THE QUEST FOR A CODE OF PROFESSIONAL ETHICS AN INTELLECTUAL AND M.docx

THE QUEST FOR A CODE OF PROFESSIONAL ETHICS: AN
INTELLECTUAL AND MORAL CONFUSION
John Ladd
My role as a philosopher is to act as a gadfly. If this were
Athens in the fifth century B. c. you would probably throw me
in prison for what I shall say, and I would be promptly
condemned to death for attacking your idols. But you can't do
that in this day and age; you can't even ask for your money
back, since I am not being paid. All that you can do is to throw
eggs at me or simply walk out!
My theme is stated in the title: it is that the whole notion of an
organized professional ethics is an absurdity-intellectual and
moral. Furthermore, I shall argue that there are few positive
benefits to be derived from having a code and the possibility of
mischievous side effects of adopting a code is substantial.
Unfortunately, in the time allotted to me I can only summarize
what I have to say on this topic.
1. To begin with, ethics itself is basically an open-ended,
reflective and critical intellectual activity. It is essentially
problematic and controversial, both as far as its principles are
concerned and in its application. Ethics consists of issues to be
examined, explored, discussed, deliberated, and argued. Ethical
principles can be established only as a result of deliberation and
argumentation. These principles are not the kind of thing that
can be settled by fiat, by agreement or by authority. To assume
that they can be is to confuse ethics with law-making, rule
making, policy-making and other kinds of decision making. It
follows that, ethical principles, as such, cannot be established

by associations, organizations, or by a consensus of their
members. To speak of codifying ethics, therefore, makes no
more sense than to speak of codifying medicine, anthropology
or architecture.
2. Even if substantial agreement could be reached on ethical
principles and they could be set out in a code, the attempt to
impose such principles on others in the guise
Reprinted from Rosemary Chalk, Mark S. Frankel, and Sallie B.
Chafer, eds., AAAS Professional Ethics Project: Professional
Ethics Activities in the Scientific and Engineering Societies
(Washington, D.C.: AAAS, 1980), pp. 154-59, with permission
from the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
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of ethics contradicts the notion of ethics itself, which presumes
that persons are autonomous moral agents. In Kant's terms, such
an attempt makes ethics- heteronymous; it confuses ethics with
some kind of externally imposed set of rules such as a code of
ethics which, indeed, is heteronymous. To put the point in more
popular language: ethics must, by its very nature, be self-
directed rather than other-directed.
3. Thus, in attaching disciplinary procedures, methods of
adjudication and principles that one calls "ethical" one
automatically converts them into legal rules or some other kind
of authoritative rules of conduct such as the bylaws of an
organization, regulations promulgated by an official,
club rules, rules of etiquette, or other sorts of social standards
of conduct. To label such conventions, rules and standards
"ethical" simply reflects an intellectual confusion about the
status and function of these conventions, rules and standards.
Historically, it should be noted that the term "ethical" was
introduced merely to indicate that the code of the Royal College
of Physicians was not to be construed as a criminal code (i.e., a
legal code). Here "ethical" means simply non-legal.
4. That is not to say that ethics has no relevance for
projects involving the creation, certification and enforcement of
rules of conduct for members of certain groups. But logically it
has the same kind of relevance that it has for the law. As with
law, its role in connection with these projects is to appraise,
criticize and perhaps even defend (or condemn) the projects
themselves, the rules, regulations and procedures they
prescribe, and the social and political goals and institutions they
represent. But although ethics can be used to judge or evaluate a
disciplinary code, penal code, code of honor or what goes by the
name of a "code of ethics," it cannot be identified with any of
these, for the reasons that have already been mentioned.
SOME GENERAL COMMENTS ON PROFESSIONALISM AND
ETHICS

5. Being a professional does not automatically make a
person an expert in ethics, even in the ethics of that person's
own particular profession -- unless of course we decide to call
the "club rules" of a profession its ethics. The reason for this is
that there are no experts in ethics in the sense of expert in
which professionals have a
special expertise that others do not share. As Plato pointed out
long ago in the Protagoras, knowledge of virtue is not like the
technical knowledge that is possessed by an architect or
shipbuilder. In a sense, everyone is, or ought to be, a teacher of
virtue; there are no professional qualifications that are
necessary for doing ethics.
6. Moreover, there is no special ethics belonging to
professionals. Professionals are not, simply because they are
professionals, exempt from the common obligations, duties and
responsibilities that are binding on ordinary people. They do not
have a special moral status that allows them to do things that no
one else can. Doctors have no special -right to be rude, to
deceive, or to order people around like children, etc. Likewise,
lawyers do not have a special right to bend the law to help their
clients, to bully witnesses, or to be cruel and brutal-simply
because they think that it is in the interests of their client.
Professional codes cannot, therefore, confer such rights and
immunities; for there is no such thing as professional ethical
immunity.
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7. We might ask: do professionals, by virtue of their special
professional status, have special duties and obligations over and
above those they would have as ordinary people? Before we
can answer this question, we must first decide what is meant: by
the terms "profession" and "professional," which are very loose
terms that are used as labels for a variety of different
occupational categories. The distinctive element in
professionalism is generally held to be that professionals have

undergone advanced, specialized training and that they exercise
control over the nature of their job and the services they
provide. In addition, the older professions, lawyers, physicians,
professors and ministers typically have clients to whom they
provide services as individuals. (I use the term "client"
generically so as to include patients, students, and
parishioners.) When professionals have "individual clients, new
moral relationships are created that demand special types of
trust and loyalty. Thus, in order to answer the question, we need
to examine the context under which special duties and
obligations of professionals might arise.
8. In discussing specific ethical issues relating to the
professions, it is convenient to divide them into issues of
macro-ethics and micro-ethics. The former comprise what might
be called collective or social problems, that is problems
confronting members of a profession as a group in their relation
to society; the latter, issues of micro-ethics, are concerned with
moral aspects of personal relationships between individual
professionals and other individuals who are their clients, their
colleagues and their employers. Clearly the particulars in both
kinds of ethics vary considerably from one profession to
another. I shall make only two general comments.
9. Micro-ethical issues concern the personal relationships
between individuals. Many of these issues simply involve the
application of ordinary notions of honesty, decency, civility,
humanity, considerateness, respect and responsibility.
Therefore, it should not be necessary to devise a special code
to tell professionals that they ought to refrain from cheating and
lying, or to make them treat their clients (and patients) with
respect, or to tell them that they ought to ask for informed
consent for invasive actions. It is a common mistake to assume
that all the extralegal norms and conventions governing
professional relationships have a moral status, for every
profession has norms and conventions that have as little to do
with morality as the ceremonial dress and titles that are
customarily associated with the older professions.

10. The macro--ethical problems in professionalism are more
problematic and controversial. What are the social
responsibilities of professionals as a group? What can and
should they do to influence social policy? Here, I submit, the
issue is not one of professional roles, but of professional power.
For professionals as a group have a great deal of power; and
power begets responsibility. Physicians as a group can, for
instance, exercise a great deal of influence on the quality and
cost of health care; and lawyers can have a great deal of
influence on how the law is made and administered, etc.
11. So-called "codes of professional ethics" have nothing to
contribute either to micro-ethics or to macro--ethics as just
outlined. It should also be obvious that they do not fit under
either of these two categories. Any association, including a
professional association, can, of course, adopt a code of conduct
for its members and lay down disciplinary procedures and
sanctions to enforce conformity with its rules. But to call such a
disciplinary code a code of ethics is at once pretentious and
sanctimonious. Even
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worse, it is to make a false and misleading claim, namely, that
the profession in question has the authority or special
competence to create an ethics, that it is able authoritatively to
set forth what the principles of ethics are, and that it has its own
brand of ethics that it can impose on its, members and on
society.
I have briefly stated the case against taking a code of
professional ethics to be a serious ethical enterprise. It might be
objected, however, that I have neglected to recognize some of
the benefits that come from having professional codes of ethics.
In order to discuss these possible benefits, I shall first examine
what some of the objectives of codes of ethics might be, then I

