Ethics

What is engineering?
• Using basic foundations in mathematics and science,
engineers apply their technical knowledge to conceive,
design and implement new processes, products and
systems that make our everyday lives possible.
• Engineers create and sustain technology that provide for
our safety, health, security, comfort and recreation.
What is Ethics?
• The discipline concerned with what is morally good and
bad, right and wrong.
• Morality is the right or wrong of an action, a way of life,
or a decision.
• Why Ethics in Engineering is important?
• Public safety
• Engg. decision are complex:
o Many variables
o No “right” answers
o The solution is always a “trade of”

o In beginning

o Today , it’s a balancing act.

 Unit – 1
HUMAN VALUES
 Table of content
1.Introduction 10.Respect for Others
2.Objectives 11.Living peacefully
3.Morals 12.Caring
13.Sharing
4.Ethics
14.Self-confidence
5.Honesty 15.Courage
6.Integrity 16.Co-operation
7.Values 17.Commitment
8.Work Ethic 18.Empathy
9.Civic Virtue
 Introduction

• Human values refer to those values that are at the

core of being human.

• The values which are considered basic inherent

values in human include honesty, courage, loyalty,
peace, etc. because they bring out the fundamental
goodness of human being and society at large.
 Objectives
(Why Engineering Ethics?)
• to understand the moral values that
ought to guide the Engineering
profession,

• resolve the moral issues in the

profession, and

• justify the moral judgment

concerning the profession.
 Moral awareness

Moral imagination
Improvement of the
Moral coherence
cognitive skills
Cogent moral reasoning

Moral communication
Objectives
Moral reasonableness

Respect for persons

Moral ways Tolerance of diversity

Moral hope

Integrity
 Ethics
• A code of moral standards of conduct for what is “Good” and
“Right” as opposed to what is “Bad” and “wrong”.
• Ethics are an arrangement of decent principles and a branch of
attitude which defines what is good for individual and society.
• Ethics refers to the evolution of moral values, principles and
standards of human conduct and its application in daily life to
determine acceptable human behavior.
 Morals
• Morals are the prevailing standards of behavior that enable
people to live cooperatively in groups. Moral refers to
what societies sanction as right.
• Morality is concerned with principles and practices of
morals such as:
(a) What ought or ought not to be done in a given situation?
(b) What is right or wrong about the handling of a situation?
(c) What is good or bad about the people, policies, and ideals
involved?
Morality is different from Ethics in the
following ways:
 Honesty
oHonesty is a virtue, and it is exhibited in two aspects
namely,
(a) Truthfulness and
(b) Trustworthiness.
• Truthfulness is to face the responsibilities upon telling
truth. One should keep one’s word or promise.
• By admitting one’s mistake committed (one needs
courage to do that!), it is easy to fix them.
• Reliable engineering judgment, maintenance of truth,
defending the truth, and communicating the truth, only
when it does ‘good’ to others, are some of the
reflections of truthfulness.
• But trustworthiness is maintaining integrity and
taking responsibility for personal performance.
People abide by law and live by mutual trust.
• They play the right way to win, according to the
laws or rules (legally and morally).
• They build trust through reliability and authenticity.
• They admit their own mistakes and confront
unethical actions in others and take tough and
principled stand, even if unpopular.
Honesty is mirrored in many ways.
The common reflections are:

(a) Beliefs (intellectual honesty).

