Engineering Ethics

Prof. Kumar Neeraj Sachdev

6168-F
Department of Humanities and Social Sciences
 Engineering Ethics: The Issues
• Standards and Values for an Engineer
• Engineers and Public Interest
• Professional Information in Engineering

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 Engineering
• Engineering – Applied Science and
Mathematics (a revised view of engineering is
proposed in the topic under discussion)
• Designing, Constructing, and Manufacturing -
Cars, Airplanes, Bridges, Weapons, Toys,
Engines, etc.
• Cost, Time, and Safety of product alongside
knowledge and skills in Engineering Profession
determine the utility of product in the market
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 Engineering – The Definition
Engineering is a profession in which
knowledge of the mathematical and natural
sciences is applied with a judgment to develop
ways to utilize, economically, the material and
forces of nature for the benefit of mankind.

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 An Engineer
• An engineer with a background in
mathematics, physical sciences, and
engineering sciences interrelates engineering
principles with economic, social, legal,
aesthetic, environmental and ethical issues.
• He plans, predicts, systematizes and evaluates
since he is a designer, conceptualizer, and
developer, all to meet societal needs.

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 Engineering Ethics
• Engineering ethics requires familiarity with
the kinds of issues in engineering practice that
may call for ethical reasoning.
• Ethical reasoning pertains to an understanding
of an engineer of the concepts and principles
(such as happiness, duty, and virtue) that are
essential to ethical approach in the making
and delivery of an engineering product.

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 Engineers and Public Interest
• Engineers are expected to hold paramount
the Public Interest vis-à-vis Health, Safety and
Welfare of public.
• However, engineers cannot hold absolute
promise of health, safety and welfare of public
because risk-free engineering cannot be
achieved.
• There is a need thus to argue for a revised
view of the conception of engineering and
rules of public interest.
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 The Problem

• Younger engineers – Line Engineers

– A collectivity that regards public interest as
paramount whenever public interest conflict with
business interests.
• Older engineers – Engineer Managers
– A collectivity that considers public interest and
business interests to be compatible.

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 Old View of Engineering
• Conventional Applied Science View of Engineering
consists of the application of science to practical or
societal problems.
– Engineers are applied scientists who use science to solve
practical problems as distinct from pure scientists who use
science to create more science.
• However, the functioning of engineering products
often cannot be deduced from scientific principles
alone but of scientific principles together with a
collection of non-scientific experience-based
techniques to solve practical problems.
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 Revised View of Engineering

• Revised View of Engineering refers to an

engineering methodology that consists of
scientific principles and non-scientific method
of solving problems by finding practical ways
of dealing with them.

• This view suggests that the concept of risk

free engineering is a myth.

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 Revised Meaning of Public Interest
• The engineer may not claim that engineering
assures health, safety and welfare of public in
the absolute sense. Instead, he may advise the
public of the risks associated with his work
and seek to obtain public acceptance of these
risks.

– Moral relationships between engineers and the

public should be of the informed consent variety.

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 A Qualified View of Pubic Interest

• Instead of holding assurance of health, safety and

welfare of public to be paramount, the engineer may
hold acceptability of risk to public to be paramount.
• Questions like acceptable to whom (employers,
colleagues, clients, customers, government agencies,
or public in general)? what are the appropriate
grounds for acceptance? and what are the reasonable
methods of assessing risk? are answered in the
contexts of pubic law and methodological precedence
as they exist in the practice of engineering.

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 A Concluding Remark

The correct view of engineering supports the claim

that minimal risk in practice of engineering should be
aligned with the public law and methodological
precedence in accordance with existing practice of
engineering to comply with qualified and not
absolute rules of public interest.

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 Thank you.

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