shall consider some possible benefits of having a code, and,
finally, I shall point out some of the mischievous aspect of
codes.
OBJECTIVES OF CODES OF PROFESSIONAL "ETHICS"
In order to be crystal clear about the purposes and objectives of
a code, we must begin by asking: to whom is the code
addressed? Although ostensibly codes of ethics are addressed
to the members of the profession, their true purposes and
objectives are sometimes easier to ascertain if we recognize that
codes are in fact often directed at other addressees than
members. Accordingly, the real addressees might be any of the
following- (a) members of the profession, (b) clients or buyers
of the professional services, (c) other agents dealing with
professionals, such as government or private institutions like
universities or hospitals, or (d) the public at large. With this in
mind, let us examine some possible objectives.
First, the objective of a professional code might be
"inspirational," that is, it might be used to inspire members to
be more "ethical" in their conduct. The assumption on which
this objective is premised is that professionals are somehow
likely to be amoral or submoral, perhaps, as the result of
becoming professionals, and so it is necessary to exhort them to
be moral, e.g., to be honest. I suppose there is nothing
objectionable to having a code for this reason, it would be
something like the Boy Scout's Code of Honor, something to
frame and hang in one's office. I have severe reservations,
however, about whether a code is really needed for this purpose
and whether it will do any good; for those to whom it is
addressed and who need it the most will not adhere to it
anyway, and the rest of the good people in the profession will
not need it because they already know what they ought to do.
For this reason, many respectable members of a profession

regard its code as a joke and as something not to be taken
seriously. (Incidentally, for much the same kind of reasons as
those just given, there are no professional codes in the academic
or clerical professions.)
A second objective might be to alert professionals to the
morals aspects of their work that they might have overlooked.
In jargon, it might serve to sensitize them or to raise their
consciousness. This, of course, "is a worthy goal it is the goal
of moral education. Morality, after all, is not just a matter of
doing or not doing, but also a matter of feeling and thinking.
But, here again, it is doubtful that it is possible to make people
have the right feelings or think rightly through enacting a code.
A code is hardly the best means for teaching morality.
Thirdly, a code might, as it was traditionally, be a
disciplinary code or a “penal"
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code used to enforce certain rules of the profession on its
members in order to defend the integrity of the professional and
to protect its professional standards. This kind of function is
often referred to as "self-policing." It is unlikely, however, that
the kind of disciplining that is in question here could be
handled in a code of ethics, a code that would set forth in detail
criteria for determining malpractice. On the contrary, the
"ethical" code of -a profession is usually used to discipline its
members for other sorts of "unethical conduct, " such as
stealing a client away from a colleague, for making disparaging
remarks about a colleague in public, or for departing from some
other sort of norm of the profession. (In the original code of the
Royal College of Physicians, members who failed to attend the
funeral of a colleague were subject to a fine!) It is clear that
when we talk of a disciplinary code, as distinguished from an
exhortatory code, a lot of new questions arise that cannot be
treated here; for a disciplinary code is quasi-legal in nature, it
involves adjudicative organs and processes, and it is usually
connected with complicated issues relating to such things as

licensing.
A fourth objective might be to offer advice in cases of moral
perplexity about what to do: e.g., should one report a colleague
for malfeasance? Should one let a severely defective newborn
die? If such cases present genuine perplexities, then they cannot
and should not be solved by reference to a code. To try to solve
them through a code is like trying to do surgery with a carving
knife! If it is not a genuine perplexity, then the code would be
unnecessary.
A fifth objective of a professional code of ethics is to alert,
prospective clients and employers to what they may and may not
expect by way of service from a member of the profession
concerned. The official code of an association, say, of
engineers, provides as authoritative statement of what is proper
and what is improper conduct of the professional. Thus, a code
serves to protect a professional from improper demands on the
part of employer or client, e.g., that he lie about or cover up
defective work that constitutes a public hazard. Codes may thus
serve to protect "whistle-blowers." (The real addressee in this
case is the employer or client.)
SECONDARY OBJECTIVES OF CODES--NOT ALWAYS
SALUTARY
I now come to what I shall call "secondary objectives," that is,
objectives that one might hesitate always to call "ethical,"
especially since they often provide an opportunity for abuse.
The first secondary objective is to enhance the image of the
profession in the public eye. The code is supposed to
communicate to the general public (the addressee) the idea that
the members of the profession concerned are service oriented
and that the interests of the client are always given first place
over the interests of the professional himself. Because they have
a code they may be expected to be trustworthy.
Another secondary objective of a code is to protect the
monopoly of the profession in question. Historically, this
appears to have been the principal objective of a so -called code

of ethics, e. g., Percival's code of medical ethics. Its aim is to
exclude from practice those who are outside the professional in-
group and to regulate the conduct of the members of the
profession so as to protect it from encroachment from outside.
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Sometimes this kind of professional monopoly is in the public
interest and often it is not.
Another secondary objective of professional codes of ethics,
mentioned in some of the literature, is that having a code serves
as a status symbol; one of the credentials to be considered a
profession is that you have a code of ethics. If you want to
make your occupation a profession, then you must frame a code
of ethics for it; so there are codes for real estate agents,
insurance agents, used car dealers, electricians, barbers, etc.,
and these codes serve, at least in the eyes of some, to raise their
members to the social status of lawyers and doctors.
MISCHIEVOUS SIDE EFFECTS OF CODES OF ETHICS
I now want to call attention to some of the mischievous side-
effects of adopting a code of ethics:

The first and most obvious bit of mischief, is that having a code
will give a sense of complacency to professionals about their
conduct. "We have a code of ethics," they will say, "so
everything we do is ethical." Inasmuch as a code, of necessity,
prescribes what is minimal, a professional may be encouraged
by the code to deliver what is minimal rather than the best that
he can do. "I did everything that the code requires”.
Even more mischievous than complacency and the consequent
self-congratulation, is the fact that a code of ethics can be used
as a cover-up for what might be called basically "unethical" or
"irresponsible" conduct.
Perhaps the most mischievous side-effect of codes of ethics is
that they tend to divert attention from the macro-ethical
problems of a profession to its micro-ethical problems. There is
a lot of talk about whistle-blowing. But it concerns individuals
almost exclusively. What is really needed is a thorough scrutiny
of professions as collective bodies, of their role in society and
their effect on the public interest. What role should the
professions play in determining the use of technology, its
development and expansion, and the distribution of the costs
(e.g., disposition of toxic wastes) as well as the benefits of
technology? What is the significance of professionalism from
the moral point of view for democracy, social equality, liberty
and justice? There are lots of ethical problems to be dealt with.
To concentrate on codes of ethics as if they represented the real
ethical problems connected with professionalism is to capitulate
to struthianism (from the Greek word struthos=ostrich).
One final objection to codes that needs to be mentioned is that
they inevitably represent what John Stuart Mill called the
"tyranny of the majority" or, if not that, the "tyranny of the
establishment." They serve to and are designed to discourage if

not suppress the dissenter, the innovator, the critic.
By way of conclusion, let me say a few words about what an
association of professionals can do about ethics. On theoretical
grounds, I have argued that it cannot codify an ethics and it
cannot authoritatively establish ethical principles or prescribed
guidelines for the conduct of its members as if it were creating
an ethics! But there is still much that associations can do to
promote further understanding of and sensitivity to ethical
issues connected with
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professional activities. For example, they can fill a very useful
educational function by encouraging their members to
participate in extended discussions of issues of both micro -
ethics and macro - ethics, e.g., questions about responsibility;
for these issues obviously need to be examined and discussed
much more extensively than they are at present especially by
those who are in a position to do something about them.

