1. From Foundations to Functionality: How to Best Abide by a Code of Ethics
Christopher Martin
Associate Professor of Philosophy, UW-Green Bay

2. 4 Aspects of most Codes of Ethics:
Promote public welfare
Be truthful and objective
Build your reputation on the merit of your work alone
Serve the interests of your employers and clients

3. Promote Public welfare
A new and well designed and built skate park for kids can be a valuable contribution to a community. It promotes exercise and recreation, reduces teen crime, and enhances community development. However, it also brings an increased risk of injuries, and the money spent on the park could be used for other community projects, possibly for projects benefitting a greater proportion of the community’s members. It is also an additional draw on a community’s budget.
If you were asked to submit a design proposal knowing that community leaders are considering a number of different ways to spend their money, what factors would you take into consideration? Ought an engineer to think beyond the design and consider social and moral factors as well?

4. Be truthful and objective
You are an engineer tasked with overseeing environmental tests for the air stacks at a large plant. A date for a regulatory test was selected, but a representative from the state compliance agency was unable to attend. The test showed that the air treatment stacks are 1% out of compliance, for which a heavy fine would be assessed. Plant managers ask you to lie and claim that the testing equipment malfunctioned so that they can correct the errors and test another time.
Does the minor error justify lying about the equipment knowing that burdensome fines will be assessed?

5. Build your reputation on the merit of your work alone.
You work at an engineering firm in a small town and have submitted but were not awarded proposals on many projects. Your credentials and reputation are at least as good as those of your only competitor, who has been awarded all of the projects. Looking through the notes of City Council meetings, you realize that your competitor has donated funds to the city Park Fund after each job is completed. You believe that your competitor is being awarded the contracts partially because members of the City Council know that she will make a donation to the city Park Fund once the job is complete. What, if anything, should you do?

6. Serve the interests of your employers and clients
You work at a firm focusing on land development, and much of your work concerns manufacturing in the upstream region of a large watershed. Downstream of the watershed lies a community with many homes, and parks along the water and various recreational opportunities associated with them are a large draw for the community. Landowners are complaining that the manufacturing development upstream is increasing the flow of the river, which is erasing the banks and opportunities for swimming. They also worry that pollutants are entering the water at an unsafe rate. All of the upstream developments were designed within existing local regulations. A new development asks you to design their storm water solutions and you request freedom to design a solution that will benefit the watershed as a whole. The company rejects this because of the added (and unfair) expense. What are your options?