Model Question paper

APJ ABDUL KALAM TECHNOLOGICAL UNIVERSITY

THIRD/FOURTH SEMESTER

B.TECH DEGREE EXAMINATION, MONTH & YEAR

Course Code: HUT 200

Course Name: PROFESSIONAL ETHICS

Max. Marks: 100 Duration: 3 Hours (2019-Scheme)

PART A

(Answer all questions, each question carries 3 marks)

1. Define empathy and honesty?

Honesty is speaking the truth.

Being honest means you act in a way that you know is the right thing to do.
Examples of what speaking the honest truth means:
Honesty means you don't say things about people that aren't true .
Being honest means you admit to your actions,even if you'll get in
trouble.
Honesty means you explain how a situationreally happened.
Honesty is a virtue, and it is exhibited intwo aspects namely,

1.) Truthfulness
Truthfulness is to face theresponsibilities upon telling truth.
2.) Trustworthiness
Trustworthiness is maintaining integrityand taking responsibility for personal performance.
2. Briefly explain about morals, values and ethics?

M0RALS
Morals are the prevailing standards ofbehavior that enable people to live
cooperatively in groups ..
Moral refers to what societies sanction asright and acceptable.
Morality often requires that people sacrificetheir own short-term interests for
the benefit of the society .
ETHICS
Oxford Dictionary defines ethics as “systemof moral principles, rules and
conduct.
Ethics is a “science of morals.”
 The words ethics has emerged from Latin‘Ethicus’ or in Greek ‘Ethicos’.

VALUES
The term ‘VALUE’ comes from the Latin word‘VALERE’ which means ‘to be
to be . ’.
Values are defined as something which aredesirable and worthy of esteem for
for their own sake .
Human values are defined as those valueswhich help man to live in harmony with theworld.

3. Interpret the two forms of self-respect?

It is defined as valuing oneself in morally suitable ways. Self-respect includes

(a) recognition, which means respect to others, their ideas, decisions, ability, and rights and
(b) appraisal, which means properly valuing ourselves as to how well we face moral standards and our personal
commitments(aims).
• An intensive but balanced feeling of self-respect is sense of honour. This includes intense agony and guilt for
wrong doings.
• Self-control is a virtue of maintaining personal discipline (self-regulation).
• Courage is a bye-product of self-respect, which makes a person face the hardship in rational way

SELF-RESPECT
self-esteem is used to describe aperson's overall subjective sense
of personal worth or value.

4. List out the models of professional roles ?

MODELS OF PROFESSIONAL ROLES

(PROFESSIONAL ROLES TO BE PLAYED BY AN ENGINEER)
1. Engineers as Saviors
2. Engineers as Guardians
3. Engineers as Bureaucratic Servants
4. Engineers as Social Servants
5. Engineers as Social Enablers and Catalysts
6. Engineers as Game Players
5. Indicate the advantages of using standards?

Reducing Costs. Lowering costs through minimising errors,

redundancies and increasing productivity.

Efficiency. ...
Mitigating Risks. ...
Consistency. ...
Customer Confidence. ...
Uniformity. ...
Eliminate Trade Borders. ...
Universal Vendor Requirements.

The pros are: it can promote productivity, people are more polite and civil, the company looks good
externally and internally. The cons, it could make people feel anxious, it could stifle creativity, many feel
uncomfortable physically and socially when there is too much professionalism. After a quick comparison
of the positive and negative aspects it is fairly apparent that professionalism is a good thing, probably
why it has persisted for so long. However, just because it is good does not preclude the possibility of
something better.

6. Point out the conditions required to define a valid consent?

In study of moral autonomy, consensus and controversy are relevant factors to

discuss on.
• Consensus means agreement and controversy means conflict or disagreement.
• In exercising moral autonomy one is likely to obtain the same results as by others
• This situation is likely to end in a controversy.
• In this case good amount of tolerance among the individuals who are autonomous,reasonable and responsible is
necessary.
• This does not mean forcing engineers to reach unique moral situations.
• Many reasonable solutions are possible to a given ethical problem.
• The ethics make the engineers realize the importance of tolerance among them,incase of disagreement while
applying moral autonomy.