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Each student is required to complete a project, either a paper
about 8 double spaced pages in length (plus 8+ item scholarly
bibliography and relevant illustrations) or a creative project
involving a similar amount of research, but presented in a
different format. Each project must involve research by the
student, careful documentation of the sources of information
used and original thinking. An artists statement is required
(three pages double-spaced plus bibliography) that details your
research and creative process and specifically how your
research has informed your creative process.
Works Cited
Adams, Laurie. Art across Time. 4th ed. New York: McGraw-
Hill, 2011. Print.
Ascalone, Enrico, and Rosanna M. Frongia. Mesopotamia.
Berkeley: U of California, 2007. Print.
Barnstone, Willis. The Poetics of Translation: History, Theory,
Practice. New Haven: Yale UP, 1993. Print.
Ching, Francis D. K., and Mark Jarzombek. A Global History of
Architecture. 2nd ed. Hoboken, N.J.: Wiley, 2011. Print.
Hall, H. R. Ur Excavations .. London: Pub. for the Trustees of
the Two Museums by the Oxford UP, 1927. Print.

Irving, Mark. 1001 Buildings You Must See before You Die.
London: Universe, 2007. Print.
Woolley, Leonard. Ur Excavations: Publications of the Joint
Expedition of the British Museum and of the Museum of the
University of Pennsylvania to Mesopotamia. London: Published
for the Trustees of the Two Museums [by] Oxford UP, 1935.
Print.
Woolley, Leonard. The Ziggurat and Its Surroundings. London:
Published for the Trustees of the Two Museums [by] Oxford
UP, 1939. Print.
Proposal for library assignment
For the library assignment I want to do the history of Ur,
especially the Ziggurat of Ur.
The ziggurat is one of the important buildings during the Third
Dynasty of Ur, which is built by king Ur-Nammu. The ziggurat
is a shrine of the moon god Nanna.
I really love those buildings, which are present people’s belief
of gods, so I choose this topic for my library assignment. I like
exploring people’s belief and religion during the ancient time.
I may research some other distribution of ziggurat types in
Mesopotamia, to compare the differences between these
ziggurats.
And the ziggurat present the culture of Sumerian and it last
great Sumerian Renaissance.
I also will research how the Sumerian changed during the long
time. About the family, society, language, architecture,
economy and religion. I think I may focus on the change of the
religion and architecture of the Sumerian. For the religion part,
I may do the gods, temples organization, funerary practices. For
the architecture part, I will focus on the ziggurat at that time.

Science and Engineering Ethics (2003) 9, 159-170
Science and Engineering Ethics, Volume 9, Issue 2, 2003 159
Keywords: ethics code, professional, research, practice,
aspirational, educational
ABSTRACT: Ethics codes of a number of scientific societies
across different
disciplines promulgate ethical standards for responsible conduct
in research and other
professional activities. The content of these codes of ethics are
compared on key
dimensions of research, service or practice, and teaching in
terms of the range and
specificity of the activities these codes cover, and in the degree
to which they are
educational, aspirational or regulatory in purpose. The role of
professional
associations in educating, regulating, monitoring, and
sanctioning their membership is
also discussed.
Introduction
Ethical conduct in professional activities is an issue that
occupies legislatures,
regulatory agencies, educators, and professional societies across
every discipline,
whether focused on research, academia, industry or service.
Most professional

activities are covered under multiple levels of control. For
example, there are principles
and regulations specifying research/professional activities at the
international level
(e.g., Declaration of Helsinki1), the national level (e.g., the
Common Rule2), the state
level (e.g., licensing boards), and the institutional level (e.g.,
Institutional Review
Boards), as well as from disciplinary societies (codes of ethics).
Given the multiple
layers of regulation, there are many ways in which disciplinary
professional societies
can promote ethical behavior—through their own ethics codes,
through educational
initiatives, or through subscription to codes or principles
adopted by a more inclusive
body.
Ethics for All: Differences Across
Scientific Society Codes
Merry Bullock and Sangeeta Panicker
American Psychological Association
* An earlier version of this paper was presented at the AAAS-
Office of Research Integrity (ORI)
meeting in Washington DC on the theme: “The Role and
Activities of Scientific Societies in
Promoting Research Integrity” held on April 10-11, 2000.
Address for correspondence: Merry Bullock, Ph.D., Associate
Executive Director, Science
Directorate, American Psychological Association, 750 First St.
N.E., Washington D.C. 20002-4242,
USA; email: [email protected]
Paper received, 11 May 2001; revised, 19 August 2002;
accepted, 5 February 2003.

1353-3452 © 2003 Opragen Publications, POB 54, Guildford
GU1 2YF, UK. http://www.opragen.co.uk
M. Bullock and S. Panicker
160 Science and Engineering Ethics, Volume 9, Issue 2, 2003
In this contribution, we will review the ethics codes of a
number of scientific
societies to determine how different professional associations
fulfill the role of
fostering ethical behavior among their members. We will pay
special attention to those
policies that focus on scientific activities.
Ethics codes and policies, like scientific associations, come in
many shapes and
sizes, ranging from simple, one-page statements of principles,
to long, detailed,
manuals of conduct covering the many details of professional
life. Which kind of code
a discipline adopts, if it adopts a code at all, is a function of the
different professional
roles adopted by members of the association, the discipline’s
perceived obligations and
responsibilities, and the discipline’s own history.
To generate our remarks, we examined the ethics principles and
codes of a wide
variety of scientific associations, spanning the gamut of
scientific disciplines, as listed
in Tables 1 and 2. After a preliminary look at ethics codes
across a number of
associations and disciplines, it was clear to us that a

categorization of an organization’s
code on the basis of single or unidimensional criterion such as
the type of discipline or
the range of professional activities of its members was too
simplistic. Thus, in this
review, we examine how ethics codes vary across a number of
dimensions and use the
overview to raise questions about the purpose and value of
scientific associations’
efforts to monitor and regulate the ethical conduct of their
membership so as to
promote integrity in research. Our remarks are intended to be
descriptive of the entire
range of association codes that were reviewed.
Table 1: Societies/Associations included in the survey
♦ Alberta Society of Professional
Biologists
♦ American Anthropological
Association
♦ American Association of Marriage
and Family Therapists
♦ American Association of Petroleum
Geologists
♦ American Chemical Society
♦ American College of Forensic
Examiners
♦ American Dental Association
♦ American Dietetic Association
♦ American Educational Research

Association
♦ American Institute of Aeronautics
and Astronautics
♦ American Institute of Chemists
♦ American Institute of Professional
Geologists
♦ American Mathematical Society
♦ American Medical Association
♦ American Meteorological Society
♦ American Physiological Society
♦ American Physical Society
♦ American Society of Civil Engineers
♦ American Society for Clinical
Laboratory Science
♦ American Society for Information
Science
♦ American Society of Mechanical
Engineers
♦ American Society for Nutritional
Sciences
♦ American Society for Photogrammetry
and Remote Sensing
♦ American Sociological Association
♦ American Speech, Language and
Hearing Association
♦ American Statistical Association

♦ Archeological Institute of America
♦ Association of Professional Engineers
and Geoscientists of British Columbia
♦ Australian Psychology Society, Ltd.
♦ Australian Society for Microbiology
♦ British Psychological Society
♦ Canadian Psychological Association
♦ Ecological Society of America
♦ Institute of Electrical and Electronic
Engineers
Ethics for All: Differences Across Scientific Society Codes
♦ American Political Science
Association
♦ American Psychiatric Association
♦ American Psychological
Association
♦ American Oil Chemists’ Society
♦ American Registry of Radiologic
Technologists
♦ American Society of Agronomy
♦ American Society for Biochemistry
and Molecular Biology
♦ National Association of Applied

