Sigma Institute of Engineering, Vadodara

Department of S & H

Model Question-Answers

3130004 Effective Technical

Semester : III Subject Code& Name :
Communication

Chapter No. : IV Name of Chapter : Ethics in Engineering

Q. 1. What is meant by engineering ethics?

A. 1. Engineering ethics is the field of system of moral principles that apply to the practice of engineering.
The field examines and sets the obligations by engineers to society, to their clients, and to the
profession.
OR
Engineering Ethics is the study of moral issues and decisions confronting individuals and organizations
engaged in engineering. “Ethics related to the product or work which involves the transportation,
warehousing, and use, besides the safety of the end product and the environment outside factory”
Ethics is knowledge of moral principles. Ethics are concerned with what is good for individual and
society and it also describes moral philosophy. It affects how people make decisions and lead their
lives. The term ethics is derived from the Greek work ‘ethos’ which means custom, habit or character.
Q. 2. Explain the importance of ethics in our life. Why do we study engineering ethics?

A. 2. Basic principle of ethics can help us to lead a more fulfilling life both on a personal and professional
level. Ethics can give real and practical guidance to our likes. Engineering ethics should be studied
because it is important, both in preventing grave consequences of faulty ethical reasoning and in giving
meaning to engineers' endeavors, but it is complex. ... Study of ethics helps engineers develop a moral
autonomy. Ability to think critically and independently about moral issues.

Engineering is an important and learned profession. ... Engineering has a direct and vital impact on the
quality of life for all people. Accordingly, the services provided by engineers require honesty,
impartiality, fairness, and equity, and must be dedicated to the protection of the public health, safety, and
welfare. When an engineer constructs anything or deal with society and technology, product and
services etc. he/she has to go through some ethical issues. Mainly related to conceptualization of a
product, issues arising in design and testing department’s quality assurance, manufacturing, supervision
of team work etc. Engineering ethics are having great importance because it is having direct impact on
the use of product and services quality, company’s goodwill, trust of the public and society, the law and
justice and on the environment etc. Due to unethical practices of some engineers, society has to pay a
huge loss in the form of loss of life etc.
Q. 3. Describe Scope of engineering ethics.

A. 3. Ethics is the study of moral principals that governs a person’s behaviors or conducting an activity.
“Engineering ethics’ the rules and standards that govern the decision and action of an engineer as
a professional.

During their engineering studies, the student receives the knowledge of basic science and its application,
problem-solving methodology and designing, but generally receives little training in business practices,
safety and ethics.
 An awareness of the importance of ethics in engineering as it Cleary reflects the impact of engineering
on society. Engineers face situations where they have to deal with many things that are not know to them
as a result of a design of new dev Explain ice or product. A few challenges as far as decisions retaken.
These designs into the market or implementing the new ideas, an engineer must see all the aspects,
weather it will work well, its impact on the lives of the public, its working under different conditions
and safety measures. An engineer can never be enough sure that the new design will not have a
detrimental change in the society or not harm anyone at all. Hence, it is deigning will not have a
detrimental change
in the society or not harm anyone at all. Hence, it is important for an engineer to be more imaginative
and check all kinds of possibilities. An engineer must apply critical and creative thinking here to make
sure that a new design will work safely and will not harm anyone.

Q. 4. Discuss accepting and sharing responsibilities. Explain the impediment to responsibility

A. 4. There are various conceptions of responsibilities based on how engineers accept responsibility or what
others experts them to do as a part of their responsibility. Moreover, when a harm is done, the
responsibility is distinguished as:
1. Intentionally causing harm (knowingly and deliberately),
2. Negligently causing harm (unknowingly but failing to exercise due care)
3. Recklessly causing harm (having conscious awareness that harm may occur, but neglecting it
without any intention of causing harm)

Whether the harm is caused due to any of the above reasons, engineers are morally responsible for any
harm that has caused even if sometimes their supervisor’s or company may be legally at fault because
they may have failed morally in failing to report, or even prevent such behaviors on the part of the others.
How an engineer views her/his responsibility, depends on the three basic attitudes toward responsibility:

