Engineering with ethics - Essay Example

Teacher Engineering with ethics My goal in life is to become professionally successful, be happy with my personal life and become socially relevant by doing something good to society and community. In the course of my professional life, I would pursue the ethical goals of serving higher good that improve other people’s lives, virtue ethics and become an example for my family and society. Now, that I said that my number one goal is to become professionally successful might raise some eyebrows because the ambition to become successful often drive people to become greedy and unethical in their profession. We are all aware that greed and over ambition drove people to commit unethical things that resulted the recent scandals that rocked corporate America from Enron, to WorldCom to Lehman Brothers. I would not disregard ethics in my pursuit to get ahead or to become successful. My personal guidelines to becoming successful is not to abandon ethics just to get ahead of others but rather to build trust and integrity among my clientele, superior, organization and peers that I may be trusted with more responsibilities and become more successful in the long-run. My field is in engineering and my profession requires me to build things that would make people’s lives better be it bridge, houses, computers, plants or products that people use everyday. Ethics plays a significant part for me not just to do my job well but to ensure that the goodness of the end user of my profession is protected. Without ethics that would guide an engineer like me, people will surely suffer from the product of my work and I in the long term because nobody would avail of my service and worst, I may be meted with criminal liability because of poor work and negligence. I believe that science and technology must be guided by ethics and should be pursued in accordance to it. Science and technology without the guidance of ethics may become bad and used either for less than good purpose or for selfish ends. One has to remember that science and technology is neutral in terms of value. That is, it is neither good nor bad and its value depends entirely on its user on how they intend to use it – either to pursue and develop it to better mankind or to serve some selfish or distorted end. Therefore, I am not inclined to use utilitarian ethics as a guideline in my future career. Utilitarian ethics states that the end justifies the means. This may sound similar to being determined to achieve ones objective but it could also drive people to do less than ideal things by justifying such act as necessary to achieve their objectives. For example, one may justify its criminal act of cheating the financial report of a company such as what Enron and WorldCom did by one drive and objective to become financially secure. There is no problem with the goal to be financially but its unguided method could make one go astray. I would practice virtue ethics instead or doing something good for the sake of being good and will never be a part of a shady practice. People would advise that it would be difficult to say with certainty about things that has not happened yet especially with what I am going to do when face with moral dilemma where priorities and interests do not coincide. I can say however with certainty that I will not be a party to any endeavor that will jeopardize the welfare of the end users of my profession or any endeavor that is shady or borders to being unethical. I will not also serve or become part of any project that is morally dubious no matter how well intended the project is. For example, I will not be a part of a project that involves weapon no matter how well it is intended (i.e. deterrence and to build a strong state). It may sound naïve, but I would like to serve something good, to become part of some higher purpose that serves society. This way, I would build credibility as a professional in my future career and my clients, superior, organization and peers will trust me more and success will just follow. This way, success and financial security is more fine because I am in my profession for the long time because I esteemed and trusted in my profession. I also would like my future professional career to serve some purpose other than myself. Of course as a professional, I would endeavor to become successful and to become financially stable. But this is too self-centered and does not serve anything other than myself. Thus, I also would like my profession to serve something higher and beyond me. I also would like my work and my profession to contribute to the betterment of society and to improve the lives of some people. I would give part of my professional services for free through volunteer work of any worthy cause. As I grow more successful and more financially secure, I would increase my contribution to society and community. Above all, I also would like the fruits of my professional success to be enjoyed by my family. Someday, I anticipate that I would also marry and have a family of my own. I would like my professional success to be shared by my family. I would like them to be proud of me also and this would serve as a good guidance in my future professional career because it would prevent me to do things in my profession that would make my family to be less than proud of me. I would like to provide to my family, my better half and children the things that came from honest and decent work that they could be proud of. I also would like to set a good example in my profession to my children and to the community at large. Finally, I would like to leave some good contribution to my profession even in small way and have that satisfaction that I also did something good to my profession as a gratitude for all the good things it has given to me both as a professional, a member of my community and as a family person. Read More