First of all, the reason that engineering has “Code of Ethics” really depends on the essence of engineering

itself. At the heart, engineering involves applying the laws of physics and chemistry to creates things with
purpose and to solve real world problems. Seriously consequences could happen if engineers just did it
wrong. For example, building could collapse, and bridges could fail, thus human lives are lost.

Engineering is an important and learned profession. As members of this profession, engineers are
expected to exhibit the highest standards of honesty and integrity. Engineering has a direct and vital
impact on the quality of life for all people. Accordingly, the services provided by engineers require
honesty, impartiality, fairness, and equity, and must be dedicated to the protection of the public health,
safety, and welfare.

Personally speaking, if I am developing a product, the end goal of my product or services should obey
“Code of Ethics” at the first place.

If I am working for a company, when things are started going wrong, I would stand out and negotiate with
upper leader to discuss current issue and what’s is the cost for society and company. Either abandon
current plan or change the direction of research would work.

Recently, a very hot and controversial topic about scientists violates regulations and “Code of Ethics
“among the world is interesting and can treat as a teaching example for Engineering Ethics. A Chinese
scientist reported that he’d created the world’s first babies genetically edited with CRISPR: a set of twin
girls, with a thirdpotential CRISPR baby on the way. His aim was to eliminate the risk of HIV infection in
the babies. However, authorities and other scientists believe that this is a great challenge to human ethics
since human’s gene poll could be altered since then. The Descendants of CRISPR baby is also considered
“edited”.

This scientist definitely violates “Code of Ethics” and literally all IEEE Code of Ethics. His research is not
under supervision and not transparent. He is extremely not responsible for human life as well as
individual babies. He was not being honest about his research and did his research before revealing it to
the public.

Although “Code of Ethics” is present and therefore the basic understanding is nailed, such as human’s
safety is always paramount, people tend to hold different opinions when things are getting complicated
and deep. Then, people have different opinions on what is the most “ethical” division would be. My
opinion is that the most fundamental and practical ethical decision is listening to the mass.

Responsibility: Responsibility is an ethical concept that refers to the fact that individuals and groups
have morally based obligations and duties to others and to larger ethical and moral codes, standards, and
traditions. In our case, although we do not know who is behind the scientist and who is he working for,
what he did is definitely now responsible for society and human being.

Integrity: is doing the right thing, even when no one is looking. Integrity is a foundational moral virtue,
and the bedrock upon which good character is built. Acting with integrity means understanding,
accepting, and choosing to live in accordance with one’s principles, which will include honesty, fairness,
and decency. In my case, that Chinese scientist is not doing the right thing as well as public does not know
what he is doing and therefore he avoids integrity.

Charity: is considering for human and doing for human. In my case, the consequence of what the
Chinese scientist did could potential result in a disaster in human being under the situation that human
gene technology is not maturely developed.

In my opinion, the terms that are used to describe ethics is interacting with each other and they are inter-
related. One term could point to other term to some extents. So I cannot come up with a more precise
words to describe the virtue here.