Showing responsibility

(1) Minimalist view: This view approach says that the employee is going to restrict their responsibilities
to the
duties only, which are mentioned in their job profile. They want to minimize themselves towards it,
they
don’t want to go beyond. yew is based on moral values of an individual.
In this approach engineers take reasonable care and do whatever possible to avoid any kind of harm
with a
sense of responsibility.
(2) Reasonable view: This view is based on moral values of an individual. In this approach engineers
take
reasonable care and do whatever possible to avoid any kind of harm with a sense of responsibility.
(3) Beyond one’s duty: in this approach, the engineer/ or professional assumes full responsibility of the
work.
Mean they take full responsibility, if anything happens wrong. Therefore, they do all possible things
to make
the work better and provide more inputs then required. One important thing in this approach is that
rather
than putting responsibility on each other’s shoulders, one should self- impose the responsibility.
 There are various obstacles/ Impediment to responsibility. They are as follows:

1. Self interest: when engineers are having their own ambitions, their interest restricts them to take
responsibility.
2. Fear: when someone realizes the fault at the time of accepting it, the person faces fear of losing
job and opportunities. Due to it, he/she couldn’t take responsibility.
3. Self-deception: Sometime, engineers do things which may be unethical, because they may have
self-deceptive excuses like “I am doing this for my organization “or ït works this way only”. To
fulfil
their responsibilities as a professional.
4. Ignorance: Lack of knowledge that a design is not safe enough naturally acts as a barrier to an
engineer’s responsible that is otherwise very clear. In solving the problem and sometimes due to
lack of time due to pressure of deadline.
5. Different perspectives: Sometimes failure of understanding various perspectives may lead to not
being
able to see a problem that is otherwise very clear. We tend to think with our own perspectives, we
may
not be able to analyze from different point of views and fail to recognize the problem.
6. Lack of acceptance of authority: Generally, engineers have boss, under them to work, so in
lack of authority and power to take independent decision, they can’t take responsibility.
7. Groupthink: Many engineering decisions have failed just due to groupthink. When a collective
decision has to take, usually the members of the group agrees even if they do not want to. Thus,
groupthink poses a challenge in thinking critically and members go with the flow even if they
find there
is a flaw.

Q. 5. Explain the responsible professionals and ethical corporations.

A. 5. A work that requires sophisticated skills, the use of judgment and the exercise of discretion, which is not
routine and is not capable of being mechanized and significant public good results from it, is called a
profession. A professional, one requires formal education and not simply a training or apprenticeship and
there are societies or organizations that are controlled by members of the profession who set the
standards of conduct for professionals and admissions to perfections.

Obviously, medicine and law are accepted as professions, but let us see if we can say that engineering is
also a profession. Certainly, engineering requires sophisticated skills and particular knowledge which is
obtained through extensive training through formal education for four years. Engineering design involves
judgment of how to use available material and components to resolve certain problem. We consider
discretion then there is a need to keep the employer’s and client’s information confidential. Another
meaning of discretion is to think with independents will. For new designs, the engineer requires
direction. A new technology is developed it is copied and the work becomes mechanized, but the
application of every tool and technology and new designs can never be mechanized. An engineer’s work
has a huge impact on the society and it is for the good of the people by providing ways of
communication, transportation, energy resources, fulfilling needs of shelter, clothing, agriculture and
medical equipment’s.

There are controlling societies for different branches of engineering which defines the code of ethic and
responsibilities entailed in being an engineer.
Q. 6. Discuss the professional responsibilities.
A. 6. The following are few important of professional responsibilities that engineers have:

1. Confidentiality: The prime responsibility of any professional is confidentiality. In medicine and

law, it is very obvious that confidentiality be maintained of the patients and clients respectively,
but in engineering also it an engineer’s obligation to keep the information of the employer and
client confidential. Any information, like test and data, unreleased product and design, how the
business is run, etc, can be used by competitor to gain advantage and hence must be kept
confidential in interest of the organization. Engineers working in government departments
especially for defense industry have even more stringent requirements to kept confidentially.
2. Conflict of interest: The engineer may compromise the need of the public for one’s own interest
and this may result into various accidents occurring due to engineering/ design failure. Taking
brides to give permissions for work that is not within the code of ethics or illegal, sharing the
information of tender with a company where you have financial giving-in to self-interest at cost
of public or organizational interest.
3. Environment ethics: The detriment effect of use of technology has made the scanties and
corporations more alert about them and hence have laid down various norms for the originations
and engineers to carry out their responsibilities for environment protection. For example, there
are standards for minimum level of certain gases and chemical that are released by factories.
4. Computer ethics: With the increasing use of computers in all fields, it provides a challenge of
unethical use of it. Computers can be used for robbery, crime and blackmailing others. There is
privacy issue for the information about individuals and organizations. Moreover, hacking is used
to access private information and change or destroy some important information