Anthropology
♦ National Association for the Practice of
Anthropology
♦ National Association of School
Psychologists
♦ National Association of Social Workers
♦ Singapore Psychological Society
Table 2. Societies/Associations included in the survey
categorized by
membership activities
Research/
Service
♦ American Association for
Marriage and Family Therapy
♦ American Association of
Petroleum Geologists
♦ American Chemical Society
♦ American College of Forensic
Examiners
♦ American Dental Association
♦ American Dietetic Association
♦ American Institute of
Aeronautics and Astronautics
♦ American Institute of Chemists
♦ American Medical Association
♦ American Psychological

Association
♦ American Society of Civil
Engineers
♦ American Society of Mechanical
Engineers
♦ American Statistical Association
♦ Australian Psychological Limited
♦ British Psychological Society
♦ Canadian Psychological
Association
♦ National Association of Applied
Anthropology
♦ National Association of School
Psychologists
♦ Singapore Psychological
Society
Service
Delivery
♦ American Association of
Petroleum Geologists
♦ American Institute of
Professional Geologists
♦ American Registry of Radiologic
Technologists

♦ American Society for Clinical
Laboratory Science
♦ American Speech, Language
and Hearing Association
♦ Association of Professional
Engineers and Geoscientists of
British Columbia
♦ Institute of Electrical and
Electronic Engineers
♦ National Association for the
Practice of Anthropology
♦ National Association of Social
Workers
Research/
Application
♦ Alberta Society of Professional
Biologists
♦ American Anthropological
Association
♦ American Educational Research
Association
♦ American Mathematical Society
♦ American Meteorological
Society
♦ American Physical Society

♦ American Physiological Society
♦ American Political Science
Association
♦ American Oil Chemists’ Society
♦ American Society of Agronomy
♦ American Society for
Biochemistry and Molecular
Biology
Information Science
♦ American Society for Nutritional
Sciences
Photogrammetry and Remote
Sensing
♦ American Sociological
Association
♦ Archeological Institute of
America
♦ Australian Society for
Microbiology
♦ Ecological Society of America

The common underlying theme across all the ethics codes was
encouragement of
general good conduct by its membership. This could be briefly
paraphrased as
strictures to behave:
• Honestly and fairly (maintain integrity in conducting and
reporting research, in
giving expert consultation, in delivering service)
• Competently (remain within the boundaries of trained
competence; follow all
applicable rules, regulations, and procedures)
• Benignly (do no harm to the discipline, to research
participants, to institutions,
to clients, or to society)
These basic tenets apply across all disciplines and all
activities—be it research,
practice, teaching, consulting, or any other professional
endeavor. However, the degree
and manner in which these fundamental tenets are translated
into codes of conduct and
the extent to which there is an obligation to abide by, advocate
for, and educate about
such tenets varies considerably across organizations. The
manner in which professional
ethics codes vary can be described in terms of their scope: the
breadth, depth, and
stated or implied purpose of the code.
Categorization of Ethics Codes

BREADTH – The breadth of an association’s ethics code refers
to the array of
activities it attempts to cover. This may be determined by the
nature and scope of the
discipline, and the range of professional activities of its
membership, i.e., the more
diverse the discipline—ranging from basic research to delivery
of services—the
broader and perhaps more general the code. Looking across
codes, there are wide
differences in the definition of the constituencies to which
members are held
responsible. For instance, as shown in Table 3, the code of the
American Educational
Research Association (AERA), which focuses entirely on
research, specifies
responsibilities to: the field; research populations; educational
institutions and the
public; research sponsors; policy-makers and other consumers
of research; and students
and student researchers.3 The American Psychological
Association (APA) ethics code,
on the other hand, covers both practice and research activities
and as such specifies
responsibilities to patients or clients, students and supervisees,
research participants
and animals used in research as well as the public.4 In contrast
to both AERA and
APA, the American Dietetic Association code, which is devoted
entirely to
service/practice issues, specifies responsibilities primarily to
the client, in a clinical as
well as in a business setting.5
The nature of the subject matter of a discipline also affects the
breadth of its ethics

code. For example, disciplines in which research is performed
on inanimate natural
objects (e.g., geology, astronautics, physics, chemistry) focus
more on the ethical
actions of researchers vis-à-vis other researchers (i.e., giving
due credit, publishing
findings in a timely fashion, data sharing, etc.), and vis-à-vis
the data (i.e., refraining
from fabrication and falsification).6-9 In contrast, those
disciplines in which research is
performed on animate objects or on human artifacts include
additional ethical strictures
concerning the protection of research subjects or material (see
Table 3). Examples
include the Code of Professional Standards of the Archeological
Institute of America,
which specifically addresses the archeologist’s responsibilities
to the archeological
record and to refrain from harming the cultural milieu,10 and
the APA Code of Ethics
which, in addition to maintaining research integrity, details
psychological researchers’
responsibilities to research participants in terms of respecting
individual autonomy,
ensuring informed consent, and safeguarding their privacy and
confidentiality.4
Table 3. A Sample of the Purview of Professional
Responsibilities

ORGANIZATION CODE OF CONDUCT
American College of Forensic
Examiners
Responsibility to ensure justice is served – the case22
American Dietetic Association Responsibilities to the client (in
different settings –
business, clinic, culinary)5
American Educational Research
Association
Responsibilities to the field, research populations,
educational institutions, scholarship3
American Meteorological
Society
Responsibilities to the profession, to colleagues, to
clients and the general public23
American Psychological
Association
Responsibilities to clients, research participants, the
public4
American Society for
Biochemistry and Molecular
Biology
Obligations to the public, other investigators,
trainees24

Archeological Institute of
America
Responsibilities to the archeological record, the
public, colleagues10
DEPTH – The depth of a code refers to its detail: whether it
simply suggests ethical
principles to follow in very general terms, or also complements
these principles with
detailed behaviors and actions, which aid in ensuring
understanding and compliance.
Although the depth of an ethics code may also be determined by
the nature and range
of professional activities of its membership, factors such as
existing relevant legislation
and whether other entities already regulate specific professional
activities probably
play a greater role.
As mentioned above, both the breadth and depth of professional
ethics codes can
vary considerably across disciplines. This, however, may also
be true within a single
discipline, across different cultures or societies. For instance,
within the discipline of
psychology, the ethics codes of the APA and the Canadian
Psychological Association
(CPA) are both quite broad in scope because of their intended
applicability to practice,
applied, educational, and research contexts.4, 11 The APA code
begins with a set of five
general aspirational principles addressing beneficence and
nonmaleficence, fidelity and
responsibility, integrity, justice, and respect for people’s rights
and dignity. It then

follows with ten sections outlining standards for conduct. Issues
relevant to research
integrity are addressed within most of these ten sections to
varying degrees, but the
focus is on psychology as a broad field, not just on its scientific
and research aspects,
and the standards are written in general, broad terms.4
In contrast, although the ethics code of the CPA is applied to
professionals within
the same range of activities as that of APA members, it is
structured differently.11 It
consists of four principles addressing respect for the dignity of
persons, responsible
caring, integrity in relationships, and responsibility to society.
Each principle is
followed by a value statement, which defines the principle, and
by specific standards
illustrating the application of the specific principle. The
resulting code specifies
particular actions much more precisely and in considerably
more detail. For example,
the definition (value statement) of Principle I: Respect for the
dignity of persons is
translated into specific ethical standards that psychologists are
required to meet, which
includes general respect. Specific actions that psychologists can
engage in to live up to
this standard include demonstrating appropriate respect for the
knowledge, insight,

experience, and areas of expertise of others; refraining from
making degrading
comments about others, including demeaning jokes based on
such characteristics as
culture, nationality, ethnicity, color, race, religion, sex, gender,
or sexual orientation;
striving to use language that conveys respect for the dignity of
persons as much as
possible in all written or oral communication; and abstaining
from all forms of
harassment, including sexual harassment.11
Other codes for psychologists provide yet other examples of the
variation in ethics
codes within a discipline. The British Psychological
Association’s code sets forth the
basic minimum standards for ethical conduct, with general
recommendations for how
those standards might be attained.12 The code is then
supplemented by sets of
statements that provide detailed guidance on a variety of
specific areas of professional
activity, which include research with humans and other animals.
The Australian
Psychological Society’s code of ethics identifies three general
principles—
responsibility, competence, and propriety—which take
precedence over the following
eight sections that address specific professional issues such as
psychological
assessment procedures, relationship with clients, teaching of
psychology, supervision
and training, research, reporting and publication of research
results, public statements
and advertisement, and members’ relationships with
professionals.13

