Prohibitive And Aspirational Ethics

There are three varieties of ethics that an engineer should practice during their career: prohibitive, preventive, and aspirational ethics. How an engineer should exercise these ethics are outlined in the codes of ethics of various professional societies and engineering disciplines, mostly in the form of rules. However, most of these rules are negative in nature that lean toward ordering what one ‘shall’ or ‘shall not do’, and are typically prohibitive and preventive in nature. The National Society of Professional Engineers (NSPE) code of ethics, for example, contains over 80% of codes that are negative and prohibitive in nature. [1] The other portion of these codes are related to aspirational, or virtue, ethics and are typically written vaguely …show more content…
He defined moral virtues as those which are exercised to aid in performing an act and include prudence, temperance, courage, and justice. These moral virtues were to be exercised on a middle ground between the two extremes of the virtue, such that one should not exhibit too much or too little of the virtue. In addition, these virtues could be ingrained or trained within in a person through active practice. Intellectual virtues are those of thought that are exercised to enable a person to make a decision to perform an act, and include preparation, explicit reasoning, wisdom, and practical judgement. Intellectual virtues, like moral virtues, can be trained, but through instruction, time and experience. …show more content…
Acquiring and continually improving one’s skills in both technical and non-technical communication is necessary in an engineering role, as engineers need to be able to understand and translate the wants and needs of society into scientific or technical terms, and vice versa, so that the correct engineering solutions can be obtained. In addition, mastering both written and oral communication skills are vital. Written communication is necessary for documenting vast quantities of information and conveying messages that cannot be expressed in words, such as calculations, designs, and images. Oral communication is necessary to articulate matters in a timely manner when interacting with others in-person. In general, effective communication in engineering is an important element in distributing information regarding the division of labor, problems, assumptions, and concerns associated with a given project in order to save time, money, resources, and protecting or improving the well-being of the public. There are numerous cases where engineering disasters resulted from poor communication or misunderstandings and where assumptions and concerns regarding the details of a design failed to carry through the division of labor and participating parties working on complex projects. Through effective communication, engineers can take