TABLE OF CONTENTS As we practice engineering, our decisions are generally guided by the project management variables of cost, schedule, and quality. If you change one of these variables, the ones remaining will also be changed. But our decisions are also guided by our moral values; that is, our concern and respect for others. The framework of our ethical decisions is based on ethical theories we have learned and ethical behavior we have observed during our lives. It is advocated in Chapter 1 that engineers use this framework, as well as three professional responsibilities, to guide their professional behavior. These three responsibilities concern for public safety, technical competence, and timely communication of positive and negative results to management are grounded in respecting others and keeping them safe.
During their careers, many engineers will become involved in unethical situations they cannot control. In Chapter 1, possible ethical dilemmas that may occur are discussed. It is up to each engineer to determine his or her personal engineering ethics threshold for action; that is, which ethical dilemmas may occur at a workplace before the engineer is forced to an extreme action of leaving the company or fighting for change. In Chapter 2, we discuss how to perform these extreme actions.
A warning is in order as you begin to read this book: this textbook is different. Unlike other engineering ethics texts, this one...