(b) Communication (writing and speech)
(c) Decisions (ideas, discretion).
(d) Actions (means, timing, place, and the goals). and
(e) Intended and unintended results achieved.
• Some of the actions of an engineer that leads to
dishonesty are:
i. Lying:
• Honesty implies avoidance of lying. An engineer may
communicate wrong or distorted test results
intentionally or otherwise. It is giving wrong
information to the right people.
ii. Deliberate deception
• An engineer may judge or decide on matters one is not
familiar or with insufficient data or proof, to impress
upon the customers or employers. This is a self deceit.
 iV. Withholding the information
• It means hiding the facts during communication to one’s
superior or subordinate, intentionally or otherwise.
V. Not seeking the truth
• Some engineers accept the information or data, without
applying their mind and seeking the truth.
Vi. Not maintaining confidentiality
• It is giving right information to wrong people. The
engineers should keep information of their
customers/clients or of their employers confidential and
should not discuss them with others.
 Integrity
• Integrity is the quality of being honest and having
strong moral principles; moral uprightness.
• Basic idea of the integrity is “Doing right thing when
nobody’s watching you”.
• Moral integrity is defined as a virtue, which reflects a
consistency of one’s attitudes, emotions, and conduct in
relation to justified moral values.
 Values
• A value is defined as a principle that promotes well-
being or prevents harm. “Another definition is: Values
are our guidelines for our success—our paradigm
about what is acceptable.”
• Personal values are defined as: “Emotional beliefs in
principles regarded as particularly favourable or
important for the individual.”
• Our values associate emotions to our experiences and
guide our choices, decisions and actions.
 WORK ETHICS
• Work ethics is defined as a set of attitudes concerned with
the value of work, which forms the motivational
orientation.
• The ‘work ethics’ is aimed at ensuring the economy (get
job, create wealth, earn salary), productivity (wealth,
profit), safety (in workplace), health and hygiene (working
conditions), privacy (raise family), security (permanence
against contractual, pension, and retirement benefits),
cultural and social development (leisure, hobby, and
happiness), welfare (social work), environment (anti-
pollution activities), and offer opportunities for all,
according to their abilities, but without discrimination.
• Industry and Society are the two systems which interact with
each other and are interdependent.
• Society requires industry/business system which provides
manufacturing, distribution and consumption activities.
• It needs investment (capital input), labor (input), supply (raw
materials), production (industries, business organizations),
marketing and distribution (transport), and consumption (public,
customer).
• A lot of transactions (and interactions) between these sub-
systems involving people are needed for the welfare of the
society.
• It is here, the work ethics plays an essential role.
 Civic Virtues
• Civic virtues are the moral duties and rights, as a citizen
of the village or the country or an integral part of the
society and environment.
• An individual may exhibit civic virtues by voting,
volunteering, and organizing welfare groups and
meetings.
 The duties are:
1. To pay taxes to the local government and state, in time.
2. To keep the surroundings clean and green.
3. Not to pollute the water, land, and air by following
hygiene and proper garbage disposal.
• For example, not to burn wood, tyres, plastic materials,
spit in the open, even not to smoke in the open, and not
to cause nuisance to the public, are some of the civic
(duties) virtues.
4. To follow the road safety rules.
 On the other hand, the rights are:
1. To vote the local or state government.
2. To contest in the elections to the local or state government.
3. To seek a public welfare facility such as a school, hospital or a
community hall or transport or communication facility, for the residents.
4. To establish a green and safe environment, pollution free, corruption
free, and to follow ethical principles.
People are said to have the right to breathe in fresh air, by not allowing
smoking in public.
5. People have inalienable right to accept or reject a project in their area.
One has the right to seek legal remedy, in this respect, through public
interest petition.
 Civic
Knowledge

Self-
Civic Self-
Reliance Restraint
Virtues
Self-
Assertion
 RESPECT FOR OTHERS
• This is a basic requirement for nurturing friendship, team work,
and for the synergy it promotes and sustains. The principles
enunciated in this regard are:
1. Recognize and accept the existence of other persons as human
beings, because they have a right to live, just as you have.
2. Show ‘goodwill’ on others. Love others. Allow others to grow.
Basically, the goodwill reflects on the originator and multiplies
itself on everybody. This will facilitate collinearity, focus,
coherence, and strength to achieve the goals.
3. Respect others’ ideas (decisions), words, and labor
(actions). One need not accept or approve or award them,
but shall listen to them first.
One can correct or warn, if they commit mistakes. Some
people may wait and watch as fun, if one falls, claiming
that they know others’ mistakes before and know that
they will fall! Appreciate colleagues and subordinates on
their positive actions.
Criticize constructively and encourage them. They are
bound to improve their performance, by learning
properly and by putting more efforts.
 LIVING PEACEFULLY
• To live peacefully, one should start install peace within
(self).
• Charity begins at home. Then one can spread peace to
family, organisation where one works, and then to the
world, including the environment.
• Only who are at peace can spread peace. You can not
gift an article which you do not possess.
• The essence of oriental philosophy is that one should
not fight for peace.
• It is oxymoron. War or peace can be won only by
peace, and not by wars !
 One should adopt the following means to live peacefully, in the world:

