Engineering Ethics

Lecture by
Md. Raihan Goni
Southeast University
Codes of conduct
• Codes of conduct are codes in which organizations lay down guidelines
for responsible behavior of their members. Such guidelines may be
detailed and prescriptive, but they can also be formulated more
broadly and express the values and norms that should guide behavior
and decision-making. Codes of conduct are often intended as an
addition to the requirements of the law. When codes of conduct are
enforced this is usually done by the organization that formulated the
code. For engineers, two types of codes of conduct are especially
important: one, professional codes that are formulated by
professional associations of engineers and, two, corporate codes of
conduct that are formulated by companies in which engineers are
employed.
Depending on the exact objectives of a code of conduct, a distinction
can be made between three types of codes of conduct:
• 1. An aspirational code expresses the moral values of a profession or
company. The objective of such a code is to express to the outside
world the kind of values the profession or company is committed to.
• 2. An advisory code has the objective to help individual professionals
or employees to exercise moral judgments in concrete situations on
basis of the more general values and norms of the profession or
company.
• 3. A disciplinary code has the objective to achieve that the behavior
of all professionals or employees meets certain values and norms.
• Professional codes for engineers provide content to the responsibility
of engineers. They express the moral norms and values of the
profession. Most modern professional codes relate to three domains:
1) conducting a profession with integrity (i.e., living by one's own
moral values, norms, and commitments) and honesty (i.e., telling
what one has good reasons to believe to be true and disclosing all
relevant information), and in a competent way; 2) obligations towards
employers and clients; 3) responsibility towards the public and
society.
• Corporate codes are voluntarily commitments made by individual
companies or associations of companies setting certain values,
standards and principles for the conduct of corporations. This is based
on the assumption that companies have a corporate social responsibility
(i.e., the responsibility of companies towards stakeholders and to
society at large that extends beyond meeting the law and serving
shareholders' interests). This assumption has been contested by several
authors who maintain that the responsibility of a company is limited to
making profits within the limits of law (the so-called classical view on
corporate responsibility). Corporate codes are usually more recent than
professional codes. They have been formulated since the 1960s and
1970s, particularly in reaction to corporate scandals. The main
elements of corporate codes are: the mission, the core values, the
responsibilities towards stakeholders and detailed rules and norms.
A number of objections have been raised against codes of conduct:
• 1. Code of conduct sometimes amount to window-dressing (i.e.,
presenting a favorable impression that is not based on the actual
facts);
• 2. Codes of conduct are often vague and are potentially contradictory
(e.g., how should you interpret "loyalty"? Is this uncritical loyalty
(placing the interests of the employer, as the employer defines those
interests, above any other considerations) or critical loyalty (giving
due regard to the interest of the employer, insofar as this is possible
within the constraints of the employee's personal and professional
ethics);
• 3. Ethics cannot be codified (e.g., an argument for this is that ethics
requires individual moral judgment, instead of blindly following a
code);
• 4. Codes of conduct cannot be lived by (e.g., professional codes often
require that engineers inform the public timely and completely if the
safety, health, or welfare of the public is put at stake in a
technological project. This duty to inform the public can conflict with
the confidentiality duty that engineers also have according to the law
in many countries);
• 5. Codes of conduct cannot be enforced (e.g., since professional
codes have no legal status).
Conflict of interest and loyalty
• All professional codes include the obligation to practice one's profession with
integrity and honesty, and in a competent way. This is the traditional core of
all professional codes. To practice one’s profession in a competent way
means that the practitioner must be competent and the professional practice
must be conducted skillfully. This implies that the practitioner must be well
enough educated, must keep up to date in his field and must take only work
in his field of competence. With integrity and honesty, we mean that the
profession must be conducted in an honest, faithful and truthful manner.
This entails, for instance, that facts may not be manipulated and agreements
must be honored. Sometimes it is also stipulated that the profession must be
practiced in an independent and impartial way.
• Usually this is meant to imply that engineers should avoid conflicts of
interests. You have a conflict of interest if you have an interest that,
when pursued, conflicts with meeting your obligations to your
employer or clients. This may be a personal interest, like when you
have stocks in a company that produces a certain kind of measuring
apparatus and you have to advice a large client about what measuring
apparatus to use. It can also be an interest that derives from another
professional role, for example when you advice two competing firms.
Although conflicts of interest do not necessarily lead to immoral
behavior it is better to avoid them because a conflict can corrupt your
professional judgement and diminishes your trustworthiness as
engineer. If a conflict of interest is unavoidable is should at least be
disclosed to the interest parties.
• Another relevant notion from codes of conduct that is in need of further
clarification and interpretation is ‘loyalty.’ The NSPE code of conduct, for
example, requires that engineers “shall act for each employer or client as faithful
agents or trustees.” This means that engineers need to be loyal to their company.
