Professionalism and Codes of Ethics 19
professional duties and give them insight into ethical problems such as the one just described. The engineering codes of ethics hold that engineers should not make false claims or represent a product to be something that it is not. In some ways, the Pentium case might seem to simply be a public-relations problem. But, looking at the problem with a code of ethics will indicate that there is more to this situation than simple PR, especially since the chip did not operate in the way that Intel claimed it did.
In this chapter, the nature of professions will be examined with the goal of determining whether engineering is a profession. Two representative engineering codes of ethics will be looked at in detail. At the end of this chapter, the Pentium case is presented in more detail along with two other cases, and codes of ethics are applied to analyze what the engineers in these cases should have done.
2.1 INTRODUCTION When confronted by an ethical problem, what resources are available to an engi- neer to help fi nd a solution? One of the hallmarks of modern professions are codes of ethics promulgated by various professional societies. These codes serve to guide practitioners of the profession in making decisions about how to conduct them- selves and how to resolve ethical issues that might confront them. Are codes of eth- ics applicable to engineering? To answer this question, we must fi rst consider what professions are and how they function, and decide if this defi nition applies to engi- neering. Then we will examine codes of ethics in general and look specifi cally at some of the codes of engineering professional societies.
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