• Nurture
1. Order in one’s life (self-regulation, discipline, and duty).
2. Pure thoughts in one’s soul (loving others, blessing others, friendly, and
not criticizing or hurting others by thought, word or deed).
3. Creativity in one’s head (useful and constructive).
4. Beauty in one’s heart (love, service, happiness, and peace).
• Get
5. Good health/body (physical strength for service).
• Act
6. Help the needy with head, heart, and hands (charity). Service to the
poor is considered holier than the service to God.
7. Not hurting and torturing others either physically, verbally, or mentally.
The following are the factors that promote living, with internal
and external peace:

1. Conducive environment (safe, ventilated, illuminated and

comfortable).
2. Secured job and motivated with ‘recognition and reward’.
3. Absence of threat or tension by pressure due to limitations
of money or time.
4. Absence of unnecessary interference or disturbance, except
as guidelines.
5. Healthy labor relations and family situations.
6. Service to the needy (physically and mentally-challenged)
with love and sympathy.
 CARING
• Caring is feeling for others. It is a process which exhibits
the interest in, and support for, the welfare of others with
fairness, impartiality and justice in all activities, among
the employees, in the context of professional ethics.
• It includes showing respect to the feelings of others, and
also respecting and preserving the interests of all others
concerned.
• Caring is reflected in activities such as friendship,
membership in social clubs and professional societies, and
through various transactions in the family, fraternity,
community, country and in international councils.
 SHARING
• Primarily, caring influences ‘sharing’. Sharing is a process that
describes the transfer of knowledge (teaching, learning, and
information), experience (training), commodities (material possession)
and facilities with others.
• The transfer should be genuine, legal, positive, voluntary, and without
any expectation in return.
• However, the proprietary information it should not be shared with
outsiders. Through this process of sharing, experience, expertise,
wisdom and other benefits reach more people faster.
• Sharing is voluntary and it can not be driven by force, but motivated
successfully through ethical principles.
• In short, sharing is ‘charity’ ; sharing is a ‘culture’.
 SELF-CONFIDENCE
• Certainty in one’s own capabilities, values, and goals, is self-
confidence.
• These people are usually positive thinking, flexible and willing to
change. They respect others so much as they respect themselves.
• Self-confidence is positive attitude, wherein the individual has some
positive and realistic view of himself, with respect to the situations in
which one gets involved.
• The people with self-confidence exhibit courage to get into action and
unshakable faith in their abilities, whatever may be their positions.
• They are not influenced by threats or challenges and are prepared to
face unexpected consequences.
The people with self-confidence have the
following characteristics:
1. A self-assured standing,
2. Willing to listen to learn from others and
adopt (flexibility),
3. Frank to speak the truth, and
4. respect others’ efforts and give due credit.
The factors that shape self-confidence in
a person are:
1. Heredity (attitudes of parents) and family
environment (elders),
2. Friendship (influence of friends/colleagues),
3. Influence of superiors/role models, and
4. Training in the organization ( e.g., training by
Technical Evangelists at Infosys Technologies).
 The following methodologies are effective in
developing self-confidence in a person:

