Ethics and Professional Responsibilities - Essay Example

Ethics and Professional Responsibilities Ethical skills are very integral to the field of engineering. As such an engineer is always expected to maintain certain ethical reputation. These ethics have to do with the morals and values that guide the engineering practitioners in their daily professional activities (Jr, Pritchard, Rabins, James, & Englehardt, 2013). The health, safety, and welfare of the public are thus the fundamentals of this ethics in the engineering profession. The ethical as well as moral decisions that engineers make in their professional assignments have very critical impacts to the life of the public.

This is because they may result in to severe consequences if not well checked. Therefore the moral obligation to consider the consequences of their actions or decisions lies with the engineers themselves. Whenever a safety problem occurs or during a disaster recovery, any concern noted by engineers should get reported to the relevant authority to enable investigation and subsequent response to the problem. This has often been a challenge especially when one feels they may be blacklisted or fired.

However, it is ethical and moral standards that an individual engineer has that will bring a difference when such situations arise (Jr, Pritchard, Rabins, James, & Englehardt, 2013). When an issue of concern is not reported due to fear of having one’s job in the line, the consequences that may arise could be very dire not only to those in the surrounding but also to the engineers who engage in the given activity. Therefore, it is important for engineering students to have ethics as a part of the curriculum so that they are prepared to make decisive decisions in their professional careers.

This will enable presentation of code of ethics to the profession of engineers saving the world from the unforeseen misfortunes that may result from unethical practices in this profession ( Jr, Pritchard, Rabins, James, & Englehardt, 2013). ReferenceHarris Jr, C., Pritchard, M., Rabins, M. J., James, R., & Englehardt, E. (2013).Engineering ethics: Concepts and cases. Cengage Learning.