PURPOSE – The broad purview of a professional ethics code is
to set out the
standards of conduct that apply within a domain or discipline.
This serves the function
of creating a common set of standards that define norms of
behavior for professionals
within a domain or discipline, thus, safeguarding both the
integrity as well as the
reputation of the discipline. Within these broad constraints,
though, associations differ
in the specific purpose and use of an ethics code. For some, the
purpose of the code is
aspirational—to provide ideal goals, behaviors and perspectives
that all members of the
discipline should strive to attain. For others, the purpose of the
code is to spell out
common practice—to provide a set of guidelines or working
rules that govern everyday
professional activities. For yet others, the purpose may be not
only aspirational or
normative, but may also serve a regulatory and punitive
function. That is, the code
provides a set of rules or principles that must be followed, and
non-compliance can
result in, among other actions, expulsion from the association.
Table 4 shows those
associations that have binding and non-binding codes.
Table 4: Associations with enforceable vs. educational codes

ENFORCEABLE CODE NON-ENFORCED/EDUCATIONAL
CODE
American Association of Aeronautics and
Astronautics
Alberta Society of Professional Biologists
American Association for Marriage and
Family Therapists
American Anthropological Association
American Association of Petroleum
Geologists
American College of Forensic Examiners
American Dental Association American Dietetic Association
American Medical Association American Educational Research
Association
American Psychiatric Association American Institute of
Professional
Geologists
American Psychological Association American Mathematical
Society
American Sociological Association American Meteorological
Society
American Speech, Language Hearing
Association
American Oil Chemists Society
American Statistical Association American Society for

Biochemistry and
Molecular Biology
Canadian Psychological Association American Society for
Nutritional Science
National Association of Social Workers National Association
for the Practice of
Anthropology
Singapore Psychological Society
The British Psychological Society
Whether a code is aspirational or regulatory depends in part on
its enforceability.
Only a relatively small number of associations supplement their
ethics codes with
detailed reporting or grievance procedures, provide information
about procedures for
handling allegations of misconduct or unethical behavior, or
specify sanctions against
those who violate the code. This is not surprising—many of the
behaviors covered in
ethics codes are regulated in other venues (e.g., at the federal,
state or institutional
level), and few associations have the necessary resources to
ensure an adequate
adjudication (due) process. However, it should be noted that of
the nearly forty-five
codes that we reviewed, only the American Anthropological
Association (AAA)
explicitly makes the case for education rather than
adjudication.14 This is interesting,
especially given the diversity of activities of its membership
(research in different
settings to different kinds of teaching, training, and
applications). The AAA report

contends that an educational document can and should apply
across the intellectual
breadth of the discipline.14
Societies vary in the extent to which they assign explicit
obligations to members to
strive to engage in ethical decision-making, or to incorporate
ethical discussion into all
professional activities. They also vary in the extent to which
members are held
responsible for reporting violations, or required to refrain from
hindering such
reporting by others. Regardless of whether a code is aspirational
and educational,
regulatory, or enforceable, and regardless of its place in the
research-practice
continuum, common issues covered in research ethics include:
• Honesty in conducting and reporting research (refrain from
falsification,
fabrication)
• Fairness and integrity in intellectual ownership and authorship
• Respect and humane treatment for the research material, be it
animate or
inanimate
• Responsibilities to use public funds appropriately and to share
publicly funded

materials and data
• Open dissemination of research results
• Responsibilities to preserve research records and artifacts
• An obligation to avoid discrimination and harassment in all
activities
• An obligation as publisher to uphold integrity in reviewing
and publishing
research (generally included when an association has a strong
publishing
function)
• An obligation to review the works of others
Many of the codes also address the issue of credentials, which
usually refers to the
precept that one must not overstate, exaggerate, or lie about
one’s expertise or
competence. Including strictures regarding competence and
veracity of credentials in
an ethics code may be a means of protecting both the integrity
and reputation of the
discipline as well as protecting the professional and his or her
client/patient/research
subject.
In addition to common elements, our overview across
professional ethics codes
showed a number of concerns that are not universal to all codes.
These principles may
reflect differences in the range of professional activities
covered by a discipline, and
may also reflect issues more specific to the particular
discipline’s own history.
Illustrative examples of more specific tenets include:

• Avoidance of research that is constrained in some way, for
example, that is
“secret” (Anthropology14); or that is proprietary (Chemistry9);
or for private
gain (Archeology10)
• An obligation to protect future research opportunities
(Anthropology,14
AERA3)
• An obligation to protect local culture or local artifacts
(Anthropology14)
• An obligation to decline additional funding from government
agencies for
purposes that cannot be disclosed (applied to research abroad)
(Political
Science15)
• An explicit obligation to advance the profession (Chemistry,9
Aeronautics7)
• Active attention to social responsibility by taking into
consideration those who
benefit and those who are neglected by the research
(Agronomy16)
• An obligation not to permit publication or use of professional
information (e.g.,
reports, maps) for illegitimate or unsound enterprises
(Petroleum and
Professional Geologists17, 6)
• A responsibility to challenge social injustice (Social work18)

• A responsibility to be informed and respectful of other
disciplinary and
professional perspectives and ethical requirements in cross-
disciplinary work
(Anthropology14, 19)
• A responsibility to contribute to the welfare of society by
devoting a portion of
professional activity for services with little or no financial
return (Marriage &
Family Therapy20)
• Refraining from knowingly engaging in research to produce or
promote
biological warfare agents (Microbiology21)
Summary
This very cursory look at some of the dimensions of ethics
codes raises a number of
issues for further discussion among disciplinary associations,
and a number of
questions to help clarify the role of scientific associations in the
realm of research
integrity.
1. How should a society balance the roles of regulating member
activities and
educating members about the culture of the discipline and the
“rules” of a

professional role?
If the primary goal is to educate new as well as current
members of a discipline
about what is expected in a societal role or professional
capacity, then an ethics code
should have practical use. In other words, it should be capable
of providing researchers
or professionals with guidance on the correct course of action in
particular cases. This
can be accomplished in different forms—by stating principles
and decision rules, by
stating principles and describing examples of specific situations
and actions, or by
issuing opinions, comments and policy statements on specific
issues as they arise. To
be of maximum use, an ethics code should be “user-friendly”,
specific and instructive.
The form this takes may vary for disciplines whose members
represent a narrow or
broad mix of researchers and practitioners.
2. Who should regulate ethical behaviors? Who should
sanction ethical violations?
If a professional code is intended to be enforceable, it should
include procedures
for handling allegations of misconduct or unethical behavior.
This might be at the
association level if the organization has the necessary resources
to ensure adequate
adjudication (due process), or it might be to specify other
organizations with relevant
authority, such as universities or governmental agencies.
Generally, those codes that are meant to be binding, that have

teeth, belong to
disciplines with a preponderance of members who might be
involved in providing
service of some sort or are practitioners—where membership in
the association is
important for licensure or other professional credentials.
However, where this is not the
case, as with disciplines with only academic or applied
researchers, there may still be a
need to enforce discipline-specific codes. For example, the
stricture in anthropology to
protect artifacts ensures the possibilities of future research,14
or in political science to
avoid being influenced by partisan opinion.15
3. Given the increase in cross-disciplinary research and
international collaborations,
how can associations best educate their membership on issues
relating to the ethical
conduct of research and protecting research integrity?
Scientific associations differ in the extent to which their ethics
codes reflect an
obligation to inform and instruct members about adherence to
public laws and
regulations. Some incorporate relevant public regulations into
their codes, others
endeavor to instruct and educate members about how federal
codes of research
practices and other governmental regulations applicable across

