CE 11 - Laws, Ethics, and Contracts Quiz

CE 11 - CE Laws, Ethics, and Contracts

• Course title: CE 11 - CE Laws, Ethics, and Contracts
• Semester: 2nd
• Academic Year: 2024-2025

Basic Definitions of Terms

• Ethics: A set of standards a group uses to regulate behavior. It's a system of moral principles to judge actions as good or bad.
• Morals: Rules for right conduct for all individuals.
• Moral Responsibility: Accountability for past actions, showing care and concern for others' welfare in a specific social role. It also includes a person's ability to make moral or rational decisions independently.

Business Ethics

• Business: A complex enterprise with activities such as purchasing, manufacturing, marketing, advertising, selling, and accounting.
• Business Ethics: The study of right and wrong conduct in business, examining perceptions of morality, moral rules, and ethical principles.
• Ethical Standards: Policies, moral norms, and ethical theories managers use to resolve business issues.

Profession

• Profession: A group of people organized to serve a specialized knowledge in the interest of society.
• Skills, Proficiencies, and Techniques: Core components of a profession, involving a specific line of work.
• Competencies: Skills, proficiencies, techniques, and knowledge needed for a profession.

Code of Ethics

• Code of Ethics: Principles that guide professionals in daily work, exceeding minimum conduct standards and requiring personal commitment and defensible positions.
• Integrity: Maintained by codes of ethics, ensuring the profession's best interest.
• Moral Considerations: Part of codes of ethics, outlining considerations and sanctions for violations.
• Professional Conscience: Ethical considerations that individuals must maintain in pursuing professional roles and duties, including technical and moral judgments.

Ideology and Engineers

• Ideology: Doctrine, myth, and symbols of a social movement, institution, class, or large group.
• Engineers: Professionals utilizing mathematical and physical sciences to develop ways to utilize natural resources and economics to improve human well-being.

Profession and Ethics

• Profession (Definition 1): A free act of commitment to a way of life, with stringent moral requirements in a specific social role.
• Profession (Definition 2): An occupation one professes (admits, agrees) to be skilled in.
• Profession (Definition 3): A vocation with specialized knowledge applied to affairs of others.
• Profession (Definition 4): A social practice with aims and internal goods, providing a moral criterion for evaluating action and resolving moral issues.

A Socratic Account of Professionalism

• Based on the Greek philosopher Socrates, and proposed by philosopher Michael Davis.

Characteristics of a Profession

• Substantial intellectual and practical training: Crucial for the profession
• Provision of specialized skill and service: Providing a specialized skill and service to society
• High degree of professional autonomy and responsibility: Having autonomy and responsibility to control professional conduct
• Occupational organization controlling the profession: Professionals organizing to control their practice, often through committees and standards
• Embargoes/Restrictions on methods of attracting business: Regulations that restrict how professionals promote themselves to maintain the profession's integrity
• Trust relationship with clients: Crucial factor in a healthy profession-client relationship

Difference Between Ethics and Morality

• Ethics: The formal study of moral stands and conduct.
• Morality: Quality of goodness or badness in a human act. It's practical, guides conduct, and based on common standards.

Engineering Professional Ethics

• Business Model: An occupation focused on profit, constrained by law.
• Professional Model: Occupation with trust and a social contract with the public.

Types of Ethics/Morality

• Common Morality: Shared moral beliefs of a community, often negative with some positive precepts.

Personal & Professional Morality

• Personal Morality: A person's individual moral beliefs, which can differ from common moral beliefs.
• Professional Ethics: Standards within a profession, which may hold precedence over personal morality and guide professional conduct, particularly in crucial situations.

Importance of Professional Codes of Ethics

• Serving and protecting the public: Primarily protecting the public or society
• Guidance for responsibilities: Guidance on professional responsibilities
• Inspiration, motivation, and commitment: Inspiring and motivating professionals to act responsibly
• Shared standards, fair competition: Creating shared standards and promoting fair competition
• Positive support: Supporting responsible professional behavior
• Education and mutual understanding: Educate professionals on moral responsibilities
• Deterrence and discipline: Prevention of unethical behavior and disciplinary actions
• Positive image: Improvement of the profession's image

Professional Conflicts of Interest

• Professional conflicts: Situations where professional interests conflict with obligations to employers or clients.
• Examples: Private investments interfering with professional obligations, side interests or relationships with competitors, receiving gifts or incentives that compromise judgment.

Professional Rights

• Rights from professional roles: Basic rights from professional roles
• Professional Conscience: Moral right to exercise professional judgment and convictions in fulfilling professional responsibilities.
• Conscientious Refusal: Right to reject unethical actions, based on ethical convictions.
• Professional Recognition: Recognition for professional work

Rights of Recognition, Employees, Privacy, etc..

• Right of Recognition: Fair compensation for work, including both monetary and non-monetary forms of recognition.
• Employee Rights: Legal and moral rights related to being an employee.
• Privacy Rights: Right to personal privacy outside of professional work
• Right to Equal Opportunity/Preventing Sexual Harassment: Right to freedom from unwanted sexual behavior in a power dynamic
• Right to Equal Opportunity/Nondiscrimination: Prohibition of discrimination based on protected characteristics
• Right to Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action: Giving preference to underrepresented groups to address past discrimination.

Further Research

• Include any specific references related to the topic provided, if needed. A comprehensive list of references is supplied on the provided pages.