Professional Ethics 1

DR. MUHAMMAD ZEESHAN MIRZA

LECTURE - 1

Department of Engineering Management (DEM) – NUST- CEME

 Faculty Profile

 PhD (Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS, Malaysia)

 MS (Mohammad Ali Jinnah University, Islamabad)

 Research Area (Leadership, Occupational Safety,

Organizational Climate, Organizational Context)
 Total Publications = 16

Department of Engineering Management (DEM) – NUST- CEME

 Course Information

Course Name Professional Ethics

Course Code HU-222
Credit Hours 2
Email zeeshanmirza21@hotmail.com
Visiting Hours 2-4 pm (Monday & Thursday)
Location Block-7, 1st Floor

Department of Engineering Management (DEM) – NUST- CEME

 Grade Distribution

Instrument of Testing Marks

Quizzes 10%
Assignments 10%
Project 10%
Sessional 30%
Final Examination 40%

Department of Engineering Management (DEM) – NUST- CEME

 Class Rules

 Attendance will be taken in first 5 minutes

 Avoid use of Mobile phone, Laptops or any gadgets
 Obedience to all laws, discipline code, rules and community
norms
 Respect peers, faculty and staff through actions and speech
 Bring writing material and books
 Interactive sessions

Department of Engineering Management (DEM) – NUST- CEME

 Course Contents

Department of Engineering Management (DEM) – NUST- CEME

 Course Contents

Department of Engineering Management (DEM) – NUST- CEME

 Ethics vs Morality

 The terms ethics and morality are used interchangeably

 Morality and ethics loosely have to do with distinguishing the difference
between “good and bad” or “right and wrong
 Many believe morality is personal whereas ethics is the standards of “good and
bad” distinguished by a certain community or social setting
 The distinction between the two is as substantial as a line drawn in the sand

Department of Engineering Management (DEM) – NUST- CEME

 Morality

 Principles governing right and wrong and good and bad behavior

 The degree to which something is right or wrong, good, or bad, and so on

 A system of moral principles followed by a particular group of people

Department of Engineering Management (DEM) – NUST- CEME

 Ethics

 Moral principles that govern a person's behavior or the conducting of an

activity

 The branch of knowledge that deals with moral principles

Oxford Dictionary

Department of Engineering Management (DEM) – NUST- CEME

Ethical Code of HUAWEI

Department of Engineering Management (DEM) – NUST- CEME

Ethics and its Subdivisions

 Meta ethics
 Descriptive ethics
 Normative ethics
 Applied ethics

Department of Engineering Management (DEM) – NUST- CEME

 Meta Ethics

 Deals with the origin of ethical principles that govern the

specification of right and wrong behavior

 A major issue of debate is whether ethical principles are

eternal truths or created by humans

Department of Engineering Management (DEM) – NUST- CEME

 Descriptive Ethics

 Actual beliefs, customs, principles, and practices of people

and cultures

 Sociologists in particular pay special attention to the

concrete moral practices of social groups around the world,
and they view them as cultural facts much like facts about
what people in those countries eat or how they dress

Department of Engineering Management (DEM) – NUST- CEME

 Normative Ethics

 Concerned with arriving at a set of moral conduct rules

against which behaviors are judged

 Murder is wrong

 Giving to charity is good, but not ethically mandatory

Department of Engineering Management (DEM) – NUST- CEME

 Applied Ethics

 Primarily deals with the study of ethically controversial

issues such as imposition of death penalty and cloning

 Applied ethics can be classified further into a large number

of categories such as bioethics, computer ethics, and
medical ethics

Department of Engineering Management (DEM) – NUST- CEME

 Morality and Law

 The two are quite closely related, and some people even
equate the two practices

 Lying is usually immoral, there is no general law against it

 College newspapers publish advertisements by vendors who

offer ‘‘assignment assistance’’

 It is impractical to have laws against bad intentions, these

intentions are still bad, still morally wrong

Department of Engineering Management (DEM) – NUST- CEME

 Morality and Etiquette

 Etiquette concerns determines what is polite behavior rather

than what is right behavior in a deeper sense

 It represents society’s decision as to how we are to dress, greet

one another etc.

 It can be immoral to disregard or defy etiquette

Department of Engineering Management (DEM) – NUST- CEME

 The Ethical Dilemmas

 Q1. My boss gave me credit for a project on which a colleague did most of
the work. Should I accept the praise?

 Q2. Faizan works in the claims department of a major hospital. Paperwork

on a recent admission shows that a traumatic mugging caused the patient to
require an adjustment in the medication she is prescribed to control anxiety
and mood swings. Faizan is struck by the patient's unusual last name and
upon checking her employment information realizes she is one of his
daughter's grade school teachers.
 Faizan's daughter seems very happy in her school and he cannot violate
patient confidentiality by informing the school of a teacher's mental illness
but he is not comfortable with a potentially unstable person in a position of
influence and supervision over his eight year old daughter.
 What should Faizan do?
Department of Engineering Management (DEM) – NUST- CEME
Department of Engineering Management (DEM) – NUST- CEME