Ethics in Professional Societies - Essay Example

In any professional sphere, it is relevant to follow ethical principles and not only to work. Ethical principles have a different power in comparison with laws. Thus, laws can regulate or not, support or not some ethical principles. For example, from the perspective of medical ethics, abortion is unethical deed. It is a life interruption. In accordance with laws in many countries abortion is a legal issue. Nevertheless, Civil Rights Law in America propagates ethical and legal commitment. In one way or another, but the modern society requires ethical regulations in any profession.

Still, the conditions of underdeveloped professional ethics among engineers cannot be denied. The fact that medical ethics is more developed cannot be denied as well. Still, the necessity of ethical principle following in these both spheres is an inarguable fact. Ethical principle relevance in the medical professional society usually concerns how medicals should ethically behave when they deal with the issues concerning life and death. The most known ethical code of behavior for medicals is the Oath of Hippocrates.

Currently, the American Medical Association has introduced bioethics. It covers such issues as pharmacy, nursing, social work and so on. Therefore, we can claim that for the American Medical Association ethical principles following in all spheres and aspects of medicine are of crucial importance1. It goes another way in the professional society of engineers. . eering and Technology, a specific nature of ethics in engineering encompasses the following issues: “public safety; bribery and fraud; environmental protection; fairness; honesty in research and testing conflicts of interest”2.

The necessity to develop code of ethics for engineers in accordance with the specific nature of the field of their activity can be explained by the following facts: the decisions made by engineers can cause a negative impact on public’s health; moral implications are of high importance for engineers. In such a way, it is necessary to support legally the development of ethical principles for engineers: the latter would think critically and independently about different moral issues; moral thinking would be incorporated in the professional engineering practice.

In accordance with the research project “Ethics in Engineering”: “ethical problems in engineering are often complex and involve conflicting ethical principles. Engineers must be able to intelligently resolve these conflicts and reach a defensible decision”3. Therefore, engineers are not considered in the modern society as technicians, they are intelligent individuals with the ability to morally and ethically behave and think. Ethical principles of engineering in comparison with other professions There are numerous complexities within the professional field of engineers.

These professionals are not self-employed and usually work for large corporations. Moreover, there is a lack of respect paid to engineers in comparison with medicals 4and they also do not have such high payments as physicians or lawyers do. Engineering professional society is not as well developed as the professional society of medicals (AMA) or as the professional association of lawyers (ABA)5. Therefore,