7. Identify the conflicts of interests with an example?

• A conflict of interest occurs when the employee has more than one interest

• Example 1
Let us consider a girl who needs to choose from among her interests in order
to fit in her timetable. She wants to attend the exam in college, to attend the
music class, to go out for a movie, to deliver a seminar and also go visit her
friend. As she is falling short of time, it is her interest to choose what to do and
what not. The term used to mention this can be “Conflicting interests” and this
cannot be morally wrong.
• Example 2
If another instance is considered where a man works for a company, being in
some crucial position where he has access to all the confidential information
and if he works as an unofficial adviser to his wife’s company, it would be
morally wrong, where a moral conflict definitely arises. This can be termed as
“Conflict in interests”.

8. Recall confidentiality.

• Confidentiality is that practice which helps tokeep all information secret.

• The maintenance of secrecy refers to theunrevealing of any data concerning the company’s business or
technical processesthat are not already in public knowledge

Types of information under confidentiality

1. Privileged information : “available only on the basisof special privilege” such as a privilege accorded
anemployee working on a special assignment
2. Proprietary information : The information that acompany owns or is the proprietor of, and hence isa term
carefully defined by property law. It is simplycalled trade secret.

9. Conclude the features of biometric ethics.

biometric classification system of plant cultivars, unique characteristics, in terms of the uranium (U)
uptake, primarily in the function of the application for phytoremediation. It is known that the degree of
adoption of U depends on the plant species and its morphological and physiological properties, but it is
less known what impact have plants cultivars, sorts, and hybrids.

10. Name any three professional societies and their role relevant to
engineer?

PART B
(MODULE 1)

11. a) Classify the relationship between ethical values and law?

b) Compare between caring and sharing.

11(a)
The examples shown below illustrate the theory:
• On the other hand, the Virtue Theory proposed by Mac Intyre, highlighted on the actions aimed at
achieving common good and social (internal) good such as social justice, promotion of health, creation
• Five types of virtues that constitute responsible professionalism, namely public-spiritedvirtuesproficiency

virtues, team-work virtues, self-governance virtues, and cardinal virtues .

The duty ethics theory, proposed by Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) states, that actions
are consequences of performance of one’s duties such as, ‘being honest’, ‘not cause
suffering of others’, ‘being fair to others including the meek and week’, ‘being
grateful’, ‘keeping promises’ etc.

On the other hand, the DUTY ethics theory, as enunciated by John Rawl, gave
importance to the actions that would be voluntarily agreed upon by all persons
concerned, assuming impartiality.

C.W.D. Ross, the British philosopher introduced the term prima facie duties, which
means dutiesmight have justified exceptions.
• In fact, most duties are prima facie ones; some may have obligatory orpermissible
exceptions.
• Ross assumed that the prima facie duties are intuitively obvious (self-evident),while
fixing priorities among duties.
• He noted that the principles such as ‘Do not kill’ and ‘protect innocent life’ involve high
respect for persons than other principles such as, ‘Do not lie’ (less harmful)
• .This theory is criticized on the fact, that the intuitions do not provide sufficient
guideline for moral duty.
• He has listed various aspects of Duty Ethics that reflect our moral convictions,
namely

(b)

Caring includes feelings, relationship,protecting others and causing leastdamage to others.

Caring is feeling for others
It includes showing respect to thefeelings of others, and also respectingand preserving the interests of all
others concerned.

Sharing means ‘sharing’ of feelings,ideas thoughts, resources and profits. Sharing is always mutually
beneficial
Sharing is voluntary and it cannot bedriven by force, but motivatedsuccessfully through ethical principles
Sharing should be genuine, legal,positive, voluntary, and without any expectation in return .
12. a) Exemplify a comprehensive review about integrity and respect
b) Discuss about co-operation and commitment.

12(a)
Integrity is a term used to describe aperson's level of honesty, moral commitments,and
willingness to do what's right.

ACADEMIC INTEGRITY

Academic integrity is the commitment to anddemonstration of honest and moral behavior

in an academic setting.
The International Center for Academic Integrity(ICAI) has identified five pillars of
academic integrity

Five Pillars of Academic Integrity:

A. Pillar 1 : Honesty
B. Pillar 2 : Trust
C. Pillar 3 : Fairness
D. Pillar 4 : Respect
E. Pillar 5 : Responsibility

RESPECT FOR OTHERS

Respect, also called esteem, is a positivefeeling or action shown towards someone
or something considered important, or held in high esteem or regard
It is also the process of honoringsomeone by exhibiting care, concern, orconsideration for their needs or
feelings.
"Thank you” / "Namaste”
How to Respect Others
Listening to the other person.
Being empathetic, understanding each other and putting ourselves in their shoes.
Apologizing to each other when we makemistakes.
Keeping other people’s secrets.
Complying with and respecting laws and regulations
Respecting the privacy and intimacy of others.
Being grateful.
13.a) Explain the three main levels of moral developments, deviced by Kohlberg.
b) Differentiate moral codes and optimal codes

13(a)
KOHLBERG’S THEORY
Lawrence Kohlberg proposed that people progress inmoral reasoning based on their ethical behavior.
• He postulated this theory based on the thinking ofyounger children throughout their growing period
asadults.
• He conveyed that younger children make judgmentbased on the consequences that might occur and theolder
children make judgment based on their intuitions.

