Ethical Responsibilities of Engineers

SIYU MI (Tracy)
Introduction:
To be an engineer, no matter mechanical engineer, civil engineer, or electronics engineer, he
requires not only professional techniques or knowledge, but also understanding of his
responsibility. The decision made by engineer will cause a huge effect on others, no matter
good or bad effects, being cautious of every decision you make as an engineer is important.
This paper is mainly talking about the ethical responsibilities of engineers. It includes the
definition of the responsibility, why engineers should have ethical responsibility, how to make
an ethical judgment in different situations, and my understanding about the future of ethical
responsibilities.
What is ethical responsibilities?
Ethical responsibilities of engineers is the duty for engineers to do their job with a correct
moral sense, it requires engineers to think more not only from the perspective of engineers,
but also as a part of the nature and the society. An engineer should concern more about the
consequence of his or her job brought to environment, people, and society, like designing a
bridge, besides the designing the bridge itself, engineers should also consider about the
environmental impact of this bridge, and construction impact (safety issues, the construction
difficulty for workers, equipment, and etc.). As the first step of the whole project of building a
bridge, engineers should concern all possible problems as much as possible, so as a rule,
engineers must do field study to get more information about the construction place. As Justin
Smith mentioned in their paper The Responsibilities of Engineers, engineering is a practice.
Because of this property, risks will exist. So it is so important for an engineering that he must
be full of ethical and responsibility, which as Amadei (2004) states that engineers have a
collective responsibility to improve the lives of people around the world, and should
contribute to the building of a more sustainable, stable, and equitable world. (Zandvoort, H.
(2008). Preparing engineers for social responsibility. European Journal Of Engineering
Education).
But I am always puzzled with how to judge and define engineers ethical responsibilities,
because the responsibilities of engineers are continuously being extended during these years.
There are a lot of different arguments and attitudes in whether engineers responsibilities
should be extended or not. According current situation which the social operation and
structure are becoming more and more complex which is continuously changing the definition
of engineers, the engineer is given more meanings than before, it is also multiple meanings.
So I agree more with the idea of extending the responsibilities, especially in ethical aspect.
The ethical is a quite proportion in the responsibilities of engineers, and how to judge them in
different situation will become more difficult and complex than before.
How to judge the ethical responsibilities?
When making an ethical judgment, we should not only focus on the deciding what is right to
do or should to do. It is also important to pay attention to make judgment according to the
situation.
But to judge the ethical responsibilities of engineers, which I personally believe is the most
difficult, in different situations, answers are different. People try to make codes or principle to
define the engineers responsibilities, try to find way to regularize out of simplifying and
reducing controversy, but sometimes the line is fuzzy and hard to define.

