| << Chapter < Page | Chapter >> Page > |
| Society to Profession | Profession to Society |
| Autonomy (Society allows experts to regulate themseives) | Self-Regulation (Experts regulate themselves toward public welfare) |
| Prestige (Society gives engineers prestige and adequate compensation for services) | (Engineers promise to hold public welfare paramount in engineering practice) |
| Monopoly (Society allows profession to determine those allowed to practice) | Engineers promise to practice ethically and, through codes, to establish and enforce high practical and disciplinary standards) |
Working from this social contract, engineering has formulated various rules, principles, and duties that have been embodied in different codes of ethics such as that of the ECPD (Engineering Council for Professional Development), the NSPE (National Society of Professional Engineers), the ASME (American Society of Mechanical Engineers), the ASCE (American Society of Civil Engineers), and the CIAPR (Colegio de Ingenieros y Agrimensores de Puerto Rico). These codes can usefully be interpreted as stakeholder codes where different engineering stakeholders have been identified along with their needs and correlative engineering duties based on recognizing and respecting these needs. (An engineering stakeholder is any group or individual dependent on the activities of engineers. Their "stakes" consist of the needs and interests they have riding on the outcome of engineeirng decisions and actions.) The following table identifies four key engineering stakeholders, their interests and engineering duties based on preserving or promoting these stakes.
| Engineering Stakeholder> | > Stake, Need, or Interest> | > Engineering Duty> |
| Public | Wellbeing, health, safety, environmental integrity | Duty to hold paramount the health, safety, welfare, and environment of the public |
| Client | Due to knowledge gap, the need to have engineers treat their interests as their (engineer's) own | Exercising due care in professional judgment avoiding conflicts of interests and maintaining confidentiality |
| Profession | Reputation, honor, and dignity | Engineers have duty to uphold the reputation, honor, and dignity of the profession in activities like testifying in court as expert witnesses |
| Colleges/Peers (other engineers) | Collegial, cooperative relations with peers | Engineers must treat their colleagues with respect including avoiding disloyal competition, public criticism, and comparative advertising. |
Go to the next module in this course, "Socio-technical Systems in Professional Decision Making, m14025/latest. Study the text boxes on socio-technical systems and then construct a STS table on your branck of engineering in the Puerto Rican context. Use the sample STS Tables in the module to get you started but be sure to contextualize and specify your STS analysis.
To carry out this exercise, go to the module in this course entitled, "Three Frameworks for Ethical Decisikon Making and Good Computing Reports," m13757. This module outlines three ethics tests to help generate, evaluate, and compare solution alternatives for ethical problems. It also proposes a Solution Evaluation Matrix to help you integrate ethical considerations into the decision making process. Finally, carry out the decision making exercise at the end of the module by working through the short problem scenario.
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