3 Stages of Kohlberg’s Theory

1. Pre-conventional Level

The first level of moral thinking, which isgenerally found at Elementary school level. The
thinker at this stage tends to think and behavebased on the direct consequences that might occur
There are two sub-stages in this.

a. Avoid Punishments
b. Self–interest

2. Conventional Level

The second level of moral thinking, which isgenerally found at the primary and highschool level. The thinker
at this stage tendsto think and behave based on the want toplease others.

There are two sub-stages in this.

a. Getting people to like them

b. Maintain functioning in society

3. Post-Conventional Level
the third level of Moral thinking, which isgenerally found after the high school level.The thinker at this stage
tends to think andbehave based on a sense of justice.

There are two sub-stages in this

• Reject rigidity of laws

• Sense of justice

(b)
14. a) Extrapolate the duty ethics and right ethics.
b) Discuss in detail the three types of inquiries in engineering ethic ?

14(a)

Right based ethics

This theory was proposed by John Locke.

According to this theory, the solution to aproblem is by realizing that every person has a right to live.
 Live and let live is the philosophy behindthis theory. The rights of a person towards
life, health, liberty, possession, etc. are takencare of under this theory.

Duty-based Ethical Theory

• The duty-based ethical theory was proposed by ImmanuelKant.

• According to this theory, every person has a duty to followwhich is accepted universally, with no exceptions.
• Kant observed that everyone is bound to follow some moral laws.There are four virtues that come under
this law
• Prudence > Every individual has duties which should be done without any exception.
• Temperance > The temptations that might lead to the violation of duties and ethics have to be restrained
• Fortitude > Sense of having tolerance
• Justice > Truth and fairness

(b)
Types of Inquiry
Inquiry means an investigation. Like generalethics, Engineering ethics also involvesinvestigations into values,
meaning and facts.

These inquiries in the field of Engineering ethicsare of three types.

Normative Inquiries

These inquiries are mostly helpful to identify the values whichguide the individuals and groups in taking a decision.
These aremeant for identifying and justifying some norms and standards of morally desirable nature for guiding
individuals as well as groups.In most of the cases, the normative questions are given below:
1. How do the obligations of engineers protect the public safety in
given situations?

2. When should an engineer have to alarm their employers on

dangerous practices?

3. Where are the laws and organizational procedures that affect

engineering practice on moral issues?

4. 4. Where are the moral rights essential for engineers to fulfil

their professional obligations?

From these questions, it is clear that normative inquiries also have

the theoretical goal of justifying moral judgments

Conceptual Inquiries
These are meant for describing the meaning of concepts,principles, and issues related to Engineering Ethics.These
inquiries also explain whether the concepts andideas are expressed by single word or by phrases.

The following are some of the questions of conceptual inquiries:

1. What is the safety and how it is related to risk?

2. What does it mean when codes of ethics sayengineers should protect the safety, health and welfare of the
public?

3. What is a “bribe”?

4. What is a “profession” and “professional”?

Factual / Descriptive Inquiries

• These help to provide facts for understanding and findingsolutions to value based issues.
• The engineer has to conduct factual inquiries by usingscientific techniques.
• These help to provide information regarding the businessrealities such as engineering practice,history of
engineeringprofession, the effectiveness of professional societies inimposing moral conduct, the procedures to be
adoptedwhen assessing risks and psychological profiles of engineers.
• The information about these facts provide understandingand background conditions which create moral
problems.
• These facts are also helpful in solving moral problems byusing alternative ways of solutions.

15.a) Summarize the following features of morally responsible engineers.

(i) Moral autonomy
(ii) Accountability
b)Explain the rights of employees ?

15(a)

MORAL AUTONOMY
Any person can be morally autonomous only when one is being genuine in one’s
commitment towards moral values. Moral beliefs and attitudes must be integrated into an
individual’s personality which leads to a committed action. The responsibility to answer
an unexpected result influences an engineer to involve himself personally into the work.
This leads to moral autonomy wherein, he also gains the trust of the
employer, through his commitment. Such responsible actions lead to great outcomes.

