Ethics for the Practicing Engineer – Managing Risks Imposed on the Public
Engineering decisions directly affect public safety, infrastructure reliability, worker protection, environmental quality, and community trust. This course examines how engineers fulfill their ethical responsibility to protect the public while assessing, communicating, and managing risk throughout the lifecycle of engineered systems. Using the NSPE Code of Ethics, NCEES Model Rules of Professional Conduct, representative state engineering board expectations, and relevant OSHA and EPA concepts, the course explores the relationship between professional ethics and risk management. Learners will examine public acceptability of risk, informed consent, engineering judgment, lifecycle infrastructure management, communication of risk, organizational pressures, and lessons learned from major engineering case studies.
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Course Details
Learning Objectives
By the end of this course, learners will be able to:
- Explain the ethical responsibilities engineers have to protect public health, safety, and welfare
- Describe how the NSPE Code of Ethics and NCEES Model Rules apply to engineering decisions involving public risk
- Discuss how to evaluate engineering risks using concepts such as likelihood, consequence, uncertainty, and changing conditions
- Describe how to distinguish between code compliance and broader professional responsibility
- Explain how engineers communicate risk objectively and truthfully to clients, employers, regulators, and the public
- Discuss how organizational pressures and cognitive bias can influence engineering judgment
- Explain how to apply ethical principles to real-world engineering case studies involving public risk
