Liam Tureaud

EE 394

Ethics Essay

12/12/2021

Ethics are a very important thing to have and to follow. Being ethical means you have

and observe respect for others and other things. The purpose of instilling a code of ethics means

to regulate and have an abiding force and guideline to follow. This is to make sure that

everyone is on the same page and that we come together and work for the greater good. This is

very important for us engineers.

There are many ways of making a decision when it comes to ethics. In an ideal situation I

would consult the IEEE code of ethics and base my decision on what that has to say. Sometimes

you don't always have that on hand. Personally I would look at both sides of the situation.

Relating to my discussion post on the Amazon Echo incident, you really have to take into

account the privacy of your customers and what actions you have to take and what outcomes

there would be. You really have to do a lot of thinking on all the possibilities such as customer

reaction if you would hand over personal information to police and maybe even other companies.

I know that wouldn't blow over so well. In my own view, I would fall back on my learned core

ethical values and make a decision based on how I feel about the situation.

There was a lot of material discussed in class about ethical issues. One major one that stuck

with me was the 5 P’s. These were Pressure, Pleasure, Power, Pride, and Priorities. These all

pertain to how we evaluate and act on a situation pertaining to ethics. Pressure is about not telling

the truth, we see that some companies lie and place blame which happened in the VW issue in

class. Pleasure is all about vices and doing what pleases you. Power has to do with the
abuse of power, which in the Amazon Echo incident, Amazon demonstrated a great use of power

and protected its customer, even though he might have been guilty of his crime. Pride is all about

exaggerated self worth. Finally priorities are about putting something above something else.

Looking through our discussion posts, everyone had a different story they evaluated. As I

read through their case files, then their post, I totally agree with their findings and reflection.

Everyone followed the IEEE code of ethics very well and linked which ones pertained to that

case the same way I would. There was no true cohesion between us, but all the comments seem

to agree with everyone's findings.

The case study I did, as I previously mentioned, was the Amazon Echo issue. The virtue

ethics that I feel best relate to this case were; Integrity, Fidelity, and Responsibility. These all

three relate to Amazon protecting their customers personal information in the face of the law.

They didn’t willingly give it up because the police didn't have a warrant and had other ways of

finding better and more convincing evidence to convict the suspect. It really shows they put

their customers first no matter what and I can really appreciate and respect that.

We all need to be ethical. Ethics are an important part of being human, especially when it

comes to engineering. Being an electrical engineer, dealing with sensitive data, I need to do what

is right and be ethical in my methods.