Prompt two: ethics in engineering

written by Yiran Li

After taking the course EGR101, there's a main chapter in the text book talking about ethics in engineering. Starts in the 19th century, 60 people was killed in the collapse of the Tay Bridge. After that, people start to concern about the engineering ethics. Personally, I think the important three important codes of ethics are ethical decision making, social responsibility, and academic honesty. In any occupation, the first rule is to obey the code of ethics.

First, engineers should be honest to the academic, which means people shouldn't claim others' work as their own. Plagiarism and copyright infringement are illegal and unethical. Now, there are high-tech plagiarism detectors to find whether there's unintentional plagiarism in the paper. To prevent it, we need to have formal bibliography when using words from internet or books.

When engineers are considering about making decisions, they should think about their stakeholders and issues. For instance, in a bridge constructing program, engineers should think several points--price of the construction, citizens may be affected and impacts on the local ecosystem. Also, the bridge is conductive to traffic and favorable to the economy. So when engineer premeditating the plan, they need to determine whether the project is more beneficial to the society or not. If the employer carries out the project that was detrimental, the employees must whistle-blow the company's unethical behavior.

In the engineers' career, he or she may face thousands of unexpected situations. The National Society of Professional Engineers (NSPE) and the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) have ethics codes to help analyze whether a situation is ethical or not. Engineers should be responsible for the safety, health, and welfare of the public when they fulfill their professional duties in their careers. 

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