ACCOUNTABILITY
Accountability can be understood as the moral responsibility that we have towards our
actions. It means a tendency to be willing to openly accept the moral
examinationstowards one’s actions and being responsive to the assessment of others. The
gap between casual responsibility and moral accountability is common in any profession,
along with engineering.

Let us now consider the following instances to understand accountability −

When a group of persons are involved in the completion of a project, then the
accountability refers to the group minimizing the chances of acceptance of moral
responsibility towards a specificaction, where each person makes only a small
contribution to something much larger.
The accountability is diffused within the organization and one has to accept it.
Both credit and failure need to be considered for accountability where the
workisdiffusedandtheareasofpersonalaccountabilityaredelimitedwithin the
organization.
At times, when the engineers are pressurized to move to another project while
the current is still underway, then the accountability is limited only for meeting
schedules.
There is always amoral involvement beyond the laid down institutional role, where the
engineers cannot separate themselves from personal responsibilities of their wor k.

(b)

The ‘codes of ethics’ exhibit, rights, duties, and obligations of the members of a
profession anda professional society.
The codes exhibit the following essential roles:
1. Inspiration and guidance: The codes express the collective commitment of the
profession toethical conduct and public good and thus inspire the individuals. They
identify primaryresponsibilities and provide statements and guidelines on interpretations
for the professionals and the professional societies.

2. Support to engineers: The codes give positive support to professionals for taking
stands on moral issues. Further they serve as potential legal support to discharge
professional obligations.

3. Deterrence (discourage to act immorally) and discipline (regulate to act

morally):The codes serve as the basis for investigating unethical actions. The
professional societies sometimes revoke membership or suspend/expel the members,
when proved to have acted unethical. This sanction along with loss of respect from the
colleagues and the society are bound to act as deterrent.

4. Education and mutual understanding: Codes are used to prompt discussion and
reflection onmoral issues. They develop a shared understanding by the professionals,
public, and the governmenton the moral responsibilities of the engineers. The Board of
Review of the professional societies encourages moral discussion for educational
purposes.

5. Create good public image: The codes present positive image of the committed
profession to the public, help the engineers to serve the public effectively. They promote
more of self- regulation and lessen the government regulations. This is bound to raise the
reputation of the profession and the organization, in establishing the trust of the public.

6. Protect the status quo:They create minimum level of ethical conduct and promotes
agreement within the profession. Primary obligation namely the safety, health, and
welfare of the public, declared by the codes serves and protects the public.

7. Promotes business interests: The codes offer inspiration to the entrepreneurs, establish
shared standards, healthy competition, and maximize profit to investors, employees, and
consumers.,The engineering societies have developed two types of codes of ethics with
different approaches. They are IEEE code and NSPE code. Both these codes differ in
unique respects. While, IEEE code (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers)
deals with simple and generalized features in a crisp manner. Whereas, NSPE Code
provides much more detailed aspects. The NSPE code which is a longer version than
IEEE code, covers more useful applications with a wide range of explanations for the use
of engineers.
Apart from this, societies such as American society of civil Engineers (ASCE) and
American society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) have also contributed their shares
inemphasizing the concepts of code of ethics. Similarly, several multinational companies
in USA such as Bechtel, Hughes Aircrafts, McDonnell Douglas and Texas
Instruments have also formulated
their own codes of ethics for their employees and technically graded engineers.

16. a) Explain the reasons for Chernobyl mishap ?

b) Describe the methods to improve collegiality and loyalty.

17.a) Execute collegiality with respect to commitment, respect and connectedness.

b) Identify conflicts of interests with an example.

17(a)

• Collegiality is the tendency to support and cooperate withthe colleagues. it is a virtue essential for the team
work tobe effective
• Collegiality is the relationship between colleagues. Itconsists of
1. Respect
2. Commitment
3. Connectedness
(b)

CONFLICTS OF INTEREST
• A conflict of interest occurs when the employee has more than one interest
• Example 1
Let us consider a girl who needs to choose from among her interests in order
to fit in her timetable. She wants to attend the
exam in college, to attend themusic class, to go out for a movie, to deliver a seminar and also go visit
herfriend. As she is falling short of time, it is her interest to choose what to do and what not. The term used to
mention this can be “Conflicting interests” and this
cannot be morally wrong.

