Overview of Professional Engineering and Ethics
Ethics are important in every field and so are they in the field of engineering. Engineering ethics are guidelines to be followed by the engineers for the betterment of their profession as well as the world. These rules are decided by the National society of professional engineers (NSPE) . They very strictly emphasize on the point, that professional conduct for engineers should be based solely on protecting the safety, health and property for the well being of society.
If according to their judgement, any of this is somehow in danger, they should quickly notify their client or the authority that is responsible. These professional ethics are greatly influenced in this field despite the type of engineering.
Canon of Ethics
- Be it electrical, civil, biomedical or chemical engineering according to the ethics the foremost duty of all these engineers is to look upon the problem and identify the state of that ethical engineering problem.
- The next step is to find the facts that relate to that problem i.e. the different moral viewpoints
- Identifying the pros and cons of the ethical problem and searching for a new solution
- Coming up with a new course of action and qualifying for it.
Engineers are responsible for inventing for the future, which surely means that it will affect the lives of millions of people. Talking about the biomedical engineering, if an engineer develops an artificial kidney and wants to check whether it will work or not , it has to be tested on a human sample.
Check out this video on Professional Ethics in Engineering – Great Overview
In this research the human that is being tested might either die or become well. If he dies it will be non ethical but by using the above points the engineer can monitor the code of conduct and also create something that will save millions of lives. Over confidence and negligence can always be the culprit which can harm these ethics in professional engineering.
So, an engineer should check his work at least twice to verify that it does not overlook the ethical law in excitement of his new invention. Engineers are responsible for so many developments which makes this profession a multidisciplinary one. If they ignore the safety and security of the society it can have harmful consequences that they might haven’t even anticipated.
Honesty and integrity is the first part of every job ,if a person is not honest with their job that means that they are not likely to be called as professionals. Same is the case with engineering, where so many lives are relying and dependent upon the services being provided by them.
Conclusion – Remain Up to Date
Another very important point to ponder upon is to keeping up to date. An engineer should be aware of the new and latest developments and also guide others about them. Keeping their knowledge and skills up to date with the current world will lead to a better future that they can give to the people.
Hence, ethics in professional engineering is something which can not be ignored at any cost and it is the first and foremost duty of an engineer to think about the safety, health and well being of the society.