In life, rules are necessary and essential for survival. There is a particular ways that the society in general, expects individuals to behave and there are rules on how things are to be done. Ethics acts as a guide in our natural setting, this is because it explains to us the dos and don’ts. There is a certain level of integrity that every individual is expected to have in his or her life. Thus ethics acts as guider in our day to day life. This paper will critically discuss the codes of ethics in engineering and respond to the ECPDs requirements for being a professional. In addition, it will discuss Ladd’s arguments against the codes of ethics.
Ethics as a branch of philosophy involves recommending, systemizing and defending of the concepts of good or bad. Ethics deals with the investigation of certain questions in life, and it helps us to determine, the best course of action to take. When put into practice the primary function of ethics is to solve the questions of morality. It does so by defining what is good or bad, vice or virtue and acceptable and unacceptable by the use of consideration as a knowledgeable method of examination Ethics can be divided into four broad categories which are descriptive ethics, normative ethics, meta-ethics, emotivism and applied ethics as asserted by Bucciarelli (2008 ).
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Descriptive ethics, these can be referred to as the society morals. The main use of descriptive ethics is to place judgment on certain distinct actions and determine whether they are good or bad. This determination will depend on the social contract of the society setting. Descriptive ethics is considered as evolutionary; this is because it changes with time. For instance, the aspect of acceptability of racism, which was very common in USA, changed over the years. On the other hand, normative ethics implies what should be good or bad in the society ( Singer & Vinson, 2002 ). Subjectivity is used in determination of what is acceptable according to ethics. There is usually a conflict between descriptive and normative ethics, due to conflicting issue example the discussions linking to abortion. Meta-ethics as a third aspect involves a critical evaluation and examining of broad concepts of ethics cases in terms of morality and justice. Meta-ethics also tries to explain the mid ground amongst the terms moral and malicious. Emotivism which acts as a sub-branch of meta-ethics, involves the use of objectivity claims, which act as an emotional response. An example is a free will questioning as asserted Drake (2005 ).
The main purpose of Engineers Council for Professional Development (ECPD) is to ensure that all the engineers go through a system until they become qualified professionals. These are some requirements that are taken into consideration, for one to obtain endorsement from the practitioners. First, the qualifying member must have not less than 15 ECPD points in every year, and he or she must be able to produce a record that acts as proof that the individual has been able to acquire 30 ECPD points within the period of two years immediately after the year when the application was made. In response to the requirements, a surplus of five ECPD points is allowed to be brought forward to the next subsequent year. This reduces the amount of ECPD points, which are expected to be accumulated in the next year ( Bucciarelli, 2008 ). The ECPD requirements are complicated since it involves the coverage of a wide range of approved topics. This result in wasting of a lot of time, during the process and it can be a disadvantage on the side of the professional who seeks approval. Apart from the disadvantage, there can also be an advantage of the ECPD, and it is made mandatory to all employees who work in the corporate secretarial sector. The employees and the regulators will strive to achieve perfection so that they can be approved to be professionals in the job world ( Drake, 2005 ).
Finally in conclusion, we shall critically analyze Ladd’s arguments against the codes of ethics. John Ladd said that codes of ethics have no useful purpose whatsoever. Ladd claims that ethics should be flexible and philosophical and that the reliance on the code of ethics is just confusion of ethics with the law. He additionally affirms that it is a mistake to assume that there is a distinct ethics for specialists, which is discrete from the ethics of other humans within the moral society. Professionals according to Ladd have no special privileges or obligations that are separate from their rights and duties as ethical individuals, and thus the codes of ethics are futile and possibly evil.
Ladd argues that the codes of ethics do not need any form of educational contextual for them to be created and be followed by individuals. This implies that professional ethics cannot be taught at learning institutions, to act as a specialized course to enable the creation of the codes of ethics. This is brought about by the fact that, there are some crucial issues. That requires individuals to meet and converse. Ladd claims that the code of ethics involves professional and personal issues, which apply to all persons despite their status. Thinking in the same terms with Ladd, his argument concludes that, no one has to have qualifications for them to be a professional ethic architect.
Ladd also argues that no one is exceptional to the codes of ethics. Most people have the mentality that working hard to get professional papers; will enable them to act unethically. The argument made by Ladd is that the professionals are not in exception from the codes of ethics. No one is more special than the other. Thus all should follow the codes of ethics to the letter ( Singer & Vinson 2002 ).
Ladd also claims that it is important to understand what professional code of ethics is so that one can be able to evaluate its purpose. Ladd argues that majority of the people view code of ethics as the rule of law, which is set by an individual and that other people are supposed to follow it. According to Ladd ethical principles can be reputable, only from arguments or deliberations. This implies that the codes of ethics cannot be formulated by an individual, but the come to be as a result of understanding and discussions between different groups. Code of ethics requires people to sit down and agree on what to do and not what to do.
The last argument made by Ladd is that, there exist macro and micro-ethical issues. Issues that relate to third parties and professionals are referred to as macro-ethical issues. On the other hand, the issues that affect the personal life of any individual are known as micro-ethical issues. An example is that of honesty; all professionals are required, to be honest in all that they undertake. Honesty is therefore considered as an inbuilt character.
References
Bucciarelli, L. L. (2008). Ethics and engineering education. European Journal of Engineering Education , 33 (2), 141-149.
Drake, M. J., Griffin, P. M., Kirkman, R., & Swann, J. L. (2005). Engineering ethical curricula: Assessment and comparison of two approaches. Journal of Engineering Education , 94 (2), 223.
Singer, J., & Vinson, N. G. (2002). Ethical issues in empirical studies of software engineering. IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering , 28 (12), 1171-1180.