all disciplines and
settings apply to the specific discipline. The increase in cross-
disciplinary research and
the emergence of new fields of research (e.g., gene technology)
suggest that a broad
approach will be most fruitful.
With the increase in cross-disciplinary research, the emergence
of new fields of
study, and increasing international collaborations, the scientific
research environment
is rapidly changing. Other factors contributing to this change
are the public’s
perception of science, the call for greater accountability in
scientific research, and the
corresponding changes being proposed in the federal regulation
of research. Thus, the
time is ripe for associations to take stock and decide how they
might best serve their
membership as well as society at large.
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Science and Engineering Ethics (2003) 9 353-361
Keywords: ethics, morality, profession, philosophically
interesting, engineering
ABSTRACT: What makes a subject philosophically interesting
is hard-to-resolve
confusion about fundamental concepts. Engineering ethics
suffers from at least three
such fundamental confusions. First, there is confusion about
what the “ethics” in
engineering ethics is (ordinary morality, philosophical ethics,
special standards, or
something else?) Second, there is confusion about what the
profession of engineering
is (a function, discipline, occupation, kind of organization, or
something else?) Third,
there is confusion about what the discipline of engineering is.
These fundamental
confusions in engineering ethics connect with philosophically

interesting work in
moral theory, political philosophy, and philosophy of science.
Work in these areas may
help with the philosophical problems of engineering ethics. But,
equally important,
work in engineering ethics may help with the philosophical
problems in these others
fields.
Introduction
My title is a question familiar to most philosophers working in
engineering ethics.
Some philosophers ask it of them as a challenge; some, out of
curiosity. Over the years,
I have developed a technique for answering, one likely to be
useful both to
philosophers interested in engineering ethics and to non-
philosophers trying to draw a
philosopher into engineering ethics. I begin with the
philosopher’s typical device, a
counter-question: “What makes a subject philosophically
interesting? Is it enough that
some philosophers find it interesting?” The counter-question
generally surprises the
philosopher to whom I address it. His (or her) response is
therefore predictable in the
way off-guard responses typically are: “No,” the philosopher
says, “philosophers are
What’s Philosophically Interesting about
Engineering Ethics?
Michael Davis, Center for the Study of Ethics in the Professions
Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, Illinois, USA

Address for correspondence: Michael Davis, Center for the
Study of Ethics in the Professions,
Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, Illinois 60616, USA;
email: [email protected]
Paper received, 2 February 2003: revised, 3 March 2003:
accepted, 24 March 2003.
1353-3452 © 2003 Opragen Publications, POB 54, Guildford
GU1 2YF, UK. http://www.opragen.co.uk
M. Davis
interested in many things beside philosophy. ‘Philosophically
interesting’ must mean
more than of interest to philosophers.”
“What then is philosophically interesting?” I ask. Generally, the
answer to that
question is a list of subjects, the curriculum of the graduate
program about the time the
philosopher graduated, or its equivalent, such as “the perennial
[or core] problems of
philosophy”. To this list, I respond: “But ’philosophically
interesting’ can’t be defined
as what we (or our teachers) thought was interesting when we
were in graduate school.
While most subjects philosophers found interesting then are still
with us, some are not.
For example, much of what was philosophy of language when I
was in graduate school
is now taught in the linguistics department. Much of the history
of philosophy is the

departure of subjects once ‘philosophically interesting’.”
By now, the philosopher I’m addressing has recovered from
surprise and wisely
returns to the original question, though in a more serious tone.
And this time I answer:
What seems to me to make a subject “philosophically
interesting” is confusion about
fundamental concepts. By “confusion” I mean an understanding
of a subject so flawed
that even those who know all that is known about it do not know
whether they can
answer the questions they are putting or even what they need to
know to answer them.
So, for example, the relation of mind to body has long been
philosophically interesting
because our understanding of mind (consciousness, an activity
seemingly without
location in space) makes it hard to understand how body (which
has a location in
space) could affect or be affected by mind in any of the ways it
obviously is.
Once the confusion is reduced enough to allow ordinary
methods of inquiry to
function in a relatively reliable way, philosophers lose
interest—until new confusions
arouse new interest. The so-called “perennial [or core] problems
of philosophy” are
simply those problems that philosophers have been working on
for a long time. We do
not know that they cannot be solved; hence, we cannot know
that they actually are
perennial (much less that philosophy would not be philosophy
without them). Indeed,
as soon as some philosopher showed that they could not be

solved, philosophy would
be done with them. There is nothing philosophically interesting
about a problem
without a solution—except, perhaps, explaining in what sense it
can still be a problem.
What makes a subject philosophically interesting, or at least
should make it
philosophically interesting, is that the subject is confused in a
way that can be resolved
using the methods of philosophy: definition, sorting out of
issues, deduction, and so on.
That a philosophically interesting subject connects with other
philosophically
interesting subjects adds to the interest, especially if the other
subjects have interested
philosophers for some time, but those connections seem to me
to add to the interest
rather than constitute it. Philosophy is independent of any
particular question, problem,
or subject. If philosophy has a core, it is its method, not its
subject matter.
If this seems a good way to understand “philosophically
interesting”, then it is easy
to make a case for the philosophical interest of engineering
ethics today. Since I was
originally a political philosopher, what tends to catch my
attention are questions of
engineering ethics related to political philosophy (including
social philosophy).
Though I will try to overcome that bias, I will nonetheless
probably underestimate the
philosophical interest of engineering ethics for moral
philosophers, philosophers of

What’s Philosophically Interesting about Engineering Ethics?
technology, and philosophers of science. Anyone who thinks I
have not done justice to
some philosophically interesting question engineering ethics
raises should feel free to
say so. Indeed, I intend this paper to start a discussion, not to
finish it off.
There seem to me to be two central questions in engineering
ethics. First, what is
“ethics” (in that context)? Second, what is “engineering”? These
two questions seem
central because their answers must shape how we interpret the
field, what will seem
within it and what will not. These questions are both sources of
confusion because
there are several defensible answers for each, though which
answer a particular
philosopher considers good—or, at least, the best—seems to
depend on commitments
in other fields of philosophy. We do not yet know how to
choose among these
alternatives. Let me begin with ethics.
What is Ethics?
“Ethics” has a number of senses in English (and, it seems, in
other languages that
have—like English—adopted the word from ancient Greek). For
our purposes, at least
four of the senses are relevant. First, “ethics” can be a synonym
for ordinary morality,

those standards of conduct that apply to everyone as moral
agent (“Don’t lie”, “Don’t
cheat”, “Keep your promises”, “Help the needy”, and so on).
Anyone understanding
“ethics” in this sense will understand the term “engineering
ethics” as (more or less)
equivalent to “moral problems in engineering”. Engineering
ethics will then seem a
kind of casuistry, the kind involving engineering cases instead
of other kinds.
Engineering ethics will be philosophically interesting only
insofar as its distinctive
moral problems are philosophically interesting.
Second, “ethics” can be understood as “the art of living well”.
Engineering ethics
will then have two sides. One—the individual—will be
concerned with what engineers
should do to flourish as human beings. The individual art of
living well will include
morality, but a good deal more, for example, developing various
intellectual virtues.
The other side of the art of living well—the social—will
concern what engineers
should do to help others flourish (and perhaps what others
should do in response).
There will be connections between the individual and the
social—insofar as part of
living well oneself is doing one’s work well, benefiting others,
and living in a world
one has made better. Engineering ethics (in this sense) will
differ from other kinds of
ethics (in this sense) only insofar as engineers differ in nature
or position from other
people.

