Ethics

Ethics in Engineering

Ethics has never been a new issue to engineers. Ever since engineering students are still going through their undergraduate years, they ought to learn by heart the Codes of Ethics for Engineers. There is a reason behind this significant responsibility. When an engineering student enters the work force, in any field of engineering disciplines, he or she will often find conflicts between profit and morality. Therefore, the Codes of Ethics for Engineer acts as a cornerstone supporting the professionalism for every engineer student.

First of all, the concept about ethics needs to be analyzed in order to understand how important engineers need to follow ethics. Merriam Webster defines ethics as “the discipline with what is good and bad and with moral duty and obligation.” In business fields, ethics primarily deals with fair trades, customer’s satisfaction, etc. However in engineering profession, ethics mainly concerns about the safety of products that engineers have designed, fabricated, and/or implemented into the market. This is the reason why the safety, health, and welfare of the public are signified in the first fundamental canon of engineers.

Second of all, an example will be used to explain the importance of following the Code of Ethics. Take a legal case where technology failed due to lack of concerns for engineering ethics: the Challenger explosion. The case started with uncertainty regarding reliability of the O-rings. These O-rings were used to create a positive pressure to prevent leaks. Failure of one of the O-rings caused a ruptured in the right side of the Solid Rocket Booster, and thereby allowed hot gas from the solid rocket motor to leak out. This hot gas eventually reached to the external fuel tank and triggered the explosion. None of the astronauts survived the disaster. NASA and Thiokol’s violation of ethics regarding safety resulted in the Challenger tragedy, taking away six human lives and severely impacted NASA’s...