Q. 7. Discuss the methods one can use to Resolving Ethical Dilemmas.

A. 7. Dilemmas often engineers face situations where there is a dilemma of what is right and wrong. To
resolve his dilemma, following techniques are used:
1. Line drawing: In this, approach, a line is draw along which various examples and hypothetical
situations are placed. At one end, is placed ‘positive paradigm ‘and on the other negative
paradigm’. Then, all the hypothecia and examples are listed and placed on the line at a distance
based on how near it is to positive or negative paradigm.
 An example of company that depose a slightly hazardous waste by dumping it into a nearby lake. A
residential of waste in the lake would 5 parts per million (5p.m.) and at this level there is no harm to the
health of the consumers and they would not even be able to detect the compound in their drinking
water.

For example:
1) Though at 5 p. m. it is harmless, the taste of water may change.
2) The chemical can be effectively removed by existing equipment.
3) The company will have to purchase a new equipment to remove the chemical.
4) Occasionally people may feel sick, but it would not last for more than a week.
5) Equipment can be installed at the plant to further reduce the waste level to 1 pm.
Point towards the right contribute to ethical decisions. Moreover, this is not a fool-proof ethical
decision making as one may prove something to be correct when it is completely wrong.
Hence, if not used honestly, it may fail.

2. Flow charting: Engineering students are used to flow chatting method for programming
purpose. Used to solve ethical dilemmas. It provides visual picture of a situation and helps
establish sequences, identify moral issues and consequences of actions.

Let us see how can we make these moral choices.

Q. 10. Explain, how can one make moral choices.

A.10. As seen above, when we try to resolve ethical dilemmas, we must remain honest as there can be proper
use these teqniques. Hencwe, professional ethics majorly depends on personal ethical moral values.
‘Moral’ refers to the principels of right and wrong behaviour. We can also use terms ‘ethics’ and ‘Moral’
interchangeably as their meanings are almost the same. In order to judge our choice as moral or not, we
can the following approaches:
1. The Utilities Approach: Some ethicists believe that the ethical action is the one that balance
good over harm.Ethical warfare balances the goods achieved in terrorism over harm done
 through death, injuries and destruction. The utilitrian approach deals with consequences; ity tries
both to increase the good done and to reduce the harm done. Here the cost-benefit analysis is
done. If the benefit is more than the cost involved, then it can be consered to be morally correct.
2. The right Approach: Other philosopher and ethicists suggest that the ethical action is the one
that best protects and respects the moral rights of those affected. This approach starts from the
belief that humans have a dignity based on their human nature or on their ability to choose freely
what they do with their lives. On the basis of such dignity, they have a right to be treated as ends
and merely as means to other ends.The list of moral rights—including the rights to make one’s
own choice about what kind of life to lead, to be told the truth, not to be injured, to a degree of
privacy, and so on—is widely deabted.;some now argue that non-human have right, too. Also, it
is often said that rights imply duties—in particular, the duty to respect others’ rights.

3. The Fairness or Justic Approach: This approach is based on the belief that all equals should be
breated equally. Today we use this idea to say that ethical actions treat all human beings equally
or if unequally, then fairly based on some standard that is defensible. We pay people more based
on their hard work or the greater amount that they contribute to an organization, and say that is
fair. But there is a debate over CEO salaries which are hundreds of times larger than the pay of
others; many ask wheather the huge disparity is based on a defensible standard or wheather it is
the result of an imblance of power and hence is unfair.
4. The Common Good Approach: This approach suggests that the interlocking relationships of
society are the basic of ethical reasoning and that respect and compassion for all
others—especially the vulnerable—are requirements of such reasomimg. This approach also clls
attention to the common conditions that are important to the welfare of everyone. This may be a
system of laws, effective police and fire departments, health care, a public educational system, or
even public recreational areas.
5. The virtue Approach: A very ancient approach to ethic is that ethical actions ought to be
consistent with certain ideal virtues that provide for the full development of our humanity. These
virtues are dispositions and habits that enable us to act according to the highest potential of our
character and on behalf of values like truth and beauty. Honesty, courage, compassion,
generosity, tolerance, love, fidelity, integrity,fairness,self—control, and prudence are all
ecamples of virtues. Virtue ethics asks of any action, “What kind of person will I become if I do
this?” or “Is this action consistent with my acting at my best?”