Ideo 28 Engineering Ethics 101

VIDEO 28: ENGINEERING ETHICS 101: PROFESSIONALISM

Profession needs to benefit humanity in our society in order to ensure the safety of our country because there were a lot of people who were trying to misuse profession to achieve their goal without thinking the repercussion. Special knowledge, intellectual skills formal education, professional judgment, community sanction distinguish profession and the non-profession. Professional associations such as AIAA, AIChE, ASCE, IEEE, etc play an important role to help professionals work in an organize way. Professionals need to deal with client but not customers. We need to always follow what’s the customer wants. However, there is totally different situation in the context of client. Professionals

However, something has to pay when creating new things. William LeMessurier neglects the factor of wind. A student called LeMessurier and told him that the calculation proved the construction of the building is not stable enough to withstand when the strong wind come. The solution to solve this problem would be expensive but it was essential to ensure the stability of the building. As a result, the expense is high to overcome the problems and also being criticised by other that said the structure is ugly. However, it can prevent the building to collapse. I think it is worth to spend money and effort in order to prevent tragedy happens. Money cannot buy life but it’s able to prevent tragedy happens. We cannot estimate value for a live and just left undressed when the remedy cost a lot of money. It is unfair because we need to consider the other side such as victim’s family. In short, it’s a social obligation in considering someone’s safety no matter how much cost and effort

Ethics is a formal study of morality and moral standards of particular group such as engineering ethics, medical ethics, etc. Consequentialist theories emphasis consequences of actions. Besides, consequentialist theories assess good and bad consequences. Act-utilitarianism which encourage choosing action with greatest net benefit over costs while rule-utilitarianism encourage choosing rule with greatest net benefit. Consequentialist theories have practical difficulties such as assessing chance occurrences, measuring on common scale and distribution of benefits may seem unfair. In the other hand, deontological theories emphasis duties and rules. According to Kant’s Categorical Imperative, act according that maxim which should be an universal law. According to Rawls’s Theory of Justice, most of the individuals liberty compatible with equal amount for others. An important duty is treating people with respect. This statement is supported by the Kant’s Categorical Imperative and Golden Rule Test. Rights and duties are reciprocal. There were some duties and right conflict such as conflict between individual privacy and airport security and also Gewirth’s hierarchy of