Mect 4188 - Meaning of Ethics in Engineering: My Perspective

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MEANING OF ETHICS IN ENGINEERING: MY PERSPECTIVE

MECT 4188

SPRING, 2018

WEDNESDAY 5:30 PM – 6:30 PM

BY

ARBIND CHAUDHARY

Ethics in my opinion is a well founded standards of what is right and what is wrong. Based on this one should decide his/her actions in terms of fairness, benefit to the society, obligations or specific virtues. After attending the lecture of Dr. Moghaddam and reading the first few chapters of the textbook “Hold Paramount: The Engineer’s Responsibility to Society,” i came to know that there is more to ethics than the understanding i had until now. I came to know that ethics is also the study and development of one’s ethical standard and it is very important to examine one’s standards to ensure they are ethically correct or reasonable on ethical grounds. I also learned that engineers must focus on a lot of ethical details and not just on mathematics and science to get the job done. Based on the knowledge and understanding gained from this class so far we can say that in order to become a professional whether in engineering, medical, law or any other field we need to have an understanding of ethics and how it should be used in favor of the general public and the welfare of the environment.

The very first chapter of the text book focus on doing the right thing, keeping promises, deception, theft, obligations to strangers, and moral rules. Moral values helps us to get along with each other in the society. The society itself is defined by these values such as truth, honesty, duty, and caring. If we can abide by these values the society will be a beautiful place to live in. But sometimes engineers are dishonest and untruthful. They sometimes try to hide important informations from their clients. This is unethical because the engineer who does this is conducting the act of deception on his clients. So i believe an engineer should be able to tell the truth about the product or project without being bias or having any hidden agenda or for any personal gain.

Lets take an example from the textbook where an engineer chooses to specify a water pump for a water treatment plant. In the first scenario, the engineer would recommend a good water pump to the client by providing all the necessary informations like  the manufacturer’s name, possible corporate ties, performance, and reliability statistics. In the second scenario, it shows that the engineer is selling a specific water pump to the client. The engineer is providing all the necessary information about the water pump just like in the first scene. However, the engineer in the second scenario is not informing the client that the water pump is manufactured by the company which is owed by the engineer’s brother-in-law. If the client had been informed of this relationship, then there is a chance that the client would begin to question the validity and quality of the product. The client would doubt that the pump is not of a good quality. But there is also the possibility that the pump could be one of the best water pumps in the market. This is not the point, the point is that regardless of the quality of the product, the fact that the engineer withheld the information of his relationship means that the engineer in the second scenario is dishonest and  had performed deception upon the client.

The engineers are also required to keep the promises they make. Not only engineers but every human being should keep the promise they make. If they cannot keep the promise it is morally incorrect and unethical. Some might argue on this but in order to sustain the moral community this is an important part. The textbook talks about keeping a promise to be of vital importance and that it can also be overridden given a valid and ethical circumstance. Lets take a look at another example from the textbook where breaking a promise is acceptable in one scenario whereas, in the other scenario its not acceptable. In the first scenario you have promised a dinner with your family. But an emergency rises and you have to take your ill friend to the hospital. Because of this you had to miss the dinner with your family. This made you break your promise you made to your family. But in this situation breaking the promise is acceptable because yo had a greater good deed to do. On top of that your parents would not feel let down. Instead they would be proud that you did something good for others by sacrificing something that was important to you.  However, there can be other situations created through laziness, self indulgence, or ignorance. Under this situations it is unethical to break a promise. Lets look at the second scenario from the book regarding this topic. You have promised a dinner with your family but you spent the entire day playing games on your office computer. This made you lose track of time and you are running late for the dinner with the family you had promised. But you want to keep your promise and you don’t want to let your family down. But this does not give you the right to go 85 mph in a 55 mph zone. This is not only against the law but also against humanity. You are putting other people life endanger along with yours. If these behaviors are displayed by an engineer, it would be considered unethical because engineers code of ethics says to put the safety of the public first.

Also engineers are expected to do the right thing regardless of any religious or secular belief. Some people do good moral deeds because their religion may teach them to do so and some people do good deeds because their parents or teachers or elders have taught them do so. Lets take a look at another scenario from the textbook where the conductor of the train gets drunk on his job while operating the train. This is morally and ethically wrong. This act of carelessness puts lives of all the passengers riding the train in grave danger. But if the conductor goes home and get drunk theres is nothing wrong with it because at least he’s not putting other peoples life in danger. Similarly, the person who left the restaurant paying less value for what he consumed from the restaurant is morally wrong. If he was caught he would have paid the correct price for the food he consumed and would have dissed the whole incident as a genuine mistake. But the persons intensions is morally wrong in this case. Such person cannot be trusted. So the engineers should try to be right without being influenced religious or secular morality.

Similarly, cheating and stealing is ethically wrong. So the engineers should never cheat or steal from others. They should always give credit to the rightful person or owner if they borrow some ideas or any other things from others. But it has become very difficult not to steal in todays modern time of technology. Specially in the world of entertainment, be it music or movies, it is very easy to download music or videos on the internet. This is piracy. This hampers the artists. So engineers should never claim somebody else work as their own to get credit. If possible they should preach this message not only to the engineering community but to the whole mankind. But the question arises that how long is an engineer responsible for the welfare of the society and how long should an engineer obey the code of ethics of engineers. As far as i understand by reading the textbook and from the lectures of our Professor, once an engineer always an engineer. But there are certain limitations for an engineer when he/she is holding a practicing license and when he/she is retired. Engineers are supposed to help the society be a safe place to live in. Lets take an example from the text book where a person is building the cabin. The cabin is safe according to him but from engineering point of view the structure of the cabin is faulty and it might hurt others if it collapsed. But the person who see flaw in the cabins design is a retired engineer. So, he can suggest the person who is building the cabin to consult an expert in this case a practicing engineer before building the cabin. If the person does not listens he can go to the society of Engineers and complain about the situation. But he himself cannot suggest on the technical aspect of building the cabin. He cannot tell the person to make this or that correction on the design of the cabin. This is because he is already retired and if anything goes wrong with the cabin after his suggestions he might be in great trouble. If he still was a practicing engineer the scenario would have been different.