Professional Codes of Ethics

Abstract

A code of ethics may appear in engineering under one of several other names: "professional principles," "rules of conduct," "ethical guidelines," and so on. However denominated, a code of ethics will belong to one of three categories: (1) professional (e.g. NSPE Code of Ethics), a code applying to all, and only, members of a certain profession (engineers); (2) organizational, including codes (like the IEEE Code of Ethics) applying only to members of the technical or scientific society enacting it or applying only to a certain class of the enacting organization's employees; or (3) institutional (such as the Computer Ethics Institute's Ten Commandments of Computer Ethics), codes applying to anyone involved in a certain activity (using a computer). Codes of ethics may include ordinary moral rules ("Don't steal"). They may also be incorporated into law. For example, the "Nuremberg Code" on human experimentation is now part of both international law and the domestic law of many countries. But a code of ethics is not simply law or morality. Engineering has had formal codes of ethics for at least a century.