The Royal Academy of Engineering has led a concerted effort to reach agreement on the high-level ethical principles it believes all professional engineers and related bodies should subscribe to. It has also suggested how ethics should be incorporated within the curriculum of undergraduate engineering courses. Anthony Eades, the manager of Engineering Projects at the Academy, introduces these initiatives.
Justified or not, this has the potential to damage the image of a profession. The various codes of conduct of the engineering institutions by themselves are not sufficient to address this issue. They are rule-based, and do not deliver an expression of the over-arching values to which engineers should adhere.
This was noted by the president of The Royal Academy of Engineering, at a meeting of engineering institutions in May 2004. Professor John Uff CBE QC FREng, in his Lloyds Register lecture some two years earlier, had referred to the need for some common adherence within the engineering community to a statement of ethical principles, and the linking of the engineer’s professional duty with a wider duty to the community.
Meetings with the major institutions and collaboration with Engineering Council (UK) resulted in the Statement of Ethical Principles: a set of “four fundamental principles which guide an engineer in achieving the high ideals of professional life”. This statement has been supported by many of the large engineering institutions and its short preamble concisely summarises the purpose of the Statement.
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