• Example 2
If another instance is considered where a man works for a company, being insome crucial position where he
has access to all the confidential informationand if he works as an unofficial adviser to his wife’s company, it
would bemorally wrong, where a moral conflict definitely arises. This can be termed as“Conflict in
interests”.Conflicts of Interest means
• A person working in an organization might have multipleinterests related to the job he is doing; if he does
some sidebusiness which means he might be a competitor or he
might work with a competitor, it might pose a problem forthe employer.
• This arises due to Bribe, Gifts , etc.,
• An Employee while working in his company, if supportsanother company, during his leisure time to earn
more orfor some other career aspects, can be understood as committing an immoral act. Such an act is
calledMoonlighting which usually creates conflicts of interests

18. a) Explain in detail about professional rights and employee rights.

b) Exemplify engineers as managers

18(a)
PROFESSIONAL RIGHTS

The rights that engineers have as professionalsare called Professional Rights. These professional rights
includes:
1.) The basic right of professional conscience: Moral rightto exercise professional judgment in pursuing
professional responsibilities.
2.) The right of conscientious refusal: Right to refuse toengage in unethical behavior
3.) The right of professional recognition: Right to therecognition of one’s work and accomplishments.
EMPLOYEE RIGHTS

• It includes moral or legal rights that involves the status of being an employee. They are:
1. Privacy
2. Equal Opportunity – Non-discrimination
3. Equal Opportunity – Sexual Harassment
4. Equal opportunity – Affirmative Action

(b)

ENGINEERS AS MANAGERS
• An Engineer is responsible in promoting ethics in anorganization, through framing organizational policies,
responsibilities and by personal attitudes and obligations.
• An engineer should be able to work as a manager in suchsituations, resolving conflicts according to
priorities,keeping the organizational benefits in mind.
• The issue must be resolved without hurting anyone’sfeelings and by developing a mutual understanding.

19.a) Evaluate the technology transfer and appropriate technology.

b) Explain about computer and internet ethics.
COMPUTER ETHICS
• Computer ethics are related to all the computer professionals such as programmers, analysts, operators,
designers, etc. along with the users.
The ten commandments of Computer Ethics, created in 1992 by the Computer Ethics Institute consists of the
following
One should never use a computer

1. To harm the people (anti-social activities)

2. To interfere with other’s work (illegal manipulations)
3. To snoop into other’s files (malware)
4. To steal a computer/data (hacking)
5. To bear false witness (manipulation and morphing)
6. To use/ copy a software you didn’t pay for (like illegal downloads and usages)
7. To use other’s intellectual output inappropriately (violating IPR)
8. Doing without thinking of social consequences of the program being written
9. Always use a computer ensuring consideration and respect towards fellow beings.
10.To use or copy other’s software without compensations (illegal pirated versions)
20. a) Investigate the causes and effects of acid rain with a case study.
b) Conclude the features of ecocentric and biocentric ethics.

20(a)

Large emissions of sulphur oxides and nitrous oxides are being released in to the air
from the thermal power stations using the fossil fuels, and several processingindustries.
• These gases form compounds with water in the air and precipitates as rain or snow onto the earth.
• The acid rain in some parts of the world has caused sufficient damage to the fertility ofthe land and to
the human beings
.

Human-centered Environmental Ethics

• This approach assumes that only human beings have inherent moral worth duly to betaken care of.
• Other living being and ecosystems are only instrumental in nature. Utilitarianism aimsto maximize good
consequences for human beings.
• Most of the goods are engineered products made out of natural resources.
• Human beings have also

(a) recreational interests (enjoy leisure through mountaineering, sports, and pastimes),
(b) aestheticinterests (enjoy nature as from seeing waterfalls and snow-clad mountains),
(c) scientific interests to explore into nature or processes, and
(d) a basic interest to survive, by preservation as well as conservation of nature and natural resources

• Rights ethicists favor the basic rights to live and right to liberty, to realise the right to a
live in a supportive environment
.
• Further, virtue ethics stresses importance of prudence, humility, appreciation of
natural beauty, and gratitude to the mother nature that provides everything

Human-centered Environmental Ethics

• However, the nature-centered ethics, which ensures the worth of all living beings and
organisms, seems to be more appropriate in the present-day context.
• Many Asian religions stress the unity with nature, rather than domination and
exploitation.
• The Zen Buddhism calls for a simple life with compassion towards humans and other
animals.
• Hinduism enshrines the ideal of oneness (advaitha) in and principle of ahimsa to all
living beings.
• It identifies all the human beings, animals, and plants as divine. The eco-balance is
the need of the hour and the engineers are the right experimenters to achieve this.