IMPACT OF CHEMICAL

ENGINEERING DESIGN ON
SOCIETY BY ETHICS &
PROFESSIONALISM
PRESENTED TO YOU BY:
MOHAMED SWALEH EL-SHABIBY
(1000174)

What you will learn

There is a subtle difference between morals and ethics.
One must make ones own ethical decisions.
There are legal issues that must be considered.

Introduction
Engineering has been described as the strategy for
causing the best change in a poorly understood or
uncertain situation within the available resources.
The realm of ethics and professionalism entails very real,
poorly understood problems that are as challenging as any
technical problems an engineer will face.

1. ETHICS
Whenever chemical engineers do anything that impacts the lives of
anyone, their choices of action are based on ethics.
Even when faced with 2 different equations, one is selected, based in
part on ethical values. Does the less precise equation include safety
factor that lowers the risk to employer, employees or the public?
Should more time be spend doing more rigorous calculations, costing
the firm more money but providing a better answer to the client?
How is the decision made?

Contd
In each of these circumstances, engineers apply their own
moral standards, mindful of the legal requirements, using their
personal code of ethics to make the decision.
To help in the development of a personal code of ethics that
will provide a framework for making these decisions, first the 3
types of reasons for ethical behaviour are identified:
1. Moral: Although all people share some fundamental moral ideals, each
engineer has his/her own distinct set of moral principles. Typically, these
morals are shaped by religion, conscience and especially early childhood
family experiences.

Contd
2. Legal: The legal system which includes government regulations is a
collection of rules of conduct for a society to assist orderly
transactions between people. Chemical engineers should seek skilled
legal advice whenever these rules or the consequences for not
following them are unclear.

3. Ethical: Commonly referred to as engineering ethics. There are

generally accepted codes of conduct for engineers. Engineering ethics
is the system of principles and strategies that engineers use to solve
complex problems involving other peoples lives. It includes aspects of
moral principles and legal responsibilities, as well as recognised
codes of ethics and generally accepted norms of engineering and
business behaviour.

Moral Autonomy
The ability to make ones own ethical decisions is referred
to as moral autonomy.
In as much as all engineers do not share a single set of
moral principles by which to make ethical decisions, it is
fully expected that different readers will make different
decisions, especially in complex situations.
The right decision can be identified by the use of a
heuristic. The right decision is the one that is:

Contd
Consistent with the engineers moral principles
Consistent with the generally accepted codes of
engineering conduct
Consistent with obligations that the engineer has
accepted
Consistent with the law
Consistent with the applicable code of ethics

Rehearsal
When learning a new skill one usually practices or rehearses. Rehearsal
becomes more important when decisions must be made quickly, extremely
accurately, or under great stress.
In advance professional education, and especially in engineering education,
the goal of rehearsal is to work through a scenario representative of a
broad range of situation that are likely to occur in the future and to develop
a strategy for responding to the broad range of problems.
Throughout your career, new ethical problems will arise. The key is to
rehearse frequently using homework problems and conceiving your own
representative scenarios.

Reflection in Action
One of the characteristics of professionals in a variety of fields is frequent
post-mortem analysis.
After an engineering event has occurred in which ethical decisions were
made, one sits down individually or in a small group and reviews the case,
analysing the facts, the missing information, the constraints, the
unnecessary perceived constraints, the options considered, the options not
considered, and the strategy used to arrive at the decision.
There are many reasons why reflection in action is so powerful, but the
focus here is on two:
It forces one to analyse the strengths and weaknesses of ones own strategy.
It provides continual opportunities ang encouragement for rehearsal.

Mobile Truth
It is quite natural for people to assume that the group to which
they belong to are right and other groups are wrong.
This basic response gives rise to loyalty, strong familial pride
and duty, wilful obedience, and leadership.
The strength of collective action depends on this response,
which, in terms of ethical decision making in engineering,
manifests itself in mobile truth.
When your affinity to a group clouds your ethical decision
making, you are being affected by mobile truth.

Codes of Ethics
Formal obligations that a person accepts when they join
organisations or when they are allowed to enter a
profession.
In chemical engineering there are three main types of
codes of ethics: employer, technical society and
government.
The employer-based codes of ethics are usually
incorporated into the codes of business conduct that one
agrees to upon employment with a particular firm e.g
AIChE

2. Professional Registration
To be recognized as a chemical engineer and to offer such
services to the public, one must be a licensed professional
engineer.
Each state has its own Board of Professional Engineers
and its own regulations on licensure and practice.
However, engineers registered in one state can generally
become registered in any other state. Ones needs only to
certify the experience, testing, and other requirements to
the new state and pay a fee.

Legal Liability
Chemical engineers often encounter legal liability for their
work.
When applying for registration as a professional engineer
each person is given a copy of the appropriate laws and
regulations and he or she is required to certify that these
are understood.

The end, Thank You