Engineering ethics codes

The engineering profession in the United States has been a world leader in promoting engineering ethics code development and associated educational activities. But this leadership has grown out of a long, and continuing, straggle and desire for professional unity and autonomy. 

What is equally as significant as their functional features is that these early engineering ethics codes were formulated minus any consultation with professors of ethics or philosophy. Instead, despite the presence in American public life of William James, John Dewey, and others, engineering ethics was the product of what might be called folk philosophy. 

National Society of Professional Engineers. NSPE Code of Ethics for Engineers. http //www.nspe.org/Ethics/CodeofEthics/index.html (accessed Jul 30,2008). 

The majority of the students seemed to couch social justice within the various engineering code of ethics. For example one student stated, engineers have a code of ethics and once they follow the code of ethics there should not be any issues of social justice. Laws should regulate social justice and code of ethics. It seems that students limit their responsibility for social justice to the various ethical codes in their fields, we all must know and follow the code of ethics... we lose our license if engineers do not follow this. ... 

The second kind of preliminary background materials is the ethical. The focus of attention here will be on codes of engineering ethics. 

Beyond evolving content and shifting priorities, codes of engineering ethics vary considerably in level of detail and clarity. The Code of Ethics of the... 

See, for example, the codes of ethics of the National Society of Professional Engineers (NSPE), the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), and the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE). Other engineering society codes espouse essentially the same idea in different words. 

In short, while the various professional engineering society codes of ethics can be useful to some engineers for some purposes, they are not very helpful... 

How far that is possible for a given code of engineering ethics depends on, among other things, its levels of clarity, specificity, and internal consistency. 

This is a more defensible version of the vague employee-loyalty-to-employer canons found in many codes of engineering ethics. For example, as noted, Fundamental Canon 1.4 of the NSPE Code of Ethics for Engineers states, Engineers, in the fulfillment of their professional duties, shall act for each employer or client as faithful agents or trustees. ... 

THE LEADING PRECEPT OF MOST CURRENT CODES OF ENGINEERING ETHICS... 

I agree that US engineering-ethics education has leaned too heavily on engineering society codes of ethics, used too many contrived hypothetical and thin real cases, neglected the social nature of engineering work, and sought tidy... 

A more detailed code of ethics for engineers was adopted initially by the NSPE in July 1964. Since then, it has been updated 22 times and will probably continue to receive updates. The 1996 version is shown in Figure 1.4. Some idea of the direction in which engineering ethics is moving may be gleaned from the following changes made since 1996, as taken from the NSPE Web site at ... 

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