Overview the concept of professional ethics Discuss about the ethical issues and responsibilities of an engineer.

(a) Engineering Profession has a great responsibility in society. All Engineers get their education in Engineering Colleges and Universities at a much subsidized rate of tuition fees compared to the huge expenses incurred by the Government and the country in setting up engineering colleges, buying equipment, furniture, instruments, audio visual gadgets, faculty and staff expenses, library, transport, invited professors from abroad etc. Compared to this huge cost of infrastructure, the rate of tuition fees, though recently hiked considerably, is insignificant. Therefore it remains a fact that Engineers get k  education at a much subsidized rate of tuition fees which is mainly borne by the institution and the country and hence the Engineers as professionals owe some return to the country and society which they should bear in mind and they should follow the value and ethics which is demanded by them.

(b) There has recently been a value crisis in the society including the jobs done by Engineers. For example if we take the cases of Civil Engineers building residential houses, undertaking road construction and constructing huge bridges on untamed rivers, the importance of values, morals and ethics came in the profession in various ways e.g.

(1) the security factor in bridges (2) the water leakage from the roof of houses.

(c) The water seepage through walls, developing cracks in roof and walls due to use of wrong or inferior quality of cement, use of less quantity of cement, poor quality brick, defective iron rods, angles, channels, back stays etc. thereby reducing the strength and increasing the risk in living in those houses or using those buildings. Therefore the values and ethics in engineering profession remain a very important parameter and all engineering professionals should keep this mind.

Case Studies

               Govt. Revenues are imposed to impart social justice, earn money for the exchequer for distributing products and services, benefits and securities to offer defense to the country and Nation. No doubt there will be innumerable cases of professional rivalry, competition and battle of wit among the different Government authorities and the large number of individual a and corporate level tax payers.

                Mittal, a steel tycoon from India, has proved his professional sense of value and ethics when ultimately Mittal was able to take over Arcelar, a steel giant of Europe, in the teeth of terrible fight amongst other bidders of the world. If Mittal group would not have been professionals ethical, showing basic values of business, Arcelor company would not have gone into the deal.

              The whole world including a considerable part of population of USA has raised their voice against American's attack of Iraq.  This is mainly because USA brought few charges against Iraq i.e. (a) Manufacture of weapons of Mass destruction (b) Killing a large number of people of a particular community and section (c) Discrimination against sale and marketing of petroleum oil to various countries of the world.

Though USA could not prove any of the charges, ultimately on grounds of killing innocent people, the leader of the country was executed yielding place to new leadership elected through democratic means.

From the point of view of policies as a profession, removal of a tyrant and dictator with the tacit support of United Nations have been accepted by the world.

America's argument that they did not start any unethical practice, it was some foreign terrorist group who destroyed huge assets of USA by creating terror and killing a large number of Americans and other citizens of the world.  USA justified this action and demanded that the action was fully ethical.