Ethics and engineering

These moral principles help in setting the standard of practice for engineering. It sets the obligation for engineers to their profession, clients and to the society at large. For this essay work, we shall shed light on an in-depth investigation of an ethical issue. The ethical issue chosen for this work will be the delicate matter of health, safety, and public welfare issues. The moral issue in question is a dilemma one, where a civil engineer has ensued with a situation where a certain bridge structure has collapsed and many people have succumbed. My response to the matter should be of utmost care to the organizational philosophy and professional code of practice. The public is bestowed with the right to expect the utmost ethical and professional practice from the engineer. My ethical consideration will be of importance as it shall presume health, safety, and public welfare issues to be approached with a precise balance of moral reasoning.

Therefore, I as the practicing engineer should treat the bridge failure scenario with utmost professional conduct (Jones 366-395. Ethical decision making will help uphold safety standards and legal implications to protect road users and mitigate further death as a result of professional negligence and incompetence of chief engineers. Conceptual inquiries describe the conceptual, issues and principle meaning in relation to engineering ethics. This inquiry has all the ethics that engineers should possess in protecting the safety, welfare, and health of the public. It also explains the meaning of safety and mentions marginal safety issues like in our case along with other precautions that engineers should consider in order to avoid risks (Newberry 343-351). Conceptual inquiries will also disclose all moral aspects of bribery and any incompetence in the eye of the public.

Factual inquiries provide facts that help in finding and understanding solutions concerning value based issues. The engineer here is supposed to apply utilitarianism in deciding which choice yields the highest benefit to a majority of the people. In action theory of utilitarianism, an individual should henceforth engage in a decision that will benefit the majority of the people, this should be in regardless of individual feelings or the society cannons constraints. Thus based on the theory the engineer would have acted decisively through reporting is superiors for their sheer negligence in design and upholding maximum safety for road users (Zhu and Brent 663-679. On the other hand, rule utilitarianism checks on the utmost benefit to the people through the fairest mean available. The engineer thus should have used the available legal means to assert his decision and uphold the safety, health, and welfare of the public.

The in-depth analysis of engineering code of practice and ethical conduct for civil engineers revealed that indeed the engineer action of keeping silent about the matter jeopardized the safety of road users. The engineer integrity, dignity, and honor towards their professional practice were also injured through his act of tolerance to dishonesty and allowing conflicts of interest judge his response to a delicate matter of professional diligence. Therefore, ethical consideration ought to be incorporated in every step of decision making, documentation and action taking or deployment process of any engineering course of response to an impending matter. This will help as mitigation and deterrence to negative consequences of indulgence to the unethical moral issue. Work cited Cottone, R. Lynch, William T. and Ronald Kline. Engineering practice and engineering ethics. Science, technology, & human values 25.

Newberry, Byron.