Ethics in Engineering

If the situation arose, would you give up your seat on a bus for a blind person? Would you open a door for someone who needed assistance or even help an elderly person cross the street? There are no written laws in the United States Constitution that state you should open a door for a pregnant woman or keeping the door held open for the person walking behind you. Yet, people do. What binds us to do so? Overtime, we as humans have come to adopt and except a common code, a code of ethics. This code tells someone what they perceive to be right or wrong based on personal learning, beliefs and self moral; telling him/her what to do in certain moral holding situations. In the realm of business, law and medicine certain codes of ethics are present and likewise for engineering too. However, these codes of ethics aren’t just assumed and gathered overtime. These professional codes were organized for a multitude of reasons, one of the most important being public safety. A dilemma occurred in which an engineer did not follow the ABET engineering code of ethics, which ultimately sparked a controversial article response from Michael Davis with the headlining title: “Thinking Like an Engineer”. Davis argues in his article that it is essential to abide and follow the engineering code of ethics and that engineers should in fact also support and hold professional responsibilities above and beyond that of their code of ethics. And in doing so “…it will help protect them and those they care about from being injured…and…assure each engineer a working environment in which it will be easier to resist [social/economic] pressure...”1. Much like Davis, I too agree that engineers should support and hold professional responsibilities by creating a positive and encouraging work environment while also putting the public’s welfare over that of his/hers own business in order to achieve the ultimate goal of keeping the community and world safe.
Davis’ first argument to why engineers should take...