Engineering Society Codes of Ethics

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... 

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... 

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

Like many other professions, engineering seems confused about the moral status of its code of ethics (but not, I think, its technical standards). There are at least four reasons for that confusion. First, there is the question of how many codes there are. On the one hand, there seem to be dozens because so many engineering associations have their own code. The American Society of Mechanical Engineers has one the American Institute of Chemical Engineers has another ABET has another and so on. Yet, these codes differ in language more than substance and even many differences that seem substantive at first disappear upon inquiry. (For example, engineers whose code of ethics does not yet include a provision on sustainable development seem to interpret the environmental or public welfare provision to... 

ASCE (American Society of Civil Engineers). (1977). Code of ethics. 

American Society of Qvil Engineers (2013). Code of ethics. Available at http //www.asce.org/ Ethics/Code-of-Ethics/. Accessed 3 July 2013. 

Although there is no substitute for individual action based on a firm philosophical and ethical foundation, designers have developed guidelines for professional conduct based on the experience of many of them who have had to wrestle with troublesome ethical questions and situations previously. These guidelines can be found in the published codes of ethics for designers and engineers of a number of industry and technical societies such as the Industrial Designer societies. 

The tug-of-war between professionalism and public service on the one hand and serving the interests of large-scale business interests has shaped the social history of engineering in important ways (Layton, 1990), and it is likely to continue doing so for the foreseeable future. As one examines different codes of ethics, we will see different emphases depending on whether a particular professional society is weighted toward a business or a professional model of engineering practice. 

The codes of ethics of various field-specific engineering professions, as well as of the multi-disciphnary National Society of fhofessional Engineers (NSPE), can he found at http //www. onhneethics.org/Resources/ethcodes/EnglishCodes.aspx... 

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. 

One way in which aprofessional engineering society s code of ethics can be useful to an engineer is by serving as a basis for her/his refusal to act as directed by her/his employer or client if the directed action would violate a provision of the code. Some employers and chents may respect that refusal, but others may be unmoved and insist that the employee act as directed. 

The Board of Certified Safety Professionals and the American Society of Safety Engineers have issued Codes of Professional Conduct that deserve publicity and promotion. Currently applicable codes of ethics and professional conduct issued by BCSP and ASSE are Addenda A and B in this chapter. 

Specific examples of these obligations are given in individual codes of ethics adopted by the various engineering societies (e.g., AIChE, ASCE, ASME, and IEEE) and by the NSPE. The following is the Code of Ethics adopted by the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) ... 

In the section that follows, we will look at an example of a code of ethics, namely, the Na> rional Society of Profossional Et ineers code. The American Society of Mechanical Engineers, the American Society of Civil Engineers, and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engi-neers also have codes of ethics. They ate typically posted at their Web sites. 

The Code of Ethics of the National Society of Professional Engineers... 

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