But what does loyalty exactly amount to? Do engineer act disloyal because they
speak out against their organization? The answer to this question is yes if one
interprets loyalty as uncritical loyalty. Harris, Pritchard and Rabins (2005) define
uncritical loyalty to an employer as “placing the interests of the employer, as the
employer defines those interests, above any other consideration.” Such uncritical
loyalty may, however, be misguided. First, one might disagree about what the
interests of the employer are. Second, it might be doubted whether the interests
of the company should always override any other concerns, especially in cases
when the public is put at danger. To deal with such objections, Harris, Pritchard
and Rabins propose the notion of critical loyalty which they define as “giving due
regard to the interest of the employer, insofar as this is possible within the
constraints of the employee’s personal and professional ethics.”
Loyalty or integrity?
• Loyalty or integrity; which should be the most important to engineers
working at a company?
The first step astray
• A civil engineer and ASCE member runs into an old college acquaintance at a local
technical conference. This acquaintance is currently employed in a decision-making
capacity for a research arm of the U.S. Department of Transportation, and the engineer
takes the opportunity to express his interest in doing research and development work in
the area of intelligent highway systems. The acquaintance notes that his agency is
dissatisfied with the work being performed under an existing contract in that area, and
he encourages the engineer to start his own company and to submit a proposal for the
contract at the time of its upcoming renewal.
• The engineer takes his acquaintance's advice, and his new company proves successful in
its bid to perform work under a Department of Transportation research and
development contract. Shortly after receiving the award, however, the engineer is
approached by the acquaintance with a demand for payment. The acquaintance
explains that his agency is contemplating an additional contract related to the work
being done by the engineer's company, and he explains that the additional payment will
help him "make the case" for sending further work in the engineer's direction.
• Anxious to keep his new company on a solid financial footing, the
engineer agrees to make the payment and thus enters into a scheme of
illegal payments that will continue for almost a full decade. At first the
transactions consist strictly of transfers of money in exchange for the
acquaintance's help in securing government contracts, but when the
engineer balks at the increasing amounts of money being demanded,
the acquaintance suggests an alternative. The engineer begins to
submit fictitious invoices for work being performed on his existing
federal contracts, and the acquaintance ensures that his staff approves
the invoices without question. After a series of bank transfers intended
to disguise the ultimate destination of the payment, the funds from
these fraudulent invoices are ultimately converted to cash. The
engineer hands over two-thirds of the payments to the acquaintance
while keeping the remainder for himself.
• Over the course of many years, the engineer makes nearly $300,000 in
payments to the acquaintance, and in exchange his company is
awarded millions of dollars of federal research money. Ultimately,
however, government investigators get wise to the scheme. The
engineer pleads guilty to one count of conspiracy to pay unlawful
gratuities. In exchange for his cooperation and testimony against the
acquaintance, who, it is learned, has engaged in this ploy not only
with the ASCE member but also with a number of other contractors,
the engineer receives a reduced sentence of 24 months.
• Notice of the engineer's guilty plea is forwarded to the Committee on
Professional Conduct (CPC), which opens an investigation.
• Source: http://www.asce.org/question-of-ethics-articles/nov-2016
The Fundamental Canons of the Code of Ethics of the
ASCE
• 1. Engineers shall hold paramount the safety, health and welfare of
the public and shall strive to comply with the principles of sustainable
development in the performance of their professional duties.
• 2. Engineers shall perform services only in areas of their competence.
• 3. Engineers shall issue public statements only in an objective and
truthful manner.
• 4. Engineers shall act in professional matters for each employer or
client as faithful agents or trustees, and shall avoid conflicts of
interest.
• 5. Engineers shall build their professional reputation on the merit of
their services and shall not compete unfairly with others.
• 6. Engineers shall act in such a manner as to uphold and enhance the
honor, integrity, and dignity of the engineering profession and shall
act with zero-tolerance for bribery, fraud, and corruption.
• 7. Engineers shall continue their professional development throughout
their careers, and shall provide opportunities for the professional
development of those engineers under their supervision.
The Dutch Construction fraud
• In 2001 whistle-blower Ad Bos revealed the existence of a vast construction
industry fraud during the Dutch television program Zembla. The broadcast
resulted in a parliamentary inquiry that confirmed Bos’s assertions: the
construction industry is conning Dutch society out of billions of Euros each year.
• Ad Bos, ex-Director of the Koop Tjuchem construction company, presented the
shadow book-keeping of the Koop Tjuchem Company. It showed, project by
project, the off-balance sheet amounts paid to other building companies up to
1998. Before an official contracting-out process, it appeared those parties
contemplating submitting bids held a secret preliminary meeting to decide who
would tender the lowest bid and be the most likely to be granted the
commission. The chosen building company then substantially raised the contract
price, paid the competitors often quite large amounts as ‘compensation for
compiling estimates’ and saw to it that the company itself also came out of the
deal better off.