People always follow the standards and rules to do their job, like design an automobile
according the ISO, ASME and other standards. But here is the problem, people will be
constrained or limited by the institution and their abilities will also be constrained to cover
and meet ethical demands, like the disaster of the space shuttle Challenger, Boger Boisjoly,
the engineer of the producer doubted about the safety of the O-ring seal and told his
misgivings to superior, but the superior ignored his warning about the potential dangerous of
launching in low temperature, which leaded the final disaster. This engineer tried to cause the
attention of the top, but he was limited by his ability, he couldnt make decision on stopping
the launching. In such situation, Boisjoly did not fulfill his ethical responsibility because he is
in a weak position. His ethical responsibility is restricted by upper power. In such kind of
situation, it is obviously that the superior should take the primary responsibility for this
accident, but the engineer also had the responsibility (We cant deny that the engineer didnt
finish his duty to stop things happening).
When engineers are in such a dilemma like Boisjoly, it is hard for them to insist their ethical
responsibilities. There are a lot of code for engineers, but when facing with more powerful
force, it is useless, and they will be easily denied by power strength, which makes me feel
pathetic.
The Future
For future engineers ethical responsibilities, in my view, they should become more
sustainable, and engineers should be given more freedom and empowered to make decision or
veto.
In sustainable aspect, as an engineer, he should consider more about the social effect and
environmental effect, not only put more emphasis on technical aspect. But the current codes
are not mainly focus on such issues, even with current codes, engineers may destroy the
environment and future society. As in the paper Sustaining Engineering Codes of Ethics for
the Twenty-First Century written by Michelfelder and Jones, it quotes what Vesilind said
engineers can, while staying well within the bounds of the present Codes of Ethics, destroy
or modify the environments that support the global ecosystem and in such manner kill future
humans on a grand scale. According to this quote, current codes seems not to keep the path
with development, and the risk of engineering decision may be enlarged by those codes. Also
some moral issues and social justice problems would be highlighted and happened frequently,
because current code of ethic do not put engineers responsibility on the environment, public
safety, health, and welfare. Although some sustainable thinking has added into code these
years, they are still abstract and not explicit. Code should be more specific in moral aspects
and include issues of social justice, environmental and other issues associated with future
development.
More reasonable and predictable code is a good support to right ethical responsibilities.
Engineers always follows or be educated to follow the codes of engineering ethics, so codes
will certainly affect their judgment on their ethical responsibility. But just having good codes
are not enough. As I mentioned before, engineer will easily be restrained by upper power,
except the engineer is in a strong position. So how to avoid the interference which would
affect engineers to accomplish their responsibility is important. From my perspective, first,
giving more space and freedom to engineers and let them make their own decision according
to ethic of codes so that they could reduce the risk of the engineering in some degree (maybe
will reduce such tragedy happening as the Challenger). Besides that, the superior should
also pay attention to themselves to make right decision and avoiding risks happening.
Because they are the final decision maker, they need to improve their perceiving about
engineering ethics (not just stay at the surface of understanding) to avoid obstructing
engineering making their own decision.

Conclusion:
In all, as an engineer, I think that he should have a clear understanding about his
responsibility (technical and ethical). Since the technical responsibility is more mature that
the ethical responsibility, we should put more focus on ethical responsibility, which is also
harder being improved than technical responsibility. And I also believe that in order to keep
the quality of engineering and meet social satisfaction, engineer should get more space
without constraining to do their job. Todays engineers are not as same as before, engineer
contains more meanings than before, and they take more social responsibilities in todays
society.
From my perspective, engineers are associated closely with business, they are considering
more on business factors when they make their decision. It is inevitable that their
understanding of engineering ethics are increasingly affected by business ethics. I dont think
it is a good phenomenon. I cant deny that adding more business concern into engineering
area does help the development of engineering in some degree, but the side effects are also
obvious, especially in moral aspect. In such high commercialized society, sometimes
engineers have to compromise for commercial profits, and engineers authority are
continuously weakened. I am growing up in a family which almost elders are engaged in
engineering area, like my both my father and mother are engineers. I have seen and heard a
lot of examples from my parents, which their colleagues cant get attention from superior in
the company, and they have to compromise and make some decision for commercial option
which will against to their responsibility. So the young generation in my family are not
willing to engage in this area except me. I always concern that how to insist the duty and
responsibility of an engineer after entering to the society. The society still not give such
attention to engineering as they give it to the business in China. Hope it will be better in the
young generation.

Reference:
Smith J, Gardoni P, Murphy C. The Responsibilities of Engineers. Science & Engineering
Ethics [serial online]. June 2014;20(2):519-538. Available from: Engineering Source,
Ipswich, MA. Accessed December 2, 2014.
Michelfelder D, Jones S. Sustaining Engineering Codes of Ethics for the Twenty-First
Century. Science & Engineering Ethics [serial online]. March 2013;19(1):237-258.
Available from: Engineering Source, Ipswich, MA. Accessed December 2, 2014.
Zandvoort, H. (2008). Preparing engineers for social responsibility. European Journal Of
Engineering Education, 33(2), 133-140. doi:10.1080/03043790802024082