Third, “ethics” can be understood as special morally-
permissible standards of
conduct that apply to members of a group simply because they
are members of that
group. Navajo ethics apply to Navajo and no one else; business
ethics, to people in
business and no one else; and engineering ethics, to engineers
and no one else. Ethics
(in this sense) resembles law in being relative to a group. Ethics
nonetheless differs
from law in being—by definition—morally permissible.
“Ethics” (in this sense) is not
mere ethos or the plural of “ethic”, but something distinct from
other positive
standards. There can be no immoral “ethics” (in this sense)—
even though there can be
immoral laws, customs, and conventions.
M. Davis
In at least the first and third senses of “ethics”, there is an
important distinction
between general (or prima facie) standards and their application
in particular
circumstances (“actual obligation, all things considered”).
Standards may be rules (that
apply or don’t apply), principles (considerations that have a
certain weight), or ideals
(what it is good to try to achieve but not wrong not to try to
achieve). All else equal, an
ethical standard should be followed—where “should” here may
mean either “required

subject to certain specified exceptions” or a consideration
sufficient to decide a
question if all else is equal. A requirement cannot be
overridden, though an exception
to it can be justified. There is, for example, a general rule
“Don’t kill”. It has a few
exceptions (for self-defense, protection of the innocent, just
war, and so on). To show
that an act fits one of the exceptions is to offer a justification.
To show that a killing
was justified is to show not only that the rule (with the
exception) does not cover the
act, shielding one from moral blame, but that the act was in
some respect positively
good, justifying moral praise—if only “You did right to defend
yourself against such
an attack.”
Like rules, principles cannot be overridden. But, unlike rules,
they can be
outweighed. For example, though the principle “Help the needy”
has no (standard)
exceptions, I may nonetheless (justifiably) not help the needy
any time other
considerations (even my own personal convenience) outweigh
my “obligation” to help.
Helping the needy is not a requirement. It is only an
“obligation” or “responsibility” in
a weaker sense (that is, a consideration an indefinitely large
number of other
considerations might individually or collectively outweigh in
particular circumstances).
I do all I should to help the needy if I give due weight to that
principle in all my
deliberations.

Fourth, “ethics” can mean a field of philosophy (the attempt to
understand ethics,
in one or more of its other senses, as a rational undertaking). A
philosophy course in
engineering ethics (in this sense of “ethics”) differs from a
philosophy course in Kant’s
ethics only in its subject matter. A philosophy course in Kant’s
ethics would attempt to
understand what Kant said about ethics, to evaluate the
arguments he offered, to offer
improvements in his formulations and arguments, and so on. A
philosophy course in
engineering ethics attempts to understand what engineers (and
others) say about what
engineers should do, to evaluate the arguments they offer, to
offer improvements in
their formulations and arguments, and so on. Though both these
philosophy courses
concern a set of problems or questions about conduct, neither
tries to teach students
how to act (though students, seeing the point of the arguments,
can learn much about
how to act from either course). Which problems or questions we
will want to include in
a philosophy course in engineering ethics will depend (in part)
on whether we think
engineering ethics is primarily about morality, the art of living
well, special standards,
or something else.

Some Interesting Problems the Different Senses of Ethics
Generates
I believe we should understand the “ethics” of “engineering
ethics” in the special-
standards sense. I therefore avoid a problem that those
understanding “ethics” in the
first or second sense do not. I avoid having to explain how we
move from ordinary
morality, or abstract claims about how to live well, to specific
engineering judgments. I
need only look to the engineers’ code of ethics, and other
special standards, reasoning
from these much as a lawyer or judge reasons from statute to
specific judgment. I may
substitute a relatively well-understood theory of rule-
interpretation (a part of
jurisprudence or, what in the US, we also call “the philosophy
of law”) for one of the
deeper problems of moral philosophy. I avoid having to assume
that morality is rich
enough to instruct engineers on, for example, how to choose a
safety factor or when to
decline a gift. I may assume a morality consisting of a relatively
few uncontroversial
rules rather than having to argue for a richer—and therefore
more controversial—
conception.
Avoiding a controversial conception of morality in this way is,
however, not
without cost. The first or second sense of “ethics” automatically
carries a normative
charge—the charge that comes from being part of ordinary
morality or of being part of
the art of living well, given that we all want to live well.

Special standards, however,
insofar as they need only be morally permissible, do not
automatically carry a
normative charge. They must nonetheless carry such a charge.
We are generally
unwilling to call anything “ethics” unless it has a moral claim
on us. We have other
words for special standards that do not make such a claim:
custom, law, convention,
and so on. So, the special-standards approach requires an
explanation of how standards
that— by definition— need only be morally permissible can
nonetheless become morally
binding.
You will, no doubt, recognize the problem of finding such an
explanation as a
variation of the ancient problem of moral obligation to obey the
law. This is a
variation, however, not exactly the same problem. Engineering
ethics might derive its
moral authority from law, a possibility not open to law itself.
But it might not. Whether
it does or not depends on a) what the (justified) authority of
law, government, or state
is and b) what engineering is. When engineering ethics is
understood in such a way as
not to derive its moral authority from law (or from morality
directly) the problem of the
moral authority of engineering ethics at least seems to pose the
same problem as
obligation to obey the law.
What the (justified) moral authority of law, government, or state
is is a question
central to political philosophy. Today, that question is most

often raised in the context
of (what we now call) “human rights” and “civil society”. The
moral status of human
rights is controversial. At a minimum, human rights are those
rights of human beings
as such that moral considerations (among others) give us good
reason to recognize in
every legal system. For many writers, however, human rights
are much more, moral
requirements that exist independent of any legal system.
Civil society is that domain of conduct that starts with what
morality allows (but
does not require) and ends with what law (justifiably) requires
(or forbids). It is the
M. Davis
domain of markets, clubs, religions, and other voluntary
activity. If morality requires
too much, there will be no civil society, and any theory of
engineering ethics will have
to be a part of ordinary moral theory. If law (justifiably)
demands too much,
engineering ethics (in the special standards sense) will still be
possible, even though
civil society will not be. But engineering ethics will be a part of
ordinary law (and any
moral obligation engineers have to their special standards as
such will rest either on the
general moral obligation to obey the law or on some special—
more demanding—

obligation to obey certain kinds of law).
Such connections between engineering ethics and lively parts of
moral or political
theory suggest how little we understand engineering ethics, how
deeply confused the
subject remains. Such connections also suggest ways in which
studying engineering
ethics might lead to arguments for or against certain moral or
political theories. What
arguments will depend in part on what we take engineering to
be.
What is engineering?
We have at least four (non-exclusive) ways to think about
engineering: as function, as
discipline, as occupation, and as profession. For those who take
engineering to be a
mere function—for example, the design and making of useful
objects—, engineering
may be at least as old as the first tool (depending on how we
understand “design”). An
engineer is anyone who performs the engineering function;
hence, almost every human
society over at least the last few hundred thousand years has
had engineers (even if
called “builder”, “architect”, “artisan”, or something else). This
way of thinking about
engineering fits best with “ethics” in the first or second sense:
why should there be
special standards for a category so long so close to ordinary
life?
For others, engineering is a discipline (whether a single
function or not) defined by

a certain combination of knowledge, skill, and judgment.
Engineering is the systematic
application of mathematics, chemistry, and physics to practical
problems on a
substantial scale according to certain historically evolving
methods or routines.a
Engineering (in this sense) began in Western Europe in the
seventeenth century. An
engineer (in this sense) is anyone trained in the discipline. A
discipline might include
special standards of conduct.
For others, engineering is an occupation, that is, a way to earn a
living defined by
the practice of the engineering discipline more or less full time.
Engineering (in this
sense) did not exist before the nineteenth century for the simple
reason that the
discipline presupposed an education only gentlemen could
acquire, and only in the
nineteenth century did it become possible for gentlemen to work
for a living. Until
then, gentlemen (in Europe and its colonies) were, by
definition, people who did not
have to work for a living but lived instead on their family’s
wealth or on the patronage
a. Though the connection between engineering and the natural
sciences seems permanent, the list of
natural sciences necessary for engineering might change over
time. Right now, engineers seem to
be considering whether biology might be on its way to being as
essential to engineering as

