Ethical Principles

Professional Code of Ethics

The National Society of Professional Engineers (NSPE) decides the overall standards and codes of ethics for all the engineering professions. The Preamble of the NSPE Code of Conduct for Engineers (2007) states:

“Engineers shall at all times recognize that their primary obligation is to protect the safety, health, property, and welfare of the public. If their professional judgment is overruled under circumstances where the safety, health, property, or welfare of the public are endangered, they shall notify their employer or client and such other authority as may be appropriate.”

This means that engineers should always be aware that their safety and the safety of those around them comes before anything, including any engineering projects they take on, no matter how wonderful the end product might be. For more codes of ethics, take a look at this page.

Fundamental Ethical Responsibilities of Engineers (FEREs)

As described by Robert McGinn in his book “The Ethical Engineer”, the overarching ethical responsibility to “combat harm” can be unpacked into three Fundamental Ethical Responsibilities of Engineers (FEREs):

…to not cause harm or create an unreasonable risk of harm to others (or to public welfare or the public interest) through her/his engineering work. (FERE1)

…to try to prevent harm and any unreasonable risk of harm to others (and to public welfare and the public interest) that is caused by her/his engineering work, or by the engineering work of others in which s/he is involved or about which s/he is technically knowledgeable. (FERE2)

…to try to alert and inform about the risk of harm those individuals and segments of the public at unreasonable risk of being harmed by her/his engi- neering work, or by the engineering work of others in which s/he is involved or about which s/he is technically knowledgeable. (FERE3)

Engineers employed by an organization or working with a client have an additional fundamental ethical responsibility:

…to work to the best of her/his ability to serve the legitimate interests of his/her employer or client. (FERE4)

The book has more details on these FEREs and also contains many relevant case studies.

Important Definitions

In order to understand ethical theories, we should first note down important definitions.

Ethics: The systematic reflection on morality.

Morality: The totality of opinions, decisions, and actions with which people express, individually or collectively, what they think is good or right.

Descriptive ethics: The branch of ethics that describes existing morality, including customs and habits, opinions about good and evil, responsible and irresponsible behavior, and acceptable and unacceptable action.

Normative ethics: The branch of ethics that judges morality and tries to formulate normative recommendations about how to act or live.

Values: Lasting convictions or matters that people feel should be strived for in general and not just for themselves to be able to lead a good life or to realize a just society.

Norms: Rules that prescribe what actions are required, permitted, or forbidden.

Virtues: A certain type of human characteristics or qualities.

Normative relativism: An ethical theory that argues that all moral points of view – all values, norms, and virtues – are equally valid.

Universalism: An ethical theory that states that there is a system of norms and values that is universally applicable to everyone, independent of time, place, or culture.

Absolutism: A rigid form of universalism in which no exceptions to rules are possible.

Ethical Theories

Here we will list and describe the different ethical theories that we can consider when dealing with ethical issues. Terms and ideas are grouped by their overarching school of thought. We are thankful to the book “Ethics, Technology, and Engineering” by Van De Pool and Royakkers for the compilation of these ideas.

Due to the expansiveness of these topics, we can only provide a convenient overview. If you are interested in learning more, you can search online for sources that explore each of those theories individually.

Utilitarianism

Consequentalism: The class of ethical theories which hold that the consequences of actions are central to the moral judgment of those actions.

Utilitarianism: A type of consequentialism based on the utility principle. In utilitarianism, actions are judged by the amount of pleasure and pain they bring about. The action that brings the greatest happiness for the greatest number should be chosen.

Hedonism: The idea that pleasure is the only thing that is good in itself and to which all other things are instrumental.

Utility principle: The principle that one should choose those actions that result in the greatest happiness for the greatest number.

Freedom principle: The moral principle that everyone is free to strive for his/her own pleasure, as long as they do not deny or hinder the pleasure of others.

Act utilitarianism: The traditional approach to utilitarianism in which the rightness of actions is judged by the (expected) consequences of those actions.

Rule utilitarianism: A variant of utilitarianism that judges actions by judging the consequences of the rules on which these actions are based. These rules, rather than the actions themselves, should maximize utility.

Kantian Theory

Duty ethics: Also known as deontological ethics. The class of approaches in ethics in which an action is considered morally right if it is in agreement with a certain moral rule (law, norm, or principle).

Good will: A central notion in Kantian ethics. According to Kant, we can speak of good will if our actions are led by the categorical imperative (described later). Kant believes that the good will is the only thing that is unconditionally good.

Hypothetical norm: A condition norm, that is, a norm which only applies under certain circumstances, usually of the form “If you want X do Y.”

Categorical imperative: A universal principle of the form “Do A” which is the foundation of all moral judgments in Kant’s view.

Universality principle: First formulation of the categorical imperative: Act only on that maxim which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.

Equality postulate: The prescription to treat persons as equals, that is, with equal concern and respect.

Reciprocity principle: Second formulation of the categorical imperative: Act as to treat humanity, whether in your own person or in that of any other, in every case as an end, never as means only.

Virtue Ethics

Virtue ethics: An ethical theory that focuses on the nature of the acting person. This theory indicates which good or desirable characteristics people should have or develop to be moral.

The good life: The highest good or eudaimonia: a state of being in which one realizes one’s uniquely human potential. According to Aristotle, the good life is the final goal of human action.

Practical wisdom: The intellectual virtue that enables one to make the right choice for action. It consists in the ability to choose the right mean between two vices.

Virtues for Morally Responsible Engineers:

Care Ethics

Care ethics: An ethical theory that emphasizes the importance of relationships, and which holds that the development of morals does not come about by learning general moral principles.

Social ethics of engineering: An approach to the ethics of engineering that focuses on the social arrangements in engineering rather than on individual decisions. If these social arrangements meet certain procedural norms the resulting decisions are considered acceptable.