The Engineering Codes of Ethics Is Not a Legally Binding Document

A code of ethics issued by a company is a special type of policy statement. A properly worded code is, in fact, a form of legislation within the company that binds its employees, with specific penalties for violations of the code. In the absence of such sanctions, the code is only a list of pieties. The harshest penalty is usually dismissal – unless a crime has been committed. Webley, Simon. “Structure of the content of a Code of Business Practices and Ethics.” Institute of Business Ethics. Available on www.ibe.org.uk/contentcode.html. Retrieved 22 January 2006. Many very small businesses with 10 to 20 employees work more like families. Ethical behavior is part of the culture – just like in a family.

In such situations, the sudden appearance of a code of ethics can be quite staggering. Discussing the issue at a staff meeting can better serve the purpose: to educate employees about this issue and what`s going on “out there.” A code of ethics is a useful document for almost all types of business that serve the business well, among other important contracts. When developing a code of ethics, it is important to carefully consider the company`s values, goals, and potential challenges. The Code of Ethics can alleviate many problems by establishing clear rules and guidelines that employees consider when hiring. Center for the Study of Ethics in professions, Illinois Institute of Technology. “Online Codes of Ethics”. Available from www.iit.edu/departments/csep/PublicWWW/codes. A huge collection of codes of ethics, by far the largest available online.

All the codes cited here can be found on this page. Ladd, John. (1980). “The search for a code of ethics: an intellectual and moral confusion”. In AAAS Professional Ethics Project: Professional Ethics Activities in the Scientific and Engineering Societies, edited by Rosemary Chalk, Mark S. Frankel, and Sallie B. Chafer. Washington, DC: American Association for the Advancement of Science. A classic challenge for the idea of a code of ethics. Berleur, Jacques and Marie d`Udekem-Gevers. (2001). “Codes of Ethics: Conduct for Computer Societies: The Experience of IFIP.” In Technology and Ethics: A European Quest for Responsible Engineering, edited by Philippe Goujon and Bertrand Hériard Dubreuil.

Leuven, Belgium: Peeters. Describes the failure of a major international organization to adopt a code of ethics, apparently for the sake of applicability. A code of ethics includes both internal guidelines for ethical conduct and an external statement of obligations and values, as well as guidelines against which an individual`s conduct can be measured. The Code of Ethics should include: Attempts have also been made to distinguish between “rules” (strict and fast) and simple “guidelines”. The rules are then called typical of the law to allow only submission or mistrust and therefore to compromise moral autonomy. Guidelines, on the other hand, should be typical of ethics, require interpretation rather than “foolish submission” and thus preserve moral autonomy. In fact, all rules, including laws, require interpretation (not rash submission). In this respect, all the rules are just guidelines. So there is no reason for a code of ethics, understood as rules, to interfere with moral autonomy – or at least no reason for it to interfere more than a promise or commitment to fairness. On the other hand, “policies” such as those in the ACM Code often have the same binding form as other rules. They act as a comment to the code, not as a stand-alone document. Codes of ethics may contain ordinary moral rules (“Do not steal” or “Treat others fairly”).

Codes of ethics can be implemented. For example, some codes (such as the Code of Ethics of Engineers in Chile) have the status of a national administrative law. Other codes, such as the “Nuremberg Code” on human experimentation, have become an integral part of international law and the general national law of many countries. Nevertheless, a code of ethics is never simply a matter of law or ordinary morality. To call a document a code of ethics is to make a claim that one does not make when one claims that the document in question is a law or a statement of ordinary morality. One of the advantages of small businesses is that they can sometimes avoid tedious upheavals in the business world. In all respects, whether traditional or modern, ethics is an important issue. Observations and studies show that ethical behavior is effective. A. Millage recently wrote in Internal Auditor about the results of the 2005 National Business Ethics Survey (NBSB). The ENB is led by the Ethics Resource Centre. The survey found that 70% of employees of companies with a “weak” ethical culture (as measured by NBES) observed ethical misconduct in their organization.

Only 34% of employees in organizations with a “strong” ethical culture did so. Employees observed morally destructive behaviours such as discrimination and sexual harassment; internal lies to suppliers, customers and the public; false report of the time; direct flight; and other issues. In all respects, such activities lead to higher costs, loss of reputation, poor performance, etc. Ethics is important. However, in at least three other senses, ethics differs from morality. In one, ethics consists of the standards of behavior that moral agents should follow (critical morality); Morality, on the other hand, consists of the norms that moral agents generally follow (positive morality). Ethics in this sense is very close to their fundamental customs; it may refer to unethical acts in the first sense of ethics. What some consider morally just (slavery, forced female circumcision, etc.) can be morally wrong. Morality in this sense has a plural: there can be as many morals as there are moral agents. Nevertheless, ethics in this sense can be a common standard for all. So this second sense of ethics is as unrelated to the objectives here as the first. Codes of ethics usually contain certain rules that ordinary morality does not contain.

Perhaps the best-known code of ethics in history is the Hippocratic Oath taken by all physicians. Contrary to popular belief, this oath does not contain the phrase “First, do not cause harm.” In the current language, the third paragraph of the classical version says: “I will use dietary measures for the benefit of the sick according to my abilities and judgment; I will save them from evil and injustice. According to bartlett`s Familiar Quotes, the most famous phrase comes from hippocrates` epidemics: “When it comes to diseases, get into the habit of two things: helping, or at least not doing harm. Because codes of ethics have no necessary content, they do not have a necessary structure or design. For example, the Code of Ethics for Software Engineering divides its requirements into eight main categories (public, client and employer, product, judgment, management, profession, colleagues and self); The Australian Computer Society`s Codes of Ethics divide their requirements into six (priorities, competence, honesty, social impact, professional development and the IT profession); and other codes have taken control of other departments, some similar to this one and others very different. All that can be usefully said about the structure of codes of ethics in general is that the structure should help ordinary users understand the code as a whole and determine what they need in particular. Codes of ethics have at least five uses: First, and most importantly, a code of ethics can set specific standards of conduct in cases where experience has shown that common sense is not enough. Second, a code of ethics, which is a binding formulation of the rules that govern a practice, can help those who are new to practice learn to act. Third, a code can remind those with considerable experience of what they might otherwise forget. Fourth, a code can provide a framework for resolving disputes, even between people with considerable experience.

Fifth, a code can help those who are not part of the group (“the public”) understand what they can rightly expect from those who are part of the group. The term ethics has at least four meanings. In one case, it is a synonym for ordinary morality, the universal norms of behavior that apply to moral agents simply because they are moral agents. The etymology justifies this meaning. The root of the word ethics (ethos) is the Greek word for “habit” (or “character”), just as the root of the word morality is the Latin word for this concept. Etymologically, ethics and morality are twins (as are ethics and morals). In this sense of the word, codes of ethics are systematic statements of ordinary morality; there is no point in talking about ethics rather than morality. Verschoor, Curtis C. “Benchmarking Ethics and Compliance Programs.” Strategic finance. August 2005.

By order of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, former Section 11(c) of the NSPE Code of Ethics, which prohibits tendering, and any policy statement, opinion, judgment, or other directive that interprets its scope have been repealed as an unlawful interference with the right of engineers protected by antitrust laws to provide pricing information to potential customers; Accordingly, nothing in the NSPE`s Code of Ethics, policy statements, opinions, decisions or other guidelines prohibits the submission of quotations or tenders for engineering services at any time and for any amount. .