1. Encouraging SWOT analysis. By evaluating their

strength and weakness, they can anticipate and be
prepared to face the results.
2. Training to evaluate risks and face them (self-
acceptance).
3. Self-talk. It is conditioning the mind for preparing the
self to act, without any doubt on his capabilities. This
make one accepts himself while still striving for
improvement.
4. Study and group discussion, on the history of leaders
and innovators.
 COURAGE
• Courage is the tendency to accept and face risks and
difficult tasks in rational ways. Self-confidence is the
basic requirement to nurture courage.
• Courage is classified into three types, based on the types
of risks, namely
(a) Physical courage,
(b) Social courage, and
(c) Intellectual courage.
 physical courage
• In physical courage, the thrust is on the adequacy of
the physical strength, including the muscle power
and armaments.
• People with high adrenalin, may be prepared to face
challenges for the mere ‘thrill’ or driven by a
decision to ‘excel’.
 social courage
• The social courage involves the decisions and
actions to change the order, based on the conviction
for or against certain social behaviour.
• This requires leadership abilities, including empathy
and sacrifice, to mobilize and motivate the
followers, for the social cause.
 Intellectual courage
• The intellectual courage is inculcated in people
through acquired knowledge, experience, games,
tactics, education, and training.
• In professional ethics, courage is applicable to the
employers, employees, public, and the press.
• Look before you leap. Learning from the past helps.
Past experience and wisdom gained from self-study
or others will prepare one to plan and act with self-
confidence.
 The courageous people own and have shown the
following characteristics, in their professions:

(a) Perseverance (sustained hard work),

(b) Experimentation (preparedness to face the
challenges, that is, unexpected or unintended results),
(c) Involvement (attitude, clear and firm resolve to
act), and
(d) Commitment (willing to get into action and to
reach the desired goals by any alternative but ethical
means).
 COOPERATION
• It is a team-spirit present with every individual engaged
in engineering.
• Co-operation is activity between two persons or sectors
that aims at integration of operations (synergy), while
not sacrificing the autonomy of either party.
• Further, working together ensures, coherence, i.e.,
blending of different skills required, towards common
goals.
• According to professional ethics, cooperation should exist or be
developed, and maintained, at several levels; between the employers
and employees, between the superiors and subordinates, among the
colleagues, between the producers and the suppliers, and between
the organisation and its customers.
• The impediments to successful cooperation are:
1. Clash of ego of individuals.
2. Lack of leadership and motivation.
3. Conflicts of interests, based on region, religion, language, and caste.
4. Ignorance and lack of interest.
• By careful planning, motivation, leadership, and rewarding team
work, professionalism and humanism beyond the ‘divides’, training
on appreciation to different cultures, mutual understanding
‘cooperation’ can be developed and also sustained.
 COMMITMENT
• Commitment means alignment to goals and adherence to
ethical principles during the activities.
• First of all, one must believe in one’s action performed
and the expected end results (confidence).
• It means one should have the conviction without any
doubt that one will succeed.
• For example, a design engineer shall exhibit a sense of
commitment, to make his product or project designed a
beneficial contribution to the society.
• Only when the teacher (Guru) is committed to his job,
the students will succeed in life and contribute ‘good’ to
the society.
• The commitment of top management will naturally lead
to committed employees, whatever may be their
position.
• This is bound to add wealth to oneself, one’s employer,
society, and the nation at large.
 EMPATHY
• Empathy is social radar. Sensing what others feel about,
without their open talk, is the essence of empathy.
• Empathy begins with showing concern, and then
obtaining and understanding the feelings of others, from
others’ point of view.
• It is also defined as the ability to put one’s self into the
psychological frame or reference or point of view of
another, to know what the other person feels.
 To practice ‘Empathy’, a leader must have or develop
in him, the following characteristics
1. Understanding others: It means sensing others feelings and
perspectives, and taking active interest in their welfare.
2. Service orientation: It is anticipation, recognition and meeting
the needs of the clients or customers.
3. Developing others: This means identification of their needs and
bolstering their abilities. In developing others, the one should
inculcate in him the ‘listening skill’ first. Communication = 22%
reading and writing + 23% speaking + 55% listening.
4. Political awareness: It is the ability to read political and social
currents in an organization.
 The benefits of empathy include
1. Good customer relations (in sales and service, in partnering).
2. Harmonious labor relations (in manufacturing).
3. Good vendor-producer relationship (in partnering.) Through the
above three, we can maximize the output and profit, as well as
minimizing the loss.
• While dealing with customer complaints, empathy is very
effective in realising the unbiased views of others and in
admitting one’s own limitations and failures.
• Business is not to make a sale, but to make and keep a customer.
• Empathy assists one in developing courage leading to success!
Thank you