chemistry and physics have been for the last three hundred or so
years.
of others. They were not “in trade” even though they
“performed services” and often
received “pecuniary acknowledgements” in return.
For most of us who work in engineering ethics, however,
engineering is a
profession (as well as a discipline and occupation). We work in
a field of professional
ethics. Working in a field of professional ethics presupposes a
definition of
“profession”. Since there are many definitions of “profession”,
there are many ways to
conceptualize the field. Some conceptions differ markedly from
others. Many
differences can be explained by different approaches to working
out (or evaluating)
definitions. Someone in the philosophy of language may find
sorting out and
evaluating these different approaches interesting, especially
since they seem to have
significant consequences for empirical research on the
professions as well as for the
questions that get assigned to that field of professional ethics
we call “engineering
ethics”. For now, however, it will be enough to have before us
one definition of
“profession”. Here is the one I prefer:

A profession is a number of individuals in the same occupation
voluntarily
organized to earn a living by openly serving a certain moral
ideal in a morally
permissible way beyond what law, market, and morality would
otherwise
require.b
According to this definition, a profession is an organization.
There can be no
profession with just one member. Because a profession is an
organization, it must have
come into existence at a certain time as a result of human
choice. There will be no
natural professions—and no reason why professions might not
differ from place to
place or even not exist in some places where the corresponding
occupation does. While
law may create a framework for the organizing of professions,
law cannot mandate
professions. A legal mandate could create an agent of
government, such a corps or
bureau, but not a profession. Individuals must voluntarily
organize a profession.
Membership in a profession is—by definition—also voluntary.
Some theorists nonetheless argue that professions can only be
organized by some
act of society, operating through law, government, or some
other agent. A would-be
profession undertakes certain duties and in return receives the
right to organize as a
profession. Moral obligations to the profession’s special
standards rest (they say) on
this contract with society. This contract-with-society view

seems to fit medicine, law,
and other licensed professions well. The license to practice an
occupation looks like the
return for undertaking the duties understood to belong to that
occupation. The contract-
with-society view seems to fit especially well professions in
which members must
swear an oath as part of the ceremony preceding admission to
practice (as lawyers must
do in the US). One of the features of engineering that makes it
especially interesting as
a profession is that it generally does not fit this model. In few
countries, if any, is there
an oath an engineer must take to practice. In some countries,
including the US,
engineers need a license only to do certain kinds of work, such
as signing construction
b. For explanation and defense of this definition, see my
Profession, Code, and Ethics (Ashgate
Press: Aldershot, England, 2002).
M. Davis
drawings or doing official safety inspections. In such countries,
many, or even most,
engineers are in fact unlicensed.
For other theorists, the right to associate, including the right to
form a profession, is

a human right (what Americans call “the freedom of
association”). On this view,
Society has a right to interfere with that right only when the
would-be organization
threatens some substantial harm, something organizations fitting
my definition of
“profession” are unlikely to do. So, on this view, professions
are as free to organize as
sports clubs, churches, charities, and other voluntary
associations are. Society has no
right to demand anything in return for allowing a profession to
exist. There need be no
contract with society to explain the existence of a profession.
The moral obligation to a
profession’s special standards might nonetheless arise from law,
assuming there is a
general moral obligation to obey the law. But for professions
not having legal standing,
such as engineering in the US, this source of moral obligation
does not seem plausible
(or, at least, does not seem plausible given this way of thinking
about human rights).
There is an alternative to the contract-with-society view just
described:
Professional obligation arises from voluntarily claiming
membership in the
profession—for example, by truthfully claiming to be an
engineer when being an
engineer is a qualification for the job. One claims membership
in the profession (“I am
an engineer”) in order to get the benefits of membership in that
profession. The
benefits derive in part at least from the special standards
engineers have followed over
the years; engineers have a better reputation than they would

otherwise have had, and a
better reputation (for the purpose in question) than an
alternative often available
(chemists, architects, industrial designers, technicians, and so
on). To voluntarily claim
the benefits of a profession without living up to the standards of
the profession would
be to take unfair advantage of a voluntary cooperative practice,
that is, to cheat. Since
cheating is (prima facie) morally wrong, members of a
profession have a moral
obligation to do as their profession’s special standards
require—so long as they claim
the benefits those standards help to generate.
This explanation of professional obligation is, of course, a close
analogue of
traditional theories of social contract. The chief difference is
that the society in
question consists of the members of the profession rather than
of members of society at
large. How good a theory of professional obligation this is
depends on how we answer
the following three questions (among others):
• Is there a human right to associate?
• Does that right extend to associations, such as the profession
of engineering, that
have important effects on society as a whole?
• Is the principle of fairness (“Don’t cheat”) morally binding on
someone who
voluntarily claims the benefits of a practice that will exist
whether or not she
follows its rules?
These are interesting questions both within engineering ethics

and within political
philosophy generally, that is, questions to which there remains a
confusing array of
pretty good but inconsistent answers. These are also important
questions. Some
insights into social contract gained in political philosophy
should carry over to
engineering ethics, helping to shape the field—and some
insights gained in engineering
ethics should carry over to political philosophy.c
Another philosophically interesting question about engineering
My discussion so far has assumed that we understand the
discipline of engineering well
enough to know who belongs to the profession and who does
not. That is only roughly
so. There are in fact some people with “engineer” in their
occupational title who are not
engineers (in the sense appropriate to engineering ethics), and
some without “engineer”
in the title who are. About some of these, there is no confusion.
For example, the
drivers of railway locomotives, though called “railroad
engineers”, are not engineers
(in the sense appropriate for engineering ethics), while naval
architects are, even
though they are called “architects” and most people called

architects are not engineers.
The definition of the discipline I prefer—the systematic
application of mathematics,
chemistry, and physics to practical problems on a substantial
scale according to certain
historically evolving methods or routines—does explain these
two cases. Neither
locomotive drivers nor architects systematically apply
mathematics, chemistry, or
physics to practical problems on a substantial scale according to
engineering’s methods
or routines. Naval architects do. But the definition does not so
quickly settle such new
uses of “engineer” as “software engineer” or “genetic engineer”.
To settle these, we
need to replace “engineering’s methods or routines” with
something more enlightening.
Several recent books have tried to offer something more
enlightening.d But we remain
a long way from understanding what makes a method or routine
“an engineering
method or routine”. Until we understand that, we will not know
(in the way
philosophers like to know) who is, and who is not, an engineer
to whom a code of
engineering ethics applies. Why does engineering’s code of
ethics not apply to
computer scientists or synthetic chemists? What is the
connection between engineering
and science?
Aren’t such questions philosophically interesting?
Acknowledgement: An early version of this paper was presented
at a national workshop hosted
by the Philosophy Department, School of Information and

Sciences, Nagoya University,
Nagoya, Japan, 7 December 2002. I should like to thank Tetsuji
Iseda for inviting me to try to
convince an audience of Japanese philosophers that engineering
ethics is philosophically
interesting. I should also like to thank the audience for more
than two hours of very helpful
examination of what I said.
c. I speak from personal experience of the effect engineering
ethics may have on political
philosophy. I have a book, just published, Actual Social
Contract and Political Obligation
(Edwin Mellen Press: New York, 2002), that explicitly uses
approaches originally developed for
engineering ethics to interpret the early history of social
contract theory.
d. See, for example, my own Thinking Like an Engineer
(Oxford University Press: New York,
1998).
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