake
Street, Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458,USA.

3 Charles E. Harris, Michael S. Pritchard, Michael J. Rabins,


“Engineering Ethics, Concepts and Cases”, Fourth Edition,
2009,Wadsworth, USA.

4 Naagarazan R.S., “A Textbook on Professional Ethics and Human


Values”,2006, New Age International (P) Ltd., Publishers, New
Delhi, India.

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