An Essay on Ethics

Sierra Jones

What is ethics? Google defines ethics as moral principles that govern a person's
behavior or conducting of an activity. Ethics is important in our daily lives because they
act as a moral compass as we make decisions. Ethics is the backbone of a healthy
society. When it comes to engineering, ethics plays a much bigger role. Engineers
constantly make and design products and applications that directly impact people’s
health, safety, and privacy. As such, engineers have a higher call to abide by a strong
set of moral rules. When making a decision that plays into my own personal ethics, I
attempt to look at any and all possible circumstances and outcomes of my decision and
how it could affect others. I also seek advice from those around me whom I believe
demonstrate sound ethics. I endeavor to make choices that have an overall positive
effect and minimize the negative impact on others. This broad concept of ethics was the
overarching theme in our ethics discussion in class. During CPRE 394 at ISU, six main
categories of ethics were the focus: Integrity, Honesty, Fidelity, Charity, Responsibility,
and Self-Discipline.
While there are six different types of ethics, they are often interrelated with one
another. For example, Responsibility and Fidelity often present together in ethical
situations. Responsibility can be described as accountability, trustworthiness,
dependability, reliability, and recognizing a personal and moral obligation to act for the
good of others. Responsibility is important in the field of engineering because it brings
about products that are safe and ethical for consumer use. Without it, there is nothing
opposing products that adversely impact those who use it. Many of the products,
physical and virtual, can have huge negative impacts on consumers if not ethically
made. Fidelity is demonstrated by continuing loyalty and support to yourself, your
family, the public, your employer, your clients, and your profession. Fidelity gives
engineers a sense of why they should be ethical in their practices, because they have a
loyalty to many different groups of people.
In our technology driven world with targeted ads and personal information being
readily available, big data companies can run into issues that bring these two principles
of ethics into play. For example, an engineer working for a data mining company, is
assigned a task to collect and link data from several sources to understand the types of
injuries paramedics acquire while on the job to inform health officials and policy makers.
To gather the necessary data elements, the database will link to data sources such as
hospitals, workers’ compensation, and ambulance companies’ records. When writing
the algorithm, the engineer knows that these sources have data that qualifies as
personally identifiable information or PII, which is protected in the US under the General
Services Administration Privacy Act. The engineer decides to write his algorithm so he
does not need to exclude the PPI portion of the data. The engineer’s supervisor later
emails him new information and wants this set of data in his finding as well. When the
engineer opens the data, he immediately recognizes it as personally identifiable
information. He does not feel that the new data meets the “Minimum Necessary”
Standard for Accessing Protected Health Information and does not feel comfortable
linking it to the findings. However his supervisor is adamant that the data be included.
This is a situation where many types of ethics come into play, including Responsibility
and Fidelity. The engineer has a Responsibility to follow the law by protecting sensitive
medical information. Additionally, he has a moral obligation to look out for the best
interest of the people whose information he is using. One factor of Fidelity is to be loyal
and support one’s employer. What would be in the best interest of the company? The
engineer might report his supervisor to HR or some other superior his concern that
moving forward with the PII is a potential risk to the company’s reputation and integrity
which ultimately could cause harm to the company. Reporting the misguided superior
might be in the company's best interest. What if all of the concerns of the engineer are
ignored or disregarded? Fidelity also states that one has to maintain a loyalty to the
public and their company’s clients as well. This would mean reporting the activity to
some regulatory board, or even the press to stop the negligent use of protected data.
The engineer has a larger obligation to uphold the law and protect the peoples’ private
information over loyalty to their coworker and their company. Whenever multiple ethics
come into play, it becomes harder to discern the best way to proceed.
Integrity comes into play essentially every ethics decision. Integrity may be
thought of as a moral uprightness and being of strong moral principle and ethics, as well
as exercising good and ethical judgment. Not only is Integrity the principle of following
all of the other ethical codes, but it also is what motivates engineers to make the correct
judgment in each situation. Integrity is the ethics code that prompts the engineer in the
example above to make an ethical and just decision. Another real-world example would
be the Volkswagen case in which cars were installed with incorrect sensors designed to
cover-up CO2 emissions, in order to pass certain regulations. This is a case where
Integrity was ignored as the engineers involved did not act in an ethical manner. The
company valued profits over public and environmental health, and the law. An engineer
who valued Integrity would have opposed the proposed unethical carbon emission
sensors.
It is clear to see that ethics plays a huge role in the engineering profession.
Whether it’s making sure a product is safe for consumer use by thorough safety testing,
or making sure software provided to clients is secure from outside threats by providing
sufficient security, ethics is the baseline for making just and beneficial decisions for the
common good.